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Rob1970

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Rob1970 last won the day on December 9 2012

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  1. Rob1970
    Seat weathered and washed. That is all. ... What are you still doing here? SHOO!! Oh well... "More soooon!" *sigh* Slavedrivers.... Rob
  2. Rob1970
    Tiny update involving tiny parts. More work on the seat. And there's actually more kit parts I can use! Oh, and modern kit makers; Take note! TINY SPRUE GATES! IT CAN BE DONE! WITH 70S TECHNOLOGY!! (I'm looking at you, Airfix...) Tiny seat adjuster jack, made from some scrap styrene and a kit part. The thread on the big wormscrew is done with some lead wire. It looks pretty good, all together like this. And some paint will do wonders. I added a handle for the brakes and some wire, and with paint it looks the bussiness. Still needs some weathering and a matt coat and than it's another job done. More soooon! Rob
  3. Rob1970
    Uhm... could you tell me? Because I just make it up as I go along... Anyway, I promised you folks a seat.... Some 1.5mm styrene rod, some bending, some CA, some glueing of fingers to things... and Ta-DAAH! Used the old seat as a template for the back... 1.5mm halfround rod... Seat? Seat! A little sanding. A little bit of styrene for an armour backing to the seat... All it needs now is the raising mechanism... But not tonight... More sooon! Rob
  4. Rob1970
    We've got the first paint! Interior Green with some Aluminum drybrushing and a Dark Umber wash... Why yes, I -can- weather stuff if I feel like it... Fueltank all done, Ships Hull Red with a misting of Rust Orange, and the straps in more Interior Green with an Alu drybrush. And everything covered with a matt coat... Tonight I'm gonna see about that seat... More soooon! Rob
  5. Rob1970
    Yay! I got a packege yesterday! One phonecall to Hannants was enough to get them to sent my order again. Original shipment disappeared in postal limbo... First time ever I bought resin and brass gun replacements. And I can see why some people do it all the time, because it's lovely stuff! And the instrument decals look great too, and inspired me to order some brass bezels and cockpit detail as well. In for a penny, in for several pounds, eh? Spent a good few hours today working on ammo boxes. And I must say I am happy with the results... Three with a closed lid, and one with an open lid to show off the ammo. I added some grab-handles from lead foil and lead wire because... reasons. I will paint, weather and seal them, and then they will be ready to go into the frame when the time comes. More soooon! Rob
  6. Rob1970
    Well, I got some work done on these last Teusday, before the meds kicked in... You know, when the doctor prescribes you something that has "Keep a pair of clean underwear handy..." in the instruction leaflet, you should probably take note... I started with some reference material. A couple of pictures of the Lancaster's ammo boxes for the rear turret, and a strip of .303 ammo from Eduard for size. I did some measuring on the pictures to get some idea of the size and the different proportions. Then I measured the ammo... just about 2.5mm... Number crunching time! The ammo needs 2,5mm, side walls are 0.5mm (I later decided to make them from 0.25mm styrene, but more on that later...) and all the rest of the dimensions follow. Width is 3.5mm, height is 5 times that, so 17.5mm. Length is twice the height, so that makes 35mm... Still with me? I used some Evergreen channel for the end of the boxes so you could see into the inspection holes... ...because the boxes aren't really boxes, but blocks of 2.5mm thick styrenen cut to size. One 15mm high and 32mm long block of styrene with a piece of channel glued to both ends. The sides of the block covered with 0.25mm styrene and a couple of strips of 0.5x1mm styrene as the stiffeners. You can see the slots made by using the Evergreen channel. I snipped the tops and bottoms off a short section of the ammo belt with some scissors, allowing them to slip onto the slot. Now you can see the full ammo load through the inspection holes. When the box is painted it should look like it's a full load... And this is how it should look inside the frame. I will make three more with a lid in place, and a open lid for this one. Altho I might make a new one, slightly shorted and lower, and make the other three to match. I'm not sure I got my dimensions right, since I switched the sides from 0.5mm to 0.25mm styrene. I tried to find the dimensions for the Lancaster ammo boxes, but couldn't find anything. And then the meds kicked in... giving me a very interesting 24 hours before I went to the hospital to have a doctor shove a camera "to boldly go where no man has gone before"... I won't bore you with the details... More soooon! Rob
  7. Rob1970
    Another day, more tinkering... I made a few cross-braces between the center of the frame using 2.4mm Evergreen tube and 1.2mm rod... ...and fixed them between the upright frames by drilling 1.2mm holes. Using the rod as a dowel made for a much sturdier connection, better than solely flat surface contact would have made. Once the glue dried I just cut and sanded the dowel flush with the frame. Next I got two (Yes, two!) actual kit part out. The fuel tank looked a bit thin, so I sandwiched three pieces of 1mm sheet styrene between the halves and sanded them flush. The tank looked a bit... bare, so I decided to make a couple of riveted bands to go around it. I started with a strip of 0.5mm styrenen 2mm wide and drilled 0.8mm holes in it spaced 5mm apart... Then cut a bunch of tiny 0.8mm styrene rods... Don't sneeze when you do that, by the way. You have to start all over again... I then glued the bits of rod into the holes... When the glued had dried I used a sanding sponge to sand down one side until the rods were sticking out a tiiiiny bit, and I sanded them flush on the other side. Did that twice and glued my strips to my tank. Sorted. Todays other work; made a plate for the turret to sit in. And noticed I need to bend in the two ends of the upright frames... Oh well... Also sorted the interior pieces to see what I can use, and what needs to be scratchbuilt. I'll have to check my references for that... I do know the seat could do with some improving (wartime Lysanders had a basket for the parachute that acted as the seat bottom) and the instrument panel could be better. I ordered some instrument decals for the dials, and will probably scratchbuild a new one. Also on the to-do list; Ammunition boxes for the rear turret. I have some ammo belts from Eduard, but I am not sure which one to use. Ofcourse I couldn't find any .303 belts in 1/32 scale, but I think the 1/35 scale .30 belts should be close enough. I might use the .50 belts tho, to give it some more "meat"... Any opinions? More soooon!! Rob
  8. Rob1970
    Tamiya Extra Thin is my weapon of choice in most cases. Man, what a change from my fledgling builder days when all I had was Humbrol goop... Rob
  9. Rob1970
    Time for some crossmembers... I started with the bottom of the frame, and my first plan was cutting pieces of 2x2mm styrene strip and just glueng them in between the two side frames. Yeah... after getting 3 pieces glued on, all of them crooked, I went back to what I know... More jigsawing!! I marked out the width of the crossmembers on a sheet of 2mm styrene, then drew my frame and got to sawing again. Sanded all the tubes round, then cut out the piece from the sheet. A lot sturdier and a lot less fiddly than separate pieces. Why did I even try that... Cross piece fixed to the side piece. My template is still useful, as you can see. I cut some discs with my poor-man's punch... ...and welded them onto the frame over the glue connection to make it a little more sturdy. They are on the bottom, and after some sanding they will look like they are factory standard... Then did the other side, with more discs for strength. And with that part in place, I had more rigidity to add a few single spacers. I'm being framed, I tell ya!! More sooooon! Rob
  10. Rob1970
    A couple of days of sawing, filing and sanding and I have two complete side frames. With all the tubes rounded I used my fretsaw to saw them out and then filed the outsides straight. And now the mancave looks like Tony Montana used it as his office... Next I made a jig so I could get the angle of the top half of the new frame right, using the old frame as a guide. I used a razor saw to cut a wedge out of the uprights of my lovely new frames, then widened the slot with a thin file. My CA-glue setup; Brown for cheap poundstore CA, white for zip-kicker, Microbrushes for applicatiion. Just don't mix up your brushes... I put some tape in the jig to stop the CA-glue from sticking my frames to my jig, then put in my frame. A dab of CA, then a dab of zip-kicker on each joint fixed them in place at the right angle. The styrene cracked on the outside of the bends, but I hit those with some CA and kicker too. Old and new frame. Just need to sand the glued joints free of excess CA-glue, then start working on the cross-braces. More sooooon!! Rob
  11. Rob1970
    Oh man... you had to go and say that, didn't you? Dem be fightin'words!! Rob
  12. Rob1970
    Meh, sanity is overrated anyway...
  13. Rob1970
    Thank you all for your kind comments... Now... Onwards!!! Drilled all the holes with a Dremel in a drill stand, which made quick work of this job... A rare action shot, courtesy of SWMBO (aka The Shaker of Heads When The Postman Cometh...). Sawing out each space between the frame means threading the saw blade through one of the holes and fastening it again. Is there anything like a quick-release jigsaw? Because I will buy two! Yeah, it looks pretty rough... That's where the files come in... Before and after, from left to right... And when it's all square, these guys come in. Inherited from my mate Jack when he passed away... ...and we start turning it all round again! All the bits of the frame are now tubular, as they should be. I left the top runner of the lower half square on top, and I will trim the outsides when I am done making the fittings at each intersection of tube. One done, one to go... More soooon!! Rob
  14. Rob1970
    Well, my original plan was to build a mould (the same way I did the mock-up) to vacu-form the aft fuselage with fabric-over-skin effect and build some internals to fit that. But I am kinda leaning another way now... Finally got around to getting my hand on some actual styrene again, after brainstorming for a few days. I learned a few things from my mock-up, which was the whole point of making it. One thing was that I needed another rib about 1mm back from the last one and slightly steeper angle on the final tail bit (The red pencil marks on my drawing.) I made a new template for slightly smaller ribs. 1.25mm smaller to be precise. Made it by making a new template using the old one, and then first glueing in a strip of 1x1mm styrene, then a strip of 1x0.25mm styrene. Because that's the amount I need to move inwards for the whole tail to fit with the 1mm slats and 0.25mm skin attached. Glued with CA glue and sanded flush... The mock-up also helped me to figure out the size of the new internal frame. First I did a rough-ish sketch with the old frame as a guide... I scribed three parallel lines in a sheet of 2mm styreen at 29m and 21mm apart, and one vertical centerline in the middle, then took the measurements from my plans and transfered them to the styrenen by making points with my scribing needle and connecting the dots. After all the lines were scribed I rubbed in some paint. Then I repeated the whole thing, but mirrored... Tomorrow there will be a lot of drilling of holes and sawing... Joy... More soooon! Rob
  15. Rob1970
    Yay! My FN.20 turret arrived, so I had a better idea about the scale and size for my new tail. Soooo time to start... with a mock-up. First I made a good template for the fuselage cross-section, using the forward halve of the fuselage... I marked the centerline and a couple of horizontal reference lines as well. One of the horizontal ones is the same height as the bottom of the turret. Transferred the template to a sheet of 1mm styrene with a needle in a pinvise, and rubbed some paint into the scratches. Cut it out... Cut it a little closer... Cleaned it all up with a file and a sanding stick. Half done with this one. You know you have hit the mark when you no longer see any of the paint that you rubbed into the scratch. Two done, two to go... I found a cool 40s radio station online that is keeping me entertained in style while I do all this grind work. They even have wartime news flashes between some of the songs. Perfect to keep me in the mood to work on this invasion stopper... With 4 ribs done, I added some studs to the first one so I can fit it to the front half of the fuselage. It took a bit of figuring out, but in the end I had the right shape and size for the stringer that runs front to back at the height of the underside of the turret. That's going to be the spine for this mock-up. A few bit of right-angle Evergreen strip... ...then added my spine. I have some piece of keystock which is great to keep stuff in place and square while you wait for the glue to dry. The other three ribs needed a strip of 2mm removed, the thickness of the spine. Then it was time to add the other bits of rib to the spine, again using right-angle Evergreen and a lot of patience... ...until I ended up with this. Added some bit of styrene tube to give the whole thing some rigidity. Added some more spine for shape of the tail end. Mhm... that looks about right... Next; mocking up the wing... And yes. I know... I put waaaay to much work into something that's just a mock-up. That's just how my mind works sometimes... More soooon!! Rob
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