Nigel Heath

That is an exceptional looking model. Pretty much as we have come to expect from Igor. I love the cockpit and U/C detailing, very nice. Best regards from the 🇬🇧.

Thank you for your kind comments gents. I have not been very active on Britmodeller in recent months due to a fractured spine and the Corvid19 working from home thing but I really would like to add some figures to this diorama at some point as supplied to me by @perdu.

Please let me elucidate you, here is a link to the start of my Sevans Dalek build, please enjoy responsibly:

That's a little smasher, lovely work. Glad that my mesh idea helped. Nigel

Well, you got my vote, a lovely model to be sure.

Looks very tasty and my heart is filled with warmth, I do like the cheeky inclusion of a pretty full glass of red wine there, I think we need to meet up soon and I would like to cook another recipe for you (maybe steak based this time, your call). And yes @Tomoshenko is an extraordinarily fine modeller and nice chap to boot. Great company along with @Billydick and @CedB Best Regards, Nigel

This gives much pleasure, thanks @wimbledon99

Vera sounds a bit old fashioned, how about Vixen (the Vertol)?

Thanks guys, @modelling minion I am also gutted - any chance of pulling a few strings?? I will of course finish her off but with the pressure off maybe not until next weekend. I have enjoyed this build and the GB in general with its good banter and excellent exchange of information but I didn't like the self imposed pressure to get it finished at a deadline - and I do fully appreciate the extension given so any fault / blame is laid firmly at my feet only. Modelling should be a pleasure and not a stick to beat yourself with. Ho hum, I do look forward to getting her finished and post some propper RFI pictures - her? Maybe a name is required, any ideas out there? I think I will be putting this on the competition table at Telford if anyone wants to see the final result in person. And @modelling minion, @CedB, @azureglo and any other interested parties I have forgotten to mention it would be spiffingly lovely to meet up there again. Bye for now, Nigel

How frustrating that I just missed the deadline. Today I got the legs and wheels added, I like to use a glass surface to make sure the tyre flats are in the correct place: Having sprayed all the remaining parts I started to assemble, the rotor drive shafts were quite a tight fit so elected to use Gator Grip on them: More work on the lower side door, gingerly sanded to reveal the Bare Metal foil on the edges of the treads and a wash added: After a coat of Galeria matt varnish I removed all the remaining masking apart from the glazing:: I then added some Bare-Metal foil to represent the mirrors: Using some fan brush bristles given to me by @milktrip I coloured them black using a permanent marker pen ready to be added to the front aerials: This is how they looked glued in place and trimmed to length: Next after running a curved blade over the edge of all the canopy masking this is how it looked on removal: What a mess, I don't think I have had such a bad result for a while. But that was not the worst of it, this piece of side glazing had been hanging by a thread for weeks, I thought maybe I could hinge it in position and apply some more epoxy but on trying to unmask if finally gave up the ghost: Interestingly this one has delaminated on the paint side, all the others failed on the glazing side. The first job to sort was to reinstall the glazing which I did with this custom made tool with a small blob of Blu Tack on the end: To rectify the awful canopy glazing I cut some thin strips of masking tape and applied to the worst areas: Fast forwarding a bit this is how it looked after I had re-applied all the primer, colour and varnish coats and removed the masking: Not perfect by any means but good enough I think. Now I could start on final, final assembly, on went the wipers and temperature probe using a length of 0.2mm nickle silver rod and Gator Grip: Then the pitot tubes and rear view mirrors: By now it was past midnight and a bit panicked I took my five photos: By now I had added the lower side door, front T aerials, whip aerial on the rear end, red light on the rear pylon and the aerial wire supports on the LHS. It was still not quite finished, I still have to add the navigation and squadron lights, sort out the retracted upper door and add the EZ line wire aerial (as well as do a final check over things like you do) but I felt this was good enough for the gallery. Here are my other Gallery shots, I would have liked to have taken them in daylight obviously: Bye for now, Nigel

Those pictures are a real help and although I had started down a route I basically scrapped that and took a different trajectory. Based on the mirrors on @modelling minion's model this is the sketch I came up with to work on|: Oh and here is the model with panel line wash cleaned off: As I suspected most of the panel lines were too faint to take a wash, I had thought of rescribing more but it's not my favourite job and with the GB deadline looming let it pass. For my dinner I made a puff pastry, Reblochon and mushroom tart: It was a little disappointing, the base was soggy and it didn't taste much of cheese, it should really have been blind baked first I think. My new plan for the mirrors involved finding some surplus PE parts with a small hole, sure enough I found some that looked almost ideal. On a bed of Blu Tack I inserted some 0.3mm brass rod ready for soldering: After soldering I cut them out and sanded the first one to a rectangular profile for the mounting plate then bent and trimmed the wire like so: On searching through my PE spares box I realised I already had some PE mirrors of pretty much the right sort left over from my Flying Banana build: I think I thought at the time they were well overscale, and I still think they are a bit but the mirrors on the Japanese machine are actually pretty big and I think these can be pressed into service. Note that the PE maker has apparently made an attempt to make them handed - as they should be (the recess round the mirror in repeated on the underside) but they have in fact made them single handed (if you look and think about it), something I have to deal with later. Those that know me will know I don't really like 2D PE trying to imitate 3D sections. I thought I would try to give the parts meant to be of circular section an application of solder to see if that circularised them through surface tension: That proved to be a bit of a failure and the rectangles of Bare Metal foil I applied to the mirrors as a solder repellant turned out to be much more plastic than metal and just melted away. Anyway, not a major set back, I sorted out the other mounting bracket and then completed the joining operation with some 145C melting solder to avoid disturbing the first joint: This was my set up for getting the PE mirror attached to the mounting bracket, I had tried to thin the rod part to accommodate the thickness of the PE first: I have to admit I didn't have a clear plan at the start how I was going to get these things made, I was basically just making it up as I went along. This was how that first one looked temporarily placed in position: Fundamentally looks OK I think. For the next soldering operation I changed the bit on my iron to this pointy one as some dexterous application would be required: The final part to add was this diagonal brace. Using 70C melting solder it is quite possible to make joints in situ on the model without troubling the plastic at all: So here we have the first completed rear view mirror assembly: I then completed the soldering for the mirror on the other side: That looks like a nice strong joint, the one on the other side I am not so sure about. I will be happy enough if it hangs together for painting, after that there is always superglue. I then chucked both mirrors in some cellulose thinners to degrease them of the lanolin flux residues: The final job for tonight on the mirrors was to fill the redundant mounting holes with a mix of PPP: I will make all the paint retouches just before the final varnish application. Next I think I will start on the undercarriage assembly. Bye for now, Nigel

I don't think its bubbles, more likely a knit line where two material flow came together but didn't fuse properly, maybe. Last night I unmasked the inside of the lower side door and applied a coat of matt black to the treads: I had thought of using black decal strip for that but I think paint was the best option. I also started work on the wipers. There is still a ghost of the moulded wipers on the front glazing and I wanted to have a look at it so I partially unmasked the main front windows, first carefully running a curved scalpel blade around the edge of the masking to try to get the cleanest possible demarcation line: For the wipers themselves I cut some strips from some think (0.4mm) brass sheet: This was my set up for soldering the wipers, the thick sheet for the blade and a small rectangular mounting pad crossed by 0.3mm rod and a thin strip of a scrap PR part for the actuator mechanism: I looked at various reference photos for this, this one was probably the most useful: Some time later I had the two wipers ready for some paint save for a degrease with cellulose thinners: Next I sealed in all the decals with a protective coat of Aqua Gloss: The showery weather today prevented my from airbrushing outside so did this kneeling on the lounge carpet. Next I made up the front aerial rods, this time using some 1.15mm plastic rod for the "finials" so I knew it was from a different batch than the 1.1mm stuff: Minor thing this but I curved and mounted up some 0.2mm nickel silver rod for the whip aerial on the rear end ready for painting black: By now the Aqua Gloss was dry so I made a start on the panel line wash using my usual go to of diluted Payne's Grey oil paint: I thought I would give this interim update while the solvent flashed off (about 20 minutes). Once that is done I think the next jobs and the rear view mirrors and final assembly. Bye for now, Nigel

Before I paint the central rotor drive shafts it is a sensible point in the build to complete all the other things which need fabrication and then paint, the list I have in mind is as follows: Pitot tubes Wipers Front T aerials Rear view mirrors I picked up where I had left off on the pitot tubes, here's how the first one looked after soldering and cutting off the tubes: When fully trimmed up here's how it compares to the kit parts: This was the main reference picture used: I did put some thought into just keeping with the kit parts but I think the above result justifies the effort. A little while later I had the second one finished, after a degrease to remove any lanolin flux residues I mounted them on the tips of cocktail sticks and used liquid masking to mask off the aluminium portion of the main tube, all now ready for some paint: Next I made a start on the T aerials. I had already drilled the mountings with a 0.4mm hole but using 0.5mm and then 0.6mm drills opened this up further as I think 0.6mm brass rod looks about right for the job: The reference picture on the Print Scale decal instructions is quite difficult to make out so I made a little sketch of what I thought the end arrangement should look like: I then shaped the end of some 1.1mm plastic rod and drilled through with a 0.4mm drill for the aerial rods: I was parting that off with a sharp scalpel blade when the plastic split in a weird and most unexpected way: I have never seen anything like that before. Anyway I glued it back together and with it cut off started on the second one and I was just centre punching with a pin tip ready for drilling and the plastic split again: I'm now thinking this length of rod has a flaw running through it and should cut my losses and start over using fresh material. I will have a ponder. Bye for now, Nigel

That is a superb looking model.

The next job I completed was to get some Flory "Black" wash inside the recesses on the rotor hubs: I had thought that the vertical rods should be painted with a steel colour, or something, but from what I can make out from the main reference photo they do appear to be the yellow orange colour. The next problem I had was another rotor blade break, this was going to be slightly more difficult to sort with the wire line attachment: I drilled out with a 0.5mm and then a 0.6mm drill to get the reattachment sorted, I don't know what you think but there looks to be quite a bit of porosity where the break occurred, it always did seem a bit weak to the touch: Anyway, I secured the whole thing with a length of 0.5mm brass rod: A bit of matt black retouching was required: When that was dry I glued on the base plate, here's how the rotors looked in position: I hadn't realised that some of the central pivot pins would be visible so they will have to be painted - presumably black - before the rotor assembly can be completed: There isn't any more to do now, so bye for now, Nigel

When I first tried posting all last night's content appeared - what happened to the "clear editor" function button? Tonight after making a tuna and olive pizza for my dinner: I got some more done. I did have plans to get the rotors assembled but on inspecting these hub parts found the yellow orange finish a bit thin on the edges: So the first job of the night was to break out the airbrush and get a second coat applied. While that was drying I looked around for other jobs that needed doing. The very last part still attached to the final sprue is this looped aerial part: I had thought of replacing this with a metal part but the real thing has a flat section rather than circular so I decided to stick with the kit part. For reference here is a good photo of it: It has a definite flat bar like appearance, here it is profiled, thinned down a bit and cleaned up and ready to be mounted up ready for some paint: Another job I could get on with was applying some chrome finish to the hydraulic part of the U/C legs. This was the first time I had a chance to the use my liquid chrome pen acquired at Telford last year for just this sort of work and I was highly impressed with the results I painted the brake lines black a while ago just to give some visual interest. The finishing touch for the legs was to give them a Flory "Dark Dirt" wash: After that photo I will give them another round of clean up. I think the rotor hubs should be dry by now so will do a bit more work on them as well. Bye for now, Nigel

That's a good idea, almost wish I'd thought of that. Interesting how much the Sevans kits are these days.

Well indeed they were. Tonight I continued with applying more custom made decals to the rotor hubs. I have already applied numerous yellow rectangular labels using the same decal strip from the identification bands. For the next set I wanted a more orange yellow colour and found this previously used decal from an Airfix sheet that looked ideal: After they were all done I used this cut down Mike Grant decal to represent this label applied as a slightly wonky angle: This is what I was trying to represent: The rear rotor hub is supposed to be a mirror image of the front one but Hobby Boss have cut corners and made them the same hence the discrepancies observed. Well that is about pretty much of all the decals applied to the rotors: The little scraps of backing paper on my computer gives an idea of the number of decals added to the rotors: I also added a few more stencils from my spares box to the rear end on the RHS: And similarly on the LHS: I also added a new strip of black decal film to the walkway as I felt the original was a bit scrappy on the edge: With that done I think all the decals are all finished (I have added a few more, please try to spot them in subsequent updates) . I think the next job is to apply a another coat of gloss varnish and then apply a panel line wash. After that a coat of semi gloss (or matt varnish, not sure yet) and then final assembly. Bye for now, Nigel

That makes a lot of sense to me and I was thinking along those lines for the explanation. I was hoping to get much more done tonight but my laptop has been playing up and only now do I seam to be able to make an upload, I'm sure @azureglo would understand it when I get the message "The DNS server is not responding" and "Your computer is trying to use a DNS server that is incorrect or does not exist" - yes for real - but I do not. Anyway, it all seems to be working now. The main problem encountered tonight was that somehow this had happened: I have no idea how, I am always very careful with my parts but there you go, sxxt happens. Of course this is not a very difficult thing to fix, after drilling a 0.5mm pilot hole this was enlarged to 0.6mm: With some 0.6mm brass rod glued in place the thing could be assembled: With a coat of some matt black the whole thing was pretty much as good as new: With that little setback and my computer woes I am basically no further forward, hopefully tomorrow night things will be different. Bye for now, Nigel

I cut the red and yellow stripes from this old decal sheet (inherited from an old modeller friend). I have used it many times for such purposes as you can see, it behaves quite predictably with setting solutions although it can be a little bit brittle: Green, and indeed a quite dark green proved to be quite a rare colour in my decal collection but I did find this sheet given away for free by Scale Aircraft Modelling in August 1982 for the Zimbabwe Air Force which looked pretty much ideal: It, contrary to expectations, behaved impeccably - flexible and settling down well, by far the best decals used on the whole project. So here are all the blade colour identification stripes applied: I really do like some of the stripes sitting under the plumbing, accentuating it. Now I'm going to have a lie down and a have a well earned forty winks. Bye for now, Nigel

Yes they were the ones from the kit. Glad I didn't use them. It was a great family get together over the weekend but after a three and a half hour drive back down south this afternoon I was pretty tired and after domestic chores didn't get much time at the bench but I did make a start on the rotor decals. On the underside of the blades is what looks like two lines of characters, one of which says "BLADE SERIAL NO" and a number with another number / string of characters under that. What it needs are some illegible white stencil decals, now following my Sycamore build I have a nearly complete set of spare decals with three sets of blade decals that can be suitably trimmed to provide the required lines of text: Unfortunately the Sycamore was only a three bladed single rotor helicopter so comes up a bit short for a twin tri-rotor. Fortunately when I complained to S & M Models about some of their iffy decals they were kind enough to send me two spare sheets - problem solved! This partially used sheet still contains the required areas of decal: Here are those applied just after an application of Micro Sol: One of the better images of the stenciling can be found here: MIne are a bit busy but never mind. Next the blade identification colour rings. On the rear rotor, from what I can make out, this appears to be the order and colours used: See here (click on image to enlarge): I was expecting the front to be the same but no, they are a mirror image: See here: I'm not sure I'll get those applied tonight but I will make a start. Bye for now, Nigel

No the decals are not the best, I also have worked with far worse - Airfix Rotodyne springs to mind - but I would expect better from an aftermarket set, they are that bad combination of intractable and brittle. Take for example this one which broke into two without much provocation: The break is between the last character and the rest and will need a little retouch with some white. Cartograph and Extradecal are far superior. These are the last of the Print Scale decals to be applied, this one by the side door needed cutting before application: It actually needed cutting twice as part of it sits on the lower side door. Again I had problems with it, the proper piece folded up and although I managed a partial recovery it did look a bit dogeared so I removed it and used the top part remaining applied upside down and secured with some diluted Gator Grip to make up for the lack of backing adhesive: Next I started on the few kit decals applicable. After the anti-slip on the sponsons there was this long strip of anti-slip walkway for the RHS, as it was so long I decided it best to cut it into two where it met the blade aerial to make it more manageable: It still managed to split into two more pieces: Looking at it I was not happy as it's nothing like the reference photo and I didn't like its aesthetic appearance so ripped it off before it dried: I had already soaked the walkway decal for the LHS but decided to follow the example of @modelling minion and just have a narrow black walkway on the LHS. Once the kit decal had dried out I used it as a template cut a new walkway from some venerable black Microscale decal film that I have had for the last 40 years: I also used the decal film to cut out these step indicator markings: Next was the window surrounds, the ones on the actual machine appear to be grey but the only kit options are three white and two black, I also had a look in the spares but but the pickings were thin (but not inexistent): They proved to be a bit of a nightmare but eventually I got them sorted so now most of the decals are done: On the underside I moved the hinomaru from the location in the instructions as there were there two strakes in that position - I guess they should have been removed: The blob of Blu Tack is my attempt to protect the paint on the blade ariel from handling damage. There are still a few decals to go on, mainly from my spares box with some white stenciling including some on the underside of the rotor blades. I might get a little more done in the morning or more likely get this on the home straight on Monday. Bye for now, Nigel

Sorry for getting the plumbing wrong on the rotor hubs but it does look nice and add interest value. Decaling operations are underway as I write this. I did a bit more last night adding the yellow anti slip marks using rectangles cut from decal film: The first one I made was way too small and can be seen in the background. On the lower side door I had given the handle two coats of white primer and then finished it with yellow, I also added some more yellow strips of decal film to the sides: Apologies for the poor photo, there's a better one in a minute. The kit provides a decal for the operating instructions, it's more impressionistic than realistic but I felt it was worth using: This is of course is what it's supposed to look like: Anyway, here it is applied: This morning I was delighted when my cocktail swords arrived: When marking for the black exhaust area I carelessly got an indelible pen mark on the orange yellow. I tried to dab it off with IPA which got rid of most of it but damaged the paint as well so this morning started with a masking repair operation: Here's how that came out: Because of the poor hiding power of the yellow I had to use more paint than I would have liked but hopefully it looks OK. While I had the yellow out I also used it on the lower side door after a tricky masking hob and the reverse. I also applied some interior grey on the upper door: I did actually mask for the glazing on both sides but now realise that it should be sold so I will leave the masking in place. While all the paint was drying I started work on the first of the pitot tubes. My starting point was some more brass Strutz: My plan was to solder some 0.5 and 0.4mm tube to that like so: When I cut off the 0.5mm tube I found that solder has wicked up and filled it solid so it was time for Plan B, this time sleeving some of the 0.5mm tube with 0.3mm aluminium: I had a few more frustrations with that and decided to put it to one side for now. With the paint dry I took advantage of the green area of the door to fill a little ding in it (no idea how that got there): With the green applied I was ready to apply Alclad Aqua Gloss to all the parts requiring decals so that is the main craft, the undersides of the rotors and the lower side door: That stuff dries remarkably quickly and I was soon able to start on the decals. When you cut away the unwanted schemes it's surprising how few are left: The decals proved to be rather intractable with Micro Sol: So I broke out the Daco Strong: That seems to be doing the trick, I report further later on. Bye for now, Nigel