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Bandsaw Steve

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Everything posted by Bandsaw Steve

  1. If you have a really high reputation score I think it earns you…. absolutely nothing… except the satisfaction that someone somewhere reads your stuff and enjoys it. That’s my understanding anyway! I hope that answers some of your queries. Welcome aboard! 👍
  2. As I understand it, If you get too many warnings or say something really ‘over the top’ you might get suspended or even banned. But these occurrences are very rare.
  3. As for warnings; the site moderators give these out very occasionally, but really - unless you go out of your way to upset someone by insulting them or swearing or making a political diatribe - in my experience at least, it just won’t happen.
  4. I’ve just clicked ‘like’ on this post, so you should now have a score of ‘1’ in your ‘reputation’. By no means a full answer I understand but it’s a start. 👍
  5. It might seem that way, but each time I complete one step I seem to find three more that need to be done. I really can’t wait to get to the ‘proper’ painting phase now as that really will mark the end of this very prolonged construction project.
  6. I did try that but had trouble turning two identical units. I also tried casting in resin, which worked OK but the resulting surface detail was a bit soft. So in the end I resorted to using plastic as shown and I think it’s working well. The best answer would be to get a proper metal-working lathe. But for that I would need more space and $$$
  7. It’s certainly a heavy burden and a call to a higher form of service than most will ever know! 🤔 Certainly far beyond risking one’s life fighting bushfires in 40 degree C plus temperatures as volunteer fire-brigade slackers like yourself are sometimes known to do. 🤣
  8. That’s the goal but -ironically enough- as I am now the Chairman and Secretary of WASMEx (West Australian Scale Model Exposition) I might not have enough spare time to get this over the line. 🤔
  9. Wheels Looking at the photo below it's pretty obvious what the next step is going to be. This thing needs wheels. Wheels can be a bit tricky because: they must be exactly circular they must have an axle running dead through the centre of them to 'look right' the axle must be the only contact between the wheel and the rest of the undercarrige this can put a torsional ‘lop-sided’ ‘twisting’ force on the axle and the wheel structure which can stress it at the thinnest point. they must be able to carry the weight of the model they often come in identical sets (here the main wheels are an identical pair) and so must match perfectly their shapes - although well known to all - are somewhat more subtle in 3D than we might at first think For all of these reasons the wheels on this model have caused me some consternation and delay, in fact I've even toyed with the idea of using aftermarket parts! 😱 But in the end I tried various means of making them and have come up with the following, fairly straightforward, methods. For the nosewheel I chose to use the lathe. Starting with a piece of dowel I reduced the diameter down to the correct size and then... Shaped the wheel carefully with small lathing chisels and used a jeweller's saw to add the tyre tread. After adding some surface details, including a wheel rim added by trimming about 1mm off the end of a short piece of aluminum tube, I had this. I then strengthened the trailing arms with some black milliputt and drilled a hole through them to accept the axle as shown. (BTW, later on I tidied up the milliputt so the final job is not quite as rough as it looks here). Here's what it looks like all threaded together. and dry-fitted in place. The main wheels were a bit more challenging. The first thing was to make sure that the main UC legs had the correct hydraulic rams and so forth added to it would be both accurate enough and strong enough in the long run. Each one also needed an axle onto which the wheels would fit. I found a circular template that was almost exactly the correct size for the wheels (in this case a washer about 0.5mm too big in diameter) and traced it's outline onto a piece of HIPS (High Impact Polystyrene Sheet) plastic which was just the right thickness. Next I used a curved chisel of almost exactly the correct diameter to press-cut out the circle as shown. I then used a centre-finder (not shown in the photos) to find the centre of the circle and drilled a hole the right size for a length of brass tubing that will act as a bearing surface for the axle. I do not intend these wheels to turn but I think that the bearing surface will be needed as otherwise I fear the narrow axle will, over time, 'cut into' the plastic and cause the whole thing to weaken and wobble. Here's the result so far. She's standing on her wheels and I'm excited! Here she is from a different angle... And finally, this shot, specifically taken to show-off the 'stance' of the jet, which I think is about right. In these photos the main wheels look a bit too large and that's fair enough because they are about 1mm in diameter over-scale, but I will fix that soon. Furthermore by contouring the shape of the tread into a curve (at the moment the tread surface is dead flat) I think I will reduce the bulky appearance of each wheel. Also once the UC bay covers are added the wheels will be less visually intrusive. At this point I'm happy! I think the trickiest parts of sorting out the undercarriage are behind me, although I’m still not sure what the best way to attach the undercarriage doors might be. Other than that, from now I'm hoping that further undercarriage work will mostly be straightforward detailing. Happy St Patrick's day. ☘️ Bandsaw Steve
  10. Great model of a great subject. What scale?
  11. Pure guess. River Rhine; I seem to remember some rivers now have a legal status as ‘non-human persons’ and I’m sure the pathfinders would have used it for all sorts of navigation purposes.
  12. Thank you! I would be most interested. Please note though that it might be a very long time before a project eventuates. I’ll PM an e-mail address to you if that’s OK
  13. How different was the Devon from the Dove? Could I use these plans to build a ‘reasonably accurate’ DH Devon? (RNZAF in particular).
  14. Wonderful! I am very pleased you are enjoying all of this nonsense @CH-53D. Since you have worked with wood before I need hardly remind you that it is generally not as challenging a medium as many seem to think.Good luck with your mongoose-powered Irish flying machine! Bandsaw Steve
  15. Excellent photo BTW. My forward UC leg doesn’t look much like this at the moment but once all the structural stuff is done and secure I will add some surface details to make it look at least a bit more convincing.
  16. ‘Wheel Fork’ that sounds promising. That photo very clearly shows just how much work I have to do on this thing!
  17. My mistake. So does that piece have a correct name? I like to get my terms as correct as my limited knowledge allows.
  18. Undercarriage In each model I make I generally try to do at least one thing that's new and challenging, at least for me. In this model, I'm trying two such new things. The first is to skin the model with aluminum lithoplate and the second is to make an aircraft with extended undercarriage. This post is all about the undercarriage and the associated doors. As you can see the first things I've done is to line the nose wheel bay with brass and to make accurately fitting sheets of lithoplate that fit inside the 'roof' of the main wheel wells. In the photo above the sheets of lithoplate lining the main wheel wells are not glued in place, but are just sitting there so I can be certain that they fit nicely. After taking them out, detailing them is relatively easy. Here I've just added appropriate surface detailing using plastic sheeting stuck on with cyanoacrylate. I've chosen to use brass sheet for wheel well covers as it's stronger than aluminum. I could have used plastic but this would have required thicker plastic sheet and would probably not have looked 'in scale'. The yellow-green stuff on each cover is just masking tape that I've used to accurately transfer the shape of the hole onto the brass sheet. It will be removed in due course. I've done the same thing with the larger, inboard covers over the main wheel wells as shown below. These covers have also been slightly bent to ensure that the conform to the shape of the aircraft's underside when retracted - but don't worry they will of course be extended on the finished model. Now moving to the nosewheel well, there is a distinctive bulkhead with a semi-circular cut out about 2/3 of the way along the length of the well. This is easily made from brass sheet… and fitted as shown. Here's where we are up to so far, excluding the doors which are stored elsewhere. Now for the legs. You might remember this piece from a few posts back. This is my somewhat rudimentary nosewheel strut. The main thing is that this piece be strong. I can add detail later but not strength. As you can see in the photo below I have inserted a U shaped length of brass across into the front of the wheel well and soldered it into place. This is a bit rough at this point but never mind. The point is that the front UC strut now fits beautifully into this recess and will be very firm once fitted in place with two-part epoxy glue. Since I made a mess with the solder I cleaned up the inside wheel well surface with some plastic sheet. The bracing strut behind the main UC leg adds still more strength and rigidity, just like on the real thing. Now for the tricky bit. Adding the little ‘trailing arm’ thing at the front of the UC strut. First I reduced the piece to a single 'unfolded' shape as shown below... Then I folded it up into it's 3-D shape and soldered it into place. It's still a bit crooked in the photo below but I straightened it up later so please do not lose any sleep over this. Here's how things looked at this stage, albeit again with the door wells put to one side. Note that there have also been some retracting hydraulic struts added to the main wheel legs. Here it is showing that even the flimsy bit of brass making the forward ‘trailing arm’ is strong enough to not crush under the considerable weight of the model. Phew Here is a sneak preview with the first of UC door covers blu-tacked in place. Speaking of the UC door covers... they have been given their first internal detailing as shown below. Here's the whole set as they currently appear. There's still heaps of latitude for additional detailing both on the doors and the UC legs but I think I'm making progress towards having items that are securely fitted and capable of taking the weight of the model and the odd unexpected knock. That's about it for this post. Sorry about the very long delay since the last update. I've been spending far too much time on the SS Xantho instead of this jet and promise that for the foreseeable future I will be pushing on with this project instead. Not sure that I'm going to hit that 'end of March' deadline though... Best Regards, Bandsaw Steve
  19. Agreed. ‘Off the shelf and proven’ has an awful lot going for it.
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