Sprueloose

Even with her makeup scrubbed off she is a beautiful bird. Good luck tomorrow!

This is extremely interesting to hear. That as ones skills increase, the forces that swirl around ones work area increase proportionally. It is heartening to observe that ones recovery time is also decreased. A lovely plump little being coming into shape Moa!

Another beautiful civil aircraft Moa. I must say thatI find them more attractive than the killing machines. I love the color of the plastic on this one!

Moa, what is your feeling about “weighted” wheels? Just curious. Lovely model!

Curious to know how you constructed the tube and it’s very realistic ribbing. It looked like you use PVC pipe in the previous Caproni-Stipa build I assume that you had to resort to epoxy or CA glue on that one. Both very sculptural.

Another gorgeous art work of a lovely aircraft! Thank you Moa for sharing your joy with us.

Interesting and lovely work Tony. Curious how you are going to represent the fasteners, rivets etc. Will deforming the brass change the shape? Or will you work on the painted layer? Inspiring to watch as always. Terry

Looks really nice Gadget. I think that your paint job is subtly done. Speaking as anther newbie here, lurking in awe, your admonition to “swallow your pride and post the picture” is excellent advice. I too have struggled with the wires and finally discovered E-Z line, an elastic thread which makes it all much easier. Plus it gives if you accidentally hit it after installing it! Great work. Thank you for sharing it! Terry

It has been such an instructive pleasure to watch this build Tony. A wealth of modeling tips and tricks on display, as well as just great skill and determination to care this incredible project through to completion. Thank you for sharing your journey with us.

Re, the gorgeous ball turret. Have thought of making netsuke Fozzy? https://goo.gl/images/eEv7pg Beautiful work as usual Fozzy.

Thanks Corsircorp, coming from you, high praise indeed! Thanks for stopping by. ble as the old Mono kit wit when you've done with it! I do like that little anvil you have there! Keith I can't remember where that little anvil came from but it has been quite useful! Thanks for keeping an eye on me Keith. LOL , well you caught me out there Devilfish, apparently I'm building some sort of night fighter bomber! Truly a "What the heck is it?". Basically I just like the shapes involved and after wavering about at the beginning and decided to go with the flow... Thanks for the kind words Keith. I appear to enjoy the challenges of working with these old kits.. To bring us up to date. I have been working on the cannon bay. Here is the real thing (up side down): I had to remove the bulkhead that I had added previously (a common practice with me it seems, add a bit and then rip it out!) and then constructed the new piece out of three thin sheets of plasticard : I had started mocking up the cannons earlier but then I actually did a little research and I have been re doing them: Here I am just checking the height of the spacer beneath: Here are the real things (upside down again): And my attempt so far: All for now folks! Hopefully things will continue and I might get some paint on the Whirlwind! Terry

The hand grinder that I have can be turned down to fairly slow rpm so that made it easier. The cooper wire is really fine and worked well. I think that with practice I could produce longer runs of useful stuff. The lead wire was interesting as it would twist up so easily and then automatically break off! Really I was trying to represent what we call Romex cable or metal-sheathed cable. I saw someone here doing it by winding really thin wire around a thicker wire and then coating it. Looked much more like Romex that my twisted affair. After getting the crew sorted I started working on the bomb bay. Installed a couple fuel tanks and strut details: Made room for the cannons which I will have to scratch build. More details. Made the hydraulic cylinders for the bombay doors out of several sizes of brass tubing: Added bits of PE for the mounting hardware and lead wire for the hydraulic lines. Installed and ran the lines for the bomb doors. The doors for the cannons are separate and don't have hydraulics. Set the doors in place and realized that my previous attempt at representing the hinges is not good enough: So I started to make the hinges out of copper wire. Heated the wire, then bent it around a pin and hammered it flat. : Made a jig to help me cut the hinges at the right angle: Here is what I am trying to represent: I bent a little foot on each leg of the hinge to facilitate attaching them to the model. There are 18 of them for the bomb and cannon doors and the engine nacelles as well. Made a few spares and picked the best ones for the model. Hope they do the job! That's enough for now. Almost up to date! Thanks for watching. Terry

Thanks John for the kind words.

Thanks for checking on me Martian. The weather is still a bit too hot for painting I think, but I think that it will be sooner than later.. I have been enjoying your tug build. Wish that I could scratch build as cleanly! Terry

Still working on the cockpit. Gave it a coat of Mr Surfacer 500: Began making wire harnesses to detail the cockpit, out of lead wire and foil. Added wires to the radio equipment: Discovered that if I chucked up thin wire in my Proxxon I could twist it evenly. Even worked with the lead wire! Added the pilot and navigator's seats. Made the boot that covers the linkages to the column. Decided to populate the cockpit. It became very crowded very quickly. I can see why Monogram didn't add any details! The width of the kit's fuselage is about 3 mm too narrow and putting the resin bits in there really made it a tight squeeze for the navigator figure... plus his feet didn't want to reach the floor! Added the resin control panels and radar equipment (night fighter, remember? ) Decided not to use the rudder pedals as they won't be seen once the canopy is on and besides I had trouble getting the pilot to place his feet on them! Made the little boxed drawer below the radar set.. not sure what it was for.. You can see that space is cramped as the piece of radio equipment that sat behind the pilot's see had to be mounted up on the shelf above. Made a little bracket to support it out of spare PE. Added gunsight and throttles with their linkages that slide beside the pilot's seat when the nose is put in place. The navigator figure had to undergo some major surgery to fit into his assigned seat. I work hard to get his feet on the floor and had to cut him in two , sliding his legs and hips in from the front and wiggling his de-armed torso in from the top. He doesn't look too happy With the nose on, you can see the height difference between the two figures is greatly exaggerated. (Monogram kept the height of the fuselage about right but with the width narrower....) I suppose that the figures aren't exactly to scale either... I hacked off some arms from a figure set that I had and bent the navigator over (had to take a saw to his neck!) so that it would appear that he was hunched over a map in his lap.. Enough for now... Thanks for checking in. Terry