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rob Lyttle

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Everything posted by rob Lyttle

  1. Yes, this is the big one! I'm getting used to it's limits and ways to work around. It will take a fair bit of burnishing and working though, far more than flimsy kitchen foil.I must try and source some of this other Ali foil you mentioned. Speaking of thickness, I've concluded that most of the thickness is from the gummy glue. And it is always still there under the foil, never hardens. Right O Dennis, when you're ready....!😎
  2. I've been using the sticky back Ali tape that builders and plumbers use for joining insulation panels and all sorts of other jobs. Done many planes with it over time and I get on alright with it. Slightly different ballgame to what you're doing. And because it's a real-world product, one roll does.....Well, loads!!😇 This is the wee Lockheed L10 Electra which is probably the most recent whole plane project... I've got one of these Heller Thunderflash kits in the pile, I'm looking forward to seeing how you get on with it 😀
  3. Quite so, Dave 🤭 Still, it's gotta get built sometime.... I've been painting, Sure brightens the thing up. I also installed a piece of Ali tube in the front piece as a bearing that will take the propeller's metal shaft eventually, and painted the piece red I'd better take a look at the undercarriage parts and get her up and standing
  4. I LIKE it.. !😎 I'm familiar with the time and patience required to do this, especially a whole airframe and in 1.48 too. Excellent result so far 👏. I've found that raised panel lines and surface detail have their own challenges for foiling. The shiny metal seems to magnify the details, like it's creating an optical illusion with the foil. Are you working with kitchen Ali foil and a glue for this?? What ever it is, it's doing the job OK 👍
  5. I've built a few that would fit right in to this excellent category 👍. My o my, where do I start 😀?? Well, here's the Delage D8 by Heller first up, Somebody mention Amelia's planes? I did the Lockheed L10 Electra, although not finished as her's but as theTCA restored plane. I see that @stevej60 has got an Academy F3F lined up. Nice....! Very enjoyable build... And the little Airfix trackside Scammel Scarab, still in production by Dapol products... So cool that I did 2 of 'em, dumped the silly watneys barrels and made a depot scene, all inside a supermarket profiteroles packaging display box. I had to eat the profiteroles first, which is a bit of a Win-win situation 😅
  6. The issue with the difference in windscreen design between the Proctor and the civil Vega Gull is well illustrated in the Dora Wings instructions, probably by mistake or oversight. Here's the illustration for the Vega Gull canopy assembly... They have it very nicely represented with a number of separate parts and the opening gullwing doors can possibly be fixed in the up position. Nice. But their next illustration shows this... ...which is clearly the curved Proctor windscreen. How weird is that 🤔? Dora do a military Proctor version and I guess someone has copied and pasted that drawing. Anyway it serves to show the difference. Lady Sherborne's aircraft should have the civil styling as in the 1st picture but the Frog kit is clearly the 2nd type. I've tried a couple of times to make glazing bars with strips of Ali foil in the style it should be, but they looked rubbish. I'm thinking I'll overlook the issue, just like I'm overlooking the other differences like length. It would be interesting to get the Dora Proctor kit to have a close comparison between the two. From what I've read it's the mk4 Proctor that suffered from excessive modifications while the first 3 marks were closer to the original Vega Gull. Well, there you have it. Meanwhile the wings are fixed, rudder is on, and I'm trying to pick out the details on the one-piece Frog transparency to give some idea of the doors structure. The wing fit is quite good after a bit of surface preparation. The odd bit of filler is applied here and there around the airframe but all things considered it's not that much. I had a count up of all the parts which were rattling around loose in the bag and I think all are present 😇👍 Good news
  7. That was easy.... The wings are just dry fitted in the slots here. The internals were not overdone, with a rear bulkhead and a bench seat fitted, and a strip of thin styrene up front to give some kind of coaming inside the windscreen. The kit rear windows got honed a little and masked before fitting. The two sides were having difficulty in mating up and I traced the fault eventually to the big internal ribs on which the floor sits. The front upright bits were interfering with Lady Sherborne's feet, and her companion. Rib lumps suitably removed and all was well. There are a number of sink marks around the fuselage, mostly underneath and a couple on top. And some stretched sprue was added on the cowling for hinges. This airframe was a prewar Vega Gull that got taken on by the RAF, served it's time, and went back on the civil register after the war. Turns out that this plane crashed killing the pilot and his family, just a few weeks after Lady Sherborne sold it. It happened only a few miles away from me, on take off from Southampton Eastleigh Airport for the short hop to Middle Wallop aerodrome. They were returning from a holiday on the continent. Sad. But in happier times it seems like the Lady Sherborne had some good flying out of the little Percival. I must research her some more. I bet she spent her wartime years ferrying Spitfires, Mosquitoes and Lancasters around the country.
  8. I've been reading up a bit on the type, trying to get some elementary info. It seems that the Proctor 1, 2, and 3 were very similar to the V Gull and kept the original's capabilities to a large extent. (Excuse the normal numbers instead of the roman numerals-- I'll be honest with you, I just can't be bothered with that .) By the time the mk4 came out, the design had been messed about with to the extent that the plane's performance was compromised. Whereas the early types were 6inches longer on the fuselage, the mk4 may be somewhat different. The Frog kit is given as a mk4. Viewed beside the Dora Wings fuselage side, the difference is significantly more than a scale 4" I'm not going to get bogged down in fine details with this. It's getting done as a fun build. Like AdrianMF says, there's plenty of surplus Proctors got bought and put on the civil register. So far, I have this, ... and I'm now trying to get them to fit in the fuselage such that the two halves meet,. Now, Lady Sherborne flew her's in the remarkable 1952 King's Cup air race at Newcastle and I have the decor on the Dora sheet. Looks promising. Beryl Markham is out. That was nothing short of foolhardy and she was lucky to get away with it. The unfortunate plane, not so much. Scott and Guthrie won the Schlesinger Race to South Africa in a Vega Gull in 1936 and that's on the sheet, but of course that's prewar and pre-proctor, and a genuine Vega Gull. Lady Sherborne's plane had military origins that I should go back and read again but I'm thinking this is the one Jolly, isn't it 😎? The cowling though, could that be polished metal?
  9. Ah, I see what you mean. Compared with the Dora Wings Vega Gull there is obviously an issue 🙄 Well, the abrupt answer would be No. I'll have to think along the lines of a repurposed Proctor in civil decor
  10. A quick marker to declare my intention to have a go at this little stash-dweller. Novo decals are shot, but my Dora kit has several civil options and my intention is to utilise some of those. There's a bit of an issue with the front windscreen. The military Proctor has a rounded shape whereas the Vega Gull is made up of flat panes. But let's see how it goes 😎
  11. Just been up in the loft doing some real world stuff and I retrieved this little bag of dereliction When I got the Dora edition of the Percival Vega Gull in civil style, I tucked the bag of Novo in with it. Dora supply several decal options and paint schemes and the intention was to use some on this little Frog relic. I notice that there are NO TAKERS yet for the Proctor 341P kit, so I'm going to put a marker down and have a go 😇
  12. Marvin, I'm no expert on vacform canopy work..... maybe the only one was for the little L10 Electra which included a vacform cockpit top. I found it challenging....🤭 All very flexible and uncertain. I found it useful to add stretched sprue to the bulkhead at the right height to hold the clear stuff in position for a smooth roof joint. I had a couple of other bits positioned to aid the fit at the sides. BUT... my roof was painted white with the fuselage so any visibility of my sprue addons wasn't an issue. Your joint is all see-through, especially with the open escape hatch arrangement I'm just throwing it in there in case any help along those lines sparks a solution in your mind. 😎 The nose part looks great
  13. Setting aside the hand drawn lettering procedures, and by tenacious application of my efforts on the chromebook, I appear to have cracked the challenge of getting the right font onto a document 😄😇🤭 No kidding, check out this bad boy... Zoom on the letters... That's your actual Amarillo USAF font style created online and downloaded and stuck on a doc page (along with some other stuff I'm working on) The only snag I had was with the "1". It had a peak just like what I've typed there. Replaced with a capital "I" and I got what I need. Scaling these is the next step. A test print on copier paper will show me where I'm at in terms of size. I've never had any success with this stuff previously so I'm feeling elated. Old dog new tricks...? Bring it on, I'm on a ROLL 🤩🥂🍾
  14. I ought to mention a slight enhancement on the cowlings. The definition of the cooling flaps is a bit poor and I applied some strips of skinny plastic to give a clean edge and the slightest of overhangs. That gives a better idea of the cooling gaps under the flaps. I did a couple more strips on the horizontal joints which weren't that good. I think with a bit of rubbing down and paint these will settle down. I learnt early on that any work on the inboard sides of cowlings and nacelles should be done BEFORE fixing the wings to the fuselage...🤪 No use people telling you this -- you need to learn it the hard way. Then you know it....
  15. Right, we have an airframe to work with. And started to look at the undercarriage parts. And after searching and clearing debris, I found the door!! Bit of a relief
  16. Adrian, 240 ÷ 60 = 4. And two of you on the case, discounting visitors, guests and neighbours....! Not good enough 😅 One thing I had to test before going further was the masking on the windows. Plenty of scope for disappointment there, but I think it's OK 👍 The astrodome is fitted. I have to own up that this is not the Frog part. I have some Special Hobby transparencies for a Hudson which are modern and much better and I've substituted. So the only Frog clear part used here is the cockpit canopy
  17. Time for an update on the Ventura, I think 🤔....!! Goodness, doesn't Time fly when you're enjoying yourself? Obvs I got a little bit sidetracked- mostly by the Frog Voodoo, plus I'm being kept busy with real world stuff. The 2nd wing got some attention and is pretty well up to date with the 1st. The main endeavour was the painting of the fuselage decor. I used mig acrylic without too much preparation of the white base coat and it's a bit "temperamental". A bit flaky on the edges just where a nice clean line is required. Rubbed down, 2nd coated after remasking, and things are improved but still a bit sketchy on the edges. So, left a while..... This evening I had what may be a breakthrough, although it may not, let's see how it goes 😅 What happened was..... I needed to replenish the teabag situation and started cutting the cellophane and noticed a "tear strip" still half-attached to the wrapping. I haven't seen one for a long time and don't even bother looking for them these days. But this was Yorkshire Tea, where things are done proper, and it turns out that the little gold strip has a glue side, probably an aid in the manufacturing process. Turns out that one complete tear strip is long enough to do a cheat line on both sides of the fuselage....😎 It's happy enough to tack down with its own glue and I've been over it with Pledge floor polish . There are touch-ups to do and thinking about the bottom lines too, but this feels like a lurch in the right direction (if it stays on...) So this is not a particular airline livery I'm trying to replicate, there's no reference material of "the real thing ". I'm just going for a decorative civil period style. Cellophane tear strips, eh? Who-da thought it 😅‼️
  18. Just in addition, Heller make a decent kit of the Talbot Lago T26 racer, much better than the smer/merit, and the Heller wheels and tyres would be a good fit on this, but of course it's still a wasteful process unless you make them exchangeable and share I'm keen to see how you work this out. This is my best effort with the Merit wheels on the Talbot-- this is without removing the tyre parts. I'll readily admit it's a bit rough and ready 🤭 That's the Alfa behind, with removable wingnuts waiting for its turn with the Mercedes wheels and tyres. So don't give up, something can be achieved with these 😎
  19. Well done so far with this 👏 I spent many happy hours doing battle with one of these, and the Talbot Lago, which suffers from the same wheel issues. I had several attempts at wiring wheels but never achieved a successful outcome. I discovered that the quite decent wheels and tyres from the Revell Mercedes SLR Uhlenhaut coupe gullwing is a perfect replacement, and the SLR open race car too, I guess. It has the bigger size pair on the rear axle. If only Revell would produce the wheels and tyres as a separate set!! I made my one set removable and share them between cars, depending on which one I want to display. It's a haphazard solution but it stopped me trying to make wired wheels, and failing. I remember modification to the dashboard panel on this, to let it fit deeper into the car. Nice job on the engine installation 👌😎
  20. Well who cares about THEM ⁉️ They need to be taken out of their comfort zone and experience the freestyle modelling method 🤭 The rest of us are just thinking "Yeah, I know what you mean, Marvin. So I'm not the only one...." That's a great looking nose arrangement you've sorted 👌 What have you in mind for the final styling? Mounted on a base of some sort, or free standing "with the bits attached"? I'm thinking of the bent leg and wheel, the tilted angle, the crew getting out etc Any other bits of wreckage planned?
  21. 😎 Well yeah, it has a definite space age look. I sort of think of the F101 as the mother of the F4 Phantom series of planes, with the general layout of the engines, the proportions and styling. More so I suppose with the 2seater versions of the Voodoo, but let's face it if your mum is a F101 you're probably going to turn out to be a good plane ‼️
  22. Jolly, isn't it ⁉️ 🤩 All 6 aircraft in the Sun Run had a distinct individual scheme, and I'm guessing it was to facilitate the elaborate refuelling scheme worked out with the KC135 tankers. This one, #3, was one of the 2 reserve planes and turned back after #1&2 were on their way after the 1st rendezvous. The choice was made on the basis of what looked achievable and with some good references to look at. I'm trying to make some reg decals as 60166 and FB-166 Graphics isn't an easy process on an android phone 🙄 The idea is that when these images are shrunk right down, the wobbles and imperfections all shrink to nothing too. Pfff....let's see 👀
  23. Decision made to have the canopy closed. The content of the cockpit doesn't warrant close inspection, so the ladder idea is shelved Undercarriage is done and fitted and she's happy to stand with the tail up and nose wheel on the ground. A couple of wheel chocks already in place The canopy itself has been done with foil tape strips and the only tricky bit was the front screen with the horseshoe shaped frame. There's a bit of disparity between the foil and the paint but I think I can tame it. Having the frames in foil makes it easier to brush paint. Just working my way through the various camera port transparencies
  24. In addition to a few more decals, the seat has recieved a bit of scratch work, A few straps and arm rests. Some extra paint touches and in it goes, I borrowed an access ladder from another Voodoo-- something I scratch built -- and it looks quite tidy on this one. But I'd have to cut the one-piece canopy to pose it open Next up I'm looking at the legs and wheels. See if I can get her up on her feet
  25. I think I have the makings of Sun Run #3😎 That's one of the Frog decals applied. I was concerned that the red would show through the transfer and turn it a little bit pink-- I've had this happen before I have other decals in hand, from a Matchbox 101 and my thought was I could double layer if necessary to kill any pinkness. The old Frog decals seem to have done good in this respect and any yellowness isn't really showing. They do have a noticeable thickness though and excessive carrier borders compared to modern standards. I've taken a shot at the refuelling dock on top of the fuselage .. I'll keep rummaging in the spare transfers box and see what's suitable. Actual airframe number will have to be printed
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