1:72 Italeri H-21 Flying Banana

[Nigel Heath]

Nice to see another one fitted with a slightly different version of the anti grav skirts. I have yet to find an example with a plasma cannon.

[Nigel Heath]

Banana Build - Day 7

Postie has been and still not a whiff of the much needed PE.

I started looking at the boxing that goes under the engine vents, the fit was not very inspiring:

Its not clear here but with the two fuselage halves together there was a massive gap on the other side:

To get a better fit, the whole thing needs to be moved to here, I think:

There is also this sticky-out ejector pin mark which requires removal:

These parts are also riddled with ejector marks that require a touch of filler:

Why they could not have put them on the other, hidden side I have no idea. Poor thinking on the tooling front I reckon.

[Nigel Heath]

Here thay are all filled and finished, I have also finished gluing the radio shelves:

I have thought about the ejector pins and can now see why they are like this, I think things could have been better arranged though but give Italieri a grudging apology.

There is an argument that the floor of the boxing of the should not be there based on this photo:

Engine bay looking forward:

But this machine has had the engine removed which would sit here so who knows what else has been removed.

I have a little evidence that the floor is correct as per the kit.

This is the bulkhead, looking back to that oil tank, from just where the engine would be:

Engine bay looking back:

Its useful to get that perspective.

Here is a nice picture of the engine intakes, now clearly showing the mesh on top of the div bars:

Its got more patches than my old scool swimming trunks.

Edited December 1, 2013 by Nigel Heath

[Nigel Heath]

I removed the drive shaft from the sprue to take a closer look:

It turns out to be so badly moulded that it will be easier to replace with brass rod and bits from the spares box:

Actually looking at the above engine bay photo those boss things look to be entierly fictional. Another thought I have had is that floor can't be correct as it would totally defeat the purpose of having air intakes in the first place. Perhaps I should cut a big hole in it?

Here is another shot through the exhaust holes, engine missing and yet another design of oil tank

Radio rack shelves:

I noted the ones in hendie's U Tube video had deep sheet metal edges, I'm not sure which option to go for. I again need the PE set, which will add the equipment for these shelves, to make a decission.

[hendie]

Two hand holds....

See it's been so long that you have forgotten what modelling is about. Nigel - you made these before your grey matter was corrupted with these devilish images!

[Nigel Heath]

Thanks for the clarification hendie - I thought it was the starter, so what do they call the starter?

My plan was to start making the metal bracing / bulkhead thing that would go here:

I repurposed one of my earlier card templates, trimmed like this:

The card now shows the sort of thing I am aiming for, the profile has been transfered to some plasticard:

Note that I am using a scrap left over from my Dalek, this is the original kit breastplate.

Cut out with scissors like this:

After a bit of roughing out with a sanding stick it fits like this:

I now need to think about how I am going to cut out the main central hole.

[Nigel Heath]

I rough sanded the other side and got it to fit like this:

I then cut out the main hole in the template with a pointy scalpel blade:

Laid out with the template, this is what the central hole looks like, it is almost circular which if I were designing an aircraft is what I would want to see:

The creation of the hole is clearly a job for my Big Boy hollow punches:

Given the late hour I am not sure I should be banging around with hammers and punches, I might have to stop here for the evening.

[Nigel Heath]

I decide that the neighbours won't mind a bit of gentle tapping and crack on.

I think the final size needs to be 20mm in diameter but if I crashed in boorishly with that size the part would be sure to split so work up to it in stages, starting with a 10mm punch:

Next 14mm:

Then 18mm:

And finally 20mm:

The operation has been a complete success and I have some things that could be made into jewellery for Christmas presents - result!!

Edited December 5, 2013 by Nigel Heath

[Nigel Heath]

Given a quick coat of Alclad "Chrome" what lady would not be delighted to receive these lovingly hand crafted trinkets:

[Jessica]

As a lady do my trinkets meet your liking? I find these things hard to judge.

They need to be a little more gold. Solid is best

[Nigel Heath]

That sounds beyond my modest means. I could try Alclad "Gold Titanium"?

And that is my nearly finished part - OMG it looks like a toilet seat.

[Nigel Heath]

Hot stuff, please send all of them over as well please.

As the final act of tonight I drilled out the holes for the toilet seat hinges:

They may be a bit too big.

Bye for now,

Nigel

[Nigel Heath]

Banana Build - Day 12

In fact the holes are too small so I enlarged them with a little needle file action:

With a little more fine fettling of the periphery the fuselage halves will just close with a little gentle pressure Here it is in situ:

But now it is Nigey's bath and diner time so I will have to break here.

More to follow later.

[Nigel Heath]

That's a different Hind, I've not seen one like that before.

I then drilled the central lightening holes:

The remainder were quickly created:

There is no point doing any more as the rest is hidden under the engine. That is actually a little bit too wide and some material will have to be shaved off it.

Edited December 5, 2013 by Nigel Heath

[Nigel Heath]

With a little bit of sanding the "engine" (in the losest possible terms) goes through like this:

Buttoned up it looks something like this:

It can now join the ever growing pile of semi-finished parts:

I need to have a think about what to do next.

[PZRGREN]

Still no PE? Are they making it from scratch!

[Nigel Heath]

I have checked with both vendors and I reckon it is all at least a week away. It is most frustrating as I am having to now scrat around looking for things to do. Such is life.

[Nigel Heath]

One thing I could do was a bit of work on the undercarriage, I used my JLC razor saw to cut off one half of the legs with a view to replacing it with brass rod:

I then used a 0.8mm drill to make the holes for the rod:

It fitted like this:

[georgeusa]

I am curious (watch out a post about the actual model building taking place right now) to see how or if you will join the brass rods at the other end of the undercarriage. Or will there still be enough plastic in the outer piece in which to drill the ends and fit the tubing in? Doesn't seem as if there will be enough plastic left to drill out. Maybe mitre the ends and then use some left over etch to build a representation of the outer undercarriage join?

[Nigel Heath]

Good point, my thinking is that the ends will have to be soldered together and maybe some detail boxing created around the joint. It is still a WIP (in my vacuous head). I am sure you are right, there will not be enough meaningful plastic left from the kit parts.

I am interested to know if you have had to Google anything from my threads recently.

Edited December 6, 2013 by Nigel Heath

[youngtiger1]

Interesting work Nigel. I've always found the H-21 an interesting subject. It to bad that it did not get much love in the AM side of hobby, but your skills here shows that it dosen't matter because all your extra work is just as good or even better then a lot of AM stuff out there. So, keep up the good work

[Nigel Heath]

G-usa, on the convertiplane, a very interesting machine and a forerunner of the Rotodyne I suppose. I presume that is where you got the inspiration to get the kit?

I am sure you will have seen all of these.

I had a thought about getting some better information on the interior of my subject and did a search for cutaway drawings. (I found an excellent one of the Rotodyne which helped me greatly with that build). Anyway I found this:

Not brilliant but a lot better than anything I have found up until now. It shows that the engine I have made will have to be scrapped and something more realistic produced to replace it.

[Winnie]

Koker du ikke lenger Oerjan??
Thanks for the cutaway Nigel, saved to my files for my 48th SH 'Banana'!

[Sgt.Squarehead]

You can see the ESCI/Italeri Sherman bits on the sprue here (unfortunately from the back):

A bit more info and the instructions can be found here (scroll down to kit #8308 - M4A1 Sherman): http://henk.fox3000.com/Esci.htm

Edited December 6, 2013 by Sgt.Squarehead

[Nigel Heath]

Thanks KT, those look excellent. The exhaust collector ring (if that's what it is) appears to be a good match for what I have seen in the cutaway drawing. I will PM you.