eng Posted October 7, 2014 Share Posted October 7, 2014 Jeez, that really is a monster! I fell into the 1/32 trap a few weeks and picked up a Revell Tornado, I taped the main bits together to see how big she was and immediately thought "Oops! Where there the hell will this go". Just a thought regarding your issue with the wheel well that was ground through, will the paint take to the blu-tak? I don't know if there's anything you could use to seal it before hand? Future? It doesn't look like a large area in the pics so hopefully it'll not be noticeable. Does look as though that was a bit of a handful to get together in a one-er. Looking forward to the next update. Rgds, Eng 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Madhatter Posted October 7, 2014 Share Posted October 7, 2014 "hello?.....Hello?.....Hellloooo? I swear, these new 'smart' phones are sh**t! Only good for getting ear wax out..." Loving this build! So much so that I'm really seriously tempted to break mine out and start it - but that would be display space suicide at the moment. Can't wait to see more. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan P Posted October 7, 2014 Author Share Posted October 7, 2014 Jeez, that really is a monster! I fell into the 1/32 trap a few weeks and picked up a Revell Tornado, I taped the main bits together to see how big she was and immediately thought "Oops! Where there the hell will this go". Just a thought regarding your issue with the wheel well that was ground through, will the paint take to the blu-tak? I don't know if there's anything you could use to seal it before hand? Future? It doesn't look like a large area in the pics so hopefully it'll not be noticeable. Does look as though that was a bit of a handful to get together in a one-er. Looking forward to the next update. Rgds, Eng Thanks Eng. I've used the blu-tac technique before and it does work - as you say it's in an unobtrusive area and shouldn't get any handling (my world is built on wishful thinking!) "hello?.....Hello?.....Hellloooo? I swear, these new 'smart' phones are ----! Only good for getting ear wax out..." If you concentrate you can hear the Barents Sea! Display shelf suicide sounds about right, just been dry-fitting the nosecone and it feels like it doubles the length of the model! I wonder if I can convince the rest of the household to give up the coffee table for few months? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan P Posted October 8, 2014 Author Share Posted October 8, 2014 (edited) On with the build, felt a bit poorly yesterday so not much done... Big model = big seams to fill! I tried using Squadron Green and White for opposite sides to see if there was any difference - the Green was a bit more resistant to sanding, but that's about it! Other seams - there was a pretty nasty one on both sides of the aft end: But it was a good reminder why I prefer using liquid cement - all it took was some scraping and sanding: Very little cleanup required Next up - the resin nose and intake parts. Neither fit the model exactly, and in fact the intakes are clearly going to cause a problem as they don't follow the curve of the underside and leave a huge gap at the front. It will be a joint under a lot of pressure. So I decided to try 5-minute epoxy for the first time. Apart from the evil-smelling concoction it is, it does stick like crazy after about 10 mins. The hard part is maintaining the pressure at the join that long with such irregularly shaped parts. The kit nose requires a sliver out of each side to bring the circumference down as it is wider than the resin part: I further reduced the height of the nose section by tightening the kit-provided screw that goes through the top of the coaming area. With the nose fitted and glued top and bottom with Devcon (sorry for the blurry pic, I just couldn't get the macro to focus properly > ) With the sides glued - bit messy but I had to squeeze down on the join with my hands for about 10 mins which was very hard work! Hard to see, but I painted round the area which will be under the intakes in preparation for fitting them. Wish me luck on that one! While that was curing, I tried a bit of surgery on the R-77 missiles - these are a very advanced Russian design. They are the better equivalent of AMRAAM - faster, longer ranged and far more manoeuvrable due to their floating, louvred control surfaces. I tried to modify the kit ones using some PE mesh (used for 1/35 chain-link fences) but failed after realising the gauge of the mesh was too fine. Luckily I searched and found that Profimodeller make a set specifically for the Trumpeter 1/32 missile, so I sent off for that instead! Till next time.... Edited October 12, 2014 by Brokenedge 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephen Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 Looking good so far. Stephen 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan P Posted October 8, 2014 Author Share Posted October 8, 2014 (edited) Thanks Stephen Just the last few things for the intakes before I took the plunge of attaching them... This panel appears to be coloured a "desert pink" on some of the walkrounds: Decided to mask up the intakes before attaching them, as the masking line is not exactly simple! So, on to the challenge of the intakes! Here's the gap left at the front when the rear end of the intake is fitted correctly to the engine nacelle: The pressure required at each end to keep both in firm contact with the kit is considerable - the narrow lines and curves make it very difficult to use clamps, so once again its a manual handling job! I applied Devcon and followed up with Zap Extra Thin CA glue, applied my vice-like grip for the requisite time and..... success! That's one job I really was dreading and I'm glad it went off with minimal headaches. Just some smoothing of the joints and the usual puttying to finish them off. Whew! Talking of puttying - smoothed off the small step round the Zacto nosecone with Creos Mr White Putty, best stuff I've used for this kind of job. I'll come back to that later... In the meantime I assembled and test-fitted the pilot figure: The pose may look a bit gay right now, but when correctly seated, he is perfectly placed in the cockpit - arms rest on the sill and glareshield, and he is slightly twisted towards the left side. A really well-cast figure, big credit to MasterCasters for getting that one spot on. Last job of the day was the trailing edge flaps - the real plane has an irregular hinge end with the actuators visible when the flap is deployed: (From scalemodels.ru) I decided to go for broke and attacked them with a razor saw. Then added some plastic card which will eventually be scribed to look like actuator arms. That's it for today, back tomorrow.... Edited October 12, 2014 by Brokenedge 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parabat Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 Kerrruuumbs! This is an epic build that I have just had the pleasure of reading! Some excellent work going on here, very detailed work I must say. Going to be a proper show stopper when you're done. Can't believe the size of the beast, one reason I can't face doing a 1/32 F-14D just yet! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomjw Posted October 9, 2014 Share Posted October 9, 2014 This had been a fabulous read so far. Excellent progress. Keep up the good work. Cheers, Tom. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMCS Posted October 9, 2014 Share Posted October 9, 2014 Niiiice... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Madhatter Posted October 9, 2014 Share Posted October 9, 2014 Interesting to see the issues with the intakes and nose. Any ideas why you're having the fit issues? If it's something you may have done it would be good to know what that is so I can try avoid it myself. Maybe it's lack of clarity in the instructions? Or is it an item issue? Hope that doesn't sound rude. Great work with the slats too. Looking forward to seeing more MH Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flankerman Posted October 9, 2014 Share Posted October 9, 2014 The pose may look a bit gay right now, but when correctly seated, he is perfectly placed in the cockpit - arms rest on the sill and glareshield, I can confirm that the pose is perfectly correct...... Ken (me posing as a hot-shot at Zhukovsky) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan P Posted October 9, 2014 Author Share Posted October 9, 2014 Interesting to see the issues with the intakes and nose. Any ideas why you're having the fit issues? If it's something you may have done it would be good to know what that is so I can try avoid it myself. Maybe it's lack of clarity in the instructions? Or is it an item issue? Hope that doesn't sound rude. Great work with the slats too. Looking forward to seeing more MH had to laugh at this, I was thinking exactly the same thing myself while wasting the morning puttying! After going back through the process, the simple answer is that the parts don't fit the kit exactly. That's all there is to it. I got one of the first issues of the resin when Zactomodels first started offering the combo pack in 2007. They may have been tweaked by now, but Romaine also warned me in advance about the nose, and that fit problem is one of shape, rather than building expertise. The Zactomodels nose is simply too narrow for the hole in the kit (not by much, but enough to not fit!) I could have made the intakes a bit better by fitting them before attaching the fuselage halves, but the two kit halves fit together so well that altering the bottom one's shape by fitting the intakes might create a mismatch at the edges of the LERX. This would be easier to get at, but a huge pain in the behind to put right. Still, I'm glad that bit's behind me now, there's not much left to go wrong (he said!) BEdge Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James G Posted October 9, 2014 Share Posted October 9, 2014 Thanks Stephen Just the last few things for the intakes before I took the plunge of attaching them... This panel appears to be coloured a "desert pink" on some of the walkrounds: Decided to mask up the intakes before attaching them, as the masking line is not exactly simple! So, on to the challenge of the intakes! Here's the gap left at the front when the rear end of the intake is fitted correctly to the engine nacelle: The pressure required at each end to keep both in firm contact with the kit is considerable - the narrow lines and curves make it very difficult to use clamps, so once again its a manual handling job! I applied Devcon and followed up with Zap Extra Thin CA glue, applied my vice-like grip for the requisite time and..... success! That's one job I really was dreading and I'm glad it went off with minimal headaches. Just some smoothing of the joints and the usual puttying to finish them off. Whew! Talking of puttying - smoothed off the small step round the Zacto nosecone with Creos Mr White Putty, best stuff I've used for this kind of job. I'll come back to that later... In the meantime I assembled and test-fitted the pilot figure: The pose may look a bit gay right now, but when correctly seated, he is perfectly placed in the cockpit - arms rest on the sill and glareshield, and he is slightly twisted towards the left side. A really well-cast figure, big credit to MasterCasters for getting that one spot on. Last job of the day was the trailing edge flaps - the real plane has an irregular hinge end with the actuators visible when the flap is deployed: (From scalemodels.ru) I decided to go for broke and attacked them with a razor saw. Then added some plastic card which will eventually be scribed to look like actuator arms. That's it for today, back tomorrow.... What is the grey thingy in the background of the Flanker wing photo? Some sort of ground power unit? Does anyone have any photos please, I sense a scratchbuild coming on! Great work on this kit by the way Edge! Cheers James Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan P Posted October 9, 2014 Author Share Posted October 9, 2014 (edited) Photobucket are a bunch of mercenary cheapskates. I've deleted loads of old photos and two complete albums from my Library, and it still says I've used more than 10GB of space - the calculated amount hasn't changed at all despite over 200 photos being deleted. Sorry everybody, but this build log is pointless from now unless my photos reappear. I'm ok with not taking advantage of a free service, but play fair. If there is a free limit, once I'm under it they should give me my pictures back! EDIT/UPDATE - it appears to be a bandwidth issue not just storage. I get it now. But I still don't want to pay for it! The pictures will be back on the 14th, apparently! The other alternative is to view the photos on the photobucket site, but that would be very tedious for everybody else. Here's the album link if you want it... LINK Normal service will be resumed, in the meantime I'll keep building and adding pictures in the hope they will magically reappear someday! Edited October 9, 2014 by Brokenedge Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parabat Posted October 9, 2014 Share Posted October 9, 2014 Give Google's Picasa a try... Thanks for the link though, this build is rather more-ish! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan P Posted October 9, 2014 Author Share Posted October 9, 2014 (edited) Ok a bit big, but I'll try migrating the whole thread across to Google tomorrow evening. Edited October 12, 2014 by Brokenedge Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geedubelyer Posted October 10, 2014 Share Posted October 10, 2014 Hi BE, Re: your PB issues. Have you considered using lower resolution images? John Wolstenholme once suggested a bit of software called "Easy Thumbnailer" by Fookes (Seehttps://www.fookes.com/ezthumbs/ ) It allows you to easily and quickly reduce the image resolution without adversely affecting the look of the finished article. FWIW, I tend to size any images for forums at 700x700 pixels and about 100kb size. For viewing on many PC monitors this is usually fine. Not only does this give oodles of storage in the 10Gb PB free but also helps with bandwidth issues. HTH 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gregax Posted October 10, 2014 Share Posted October 10, 2014 Or give a postimage a try. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan P Posted October 12, 2014 Author Share Posted October 12, 2014 (edited) Thanks guys for your suggestions, I am indebted to Mr. geedubelyer for pointing me to that very simple and effective program, and decided to migrate all the photos to Google. Bye bye Photobucket! Some work done on the airframe - the dorsal airbrake is poseable, but I like the smooth curve of the back and would like to preserve it: Very good fit. Just needed pressing down with Tamiya tape to keep the shape conformed till the glue dried. This is the fourth big-scale Trumpeter jet I've made, and thought they like to give you lots of open panels, the covers actually fit the bays extremely well, unlike some more illustrious manufacturers' efforts. The RWR sensors on either side of the tail are too thick and blunt: But I might have taken a bit too much off! Another perfect fitting panel, covering up the screw hole at the back end of the fuselage: And the last part of the airbrake hinge panel leaves a slight gap, presumably to facilitate the movement of the part. Needs filling! Beautiful looking shape, but what a monster! This is about as long as the 1/48 B-1, but much chunkier. I can't pick this up with one hand, my span won't reach round the rear fuselage! Didn't i just mention those perfectly fitting panels? This one is well-documented, and turns out to be true. It's not so much the size of the panel, but the shape of the edge that should be a conformal curve. A couple of plasticard shims with a triangular cross-section required... Just needs filing down and it's a winner! Decided to paint the ejection rails yellow primer colour, it seemed to be common if not standard: I cut the two V-shapes out of the flat area in front of the seat to be able to assemble the pilot and seat as a single piece and still be able to lower him into the cockpit at a later time. You'll see why a little later...! Made a start on the detail painting of the ejector seat: More on that tomorrow..... Very glad to get the pictures rebuilt!! Phew. BE Edited October 13, 2014 by Brokenedge 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomjw Posted October 13, 2014 Share Posted October 13, 2014 Wow. What a monster. Its huge. Coming on nicely as well. Cheers, Tom. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nimrod77 Posted October 13, 2014 Share Posted October 13, 2014 Great work! Looking forward to seeing more Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan P Posted October 13, 2014 Author Share Posted October 13, 2014 (edited) Thanks very much Tom & nimrod. There's always more! Apparently there is no published bandwidth limit as a Google+ user. That doesn't mean there's no limit, but it means if I'm careful with the pictures (as advised by geedubelyer - I'm using max 700px, 100k size) I shouldn't have that problem again. Progress as of today - this took AGES! It was a lot harder than I thought to integrate the pilot, seat and belts in any convincing way. The pose of the pilot would make it impractical to have both sets of shoulder and lap straps on, so I've posed him as if he's undone the belts, leaned out of the right side ones, but remained partially belted into the left side, as if this is a brief turnaround between missions. If you look carefully you can see the buckle is still partially done up - I've also added leg restraints and the foot pedals are attached to the pilot's feet for the perfect fit! There are still a lot of extra details to add to integrate the pilot with the plane - I also haven't done any washes or paint effects yet, but I like the way all that detail really pops out already. It's actually exciting to build stuff like this! [geek mode is ON!] Moving on to the wheels - another Heath Robinson affair which can't possibly work unless you use the provided metal gear, and make your own attachment pins at the load-bearing points. This is the nose gear: You can see there's a spring to facilitate an articulated weight-bearing movement. The oleo cleans up nicely using a sharp blade and sandpaper: No need for chrome coloured paint on these! The same blade also makes short work of the seams and casting blobs on the metal gear leg: The plastic gear parts need to be replaced with metal - I used the metal rods which I won't be using for the flaps and slats (easy!) I can't see the plastic parts lasting very long if you want the articulated sprung oleo to work for any length of time! This is fairly tricky and time consuming work, so I reckon the gear will take me at least three days, possibly the rest of the week. Then I've still got to detail the gear wells, and maybe then start thinking about paint. I may yet get the AKAN paints and have a go at the modern Flanker scheme.....! Edge Edited October 13, 2014 by Brokenedge 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan P Posted October 17, 2014 Author Share Posted October 17, 2014 Hi again, Yes this stage is a bit boring isn't it?! Luckily, this post is a catalogue of three days of completely wasted effort! I'm not the first person to have been defeated by Trumpeter's frustrating nosewheel and I'm sure I won't be the last! First work was trimming the MasterCasters mainwheels to better match the real shape of the wheels - the provided wheels are too square at the shoulders: Not a dramatic change, but the original is on the left. Things started unravelling quickly after that - first I put the nosewheel strut on upside down! The hydraulic junction valve should be on top. So I sawed it off and reapplied it in the right place. Luckily everything else went on properly. On to strengthening the nosewheel assembly: I cut off the plastic stubs and drilled through to replace the moving parts with metal rod. The first assembly worked well: Only when it was finally all assembled and the success achieved did the one weak link decide to snap in half - the plastic torque link: Guess that's the end of that little experiment. The only real headache is that I can't get the spring out of the strut, so when I glue it all up, I have to keep the spring compressed until it all dries, and hope it doesn't pop at a later time! Well, that little distraction is now over, time to devote myself to getting the fuselage ready for painting. Far more fun, I hope! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMCS Posted October 18, 2014 Share Posted October 18, 2014 Loving this beast!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flankerman Posted October 18, 2014 Share Posted October 18, 2014 Some great progress there Edge - especially the pilot ..... but........ I've also added leg restraints and the foot pedals are attached to the pilot's feet for the perfect fit! The K-36 seat doesn't have leg restraints - or at least not conventional ones. It has two large flexible 'wings' that extend from the front of the seat on the inside - a cable then goes from these wings up and over the arch at the bottom of the instrment panel and back into the seat pan on the outside edge - making a complete loop that allows the pilots feet complete freedom of movement. He doesn't have to connect any leg restraints - its all automatic. When the seat fires, the cable is reeled in and the 'wings' wrap around his legs, pulling them back against the seat - like a 'normal' leg restraint would do. At the same time time, two brackets under his knees rise up forcing his legs up towards his stomach, two side arms drop down to stop his arms flailing and a section of the set in front of his groin rises up to protect that delicate area.... Then the seat fires - and those two telescopic arms extend out and back to stabilise the seat. This pic I took of a MiG-29 cockpit shows the black cables along the bottom of the arches on the instrument panel....... you can also see the black 'wings' on either side of the control column My pic of the seat shows the leather(?) wings You can also see the groin protector - and the leg risers either side of it. I also photographed this schematic showing the seat in operation...... I hope you don't mind me chipping in - but you are making such a detailed job of it, it would be a shame to get it wrong. HTH Ken 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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