Short Singapore III - Completed.

[Ray S]

Hello all, here is my choice for this Group Build, the Short Singapore III flying boat.

The kit is ancient. It has a wonderful instruction guide, I will post that in the next couple of days.

I have taken advantage of our hosts offer to let us prep Vacforms, so I have cut the major parts out and sanded them down (that took about 10 days), I did try to repair a very thin section on the planing surface where the plastic cracked whilst I was sanding it out, but I have made things worse. I will try to fix it properly when the build gets underway.

Surprisingly, the cockpit glazing has not yellowed, but it has no framing lines on it, so that will be fun. I managed to get some white metal props and exhausts from John Aero, along with a build guide from one of the old magazines, and the Allied Wings book by Phil Listemann as references.

I will paint this (if things work out) in one of the schemes in the book (but not aluminium), but I will probably use markings from a Stranraer which I don't need. Failing that, I do have some generic codes that I could use to mark it with the right codes, albeit in the wrong font.

The only other bits I will use will be three Lewis guns (from the same Stranraer) so they will be injection parts.

It is probably in excess of twenty years since I did a vacform, I hope I remember what to do!

I will put more pre-build pics up soon.

Looking forward to seeing the rest of the projects.

All the best, Ray

[JimHead23]

I will be watching this with great interest as I have a few Contrail vacforms to build and as yet no real experience of the medium.

Best of luck.

[CliffB]

Great to see this Ray. I used to have a Contrail Saro London (which I gave away several years ago). Looks like you will have a challenge on your hands!

Cliff

[Darby]

Good luck on this one. Looking forward to seeing it done.

[Ray S]

Hello all.

I mentioned about the wonderful instruction guide, well here it is (hopefully - I have just uploaded it but the image is not showing on Tinypic)

I think there is enough information for me to be able to figure things out though. I have cut out and sanded most of the supplied parts, but there are a few I will not be using:

Contrail also supplied seats, but I cannot find them now, but they too would have been in the above photo. However, the bits I will be using take up the vast majority of the parts, and test fitting showed that they all matched up fairly well to each others equivalent part, with the exception of the half dozen tail fin parts. I may well replace those with some newly acquired 40 thou card just for this purpose (oh, and for the wing spars):

I also mentioned about the damage along the top of the planing surface (chine?) - well, here it is, the plastic had been stretched really thinly at this point, and I put a bit too much pressure on when I was sanding the fuselage halves down, that they split. I had so much plastic dust spare I decided to do the legendary 'goo' mix of liquid glue and added plastic to try and repair it, forgetting (I am like that) that it would not do the thin plastic much good, and ended up with:

When the build starts, I will try some Perfect Plastic Putty from Deluxe Materials to repair it, I don't think that attacks the plastic so visciously badly.

Talking of the dust debris, when I sand out my vacforms, I just use sandpaper stuck to my work bench dry, and sand down quite vigorously (but carefully), then use some flat edged plastic to scrape away the dust, and then collect it. I have nearly a 500g margarine tub full of the stuff at the moment from this, so there is quite a lot! Just right for the 'goo'. I know nearly everyone else uses plenty of water when sanding down theirs, so I am probably in the wrong...

Roll on May 2nd

All the best, Ray

[Mitch K]

When I used to do vacforms, I found the best way of dealing with over-thinned plastic like that was to pack the inside with milliput. It strengthened parts no end and I could force it into edges/corners and really push them out. I could then sharpen corners if necessary by sanding through to the milliput if necessary.

[trickyrich]

Welcome aboard Ray and what a beast to bring to the build!!

She'll certainly be very impressive when complete and I can fully appreciate why you asked if you could start the cutting out process.....there's a lot of work just in that. But you look like you will be plenty busy with the rest!

I'm sure Tom will have some advice for you once he sees this build, but you don't appear to forgotten anything at all.

Will good luck with it and I do hope you can complete as she'll look amazing, and I do hope you enjoy the build.

[Ray S]

Well, up and running now, and the first thing to do was try and look at the fuselage damage. So, I went to my workbench, got out the Milliput to do a spot of work as recommended by Mitch K (THANKS!) and lo and behold, my two sticks were more like Blackpool rock, totally solid. Hmm, what to do, what to do?

Well, I thought I would take one for the Team Vacformers, and try a different tack. Out came my Perfect Plastic Putty after all, and slathered it into and outside the damaged areas. This stuff can be worked with a wet finger, toothpick or tissue (amongst other things), and dries rock hard. It also does not affect plastic (ie does not melt it) so with luck this will work. If not, I have always got a resin ship...

First up was the outside. I wiped some on with the side of a knife blade and tried to work it into the cracks with a moistened wooden toothpick, but deliberately left the finish a bit ragged so as to be able to sand it down later, adding more if required. Then I did the same inside, but smeared it on a bit more thickly, then smoothed it with a wet cotton bud.

The second fuselage half I did it the other way round, having found filler on my trousers from the first half! There is also a large vertical bar on the outside of the fuselage halves, which looks too big in my reference pictures, so I popped some filler in the resulting recess, ready to sand it down from outside later (after adding a thin skin of plastic card beforehand).

A bit more work on this and hopefully I can start properly.

Any hints and tips will be most welcome, thanks for looking in,

All the best, Ray

[Ray S]

Hello all.

I have been able to repair (almost) the damage now. The Perfect Plastic Putty did its job wonderfully.

Before:

After

I just needed to add a bit more filler towards the rear of the damage, but otherwise all seems to have gone well.

This is only a small update, but should progress more later in the week.

Thanks for looking in, Ray

[CarLos]

Hi Ray,

Let me congratulate for your choice! A difficult kit, but with some care it will become a masterwork.

If you don't mind, I suggest you to better the intersection of the planning bottom with the hull sides using streched sprue. Better than a description, a few photos (of the Contrail Blackburn Iris) may help:

Not too much work; Glue the sprue, let dry; apply filler, let dry and then use a sanding block to achieve sharp edges.

Regards,

Carlos

[Romeo Alpha Yankee]

Nice start Ray

I am still deciding what to start. I like the way you have reinforced parts from the inside. I think I will try that on mine (what ever it is!)

[Smudge]

Nice work. I have one of these, and the fuselage chine is damaged exactly the same. Years of being chucked about in second hand dealers before I got my mits on it, probably.

Looking forward to getting some tips for building mine. So no pressure.

All the best.

[Ray S]

Hello all.

There has been slow progress, but at least there has been some! First up, was to open up the portholes (or is it windows) in the fuselage sides. There were some rough moulding circles indicating the positions, so I drilled a hole in the (almost) centre, and then opened them up with a round file then a larger half-round one. After three of these, I cottoned on to the fact that if I drilled more holes around the circumference of the window, I would have to file less! I am a bit slow...

I managed to get five holes in this one, but later on my increased skill level raised that to 6! Much easier then using a scalpel to join the dots, then the file to round things out, and two evenings later I ended up with

On the lower half, I have also removed a few of the raised details, a raised square window surround, an entry door and the long vertical bar that I had filled earlier from the inside. The surface is a bit rough at the moment, but hopefully will get smoothed out later when I try Tom Probert's Halfords Filler Primer trick he has suggested in his other threads (thanks for the advice there Tom!).

I do like to see how things go together, so shortly after, out came the tape and

Now, here is where I say a big THANKS to CarLos too, some time ago he had mentioned a quirk with this kit that I had not noticed. He pointed out that the two halves of the fuselage were different widths, and it was so. It was just as though the master had been made from one bock of material, then cut in half not quite down the centre. This became important when I started to cut out the gun positions, which are circular, I should not do two hemispheres, one in each half, as it would look odd, hence taping the halves together, so I could judge if the circles were circles. I had fun drilling lots of holes this time before finishing off

You can probably see just how unequal the halves of the fuselage were from this shot. I don't think it will turn out to be too much of an issue, we will see. Anyway, after a few minutes, I got a gunners post, along with a scarff ring from the Stranraer I am also building, which did not need it. Oh, I have got a thing about flying boats at the moment.

CarLos, I am still toying with your idea about sharpening the sides of the fuselage, but I am concerned that my sanding after filling is never very good and ending up with a smooth finish, a failing I have always had and practice never seems to improve, I had to take a tin of Isopon 38 filler back to Halfords the other day, as when I opened it, there was no hardener in the top compartment. The things people nick! I must say the branch was brilliant, as even though I did not have my receipt, they still swapped it for me.

Well, that is it for now, hopefully once all the destruction is done, construction can begin.

Thanks for looking and the advice, all the best

Ray

[trickyrich]

You're making steady progress there Ray, and it's good to see you are getting lots of helpful advice along the way.

I must admit you are a braver man than I for tackling a VacForm Bi-plane, let alone something as big as this!

It will look mighty impressive when she done, keep up the great work.

[whitestar12chris]

Coming along Ray, very interesting subject will be watching with interest.

All the best Chris

[Ray S]

More destruction, first up was the mid upper gunner position, plenty of holes to drill this time. This layout was worked out by just looking at the plans, but after I trimmed the opening out, I found some excellent pictures in the reference book, which showed the cutout was much larger, so it was duly enlarged later. The cockpit has also been opened up, but I still need to finish working on the surround

I managed to remove the port square window surround and vertical bar much better this time compared to the starboard side, but the proof will come when I use the filler spray later on (here's hoping it is better).

Then came to fun bit, I started building! Well, scratch-building anyway. I have decided to give this a bit of an interior, so I have used some fine plastic rod to simulate the framework in the front gunners pit and the main cockpit, giving the lot some horizontal and vertical framing.

The square-ish thing at the front represents the bomb release panel, and I need to add an anchor, boat hook, camera holder, fire step and ammo drums too, amongst other things. These (if I do them) will be representations, rather than exact miniatures, so I hope you will forgive me! The wobbly horizontal bar in the main cockpit has been straightened now, I never saw that until I looked at the photo!

I also found a picture on the web showing part of the pilot seat and control panel, so I have something to work from, so I have started the seating too. On the right hand side of the seat there is a complex metal shape, and between it and the seat appear to be four controls, presumably the throttles for the four engines. I may be able to get a couple of levers in, but not four! The seat backs will be made from paper which is currently drying out after being soaked with thin CA. The cockpit section has been cut out and test fitted and partially put together, but there is still quite a lot of work to do yet, but I am not sure how much will be seen, although there is quite a lot of glazing. Still...

Well that is where I am at the moment, so thanks for looking,

Ray

[OzH]

Great progress..

[trickyrich]

very nice work on the scratch building!

This project is coming along very nicely.

[JOCKNEY]

Beautiful job Ray, I have one of these, great to have this tutorial as a guide in the future.

Look forward to the next instalment

Cheers Pat

[Mark]

Oooohhh... This looks like's it's worth a watch!!

Did I just say 'Oooohhh?' I think that's the first time I've ever said that! Anyways... I'm watching!

[BritJet]

Coming along nicely, I know what an old dog this kit is so keep up the good work.

Steve

[CliffB]

Looks fun - great work so far

Cliff

[Ray S]

Hello all, well the interior continues...

The seats are just about done, I ended up using paper not soaked in CA, as the soaked stuff did not bend properly, I must have had too sharp a curvature on the rear of the seats this time, it worked on my 1/48 Sopwith 1 1/2 Strutter. Never mind. I decided not to add the 'throttle controls' as there were too many for too small a place.

I also added a few more bits into the forward gunners position. The camera holder was some very thick rod which was bevelled into a half cone shape then flattened on one side, with a strip of masking tape to represent the belt (I think). The gun metal round things are the Lewis gun ammo, but a bit over scale. They were thinner rod trimmed with an etch saw and filed to thin-ness, since the pic was taken I have added a section of really thin rod to represent the handle that I think is on these things, at least on injection moulded ones!

The main crew seats were on raised platforms, so I have knocked those up from plastic card and square section rod. I had to widen the starboard one as the seat did not fit properly due to the box of instruments I had added to the fuselage side...

Finally I have tried to do something resembling instrument panels and control sticks. They came from plastic card and slices of rod, the round wheels were from thin tube that had its end rounded with an emery board, then sliced with the saw and sanded gingerly hoping not to take my fingertips off!

Don't forget all the 'detail' is to make the cockpit look busy, rather than for accuracy, but I have followed the drawings for inspiration. Hopefully it will not be long before I can start sticking this lot in, but I am doing a main deck floor too (possibly more internal detail which I will know is there but cannot see) and need to trim bulkheads accordingly.

Well that is it, so thanks for looking, and any advice is always welcome!

All the best, Ray

[stevehed]

Very nice, Ray. Fully agree with the representative innards.

Regards, Steve

[trickyrich]

a nice bit of scratch building in the cockpit, the way you have done the seats is very clever!