AdrianMF Posted August 6, 2015 Share Posted August 6, 2015 (edited) Hello All,I am in with an OOB build for the RAF Training School boxing of the new 1/72 Airfix Tiger Moth. Departures from OOB will consist of rigging, new pitot tube and a couple of tubes around the petrol tank. I might also add a pilot or two.The kit arrived today, courtesy of Ebay, and I haven't taken any pictures yet. Because of the nature of my available time, I plan to do this as a blitzbuild on Saturday or Sunday. This will be my third. My previous record (unrigged) is 12 hours!Regards,Adrian Edited August 10, 2015 by AdrianMF 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
galgos Posted August 6, 2015 Share Posted August 6, 2015 Welcome Adrian.....I like the idea of a Blitzbuild! I guess you'll be first in the gallery then, I'm looking forward to seeing the progress and result! Max Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdrianMF Posted August 10, 2015 Author Share Posted August 10, 2015 Hello All, Well, I got my blitzbuild! Started at 10:20 on Saturday morning: First up, assemble and paint the cockpit, followed by the dark bits of the cowling: Some seat belts made out of wine bottle foil. The green card square is a bulkhead for the front fuselage to stop you seeing daylight from the cockpit through to the exhaust opening. Note also the paint-as-you-go of the first of many yellow coats on the lower surface of the top wing. All paint is brushed Humbrol acrylic. Seat belts and bulkhead in. Close it up. Hollow out the ludicrously small vent before sticking it on. I ran some liquid poly cement round it with a brush to glue it. Tailplane on. The control horns are a bit miserable and will have to hold the control lines, so they are made from a flattened brass pin filed to shape. All horns fitted. Note I have painted the cabane struts before fitting. More on these bas beauties later. Lower wing painted with LE/LG, made from Hu29 with some Hu237 and Hu116 with some Hu78, which didn't come out as light as I wanted, although it looked a lot lighter than straight Hu116 when I mixed it. Note also that the cowling has been dropped a little bit to avoid the step in the upper profile.I just trimmed a little off the shoulders that hold the cowling up and it fitted pretty well. After the front starboard cabane strut broke for the third or fourth time I admitted defeat and replaced it with wood. Note also the fuel line added to the port strut. And the upside-down watch... I drilled a bunch of 0.2mm holes through the upper wing and glued in my rigging. This is invisible thread run over a silver permanent marker. I have bought a set of 10x 0.2mm drills for about £2 on Ebay. They are very fragile - I broke 4 on this plane (one by snapping it off after it stuck under my fingernail!) but at that price I guess it's a reasonable attrition rate. The holes are really hard to see, in contrast to the 0.5mm holes I used to make. They are especially hard to see whilst you are trying to thread the cabane bracing through the top of the fuselage too! I needed to paint the upper fuselage before attaching things. Had to break to cook dinner and socialise with the family, then back to add that top wing. Note that the cabane rigging goes into the top of the fuselage and it can be pulled tight and glued through the front fuselage before fitting the cowling. I had a lot of trouble with my rather old superglue and getting the rigging to stay taut. Plus a glass of two of wine with dinner probably didn't help much! Day two. Did my chores, stopped off at B&Q, bought some new superglue and threw away my existing bottles, including the one where the glue level didn't move even when you tipped it sideways... Throughout the second day, I spent a lot of time re-threading and re-gluing rigging. Over half of it either came undone or loosened. Time for new superglue indeed! This is the only filler I used in the entire build.I think there is more detail that could be added under here but I have time pressures, right? I also cut off the simplified aileron control mechanism. I applied all the decals except the walkways, which I painted. Since discovering new Humbrol Decalfix (smells of ammonia), I've given up futuring before applying decals. I just brush on some Decalfix before applying the decal directly to the matt paint. I have not had a trace of silvering. I decided to give the wheels some plain hubs. I drilled through the axle socket to get a nicely centred pilot hole, then drilled from the front with a much larger bit go get a conical depression where the old hub was. By chance, the ejector pin towers are the right diameter for hubs, so I cut off two thin slices, sanded them down and used them as hubs. The windscreens are great. Small, clear, delicate, perfectly formed. They are also impossible to find when they catapult off your work surface into a woven hessian carpet. Here's a kit one on the left and one made out of bent up shirt packing material on the right. When the decals were dry I cleaned off the excess decal solution, gave it a dark grey wash and a coat of Liquitex acrylic matt varnish. I added the tail control wires using EZLine - I left it black because I'm not sure that it would stand being painted silver. I was looking at the left over parts and felt a bit sad for the back seat pilot without his feet. I lined him up against the cockpit to see how it would look and realised that if I moved his arm he could look like he was climbing in or out. So I cut his left arm off, repositioned the hand and built up his leg and sleeve with some putty. I am calling this done. Here are a couple more shots. I will take some better ones for the gallery. That now completes my trio of Airfix Tiger Moths. Thanks for giving me an excuse to build another Tiger. I am now officially "mothballed" until Airfix release another scheme! Regards, Adrian 17 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
galgos Posted August 10, 2015 Share Posted August 10, 2015 That's a seriously impressive piece of blitz building Adrian with a very good result indeed. Thank you also for taking the time to describe in detail your trials, tribulations and successes as the build progressed, I'm sure many will find this useful. I'll look forward to pictures in the Gallery....well done!!! Max 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ptmvarsityfan Posted August 10, 2015 Share Posted August 10, 2015 Thanks for this entertaining build! Also very informative and resulted in a fine model. Cheers, Paul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigbadbadge Posted August 10, 2015 Share Posted August 10, 2015 Wow that was quick, fantastic work Adrian. They look wonderful models. All the bestChris 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdrianMF Posted August 10, 2015 Author Share Posted August 10, 2015 Thanks for the comments! As a relief from writing a rather difficult paper at work, I thought I would summarise the things I did beyond the instructions. They may be obvious, you may disagree or you may think I'm crazy, but here's the list: Trim the instrument panel decal to the very edge of the colour before you soak it. It will then settle precisely onto the panel without the extra film getting in the way Seat belts are a highly visible extra if you haven't got a crew, but foot pedals are not a lower half bulkhead at the front of the fuselage stops you seeing through to the exhaust opening. If you are rigging you may want to be able to reach into the top half later so don't do a full bulkhead I got a better joint on my halves by removing some flash around the locating holes Thinning the rear of the lower wing joining surfaces brings the rear edge of the fuselage plate more into line with the lower fuselage surface and helps the aileron link on the top of the wing join up with the bit on the fuselage side Giving the lower wing a gentle bend upwards helps with strut alignment later on Hollow out the tiny cowl scoop before fitting Hollow out the exhaust end Replace the control horns on rudder and elevator if you are going to rig control lines Trim the fuselage shoulders where the cowling fits to get rid of the step Paint the lower wing and do the walkways before adding the lower wing to the fuselage Replace the "ramps" under the lower wing with a control horn and a piece of stretched sprue The cabane struts will break at some point, about half way down the singleton front strut There is a really prominent fuel pipe from the bottom of the tank down the front port cabane strut If you are rigging with thread, keep the cowling off so that you can collect and glue the cabane rigging through the hole you left above the front bulkhead Assemble the upper wing using just the cabane struts. It is easy to align as the struts "snap in" to the depressions in the fuselage, and then it is pretty rigid because of the triangular bracing. Cut off the strut alignment jigs before attaching the struts to the wings - if you bent the lower wing up enough they should snap in nicely Replace the pitot tube with wire The windscreens fly easily and are hard to find. They can also stick to your forearm unaided for at least ten minutes (ask me how I know) There! Now you don't have to read through my build. Back to my paper... Regards, Adrian 10 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
galgos Posted August 10, 2015 Share Posted August 10, 2015 OK Ced, there you are, chapter and verse.....no excuses now!! Thanks again Adrian, much more profitable than dull paper writing! Max 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sgt.Squarehead Posted August 10, 2015 Share Posted August 10, 2015 Great build, especially in such a short timespan.....The pilot figure is a really nice touch and instantly gives this model more character than its (equally nicely built and painted) companions IMHO. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob G Posted August 10, 2015 Share Posted August 10, 2015 Lovely work, and so quick as well. It takes me a weekend to open the box and work out how it'll all go together... 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdrianMF Posted August 11, 2015 Author Share Posted August 11, 2015 Great build, especially in such a short timespan.....The pilot figure is a really nice touch and instantly gives this model more character than its (equally nicely built and painted) companions IMHO. Thanks Sarge! He is now glued in with canopy adhesive, so he's a fixture. Lovely work, and so quick as well. It takes me a weekend to open the box and work out how it'll all go together... Rob, you haven't seen my shelf of doom... It all averages out! Thanks, Adrian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob G Posted August 11, 2015 Share Posted August 11, 2015 You want to talk about shelves of doom? I have builds going back to the early 80s on mine... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stew Dapple Posted August 11, 2015 Share Posted August 11, 2015 Beautiful job Adrian, and a most useful and informative thread, thanks very much Cheers, Stew 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
06/24 Posted August 11, 2015 Share Posted August 11, 2015 Truly splendid, and with such speed and economy of work, even adding all that detail. Chapeau! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrlx Posted August 13, 2015 Share Posted August 13, 2015 Hi Adrian, Excellent work! Impressively fast build but not compromising on quality. Congrats Thanks for the tip as well! Very useful for my planned build of this same kit. Cheers Jaime 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobster Posted August 14, 2015 Share Posted August 14, 2015 Superb Adrian! Brilliant blitz build and thanks for the build tips, you look like you have everything covered! Really enjoyed the thread. Cheers Rob. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimHead23 Posted August 14, 2015 Share Posted August 14, 2015 Looks fantastic and the instructions you have given will be really useful when I tackle mine. Thanks very much! Regards Jim 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CedB Posted August 15, 2015 Share Posted August 15, 2015 Great build Adrian and some great tips - just what I need!! I shall try to get as close to your excellent model as my mediocre skills allow... good job! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mitch K Posted August 15, 2015 Share Posted August 15, 2015 You do not hang about, do you? Lovely Tiger. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdrianMF Posted August 15, 2015 Author Share Posted August 15, 2015 Hello All, Well, during the week I decided that even if black EZLine was easy to do for the control lines, I didn't want it. I wanted silver! So off the control lines came on on went the silver invisible thread. It's a bit nerve-racking doing this to a finished model, but I think it was worth it: I have to admit there was a certain amount of frenzied retouching of paint and decals.... Now I'm ready for the gallery! Thanks for looking, Adrian 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdrianMF Posted August 15, 2015 Author Share Posted August 15, 2015 Thanks chaps! Great build Adrian and some great tips - just what I need!! I shall try to get as close to your excellent model as my mediocre skills allow... good job! Go on Ced! You know you want to... PS EZLine (and new superglue) is your friend. You do not hang about, do you? Lovely Tiger. Recently, if I see a modelling opportunity opening, I have to grab it with both hands and get it done! Regards, Adrian 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrlx Posted August 15, 2015 Share Posted August 15, 2015 Adrian, I think your option for silver control lines looks great! The model is superb! Congrats! Cheers Jaime 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
06/24 Posted August 16, 2015 Share Posted August 16, 2015 The silver lines make a difference IMHO. I wonder if it would be possible to colour the ez-line before fitting, perhaps using something like the old Tamiya paint markers. I shall have to experiment. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CedB Posted August 16, 2015 Share Posted August 16, 2015 Nice mod Adrian, a lovely result So you've now replaced EZ line with invisible thread just for the control lines - is that right? I have some of this stuff and find that it's, er, invisible and (for my old eyes) hard to see so Jon if your experiments work please let me know! I'll watch out in your thread. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdrianMF Posted August 16, 2015 Author Share Posted August 16, 2015 Ced, All the rigging is now invisible thread dragged across a silver "uni paint marker". I did try dragging the EZLine across it too, but it curled up rather worryingly. It might have been OK but I'm comfortable with the thread approach so off I went. I've used stretched sprue a couple of times and I can recommend that with PVA glue as an easy starting point, especially if you ignore the hardly-visible cabane rigging. Regards, Adrian PS my autocorrect turns Ced into "cad" so I had better apologise in advance! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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