1/48 Lysander Mk II - 1960's Hawk version: End of year... end of build.... it's FINISHED !!!

[phildagreek]

excellent stuff.

[Fritag]

In other news... I wasn't happy with the performance I was getting from the old Mattel Vacuformer I bought so I took a page out of Mr. Fritag's book and went and bought one of these....

First trial showed that it had much better performance - actually quite aggressive.

I'm really quite frightened of mine

Like the idea with the aluminium tape on the cowling.

[Navy Bird]

I'm really quite frightened of mine

Like the idea with the aluminium tape on the cowling.

I like mine, but I've never had any other vac-u-former so I've nothing to compare to. I learned the hard way not to leave a styrene master in place while you're heating the plastic sheet right above it.

Cheers,

Bill

[hendie]

Well, I don't know what's going on with life these days but recently it seems I can hardly grab more than a few minutes at a time down in the basement. As a result, since I spend most of my available time down there staring at the rubble and general detritus wondering "what on earth am I supposed to be doing here?" (in more than one sense!) - I have achieved relatively little progress. Or more accurately, the little progress I have made has been extremely time consuming.

One thing I did achieve though was to re-position the errant u/c leg. It is now safely attached pointing in the right direction and the wheel arch covers have been reinstated - I also repaired my oh I didn't mean to do that! moment on the spat by adding a dollop of sprue soup following Ascoteer's recipe carefully. (Technically it's "runner soup" but who's checking!). Now waiting on the soup hardening up so I can reshape the forward end.

Next up in my meandering and somewhat skewed build schedule was to carefully remove some interior protrusions thereby successfully eliminating any possibility I have of now ever being able to position anything accurately within the fuselage as all reference points have now completely disappeared.

Stbd side dealt with and port side awaiting surgery calculated butchery....

Did I ever mention that I hate PE ? It should really be known as Beelzebub's bits of brass (or B³) for that is what it is. Oh yes! Only the Devil himself could have invented such a diabolical implement of Hades to inflict unspeakable torture on innocent modellers the world over. Did you know that each piece of PE you work with takes 10 minutes off your life ? It's true I tell you! And each piece you lose takes 20 minutes off your life 'cos that's how much time you spend searching for it.

Here we have the beginnings of a rudder pedal.... we do - honest - it's sitting on my fingertip.

Can't see it ? You and me both! Here it is shown with a bit more clarity. Now who in their right mind would contemplate trying to assemble a rudder pedal from these two bits of swarf ? (I have only ever met one person in the US who knows what swarf is!)

It's kind of interesting. I have two sets of B³ both by Eduard. One for the Italeri kit and one for the Gavia kit - so here I am trying to incorporate some of the bits into the Hawk kit (which Italeri re-released many years later). So I am looking at both sets, trying to pick the best parts from each... and sometimes ignoring both and scratching my own slice of Hell.

In this instance I ignored the supplied rudder bar and soldered the two pedals to a piece of brass rod. I then picked the best cross-member (dunno what else to call it) and then found that it didn't look right. A quick check in my reference photo's proved that the big rectangular sticky-outy-bit up front is fictional...

So I resorted to snapping the uprights off the base and soldering them back in a more realistic position, and filing off the excess, which now gives the pedals room to move. (after I had straightened out the mangled mess caused by my fingers like pigs mammaries)

They may actually still be a bit too close together (the pedals, not the.... oh never mind...), but I can live with this (the pedals!).

I also reshaped the seat back and attached the bum basket. Here's Mr. Driver helping out with the ergonomics of good cockpit design.

Then just for gits and shiggles I tried getting all the parts to sit in some loose kind of formation in the hope that it helps me try and figure out how on earth I am going to get this thing to work when it comes time to throw it all inside the fuselage. 'Cuz right at this moment in time, I have absolutely no idea! I'm just making this up as I go along.

I actually had a daft (dafter?) moment when making the seat as the 1:1 is designed around a tubular support frame.... I started bending wire to solder around the frame before I came to my senses - by the time I fit a padded seat back, no-one will be any the wiser.

Going back to B³, it's kind of peculiar that even though Eduard made both sets, the instrument panel on each has a different layout.- I'm assuming the Gavia version has a MkIII and the italeri has a MkII panel, though after hours of searching t'interweb, I could find no definitive reference on the MkII instrument panel.

MkIII on the left, and (I am assuming) MkII on the right. Where else can you have so much fun huh ?

As an aside, I think one of the gauges in the central panel is etched upside down. I don't know for sure, but I think it might be the whichway-upami gauge, which, if true, may be problematic for anyone daft enough to try and fly this thing when it's built.... it could be very interesting, particularly when trying to land!

Now, for the last portion of tonight's chronicle dear readers, I would like some input..... There is no control column in the kit (it would probably be horrendously over scale if there was) so I have to make one. I'm trying to gauge the size of the column and yoke by comparing it to the gauges on the instrument panel in photo's. Maybe not the best way but it's all I have.

I had two quick attempts this evening and I'm not sure.... I think the yoke on the one on the left may be too beefy, and the yoke on the right is too emaciated looking. I think the column thickness is about right (???)

Thoughts folks ? (comments about men in white jackets and jackets with straps will be ignored!)

*edited 'cos I couldn't tell my II's from my III's

Edited June 3, 2016 by hendie

[Martian]

Nice PE work Henie despite you hating the stuff. When I saw shameless hussy , mentioned in the title, I thought you were talking about me for a moment and wondered what on earth I had to do with what you have been doing!

I think the control column on the left looks about right actually but I agree that the one on the left is way too anaemic.

Martin

[Hamden]

Great work on the interior, looking forward to more of the same!

Roger

[perdu]

White coats?

Men?

Behind you?

No, don't look behind you after all they aren't coming

This week!

As you know I am a great fan of using etch

Not, but you are nailing this exactly

I think the left hand column is THE ONE

Especially if it is to get any of those useful little pushbuttons on it

[phildagreek]

[hendie]

White coats?

Men?

Behind you?

No, don't look behind you after all they aren't coming

This week!

As you know I am a great fan of using etch

Not, but you are nailing this exactly

I think the left hand column is THE ONE

Especially if it is to get any of those useful little pushbuttons on it

Left hand column it is then. Of course it will be getting those useful little push buttons, and even a brake lever fitted (it is a brake lever isn't it?)

[Fritag]

Great work hendie.

Cor. There's not much plastic in a hendie plastic model build is there?

[perdu]

Steve, he's doing this train thing

Plastic?

It's full on architectural steel he's using

Except for the phosphor bronze castings and cast iron

[Blogs On]

Lovely work Mr H.

I vote for the one on the left.

[hendie]

Lovely work Mr H.

I vote for the one on the left.

The one on the left it is. It's all soldered up now, complete with buttony thing (which I'm quite pleased with) and lever around the back of the yoke

Great work hendie.

Cor. There's not much plastic in a hendie plastic model build is there?

There's getting even lesser as I rampage through this thing (can you rampage at a snails pace ?)

[Max Headroom]

(can you rampage at a snails pace ?)

Apparently so......

http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/gardening/178410-slugs-and-snails-are-rampaging-through-my-bedding-plants

Is there no end to your talents Hendie? Your rampaging snail's pace puts my full throttle mojoless thrashings to shame.

Watching with interest (as always)

Trevor

[Pete in Lincs]

Better to rampage at a snails pace than to be a slug a bed*.

*(That's yer actual Shakespeare that is)

[hendie]

Pete, your additions to these threads never cease to amaze me. It seems there are many facets and layers to your depth of knowledge and level of skills. You remind me of a blooming onion*!

* as dear old Kenny was wont to say - in the nicest possible way of course

Edited June 4, 2016 by hendie

[Pete in Lincs]

Sorry, I'm just addicted to this website.

I must ask my therapist what that means.

Kenny Everett was a genius. Much missed.

[hendie]

okey dokey.... grass cut, storm a comin' ... time to head indoors.

Continuing with the brass theme that seems to have taken on a mind of it's own, I got the control column soldered up, and even managed to get the small button part soldered on their as well. I chickened out trying to solder the brake lever (not shown in this photo) and just ca'd that in place on the reverse side. With only the instrument panel to use as a reference for dimensions, I think it turned out not too bad.

Frequent and mucho repetitive dry fitting is essential when scratch building this much of the kit. Since I have removed all interior reference points, I have nothing to go by other than a few photo's. The interior framework was bugging me - I knew I had followed the etch pretty closely for a pattern - but you know how these things often turn out. So, I added a crossbar under where the seat will be located, using the control column base fitting as a reference. Just one cross bar was needed - that was strong enough to hold it together, and weak enough to tweak it if I needed to.

Looks okay so far....

Then with the fuselage closed up, it all seemed to fit and things were pretty close to where they needed to be. Happy that the spacing was correct, I leveled the rudder pedals and soldered them in place too.

Going back to the B³ sheets, I found the central support structure that holds the wings 'n' stuff together. That was easily folded up... but looks a bit flat doesn't it ? Now, carefully following my current plan of having no plan whatsoever, I decided that since I had made all that other stuff out of brass rod, then I might as well make this out of brass rod as well... it can't be that difficult can it ???

So, out came the brass rod again and back to my patented pattern solderererer with lots of tape (and hope!)

A little while later I had this. The two legs on the right hand side are deliberately inset form the edge so the legs on the sides don't interfere with them when folded upright. I used tube slid over the rod for the horizontal supports as you can see in photo's that these are much larger than the surrounding supports.

However, after messing about with it for a while, I deiced to that I didn't like the flat etch at all and peeled it off. Then I had to figure out a way to hold it in position while soldering and ended up with this....

Again, another dry fit to see how it all goes together.

That central framework is going to take a good bit of clean up, however, once it's all painted and I start hanging cables and wotnot from it, I'm hoping it won't look too bad.

Oh crap.... Looking at that photo above, I just realized that I may have part of the bracing back to front I must go and check my references.... Oh well, it should be easy enough to rejig :pray:

Look ! I even got it level too !

So, while go and do that (after I've gone and got brake pads for the car ) I'll leave you with another couple of the dry-fit photo's.

The seat in place - sitting on a big blob of blue-tac

... and almost a drivers view with the instrument panel in it's general location. With all my messing about with this kit, I now need to figure out how to mount the seat and the instrument panel though I'm sure I'll think of something fairly easily.

[perdu]

I hope you don't get a brownout Hendie mate

All this soldering must be hammering your local grid.

But oh. Man ain't it just worth it

Looks great

[RMCS]

Superb modelling

[hendie]

(the hend executes a quick recovery and hopes no-one noticed the previous oopsey!)

Well, this time around I think I have things pointing in the right general directions. Rather than take the ends off and swap them around, I found it easier to cut out the diagonal and refit those pointing in the correct directions this time. I must have checked the alignments at least a dozen times, and still did it wrong 'doh! Oh well. Fixed now.

The cage thingy is certainly not as neat as I'd like, but with some careful clean up I think it will be passable once the paint is on. (I'm not doing it again!)

The etch sets come with a few bits and bobs to fit on the internal framing, including a couple of instrument clusters, brackets etc. This entire assembly is a bit fragile, and one mis-directed sneeze could destroy the entire affair. I think I have done as much soldering as I can to this lot apart from perhaps a couple of cross braces later. As I am a cyano hater, mainly 'cuz it never works for me, I thought I would try something different this time around. I am using liquid nails to attach the miscellaneous panels and bracketry. Now, I have no idea if this will work, but it can't be worse than superglue.

I had to create a little stand-off so that I can maintain the gaping hole in this panel

Now fitted in place along with what I think is supposed to be a map holder and another boxy thing.

It's going to be fun and games painting this mess, that's for sure, but I need to get everything fitted onto this framework before painting as I'd just muck it up if I painted the frame alone then tried to add anything later.

I'm starting to think that maybe I've gone too far and should just have gone for OOTB.

With my little adjustments so far, I know I am going to have to find a different attachment method for the wings - which is why I left the extra length on the brass rod in the cage. That also means I am going to have to vac-form a canopy, which is fine as the kit part has a couple of flow lines across the side panels.

I wonder just how much of this will be seen when it's all put together ?

[perdu]

(the hend executes a quick recovery and hopes no-one noticed the previous oopsey!)

Well, this time around I think I have things pointing in the right general directions. Rather than take the ends off and swap them around, I found it easier to cut out the diagonal and refit those pointing in the correct directions this time. I must have checked the alignments at least a dozen times, and still did it wrong 'doh! Oh well. Fixed now.

The cage thingy is certainly not as neat as I'd like, but with some careful clean up I think it will be passable once the paint is on. (I'm not doing it again!)

The etch sets come with a few bits and bobs to fit on the internal framing, including a couple of instrument clusters, brackets etc. This entire assembly is a bit fragile, and one mis-directed sneeze could destroy the entire affair. I think I have done as much soldering as I can to this lot apart from perhaps a couple of cross braces later. As I am a cyano hater, mainly 'cuz it never works for me, I thought I would try something different this time around. I am using liquid nails to attach the miscellaneous panels and bracketry. Now, I have no idea if this will work, but it can't be worse than superglue.

I had to create a little stand-off so that I can maintain the gaping hole in this panel

Now fitted in place along with what I think is supposed to be a map holder and another boxy thing.

It's going to be fun and games painting this mess, that's for sure, but I need to get everything fitted onto this framework before painting as I'd just muck it up if I painted the frame alone then tried to add anything later.

I'm starting to think that maybe I've gone too far and should just have gone for OOTB.

With my little adjustments so far, I know I am going to have to find a different attachment method for the wings - which is why I left the extra length on the brass rod in the cage. That also means I am going to have to vac-form a canopy, which is fine as the kit part has a couple of flow lines across the side panels.

I wonder just how much of this will be seen when it's all put together ?

I wonder just how much of this will be seen when it's all put together ?

I expect you realise I have exactly the same dilemma with the Auster too Hendie

Including the attachment saga that looms

I put the four holes in my own moulded canopy at the point that the real wings bolt on in the upper frame and then I intend using Canopy glue which is nicely tenacious when dry to pop the pins through the holes and then set the wing dihedrals in a legoalike box jig

Then cut new struts from Johnaero's marvellous airfoil extrusions and attach whilst it's all a-jig

fingies crossed XXXX

I love all those little etchy wonders you are popping in...

None of this for an Airfix Auster sadly

(or not because me and etch is poor bedmates)

Looking exceedingly Kipling as I ofttimes say

[Pete in Lincs]

Impressive stuff and always a pleasure to read.

It may not be visible later but we'll know it's there

and that is what counts.

Of course if you screw up the canopy or the paint

then it will all have been for nothing but that isn't

going to happen. Is it?

Regards

Pete

[Tomoshenko]

Good heavens with all that intricate brasswork it's looking like something befitting Jules Verne!

[woody37]

Just caught up with this Hendie, love the treatment youre goving to that interior