Sea Devon

[825]

Can I join in with this? Even if it is going to be in RN colours, probably a 771 Squadron bird, based at Culdrose in the early 1980's,

It's an absolute challenge for me. Everything I would rather avoid: resin, vac formed transparencies, limited run (and boy oh boy does it look limited run), the need to use cyanoacrylate (lots of glued fingers but parts falling off) and masking windows and the cheat line. Apart from that a straightforward build.

[Darby]

It was still there in '88 along with a Heron.

[825]

I actually made a start last weekend but was too busy to get photos done and posted. It's a fair old chunk of resin and fairly well fitting once cleaned up, which did take a bit of time. The fuselage needs some tidying up round the windows but otherwise the moulding stubs were sawn off and the flash tidied up. The tail planes have been left for the moments as they are handed and the port/starboard is on the stub.

The white metal is a nightmare and will need a lot of wet and dry along with some elbow grease. The props are particularly awful and the aileron balances almost unrecognisable.

The transparencies are good but the canopy is thin and the side windows a really hard clear plastic. I'm not. A great vac form canopy fan and so have a degree of trepidation. Not only that my chosen version is one with a clear DF loop cover, and boy oh boy, that frightens me. At least there's two of everything.

The resin also needs a bit of work. The fuselage halves have a bit of a bend in them

And the wing tips are not quite straight

Any advice would be appreciated. Usually hot water is advised but how hot, and what are the dangers?

[The 3rd Placer]

I have found that heating a cup of water 3 minutes in the microwave is just about right.

Pour the water over your wing and let it soak for few seconds, then using a spatula fish it out of the scalding water.

The hot wing can now be bent to shape. (This part hurts a little but you need to bend it while it's hot.)

Good luck and be careful.

Ryan

[Romeo Alpha Yankee]

Plenty of clean up to keep you busy there.

For straightening warped resin bits I do the following:

I just boil the kettle, pour some hot water from the kettle over the part and reshape. Then I dip the part in cold water to set the part again.

In this case you could pour the water over it, lay it on a flat surface (if you don't want to touch the tip) then either let it cool by itself or pour cold water over it to set it.

[Silver Fox]

Good luck, I feel your pain. I built one of these as an RNZAF machine, I say built, arm wrestled it into submission more like.

Just take your time and expect to have to work on every piece and you'll be fine..

[CliffB]

Good luck with straightening the resin 825.

I have to admit that I sometimes struggle to get enough heat into the core of large resin pieces just by using a hot water soak (although others obviously manage OK!).

For large components like wings, I now put them in the oven on a baking tray with the stat set at 90-100oC. Mine's an electric oven - I'm not sure if the products of combustion in a gas oven would cause any issues.....

Either way it's probably best to try out with some moulding stubs first! It sounds scarey using the oven, but actually it works really well.

Cliff

[825]

Ryan, Ray, Fox and Cliff,

Thanks for all the tips, though I'm not so sure about the oven. I'll do some testing with hot water first but these Magna mouldings are fairly industrial. I might have some resin offcuts to play about with, so might try them in the oven. Probably when the domestic authorities are out.

[825]

Now is this a big difference?

Amazing what a few hours with some sandpaper, a Stanley knife and a scalpel can do. Though this white metal is pretty strong and needs a fair amount of elbow grease.

Mind you I think these airelon balances are probably irretrievable. It took 20 minutes to get one almost presentable, and it was the one with least flash, and there is still work to do.

I think a bit of wire bent up and some white glue will do the trick in a fraction of the time.

[Romeo Alpha Yankee]

Those metal parts have scrubbed up nicely.

[825]

I took a deep breath and decided to straighten things up. I boiled the kettle and started with the wings as they were only a little bent. I held them flat on a board at the sink and poured boiling water over them. They went a little soft so I pushed them flat, checked them, tweaked a little and plunged them into cold water. They now look straight.

Now for the fuselage. Same basic process. Poured boiling or just boiled water over them and forced them down against the board for 10/20 seconds then plunged them into cold water. Needed repeating a few times and neede to tidy up the front of one side which ended up with a depression in the thin resin of the cockpit wall. Looks like it did the trick. I can work with these. Thanks for the advice guys.

All cleaned up and ready to go. Will attack with some paint today hopefully.

Edited August 4, 2016 by 825

[The 3rd Placer]

Glad you had success!

Ryan

[825]

A first coat of paint for some parts

Glad you had success!

Ryan

Thanks Ryan. I did baulk at popping the resin into a hot oven but pouring boiling water over seemed to work. And managed not to burn my fingers.

[kev67]

I made the mistake of buying the Argosy, never again would I buy another Magna kit, you would be better of finding the delightful Rareplanes vacform kit which is a 100 times better

[Romeo Alpha Yankee]

Nice! Glad the heating and bending worked out.

Kev, I have the Mach2 Argosy, not sure how I will go with that!

[CliffB]

You are doing a great job with this 825. The transformation is impressive!

I'm not a great fan of resin kits (although I seem to end up making loads), but the one thing that I dislike even more is white metal! Unfortunately the Harrier that I'm building at the moment has both too .

For the record, when using an oven to soften resin parts you put them into a cold oven and then warm them up. Putting them straight into a hot oven would just be silly!

Cheers

Cliff

[825]

I made the mistake of buying the Argosy, never again would I buy another Magna kit, you would be better of finding the delightful Rareplanes vacform kit which is a 100 times better

Kev, so far this has not been too bad and apart from the fact it's resin mainly, the bends that I have now dealt with and he horrible flash on the white metal it's not been such a drag. It also looks the part. I've a few Magna kits in the stash, as for many aircraft there the only game in town, but this is the first I've tackled. I've only done three resin kits before, both from CMK and they were a different kettle of fish with very neat casting. So this is a bit of a learning curve for me, but so far it's going OK. I think it's the only way to get a Sea Devon so I'll keep on going.

I've glued on the engines and the fit was pretty good and the interior is painted, just needing a touch up, and it doesn't look at all bad. Photos tomorrow.

[kev67]

Amodel are releasing the DH Devon/Dove in 1/72

[825]

Amodel are releasing the DH Devon/Dove in 1/72

No doubt just in time for me to finish

[825]

Here are the wings and nacelles. One good joint and one not so good, but easily filled.

And the interior

[NealParkes]

Some nice skills there, I don't think that I would manage it, so kudos to you. Looking forwards to seeing it come together.

[825]

Some nice skills there, I don't think that I would manage it, so kudos to you. Looking forwards to seeing it come together.

Thanks Neal. The things I am most worried about are getting a nice white upper fuselage (I think Halfords Appliance. white spray can might do the trick) and masking. Both the glazing for spraying primer and the white, as well as the blue cheat line. Resin is not too bad as long as you're happy to cut and sand away, and are prepared to find your fingers stuck together with Superglue but the two parts you were trying to get stuck together resolutely remain unglued.

There will be a short intermission while we go off on holiday, but in the immortal words of General MacArthur, or was it Arnie; 'I'll be back'.

[825]

Stuck some Milliput into the gaps, went on holiday and sanded and polished when I got back.

Look not too bad and feel much smoother than these magnified photos suggest. I will be using Tamiya Fine Surface primer down the line so that should help. I've also polished the wing surfaces somewhat to remove the 'pebbledash' effect on them.

The next big task is the cabin glazing and to be honest I'm not particularly looking forward to it. Any hints or tips would be greatly appreciated.

[825]

I have decided the best way to tackle the main cabin glazing is not to cut out eight individual windows and glue them in. I've trimmed out the divers between the windows and will put in a single continuous piece of clear plastic card. I've got some 40 thou which will be both rigid enough and can be sanded and polished. I'll replace the dividers with judicious masking.

Here we are step 1

And one side with a strip of glazing in, fixed with canopy glue. Sorry the photograph is not great. And it's not easy seeing clear plastic card but it is in there. Honest.

[Romeo Alpha Yankee]

Good idea, always easier to mask similarly shaped windows then try and file and sand multiples of the same thing.