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ZE419, a Sea King HAS5 that (temporarily) forgot how to fly


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1 hour ago, 71chally said:

I don't want to derail the thread too much, what were you doing at Saints Keith?

 

Flew Bulldogs with UWAS for the three years I was in Uni. No cliche, they were definitely the best three years of my life!

 

Keith

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On ‎19‎/‎07‎/‎2017 at 00:08, AlexN said:

 

But he didn't mention paint :wicked:

Or copious quantities of badly assembled MDF!

 

Handy Martian

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7 hours ago, perdu said:

Is that supposed to read Tentacular Martian?

 

Damned autocollect.

Fair point!

 

As he is a nautical cove, I thought we might give him a nice surprise with a quick makeover for his bedroom.

Image result for spongebob room design

 

 

Tentacular Martian

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Not away?

 

Dammit to hail!

 

We thought the bright lights and the obvious delights of Pret would have kept you away in the Big Smokey for a short time

 

Oh well....     😡

 

I do hope your trip to the cesspits has been worthwhile,, we do worry you know

 

 

By the way

 

 

The lamp

 

The one Martian found for you

 

I might be able to get you one

 

Only a bit over trade, know wot I means mate?

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6 minutes ago, perdu said:

We thought the bright lights and the obvious delights of Pret would have kept you away in the Big Smokey for a short time

 

I'm sat in a Pret in Leeds with a flat white and catching up on my favourite threads.......

 

1 hour ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

Oi!  I'm not away; get back to your own Squarepants

 

Guess there'll be an update coming then......:whistle: (that's not hypocritical is it?)

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1 hour ago, perdu said:

The lamp

 

The one Martian found for you

 

I might be able to get you one

 

Only a bit over trade, know wot I means mate?

He's likely to cover it with rivets. To match the decor:

https://www.phillipjeffries.com/collections.php?id=CARD-AG-RIVET2

55 minutes ago, Fritag said:

I'm sat in a Pret in Leeds with a flat white and catching up on my favourite threads.......

I must be developing some kind of visual dyslexia from scanning posts too quickly Steve as I first read 'flat white' as 'white flag' and thought that you were behaving in an alarmingly casual fashion during some kind of siege situation.

 

 

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Back home now, and even managed a little time at the bench today (unlikely to be much tomorrow).  The Skunkworks flight deck tractor(s) have arrived, so I started on building one:

36091571345_1b97ee8c32_c.jpg

36091570675_2a9c4af3c5_c.jpg

36091569965_bb358bd099_c.jpg

 

OOB, apart from removing the firefighting tank from the left hand front wheel arch - hence the piece of white styrene sheet to fill the gap (the underside of the tank was moulded in place in the kit, with the upper side a separate part - though I still had to sand off the locating lugs that would hold it in place).

 

A comparison shot with the resin one that I didn't want to hack about shows that this is a nice little kit - pretty pleased with it.

35252141754_a9dccc11f4_c.jpg

 

More during the week

 

Crisp

 

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They both look like fun to do

 

That'll keep you off the streets for an evening or two

 

Do you know how your interviews went Skipper?

 

We're all getting finger-crossication here

 

 

Hope you did well

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On 21/07/2017 at 02:20, Martian Hale said:

Or copious quantities of badly assembled MDF!

 

I loathe MDF. Nasty, horrible mould-magnet. Not just mould - nasty, toxic, carcinogenic Aspergillus flavus mould. Dreadful stuff. It's probably OK completely sealed in vinyl or polyurethanes (there's another fun set of toxic compounds). Bah humbug, where's my axe?

 

Nice, er, crisp tractors there Crisp (sorry, couldn't resist that one). Should paint up a treat :).

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On the job front, Bill, I don't want to count any chickens, but it does seem as though things may finally be looking up - I'll know for sure in the next day or two.

 

I can exclusively reveal that neither the tractor nor any part of my Sea King is made of MDF.

 

Tractor now primed; more soon.

 

C

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How do you think I feel...?

 

More progress with my dinky wee flight deck tractor.  As you would expect, these beasties work really hard on yer average carrier deck, so the paintwork gets pretty rough.  On the other hand, since they mostly live in the open air / salt spray etc, they are maintained carefully.  It wouldn't, therefore, be realistic to weather them to trashed AFV levels - but it certainly ain't going to be pristine either.  An added factor with mine is that it is depicted only a few months after the tractors (and other FD equipment) changed from the yellow colour that had been standard ever since the war, to a much duller dark green.  

 

This photo, which I have posted before, was taken during our deployment to the Far East & Oz in 1988 - the deployment during which I took ZE419 for her swim. 

35598339220_6d4db3d558_b.jpg

You can see that already the yellow is starting to show through, and that the are battered workhorses.

 

So... time for some hairspray technique (though I won't be raiding Mrs WAFU's stocks: I'll be using AK Worn Effects fluid, which achieves the same thing).

 

I primed the tractor and wheels yesterday, but didn't take any pictures.  Take it from me; it still looked grey - just a little more uniform than when bare plastic.  Next step was to airbrush a layer of Vallejo Metal Color 77.712 Steel - I really like these water-based metallics of Vallejo's; I discovered them late last year and have had really good results.

 

It has to be said, however, that shiny steel wheels (insert Stones joke here) look a bit odd...

35296733964_6b1cf941e2_c.jpg

 

...though not as odd as a shiny steel tractor!

35296732904_5c5750ccc6_c.jpg

 

Once all that is firmly cured, next up will be a layer of the AK fluid.  Then a yellow coat, which will be weathered.  Then another AK layer.  Then green, also to be weathered.  The end result should be a green tractor which has areas where both yellow and bare metal are showing through.  But you'll have to wait for that.

 

More soon

 

Crisp

 

 

 

 

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Sounds interesting.  I can feel one of these kits making it's way to Martian Towers in the very near future!

 

Martian

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At under £15 for two tractors, two towbars & four Chockheads, I'd say they're a pretty decent bargain.

 

While tractor dries, we build towbar.  OK, possibly not the most complicated construction project of my career, but they all count.

 

36138246825_205490f6b4_c.jpg

 

Yes, it's upside-down.  And the apparent asymmetry of the legs is an iPhone 7 lens illusion.

 

C

 

Edit: ...and primed, wiv wheels...

36004141251_0e74750538_c.jpg

Edited by Ex-FAAWAFU
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I would've thought 15 quid for 4 chockheads was a little excessive meself! (duck and cover)

 Tractor's looking good though!

 

Ian

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Eminently satisfying work on the tractor stuff.

 

These smaller utility vehicles you see in the vicinity of aircraft always seem so characterful compared with your average vehicle.

5d6aa41675f12fb2a9549bd59c6531b8.jpg

That one looks like it would run on Cadbury's Smash...

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11 minutes ago, TheBaron said:

Eminently satisfying work on the tractor stuff.

 

These smaller utility vehicles you see in the vicinity of aircraft always seem so characterful compared with your average vehicle.

5d6aa41675f12fb2a9549bd59c6531b8.jpg

That one looks like it would run on Cadbury's Smash...

 

I wish I'd seen that photo when I was building my Vixen.  FAW1, right squadron, right ship, in the right era (yellow centre line)... even down to the yellow Firestreak.  Pretty battered, too, which makes me feel that if anything I didn't weather mine enough... 

 

But WTF has happened with that port wing tank?  

 

I have a resin tractor of that vintage, too - probably destined to tow my Dynavector Scimitar

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3 minutes ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

But WTF has happened with that port wing tank?  

That's a bit of a scuff alright. Is that an anti-rust coating showing through? I can't believe it would have flown with a rusted  fuel tank?

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3 minutes ago, TheBaron said:

That's a bit of a scuff alright. Is that an anti-rust coating showing through? I can't believe it would have flown with a rusted  fuel tank?

 

I'm on thin ice here (& I emptied my brain of most of the Vixen trivia when I moved to Sea Kings), but I don't think the tanks were metal.  In fact looking at that pic more closely, at a guess I reckon it has a metal nose cap (makes sense, to protect the pointy bit at c.600 kts) and the rest is GRP / plastic.  There was a long and learned (hem hem) discussion a few months ago about the colour inside a Buccaneer S1 intakes, and I think it's the same stuff.

 

[Cue someone know knows what they're talking about...?]

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Great modellers photo - I love the way these great photos turn up on BritModeller - was the red colour at the wingfold break common on the Sea Vixen, I have not seen one with this colour before?

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