Jump to content

The EDSG Files # 2: Fairey Barracuda 1/72


Recommended Posts

1 hour ago, CedB said:

 

 

PC that map's scary. Was the 'lost' land originally reclaimed do you know? I've been to Louisiana, OK just New Orleans, and it was a bit, er, run down except the tourist areas. We had a speech from the mayor about the floods etc - what a guy. i guess relying on the levies without maintenance was, in hindsight, a bit of a mistake but I hope the insurance company's lawyers have finally found someone to blame so that some people (who could afford insurance) can get their homes back. Or afford to move. He certainly had some strong words about the 'United' States and how much can be achieved when you stop waiting for help from elsewhere and start helping each other. Inspirational.

 

 

I wouldn't buy too much of the mayor's nonsense.  I worked both sides of that disaster. That was a perfect combination of stupidity, incompetence and spin doctoring. Without getting too political,  it's real easy to pass the blame when you mess up. Especially when you get the press behind you. The fact that guys not in a cell is a another in a long line of unfunny cosmic jokes. 

 

It only took me one time to figure out Louisiana women weren't for me. They are a special type of, let's be PC and say hand full. The second ones on you.:D

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, Thud4444 said:

It only took me one time to figure out Louisiana women weren't for me. They are a special type of, let's be PC and say hand full. 

I hear the sounds of shotguns being loaded and banjos being loudly tuned, drifting over from the Louisianmodeller forum at that Thud....

 

You mean to tell me they're not all haughty goddesses called Blanche, and spend their days on the porch in crinolines, having temperature dreams and sipping mint juleps? Another myth busted.

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, TheBaron said:

You mean to tell me they're not all haughty goddesses called Blanche, and spend their days on the porch in crinolines, having temperature dreams and sipping mint juleps? Another myth busted.

 

I think that's ladies from a bit further North (YMMV). Like Georgia and Carolina. I worked with some ladies from there some years ago. They have that sort of accent that... sort of... sorry, drifted off for a bit there. Suffice it to say that "Hi Ced, how are you?" rarely really meant that, in my head anyway...

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, CedB said:

I worked with some ladies from there some years ago.

giphy.gif

 

I'm rather enjoying bobbing along on this section of the aeroplane at the moment TBH; lots of little problems that could of course turn into larger ones, but nothing repetitive and tedious so you come away from doing each little bit feeling that it has added to progress.

 

Last night's Toblerone bar is fully boxed-in now:

31309015960_b80b927c34_c.jpg

An obvious point, but I initially made both the box section about 1mm smaller, and the wing-recess it came from 1mm larger in order to allow for boxing-in the various sections with 0.5mm card. Without doing this there would have been a horrible mismatch in the fit at the end regarding positive and negative shapes.

 

This is also one of those points you could get carried away with detailing and lose sight of the overall structural relationships. Here you need to pause and think 'Dive brakes, hinges', in order to correctly mark out drilling points etc. Pulling the dive brake off the sprue and offering it up to the box section is necessary here, in order to establish a correct baseline for the overall structure:

30839965814_abfc3b7079_c.jpg

There are no actual location parts moulded to indicate where the dive brakes attach, but thankfully enough triangulating detail shown in the SH instructions to let you place the hinge markings accurately. Once done, it was then a question of measuring out and marking up to drill:

31681345295_8531befba3_c.jpg

You'll not cram every last detail in at this scale, but there's enough scope to add the main visible elements:

30839967184_864bc75fac_c.jpg

I'm not sure if there are also holes at the smaller end, but I added them anyway as a guesstimate:

31681346165_881fc83c80_c.jpg

The four small ones up this end of the piece are tricky swines as you need to drill very slowly to avoid distorting the plastic between the holes with heat from friction.

 

Conscious of weight on the wing-fold later, with the drill still running I hollowed-out the Milliput fuel tank whilst I was at it:

30839969434_e0ecac400b_c.jpg

An oddly pleasurable task.

 

Test fitting the wing root reveals some adjustment needed later on the main spar on the port side. Even the stub section protrudes too far, so that will need some trimming:

31681347315_02f5cc3077_c.jpg

Purely by fluke (I can't pretend otherwise!) that spar actually sticks out at almost exaclty the right spot that enables it be incorporated into the structural detailing at that point - this is the part where the main latch pins for locking the wings in place for flight are located. Most serendipitous!

 

Just a last shot to let you get a sense of how the back of the wing will eventually start to look:

30839970814_f0a1307a8d_c.jpg

As the last few days' filing and drilling has left the cutting mat looking like lunar regolith - if only to protect the lungs of the innocent I think before any further work, a run-over with the car vacuum cleaner is required.

 

I can't believe that next month will mark almost exactly a year since I joined this forum. I'm having such a fantastic time here.

'Oh yes he is!' etc.

 

:bye:Baroness Mandy

  • Like 16
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Unfortunately around here  they are more like this:

 

article-2005486-01F4DC160000044D-530_468

 

 

I've always had an deep love for the Cuda.  I often thought of it as the anti Helldiver. Where the Helldiver was beautiful and propose looking,  it was also an difficult to fly plane. Where as the Cuda was homely and ungainly looking,  it was easy to fly. According to the WWII armaments encyclopedia,  a little too easy to fly. 

  • Like 7
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Say no more :D

Now I see what it is! Great modelling going on here Tony. 

Have you thought about starting a business selling after-market holes? I'm sure they'd sell well and the postage would be really cheap...

  • Like 8
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Looks good Baroness! Congratulations on your first anniversary of joining the asylum. :mental: It seems like only yesterday rather than eight years that I was admitted!

 

Martian

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Thud4444 said:

I've always had an deep love for the Cuda.  I often thought of it as the anti Helldiver. Where the Helldiver was beautiful and propose looking,  it was also an difficult to fly plane. Where as the Cuda was homely and ungainly looking,  it was easy to fly. According to the WWII armaments encyclopedia,  a little too easy to fly. 

I feel the same way about it Thud: it's almost as if Jules Verne or H.G.Wells were asked to contribute at the design stage. If it wasn't for that multi-layered set of delays in its development, one can only speculate on the effect the Barracuda might have had on the projection of Allied naval airpower, had it become operational a year or two earlier.

3 hours ago, The Spadgent said:

I can see a whole lot of plasticard in my future too. :huh:

Mystic Spadders - the psychic modeller! Can't see lottery numbers too can you? PM me if the answer is yes...:lol:

3 hours ago, CedB said:

Now I see what it is! Great modelling going on here Tony. 

Have you thought about starting a business selling after-market holes? I'm sure they'd sell well and the postage would be really cheap...

Let's go into partnership Ced - I'll sell the holes, then you can do aftermarket sets of discs to fit over them! In one of the other universes we are both billionaires on our yachts...

36 minutes ago, Martian Hale said:

Looks good Baroness! Congratulations on your first anniversary of joining the asylum. :mental: It seems like only yesterday rather than eight years that I was admitted!

Most kind on both counts Admiral Martian!

 

I know what you mean about the passage of time - already my pre-modelling days seems like a distant spectral half-life through which I moved as a figure in a thick mist....or is it the just accumulated effects of a year's worth of glue and Milliput?

 

Congrats on your eighth year in return comrade.

 

Ooh. These Kitten Heels are killing me. Where's my dresser go to?

 

 

  • Like 7
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I worry that you are doing the pantomime dame a bit too well Tony. Make a well known phrase out of the following words: It to born.

 

Martian

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, Martian Hale said:

I worry that you are doing the pantomime dame a bit too well Tony. Make a well known phrase out of the following words: It to born.

:rofl: Why you naughty old Cavalier you. Trying to turn a virtuous Dame's head with your silver phrases!

 

What do you think boys and girls?

  • Like 7
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nobody ever said anything about virtuous. You won't find much of it around here or if you do then I clearly joined the wrong outfit!

 

Martian

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 hours ago, TheBaron said:

You mean to tell me they're not all haughty goddesses called Blanche, and spend their days on the porch in crinolines, having temperature dreams and sipping mint juleps? Another myth busted.

 

Blanche Dubois (and her sister, Stella) are from Mississippi. It's Stella's husband Stanley who's a native Louisianan.

 

giphy.gif

 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Procopius said:

Blanche Dubois (and her sister, Stella) are from Mississippi. It's Stella's husband Stanley who's a native Louisianan. 

Not to be confused with:

http://www.compassminerals.com/who-we-are/locations/cote-blanche-louisiana/

Wait. There's a Salt Institute Southern Regional Mine Rescue Assocation? And there's a smoke contest? Who against - the Salt Institute Northern Regional Mine Rescue Assocation? Or is there a wider field of contestants? And what's the prize - a lifetime supply of...salt?

 

 

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

You make a great dame tony, is there a way to fit a barracuda into a pantomime? Or any FAA aircraft? Hmmmm....

 

very nice work on the wing fold Tony! Of course part of me wants you to fail.... but I think that's just jealousy....( I jest, no part of me wants you to fail this is a masterclass mate.)

 

Rob

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

57 minutes ago, rob85 said:

You make a great dame tony, is there a way to fit a barracuda into a pantomime? Or any FAA aircraft? Hmmmm....

>Cough<

'Ooh I'm all of a tizzy boys and girls! I was walking home from the laundry last night with Buttons and we met a bunch of very rough sailors. Lounging around outside the shop they were - a right bunch of matelots I can tell you! One of them asked if I liked a Full Ma - whatever that is. Another said he was called Barry-something, and that he had two big coolers dangling under his Merlin. What a carry-on!'

37 minutes ago, AlexN said:

I can't in mine!

Oh yes you can!

 

I don't anticipate getting back to the bench until tomorrow as we've some old friends coming round for a pre-Christmas lunch, which, on past showing, will probably run on into the evening. By which stage I shall no doubt be passing the port diagonally to the right...

 

:bye: (you'll have to imagine this is a lace handkerchief being waved)

Baroness Mandy

  • Like 6
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Lovely lace hanky there, Baroness. By the time the lipstick I sent you gets there, it will all be over bar the shouting. There's always next year, of course... And there seems to be some confusion as to your gender over on Ced's thread at the moment - perhaps you'd better untightened oops enlighten the Great Unwashed. Or become La Misteriosa.

 

Looking great there Baroness - the modelling I mean, you fools! :fool:

 

Cheers,

Alex.

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Superb work Sir, a thoroughly enjoyable thread. And it's true about Dick Emery being president of the Airfix Modeller's Club: https://www.military-history.org/articles/the-history-of-airfix-modelling.htm relevant text is in the penultimate paragraph before "The boom years".

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks Alex!

 

I read that article over a cuppa earlier Tomo. Very enjoyable.:thumbsup2:

 

I'm feeling a little sad this morning that Martian's had to cease work on his Starfighter, so this morning's panto matinee has been put on hold. All tickets are valid for future performances.

 

I stuck a wing on last night, well, a wing stub to be accurate:

30908607173_3a9e7b49dd_c.jpg

I did this rather late in the evening after a long and liquid lunch. You know, You feel confident, what can go wrong?

31681085896_368e1e42fe_c.jpg

Mercifully, nothing in this case. I was a little liberal with the Extra-thin along the join to the fueslage perhaps, but better something that can be tidied-up, than an wing (especially a folded one with extra stresses) that might drop-off later.

 

Lower wing root partially reduced in interior thickness to give a more accurate cross-section:

30908605423_550d0dc05e_c.jpg

having blocked-in the main sections for the wing roof now, it's time to start adding the interior structure:

31681083386_8c7321bea5_c.jpg

Those bits need a few hours for the glue to go off so I'll leave that for a bit, rather than tempt fate by fiddling with it too soon.

 

I guess I need to explain the 'additions' in the photo above. I've decided to build the rare late-variant jet AEW version of the Barracuda with a dorsal radome that with all the holding and rotating of the fuselage at this stage, some protection was need over the headrest of the pilot's seat and the cantilevers at the front, otherwise I prognosticate a 'series of unfortunate events' leaving an inventory of snapped bits to clear up later. A virtual mince-pie to whoever guess what the nose-cone is...

 

I think I mentioned it previously (?) but I wasn't happy with the kit part for the facing of the outer wing, so I made my own and gave it a shot of primer:

31681084136_ee2c882db1_c.jpg

I'm happier with the relative sizes and shapes of those openings now.

 

Not sure how much more I will get done today, if anything, as a busy week looms and I want to lounge around in my Pringle patterned onesie that has been so admired here in the past. Plus there is the annual St.George and the Dragon routine of dragging the Christmas tree through the house, removing paintings and ornaments willy-nilly as it goes....

 

I hope you're all having a good time in your respective endeavours, or indeed lack thereof, and just relaxing.

:bye: Tony

 

  • Like 12
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...