The EDSG Files # 2: Fairey Barracuda 1/72

[Martian]

Pick out the piping on the firewall in a different colour and I reckon the job is a good 'in!

 

Martian

[Brandy]

Very nice, she's looking betterer and betterer with every update!

 

Ian

[CedB]

Tiny windows... bin 'em and use Clear... oh, you have, well done. You could always mount those diamond shaped parts in a nice brooch for Mrs B?

 

5 hours ago, TheBaron said:

These are - believe it or not - the window insets that sit on either side of the pilot's cockpit, allowing him to eye-up the bathing beauties as he practises with his torpedo along the Brighton seafront.

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(I left that gap there for Ced to use, for obvious reasons...)

 

I don't know what you mean! Practising with your torpedo on the beach has been banned for years and, as I'm sure you know, dropping one is frowned upon in polite society.  

[TheBaron]

5 hours ago, Martian Hale said:

Pick out the piping on the firewall in a different colour and I reckon the job is a good 'in!

Quite so Martian....in connection with which - has anyone got:

a. any idea what would be a reasonable guess for the pipework if they are different colours?

or:

b. a colour photo of Barracuda pipe work?  

 

From the decent reference photo I have showing that region clearly in the McCandless book, the pipes themselves appear the same colour and tone as the firewall itself. The only difference I can see is some silver/steel metallizing needed on one or two of the couplings of the main big pipe running up the centre.

 

Unless I see evidence to the contrary I'm inclined to leave pipes and firewall the same colour at the moment, but please wade in and correct me if you think that's wrong.

 

4 hours ago, limeypilot said:

Very nice, she's looking betterer and betterer with every update!

Thanks Ian! Time to think and do is the biggest problem at the moment, as it is for many of us I'm sure.

2 hours ago, CedB said:

d use Clear... oh, you have, well done. You could always mount those diamond shaped parts in a nice brooch for Mrs B?

Nothing says 'I love you' like a plastic broochPlus I could do her up a nice pair of Aeroclub white metal Merlin ear-rings to round-off the ensemble: The Barracuda Collection. Sadly Mrs.B is a creature of taste and high standards - somehow I'm the only exception to that rule in her life.

3 hours ago, CedB said:

as I'm sure you know, dropping one is frowned upon in polite society.  

..and, indeed, in Chieftan tanks, as the demonstrator at Bovington delightedly regaled us with tales of military-grade flatulence beneath the armour during a visit last summer.

[The Spadgent]

 The king of the scratch build is at it again. That that firecwall is looking amazing. Spectacular work sir. 

 

john.

[TheBaron]

Tonight on the mean streets of Britmodeller:

 

Thrill to the home-made mintuare glazing:

Gasp as the Baron euphorically glues the innards to one side of the fuselage

But mainly, just check that on opening the fuselage again this evening that I haven't left anything out:

Something missingCan you spot it?

No. Not the tail weight.

Don't worry. I didn't notice either at this stage, even though it was staring me in the face.

A white metal Merlin weighs 10g:

So just to be safe, 12g of lead fishing weight squashed in the vice to fit inside the tail. Once that was fitted, time to close up the fuselage and break out the Tamiya Extra-Thin:

Blithely unaware that I left out

the bloody

instrument panel! 

 

After more oaths than a district court the morning-after, I am now in a position to confirm to you that after an undignified scuffle up the front of the cockpit, it is entirely possible to retrofit an IP to the Barracuda - even after the fuselage is closed-up! You need to remove the joystick temporarily, but with tweezers and some angled surgical scissors (the latter one of those impulse purchases you bless yourself for making with no apparent reason to have bought them for at the time...) you can fettle the IP into position and then re-install the joystick. I got off lucky there I think, don't you?

 

There's nothing wrong with that main spar btw: it's going to be a starboard wingfold this time around, hence the asymmetry. I did re-test with the wings on prior to gluing, just to make sure the lengths were indeed correct still.

 

So there's the fruits of a very exciting hour or so this evening. Disaster averted, fuselage closed-up at long last, and wondering as to the next task to pay attention to. I think it might be judicious to start planning the complex set of operations for that wing-fold. Unlike the Sea Venom previously, this isn't the case of a simple 'snap-up in salute', but more a 'over and back' two-hander,  as the hefty dimensions of the Barracuda required a considerable contortion to fit down Their Lordships deck lifts (kept as small as possible for the obvious reason of being the weak spot on armoured aircraft carrier decks).

 

Off for a think about this.

 

More at the weekend.

Tony

 

 

 

 

[CedB]

Beautiful internals Tony (even without the i/p!) Good save and looking forward to the wing wiggling.

[Martian]

I'm thrilling and gasping as instructed! This will turn out rather well if you can remember to fit all the bits you make for it!

 

Martian (Quite over come with all that thrilling and gasping)

[Miggers]

Yes indeedy,most thrilling and lotsa gaspinga(and I might venture,the odd wow  when the 'scaped I.P was recaptured and fitted).

 

 

Wing wiggling and waggling and woggling ahoy.

Edited December 9, 2016 by Miggers

[TheBaron]

1 hour ago, CedB said:

Beautiful internals Tony (even without the i/p!) Good save and looking forward to the wing wiggling.

Cheers Ced. I think I need to break the next stage down into a series of steps as there's lots of angles and interior details in the wings to get right (or wrong, as the case may be...) Looking forwards to it - in an oddly masochistic way. Besides, I've a private bet with Crisp that if I can do engine bay and wingfold at 1/72, he has to do the same on his Barra at 1/48 muchlater on, so honour is at stake here. 

55 minutes ago, Martian Hale said:

I'm thrilling and gasping as instructed! This will turn out rather well if you can remember to fit all the bits you make for it!

Pah! A mere bagatelle! I thumb my nose at banal convention, such as putting the parts together in the correct sequence....or indeed attaching some parts at all it seems....

25 minutes ago, Miggers said:

Wing wiggling and waggling and woggling ahoy.

Cue Michael Caine voice: 

'Yor only s'posed to fold the bluddy wings up....'

 

While I'm at it I might cut a rudder and a tailplane or two. Or not. Maybe. I'm feeling all giddy. Poor Special Hobby: they produce a perfectly respectable kit, nicely mounded and presented and all. And I carve it up like a roast pheasant. Mmm...pheasant. That and a nice claret. Maybe a few parsnips roasted with honey and caraway seeds....

 

Can you eat Barracuda (the fish!) by the way? I wonder what it tastes like? 

[Miggers]

7 minutes ago, TheBaron said:

 

 

While I'm at it I might cut a rudder and a tailplane or two. Or not. Maybe. I'm feeling all giddy. Poor Special Hobby: they produce a perfectly respectable kit, nicely mounded and presented and all. And I carve it up like a roast pheasant. Mmm...pheasant. That and a nice claret. Maybe a few parsnips roasted with honey and caraway seeds....

Ooh yes pheasant.I'll be prowling our local farm shoot ASAP,12 bore in hand,to bag a few for Christmas.We have four driven shoots (one is the oldest in UK)near us and the cock phezzies like to wander about and bring a few ladies with 'em.

Quick touch of Lyalvale No.5 Super Game and we've had a brace every year for the past three since I started shooting again.

Edited December 9, 2016 by Miggers

[Procopius]

6 minutes ago, TheBaron said:

 

Can you eat Barracuda (the fish!) by the way? I wonder what it tastes like? 

 

It's poisonous, but this can be circumvented.

[TheBaron]

7 minutes ago, Miggers said:

Ooh yes pheasant.I'll be prowling our local farm shoot ASAP,12 bore in hand,to bag a few for Christmas.We have four driven shoots (one is the oldest in UK)near us and the

cock phezzies like to wander about and bring a few ladies with 'em.

We've had a brace every year for the past three since I started shooting again.

Haven't been on a shoot since I was a kid in Somerset and we used to get a day off school here and there to work as beaters. Great fun, but nearly always p'ing down with rain I seem to recall. I wish you good shooting Miggers!

8 minutes ago, Procopius said:

It's poisonous, but this can be circumvented.

Sounds like just the thing to create a frisson of mortal terror at my next dinner party.

 

[AlexN]

Hmm...like pufferfish. If the chef get's it wrong, you're toast and said chef has to commit seppuku...

 

Great save on the IP, and looking great all round. Although I wouldn't want to be a claustrophobe and be incarcerated in that back seat.

[keefr22]

2 hours ago, TheBaron said:

Can you eat Barracuda (the fish!) by the way? I wonder what it tastes like? 

 

Chicken...

 

Lovely work on the internals there Tony, cracking job! I left the IP out of one of my builds last year. Can't for the life of me remember which one it was (& there were only 4...!!) Unfortunately I didn't realise I'd done so until the model was all finished & painted & I then found the IP sitting & grinning at me on the bench! Took it to club & no one noticed (I wouldn't have heard the end of it if they had!!) 

 

Keith

 

PS, even with the weight of the Merlin do you think the tail weight was necessary? Seems like most of the airframe is behind the CoG to me?

[AdrianMF]

You only need the tail weight if you forget to put it in....

 

Regards,

Adrian

[The Spadgent]

Sounds like something I would do. lovely save there kid. Excellent looking office too. Great stuff, looking forward to see those wings. I caved today at the LMS and bought an Airfix Wildcat. That too has the bendy wings it seems.

happy weekend Modelling.

 

Johnny.

[TheBaron]

15 hours ago, AlexN said:

Great save on the IP, and looking great all round. Although I wouldn't want to be a claustrophobe and be incarcerated in that back seat.

Cheers Alex. Have you noticed as well that the FAA were less-generous with the cushions the further back in the cockpit you go. By the time you get to the poor old TAG he just has to perch on his parachute.

15 hours ago, keefr22 said:

 

Chicken...

 

Lovely work on the internals there Tony, cracking job! I left the IP out of one of my builds last year. Can't for the life of me remember which one it was (& there were only 4...!!) Unfortunately I didn't realise I'd done so until the model was all finished & painted & I then found the IP sitting & grinning at me on the bench! Took it to club & no one noticed (I wouldn't have heard the end of it if they had!!) 

 

Keith

 

PS, even with the weight of the Merlin do you think the tail weight was necessary? Seems like most of the airframe is behind the CoG to me?

Thanks for that Keith. Easily done on the IP isn't it?  Interesting point re: weight distribution. I seem to recall reading somewhere that more than half of the weight of the Barra was actually from the cockpit forward. 'Winkle' Brown refers (in McCandless' book) to the Barracuda having a decent turn of speed in the dive - presumably pulled earthwards by that heavy nose!

14 hours ago, The Spadgent said:

Sounds like something I would do. lovely save there kid. Excellent looking office too. Great stuff, looking forward to see those wings. I caved today at the LMS and bought an Airfix Wildcat. That too has the bendy wings it seems.

Wings up, hook down, don't forget to scream... Hope you get some time in at the bench yourself John.

 

I thought I'd start today with a wistful shot of what the Baaracuda might have looked like:

Before the cutting begins. The wings are just tacked together here, just as a finalcheck that the spar doesn't interfere with any of the wheel wells details:

The kit detailing OOB on this section is quite impressive (the one on the right looks a bit messy as yours truly forgot to leave out a couple of bits that later cutting for the wingfold will intefere with so I had to whip them off before the glue set) and from the few shots I've got that show (usually heavily-shadowed) glimpses of the wells, I don't think that any further detailing is required. From now on this build goes into reverse for a while as the bird starts to moult:

No going back on this now. Doesn't freshly-cut plastic look brutal? Dexter handled that very nicely (though it's advisable on some of the wobblier bits  - near that door opening over on the left - to make the initial cut with a small razor-saw first as a guide. The thickness of the wing walls will need also reducing somewhat from its current Chobham armour dimensions:

If I'm understanding my references correctly, as well as the bracing etc. for the wingfold itself, there's also a fuel tank visible in the centre of the wing as well that will have to be looked at. Off with those big rear aerofoils for the Fairey-Youngman areas at the trailing edge:

May as well do the rudder whilst the saw is still warm:

Considerable tidying up to do from the raw state of these parts, but consider today's update a declaration of intent: one that will doubtless eat up considerable time between now and 2017. Just to be safe I've layed in some extras brass tubing from Albion that arrived from Hannants yesterday. That should cover any eventuality. Wouldn't it be nice to build a hinge strong enough at this scale that would actually let you swing the wing back? That would be rather cool - as anyone ever done that do you know?

 

Have a good Saturday all of you!

Tony

[71chally]

Absolutely stunning micro work there Tony,  I see that the brave sawing at plastic continues!

Great to that you managed to retro-insert the instrument panel into the helm.

[The Spadgent]

Tony, you are a menace with that saw.  lovely kit minding its own business whe............. wham... front off......"what was th"  ........whammm wings in bits.  lovely stuff bud. I don't know what I enjoy more. Nice builds that just fit, or all this fiddeling we're doing at the moment.  we must be bonkers. 

Thankyou for the hinge idea. Smaller tube inside larger tube. Add glue= inspection hatch for my 109. openy, closy. 

I have had some bench action but I'll update tomoz.  Out tonight with old friends.

happy modelling amigo. 

 

Jont.

[Cookenbacher]

This is a fantastic thread Tony - I may have purchased a SH Barracuda as a result. You're interior and scratch work is just amazing, so much so, that it may be some time before I start mine, so that I'll have forgotten much of your fine work and thus do less violence to my modelling conscience when I throw mine together.

[CedB]

Heck. Tony you are a very brave man. Careful with that axe Eugene saw Dexter! I have my fingers crossed for you but I'm confident...

 

3 hours ago, TheBaron said:

Wouldn't it be nice to build a hinge strong enough at this scale that would actually let you swing the wing back? That would be rather cool - as anyone ever done that do you know?

 

Well, fairly confident. Cool it would be, indeed  

[AlexN]

You've crossed the Rubicon at a stroke (well, OK, numerous strokes) with that one, Tony!

[TheBaron]

20 hours ago, 71chally said:

Absolutely stunning micro work there Tony,  I see that the brave sawing at plastic continues!

Great to that you managed to retro-insert the instrument panel into the helm.

Thanks James! As Caesar is reputed to have said on completing his first model kit: 'I came, I sawed, I err...Oooh. I'll have to repair that bit later'....

19 hours ago, The Spadgent said:

Tony, you are a menace with that saw.  

I blame you for introducing me to it in the first place. Now you know how Dr.Frankenstein felt about his creation!

 

18 hours ago, Cookenbacher said:

This is a fantastic thread Tony - I may have purchased a SH Barracuda as a result. You're interior and scratch work is just amazing, so much so, that it may be some time before I start mine, so that I'll have forgotten much of your fine work and thus do less violence to my modelling conscience when I throw mine together.

Hiya Cookie!  It's a fine kit despite my brutal attentions of late, so glad to have inspired another purchase. Pay no heed to my predations: I'm just a frustrated ship's surgeon at heart, and an early 19th century one at that! Where's my loblolly boy got to with the sawdust....

17 minutes ago, AlexN said:

You've crossed the Rubicon at a stroke (well, OK, numerous strokes) with that one, Tony!

No going back now Alex. Stops me chickening-out as well if I make a drastic move like that in full view of the forum!

18 hours ago, CedB said:

Heck. Tony you are a very brave man. Careful with that axe Eugene saw Dexter! I have my fingers crossed for you but I'm confident...

Thanks Ced. Do you remember in some episodes of Thunderbirds, there was always an American general who would say 'There goes a brave man lootenant!',  just as one of his underlings is about to meet his demise in a pit of flames...?

I find that video wholesomely fetishistic, reminding you of that young man's lust you had for Cleo Rocos in her Kenny Everett golden era...or indeed just the Kenny Everett show itself with Hot Gossip of course...I still have the vinyl single of I Lost my Heart to a Starship Trooper somewhere in the stacks.

 

Ahem. Ah yes, Planes.

 

A bit of progress this morning, largely just to tidy up the patient after yesterday. Cutting out the rudder required some reconstructive shimmering:

Oddly enough, there were two panel lines  on the moulding for that part which angles in along the top of the rudder, which I couldn't see in drawing or photographs. I of course, played it safe by initially cutting the wrong one, hence a thicker than necessary shim on that bit. The other thicker bit on the vertical was necessitated by using a cutting wheel on the Drone. I could have drilled out a section and inserted a razor saw to cut that off in the centre, but TBH it seems stronger to shape some plastic rather than going the filler route, largely as I'll want to insert a metal rod or two to hold the rudder defelcted in place, and filler introduce potential cracking/crumbling issues.

 

Flaps - they're a Young man's game! No? Young. Man's. Youngman? Oh never mind:

As you can see from my precision file-technique, make sure if you're attempting this at home, that you get the correct angular separation on gluing the join of the flap to match that of the wing profile.

Aside from the wheel wells, there'll also be parts of the port wing interior that will be visible (due to the fold), so the last task this morning was to prime these areas in preapation for some interior green.

Looking at that photograph reminds me I haven't thinned-down the interior thickness of the port wing surfaces yet.. Blast it. One step forwards....

 

Enjoy your weekends!

Tony

 

[Tomoshenko]

Excellent work Tony. Glad you remembered the IP panel in the end, I mean when it comes to life at night when  you're asleep, how would the little man inside fly it?

 

By the way I've eaten Barracuda and can testify to it being quite tasty. However, it can indeed be contaminated by Ciguatera - a tasteless poison that cannot be removed by cooking. I learned this from a close friend - microbiologist and food hygiene trainer - who informed me via a text message shortly after I'd eaten it!