Two Scratch-Built Fairey Flycatchers In 1/72 (link to WIP thread added)

[AdrianMF]

As ever, a masterclass in scratch building! I was stunned and inspired by the engines and the pace hasn't let off since.

 

Regards,

Adrian

[Old Man]

On 7/28/2017 at 4:47 AM, AdrianMF said:

As ever, a masterclass in scratch building! I was stunned and inspired by the engines and the pace hasn't let off since.

 

Regards,

Adrian

 

Thanks, Adrian.

 

This one has been kind of fun. It has required a lot of things that are a bit off to one side from my usual techniques, and I have learnt a lot in consequence.

[Old Man]

Am seriously stuck into the wings, now.

 

Upper wings are formed, and their upper surfaces ribbed and primed.

 

They were made the same way as the lower wings, though I left them a hair longer at the tips, to allow for the dihedral (the Flycatcher upper wings has some, the lower wing doe not).

 

Once I had a wing shaped to plan and section, I marked out on the upper surface its ribbing, and the hinge-line of the ailerons/flaps of the Fairey Patent Camber Gear (dating back to the Great War and the 'Hamble Baby' version of the Sopwith floatplane).

 

 

The rib pattern was taken off the Grainger drawing I am using, but this agrees, at least under casual inspection, with the plans in the Mushroom Models monograph (albeit those are in 1/48 only). The spacing varies, and does not always match those of the aileron/flaps....

 

To get ribs, I scrape away some of the surface between the ribs, leaving a raised ridge between depressions. To do this, I generally start with some attention from a 'swizzle stick' thin sanding stick (these are generally three or four millimeters wide, and so quite convenient), then follow by scraping with the curved edge of a #10 blade, held perpendicular to the plastic. This gives a slight curve to the depression, and allows tight control on the edges of the raised ridge created between the 'channels'.

 

The matter is complicated, though, when leading edge 'riblets' are involved, and even more complicated when the bulk of the true ribs do not extend the full chord....

 

Here is a wing with the 'riblets' put in....

 

 

They are much to narrowly spaced, so I substituted cutting grit sand-paper, folded over itself several times, for the 'swizzle-sticks'. I find this gives as good a curved sanding surface as sand-paper rolled into a tight coil, and it is easier to hold on to....

 

Here is a wing with all panel ribs put in....

 

At this point, center ribs were put in, and the wing-tips dressed down. The out the depressions between ribs that were not full chord introduced some distortion into the airfoil curve of the upper wing. This was addressed by brute force bending on the plastic (now considerably thinner than its original 1.5mm.

 

Here is a wing with all shaping complete, and under two coats of Future. It was light sanded with polishing grit paper before the Future was applied, and than the Future was hit with a polishing pad. I find the Future smooths out small imperfections in a scraped and sanded surface noticeably.

 

 

Here is a wing under two light coats of Tamiya fine primer (light grey)....

 

 

Though only one is shown, both upper wings are at this stage. Next will be putting undersurface ribs (which needs only a token scraping) and scoring and bending for dihedral.

 

I will be starting on the ribs for the lower wings now. Here they are notched and matched to their fuselages...

 

 

The widths of the fuselages vary a little; it is very slight, but enough to keep the pieces from being compeltely interchangeable, so each wing is now matched to its particular fuselage.

[Tomoshenko]

Seriously stunning work on those wings. As good as any Tamiya offering, the ribs look realistic and not over the top. i.e. Matchbox/Revell Fury wings!

[Hewy]

Excellent work on the wings, top job

Glynn

[pheonix]

Thanks for explaining your ribbing technique on the wings. That is a very interesting method - and the results show just how well it works.

 

P

[TonyTiger66]

I have to say agree with what the others said  .

 

That's an approach I hadn't thought of.

 

I hope it's ok to ask a little advice?

 

If you had a model with metal leading edges, then fabric covered ribs, then metal, Would you mask off the metal areas? Maybe with something tough like Dymo tape?

 

I have one like this in 1/72 that has been puzzling me for over a year  

 

Lovely work; looking forward to the next instalment 

 

Best regards

TonyT

[Old Man]

On 8/8/2017 at 1:03 PM, Tomoshenko said:

Seriously stunning work on those wings. As good as any Tamiya offering, the ribs look realistic and not over the top. i.e. Matchbox/Revell Fury wings!

 

On 8/8/2017 at 2:21 PM, Hewy said:

Excellent work on the wings, top job

Glynn

 

Thanks a lot, guys. We'll see how they show up under silver paint --- that's the real acid test.

[Old Man]

22 hours ago, pheonix said:

Thanks for explaining your ribbing technique on the wings. That is a very interesting method - and the results show just how well it works.

 

P

 

Thank you, Sir.

 

When it works, it works. It has taken a lot of practice to get the raised ridges staying straight. They can wander a bit if you're not careful with how you work the scraping blade. This can be repaired by working on the other side, but that can result in a sort of 'pitting' of the depression there that has to be leveled out. It something to practice first. But it is not really hard; laborious, but not hard. It's just that when you do something simple over and over and over, something, as Murphy reminds us, is sure to slip up now and then....

[Old Man]

21 hours ago, TonyTiger66 said:

I have to say agree with what the others said  .

 

That's an approach I hadn't thought of.

 

I hope it's ok to ask a little advice?

 

If you had a model with metal leading edges, then fabric covered ribs, then metal, Would you mask off the metal areas? Maybe with something tough like Dymo tape?

 

I have one like this in 1/72 that has been puzzling me for over a year  

 

Lovely work; looking forward to the next instalment 

 

Best regards

TonyT

 

Thank you, Sir.

 

What is the aircraft in question? Is this something where only the central portion of the wing is fabric, with metal at the leading edge and the trailing edge?

 

With a metal leading edge, I would lightly score the boundary. Not very deeply, just enough to use to set the scraping blade. I would start the channel in front with the blade, and take a ways back, then start on the rest of the channel with the swizzle sander and finish with the blade. I expect I would do the same if the rear portion of the wing was metal also. If it is a question of metal panels amid a fabric wing, I would ignore them while doing ribs, then once the ribs were done, score in their outlines, flatten the area by scraping with the curved blade, and then put in the panel either with 0.005" or severely sanded 0.01" sheet, or with heavy aluminum foil (the sort they sell in rolls at hardware stores).

 

Hope this helps, but let me know what the aircraft is and I might be able to get a better view of what to do.

[TonyTiger66]

Hello, thank you for the advice on the fabric wing .

 

I don't want to take your thread off topic. In the hope pictures will help, I have a couple here; I'm happy to remove them.

 

Its a Soviet Polikarpov I-16 Type 5 (early).

 

I wish to model this type of upper wing:

 

 

But the kit comes with the Type 5 (late) wing.

 

 

 

My attempts to fll in the existing 20 ribs per wing of the late type above, then create the metal area to the rear and put in the 10 ribs of the early type at the top, have been quite a failure.

 

On this occasion I'm quite glad that Photobucket has hidden the photos from my thread of around 18 months ago, documenting my varied failed attempts .

 

Any advice would be most welcome; I'm happy to remove these and edit the post.

 

Best regards

TonyT

[Old Man]

If you are working with the A-Model kit, Sir (bear with me, I have a hard time imagining anyone buildng in some scale besides 1/72, even though evidence people do is all around me....) Yu can take solace from the fact that the upper ribs are so slight, practically non-existent on one panel, that you can simply sand them flat s a preliminary. Another reason you can get away with that on this kit is that it is, compared to the ICM model of the later versions, a bit 'husky', and could do with a bit of slimming anyway. You already have the leading edge scored in for better or worse (it's pretty deep).

 

If you are working with some other kit (I'm not familiar with the Hasegawa, and with the old Revell, rib count is the least of your worries), if the ribs are well defined, I would think you would be better off taking down every other rib, and extending that forward to the leading edge line, to leave forward ribs hat match the surviving ones. For the bit in the rear befoe the aileron hinge, score, smooth that strp down, and apply the heavy foil of thin card. That's at least what I would try.

[TonyTiger66]

4 hours ago, Old Man said:

you are working with the A-Model kit, Sir (bear with me, I have a hard time imagining anyone buildng in some scale besides 1/72, even though evidence people do is all around me....) Yu can take solace from the fact that the upper ribs are so slight, practically non-existent on one panel, that you can simply sand them flat s a preliminary. Another reason you can get away with that on this kit is that it is, compared to the ICM model of the later versions, a bit 'husky', and could do with a bit of slimming anyway. You already have the leading edge scored in for better or worse (it's pretty deep).

 

Thank you very much OM, thats very kind  .

 

Yes, it is indeed the Amodel kit. I can tell that you are familiar with the 'subtleties' of the kit .

 

What a wonderful way to describe it: 'husky'; indeed, just like me, it certainly would benifit from a little slimming.

 

I've tackled it a few times now. This is the first time I tried to convert to an early type 5. The overall outline is good; there's a nice model in there waiting to get out. That 'huskiness' is the main thing to overcome (and flash, often quite a lot).

 

I'll go back and try the technique, shop for some sanding sticks.  I'll ressurect the thread soon, hopefully, as the photographs are now on Flickr.

 

Thanks for taking time out to help. Looking forward to more Flycatcher dual build 

 

Best regards 

TonyT

 

[Old Man]

While I obviously am not going to get these complete in time, this is still a live project. I have gotten a good bit of the fuselage surface detail done, and will be on the lower wing ribbing tonight.

 

I ave a companion thread up in the WIP forum, here: