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Barkley-Grow T8P-1 Passenger plane - Execuform, 1/72nd.


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Hijacking your build again. This picture was taken in a channel between the shore and an island where the Clearwater River and the Athabasca River meet. This is about a mile and a half from my backdoor. If I cross the street and look downhill, I can almost see the place.

 

Barkley-Grow on frozen Snye

 

This is about 150 feet from my front door, across the street. The spot where the B-G was sitting is just to the left of the apartment building in the centre of the photo.

 

DSC_0197

 

 

 

Chris

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2 hours ago, dogsbody said:

This is about 150 feet from my front door, across the street. The spot where the B-G was sitting is just to the left of the apartment building in the centre of the photo.

Chris, first, thanks for the photo (I have many, but not this one), and secondly what a beautiful place you live in!

There a only a very few images of the B-G on skis, so this is appreciated, and modelers wanting to do this version will be grateful.

Cheers

 

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The Aeroclub engines as said before are a perfect fit for the cowl, but the sub-assembly needs a separator to generate the right distance to the nacelle, so discs of styrene are prepared, to connect the firewall to the back of the engines (leaving a necessary gap between cowl and nacelle):

40082062574_ab3d4597f4_b.jpg

Edited by Moa
to correct typo
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The main float struts are glued in place. I prescinded of the molded-in struts featured in the kit and solidary with the float halves on the backing sheet, because they were not really sharp; so instead of wasting time correcting them, I used -from my pitifully low remaining stock- Contrail aerofoil stock (I very much hope that some manufacturer would make more of that stuff!!!):

 

26923038538_a1cece721c_b.jpg

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1 hour ago, Moa said:

 (I very much hope that some manufacturer would make more of that stuff!!!):

I couldn't agree more!

 

Martian

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2 hours ago, Martian Hale said:

I couldn't agree more!

 

Martian, I see this question about struts (Contrail, plastic, and Strutz, metal) posted many times in modeling forums.

Same for many of Aeroclub's aftermarket white metal items.

Some of the latter (certain types of engines, a few wheels) are offered now by other manufacturer as resin items, but not at any rate all of them, and much less the more arcane.

Why is that with this clear market niche nobody jumps in?

Those dies are somewhere, they did not disappear in a cloud of styrene sawdust.

And even if you have to start from 0, hey, that shouldn't be an insurmountable challenge for a manufacturer, however small.

A large number of vacs out there need struts (many that do have those as injected molded parts are rather disappointing), many resin kits have rather deficient struts that break if dare to breathe, and then there is scratchbuilding, too, ahem!

I know, hardly to make a fortune, but surely items many modelers are asking for and could have a reasonable financial return.

I use struts like sandpaper. I still have a few packages of the metal Strutz, thanks to fellow modeler from Fogland Andrew Nickeas, but barely any plastic Contrail struts left.

Any manufacturer listening?

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14 hours ago, Moa said:

Martian, I see this question about struts (Contrail, plastic, and Strutz, metal) posted many times in modeling forums.

Same for many of Aeroclub's aftermarket white metal items.

Some of the latter (certain types of engines, a few wheels) are offered now by other manufacturer as resin items, but not at any rate all of them, and much less the more arcane.

Why is that with this clear market niche nobody jumps in?

Those dies are somewhere, they did not disappear in a cloud of styrene sawdust.

And even if you have to start from 0, hey, that shouldn't be an insurmountable challenge for a manufacturer, however small.

A large number of vacs out there need struts (many that do have those as injected molded parts are rather disappointing), many resin kits have rather deficient struts that break if dare to breathe, and then there is scratchbuilding, too, ahem!

I know, hardly to make a fortune, but surely items many modelers are asking for and could have a reasonable financial return.

I use struts like sandpaper. I still have a few packages of the metal Strutz, thanks to fellow modeler from Fogland Andrew Nickeas, but barely any plastic Contrail struts left.

Any manufacturer listening?

While I completely agree with your sentiments, the nature of the market has changed since those items were produced and there just isn't enough money in it these days.

 

The dies still exist, of course. They are owned by Aeroclub, but the proprietor is in his mid-70s and understandably wishes to enjoy his well-earned retirement. Those items were a product of the 70s/80s 'cottage industry' when a sizeable proportion of the aircraft kits produced were vacforms, the market share of which has since shrunk to almost zero. Vacforms were largely superseded by resin and limited run injection kits and the increasing trend of the last few years has been to use CAD and 3d printing. But that stuff is expensive and is not going to be used to satisfy people like you and me who represent 1% of the hobby.  I had some discussions with our favourite resin engine maker recently and he told me flatly that he can't justify producing engines that weren't used by easily-available military types.

 

While both Contrail and Strutz are useful, the aerofoil section of both was poor (most of the Strutz are more like an ellipse than a true aerofoil...) and they nearly always have to be re-shaped. Many of mine are filed from plastic or brass strip stock, which involves only slightly more work.....  There is a market for some better-quality strut material, but if it happens I will be agreeably surprised.....

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Slightly oversized pieces of acrylic are cut, then shaped to fit the particular window, one by one:

40814943911_b3b842f874_b.jpg

 

25943611747_c2dd0c4ae9_b.jpg

 

40773129592_d9ac110376_b.jpg

 

40814943851_93f3926dc2_b.jpg

 

Once fitted, they are removed, aligned to follow their respective positions, and one by one bathed in floor polish, excess removed on a piece of card, and let to rest leaning on a surface.

Once dry, they will be positioned on the model, and very carefully given a very thin touch in the borders with low density cyano, letting it run the seam.

Once set, the windows will be masked on the outside, and the fuselage sides glued together. It just tired me of writing it!

 

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Looking good Moa!

 I have to agree with Roger regarding strut material. I build 1:72 scale WWI almost exclusively and make my struts from evergreen strip, shaved down with a scalpel blade, and brass rod. I do have some Contrail strut (I had 2 packs but sold one recently) and Strutz but have never used either as it just isn't the right size or shape! If you would like them, feel free to pm me.

 

Ian

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2 hours ago, Bendinggrass said:

Your ability is a pleasure to witness.

Hi Bendinggrass

Just having fun, much more able modelers out there, some of incomparable talent. 

I try not to look much at their creations, it inhibits me ;-)

Seriously, I see sometimes really exceptional modelers of such an ability that seems out of this world (may be they are aliens), I just dable and try to do something decent, with varied luck and inconsistent results, that's all.

 

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9 hours ago, Courageous said:

As a matter of interest, how easy is that epoxy to sand if you're using it for gap filling?

 

Stuart

Hi Stuart

Epoxy as we know is harder than the plastic used in models (injected or vacs), so what I am doing is actually this:

40843946421_3ec532812b_b.jpg

 

The rest of the gap is filled with putty, or, in some places (joint under the nose and wing LE), Milliput.

Milliput is also harder than this type of plastic, and we use it nevertheless frequently. The only caveat is to use "backed" sanding material, in this case for example a wood dowel wrapped with sandpaper, or a strip of sandpaper glued on a flat piece of wood, so we can sand uniformly preserving the needed shape no matter the materials' hardness difference.

In any case, after epoxy has hardened enough, it is still easy to carefully remove excess with a single edge razor blade (depending on the area). And once completely hardened I have sanded it without problems when needed, using the adequate grit grade, from coarse to fine, but as described above, using backed sanding tools.

 

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Here Milliput, as said above, was added on top of the wing/fuselage joint.

Normal putty is on the seams elsewhere. All that of course has to be sanded to proper contour.

A cut is made to lodge the stab:

26976605538_4cbbe9cede_b.jpg

 

And the stab glued in place, taking care of allowing a theoretical elevator down movement:

25974802327_3e8cba5111_b.jpg

 

Next to central fin is going to be glued, but after I tidy the seams in the area.

At this point, will all the putty, is when models don't look really appealing.

 

Edited by Moa
To correct mistake
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20 hours ago, limeypilot said:

 I have to agree with Roger regarding strut material. I build 1:72 scale WWI almost exclusively and make my struts from evergreen strip, shaved down with a scalpel blade, and brass rod. I do have some Contrail strut (I had 2 packs but sold one recently) and Strutz but have never used either as it just isn't the right size or shape! If you would like them, feel free to pm me.

 

 

And another annoying thing about Strutz......    As a 1/72 modeller, I find myself using all the smallest sections of Strutz first and thus have several packs where I've used all the thin stuff, but the thicker sections haven't been touched.

It would have been far better if it had been sold in separate sizes in the same way as plastic/metal rod so we could just buy the sizes we actually use...

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Central fin on:

40847813061_b3202b9a63_b.jpg

 

Given the rather simple and a tad pudgy nature of this kit, I will not go too much into detailing, but I felt like doing some things on the floats. Here the punched metal inspection caps that will be added later:

40806378572_084f771b43_b.jpg

 

Also the rudders are being prepared, and in the background you can see a length of clear styrene tinted red, from where the left nav light will come:

25976440767_46c415a21d_b.jpg

 

Rudder assemblies:

25976440657_8af3c755cb_b.jpg

 

The lack of neat joints forces you to be generous with the filler.

One thing we off-the-beaten-path modelers soon learn is that we can save money on gym memberships, and get all our exercise from sanding and crouching under the building area to look for lost bits:

25976440847_98e8320319_b.jpg

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A little bit strange, but the B-G (or at least Belvedere) had the bottom of the floats painted red (red underfloats, as they are known in the Ornithopter modeling community).

At this point engines are given a base coat of black paint, and prop tips are painted yellow as per photos:

40807666412_f68659702e_b.jpg

Edited by Moa
to correct typo
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