OneEighthBit

Sorry for lack of updates. Landlord sprung a surprise window renovation on me which lasted a month and I had to pack my work station away 😕 Hope to be back up and running soon.

I did try the dynamo tap trick. I've tried them with a razor saw, revel scribing tool, scalpel and just a needle. They all come out rough which I think is the fault of the styrene/filler border being near where the lines are. That and having to refill/sand them with Tamiya filler so many times it just makes re-scribing a nightmare. I did think about a pencil or architects pen to actually draw them and then then paint over them and see how they show through.

Sorry for the lack of updates - busy couple of weeks. I think I've gotten to the point where I'm happy with the new nose profile now and I just need to glue the wings on and fill the joins and blend the underside. I also managed to make make some navigation lights and pit better looking landing lamps. Kicking myself that I didn't notice the lamp frames aren't lined up but too late now. The navigation lights I made by finding a piece of clear sprue, sanding a flat back and edge and then drilling a tiny hole and filling it with transparent enamel paint for the bulb colour. I then glued it into the corner of the wing and just went at it with files and sandpaper and buffed it with a nail file. Needs a final go with the acrylic polish but came out way better than I expected. So now I'm at the point where I need some opinions. I've tried scribing panel lines into the nose where the modified panels would be but despite trying a plethora of different tools, they keep coming out awful. I think part of the problem is I used a mixture of plastic rods and Milliput Smooth to build the framework and bulk out the new nose profile and the tools don't like the transition between them. I can't get a decent score line and the tool keeps wandering no matter what I do. So far I've filled and re-sanded them several times which is just making the situation worse. So now I'm wondering if I should just leave the surface smooth and hint at the panel lines with some subtle pre-shading or do I leave the ragged panel lines as they are and accept a bad job? I'm hoping maybe they won't be as visibly bad after a final sand and the darker camo on top.

I noticed that too. I imagine with the different engines they would have moved them forward of back for C-of-G reasons but I would have expected more - unless they use some common datum points that are fairly close between the marks? 🤷‍♂️ I did a dry fit of one tailplane and measured from its extreme outer edge to the centre line of the fuselage and got 42mm. So doubled for the other side and upscaled that comes out at 13' 2.74"? So so that's 9.25" too wide, or 4.8mm at scale? Not sure if I've got the patience to file 2.4mm off the end of each tailplane 😆

I must admit I'm not one of those people that worries too much about the odd off dimension here and there as long as it looks right proportionally but being a foot short is a bit much. Not sure how I'd even go about correcting that. I wasn't aware of the larger tailplanes - can you give me a dimension to check? Getting actual dimensions was a bit of a pain for this one as there aren't any given in the Pilots Notes and the values given in various sizes varies wildly. I was going off the dimension given in Miles Aircraft since 1925 as that seems to be the most common quotes source. The wing span I went off the figure given in Wings Over Woodley which seemed a bit more exact. I'm not sure what the datums are for measuring length, but I went on the assumption of tip of the spinner to the tip of the tail light. Miles Aircraft gives the length as 29 ft 6 in so I scaled it to that. When printed out, the kit fuselage lines up almost exactly: Just to illustrate when I checked several sources for dimensions for the Master and Martinet I get some different numbers: Master Mk.I - Length: 30'5"[1][3] - Span: 39'[1][3] Master Mk.II - Length: 29'6"[1][4] - Span: 35'8"[4], 35'9"[2], 39'[1] Master Mk.III - Length: 30'2"[1][3][4] - Span: 35'7"[3], 35'8"[4] Martinet: - Length: 30'11"[1][4] - Span: 39'[1][4] [1] Miles Aircraft since 1925 [2] Wings over Woodley [3] Photocopied page sent to me years ago by the RAF Museum, Hendon [4] The Aeroplane Spotter, Feb 1945

Quick update. Been mostly filling and fettling joint lines in the wings and other bits and bobs but made a start on trying to re-profile the nose as per my approach outlined in the first post. Having glued a plasti-card circle to as a bulkhead to mount the engine too, I need to re-profile up to this from what would be the cockpit bulkhead. As noted, Miles changed the shape of it so I took the same approach. I cut a semi-circle to the same diameter as the front bulkhead, sawed a vertical slot in the nose aligned with where the cockpit bulkhead would be, I then slotted in my new bulkhead and glued it in place. This gives me the profile of the extra width concentric with the front. Its then a question of filling it all in. I forgot to take a picture of just the bulkhead but you can see how much it extends out from the original from the back. After that I adding styrene strips as framing to give me reference point when sanding down the filler. As per the factory photos I added an extension that blends the wider nose into the original fuselage. That all done, it was in with the miliputt and attack it with sanding paper. Still got some fettling to do and I'll blend everything with the wing when I mount it. I'm still finishing up some stuff on that and its easier to work with with it not glued to the fuselage. So far so good, the lines look right and doing a dry fit of the engine cowling it looks passable enough. I *might* yet use very thing plastic-card over this to fake the real panels. I did notice as well that the original kit doesn't have the wing fillet panel, so I may add that using card as well.

You could probably follow the same approach I am to make a Mk.III if you can find a donor engine. That said the pipework underneath is a bit of a jungle! In theory it was the same sort of modifications for the Pratt and Witney engine, just different cowlings forward of the firewall.

I'm going with the SBS 1:48 kit for the Airfix Blenheim: https://sbsmodel.com/model/SBS-48059/bristol-blenheim-mk.-i-engine---cowling-set-for-airfix-kit I used the same but in 1:72 for my original conversion and it came out great. Plus you get two in the box so if I mess up... Already made a bit of a start and figuring out where to put things. The model has a scribe line where the firewall is which helps. However I need something to mount the engine too. I figured out a 22mm disk fits nice and snug into the SBS cowling so cut off the nose where the cowling mounting ring would be. It turns out that exactly in line with the back edge of the exhaust manifold slot. With that lopped off I cracked on and put the cockpit together and glued the fuselage up. The cockpit is stock apart from a couple of small changes. I build my own seats as the one in the kit where incredibly chunky and looked out of place. I also removed the bulkhead behind the second seat as there wasn't one in the real aircraft. There's a shelf there for an oxygen bottle and a bit further back the radio gear. Some filler and scribing needed but here it is assembled with the engine mounting disk glued on. I also cracked on and cropped the wings and shaped them as best I could. Adding the little spurs at the end for the pivot for the shortened ailerons. Haven't yet sorted out how I'm going to add the navigations lights at the moment. Quick dry-fit to see if it all looks proportional.

Back in 2016 as an attempt to get back into modelling I did a 1:72 conversion of the Novo/Frog Miles Master Mk.III to a Mk.II glider tug: I've always wanted a 1:48 scale model but the Magna Models kits are rare and I've never managed to win a eBay auction for one. Now we have a 1:48 GAL Hotspur glider kit, I figured I'd need something to tow it so I'm back on it again... So I'm using the Dora Wings kit as a base and have to modify it to suit, namely: Remove the bottom of the tail and add a tow hook Shorten the wing span from 39ft to 35ft 9in. Get rid of the radiator. Graft a Bristol Mercury XX engine onto it. I've seen a few scale drawings but I'm never been happy with the representation of the nose contours in relation to the changes to fit the new engine, so I'm trying to take a engineering approach and figure out exactly how Miles did it. I know that Miles were able to fit the Mercury fairly quickly so they must have made minimal changes to the fuselage and jigs. First obvious observation is that they basically just removed everything forward of the firewall and added the new engine mounts with a supporting ring for the cowl gill so in that respect I just need to chop off the nose forward of that and go from there. With the radial engine the cowling forward of the firewall needs to be round rather than slab sided. It looks like Miles basically just changed the shape of the firewall and added some framing to accommodate the wider width. They've left the original fuselage as-is and added a longeron running back from the firewall to the fuselage level with the front of the cockpit. They've added some extra frame around the leading edge of the wing to support the new cowling. As for the underside, I'm not 100% sure of the exact lines and can't find a clear photo but it appears the "hump" underneath the radiator cowling remained and was just profiled up into the nose cowling leaving room for the exhausts to exit and run underneath. So based on that I think my order of operations will be to build the fuselage and wings first, assembly them and add the new cowlings lines. Here goes nothing....

It's in the third picture from the left on the bottom.

Here you go: https://drive.usercontent.google.com/download?id=11FYos_Ew13rfGO9V2iAbrm6GqR4JMta4 Not the best quality I'm afraid as I just spotted it moving behind the guys loading the bomb cells on the Whitley. The one thing I did notice is something circular on the port side of the cockpit as it moved past.

I think the Tiger Moths from 1 GTS may have originally been used at the Central Landing Establishment at RAF Ringway. I can see them in a lot of photographs and films but usually in the background - though you have to be careful it's not a Hawker Hart. All I could find is these "back of the hangar" shots and also there was one part of a film where they were pushing a tiger moth past in the background and you can *almost* make out a serial (N9497 or N9347) and a roundel with some strange round thing attached to the outside of the front cockpit. Best I can do I'm afraid: https://drive.usercontent.google.com/download?id=1i8WFghpfOO2bM8EEU7C7zh81_lUOXeMZ https://drive.usercontent.google.com/download?id=15eTHExO0uOp7SAaYYeQeEy6GrHgPPhBE https://drive.usercontent.google.com/download?id=1S-dXbCiEJebOyzmRAvp-XWWiijgnVEMN

A good while ago I did a Novo Miles Master Mk.III to Mk.II GT coversion in 1:72 scale but ultimately I've wanted to do it in 1:48 scale, especially now that we have a 1:48 Hotspur kit. I've tried forever to get the Magna 1:48 Mk.II but always get outbid so I thought maybe I could try converting the Dora Mk.I instead. Obviously I'll have to clip the wings, and remove the radiator scoop but I guess the biggest task will be re-profiling the nose to take the Mercury engine which I imagine will take a heck of a lot of blending - unless I try and make a resin 3D printed insert. Anyway, I just wanted to throw it out there if anyone thought this is a viable option or are there just too many subtle differences to make it worthwhile?

@Troy Smith - I'm attempting a model of this Hurricane: Based on the comments in the thread it has a rotol prop and a rather long spinner, to my eye. I did look at the Hurricane Props guide originally which is where I came up with the combination. The ArtScale example I posed because of the two they have it mentions it's a Hurricane/Spitfire rotol prop and spinner vs the other one they had which is listed as just Hurricane. The examples in the guide seem to say that this hurricane was part of "Block 4" and I'm inclined to say it looks like it has a CM/1 spinner? I do have access to CAD and a resin printer so worse case, I can use the rotol prop from the kit and make up a spinner - I just don't have any dimensions. 😕

As per title looking for recommendations for an after-market 1:48 Rotol propeller and longer Rotol "bullet" spinner for a Mk.I Hurricane. I'm building the the Airfirx 1:48 kit (A05127A) which appears to have a rotol-like propeller in it but not the right spinner and I don't have the means to fabricate one. ArtScale carry this one (https://www.artscale.eu/148-hawker-hurricane-mki-rotol-propeller-wtool-1) but I can't tell if its he right spinner or not.