Nigel Heath

Yup, not too far away from fuselage closure. Today I used some of my Mike Grant "Cockpit Details" decals on the instruments as well as some oddments from the decal spares box and a bit of dry brushing to bring some life to the IP: I then fitted the IP and during the process of threading the instrument wires into their awaiting hole was somewhat upset to find that one of the foot rests had detached. A quick search found nothing so I made a new replacement: Here is a general view of the pretty much finished cockpit: The next jos were to fit the overhead instruments and apply a subtle Flory dark dirt wash to the cargo roller tracks and around the escape door: Before I can close up the fuselage I do need to finish off all the through holes. There were a few more to sort out on the tail with their meshes as well: Note the orientation of the mesh on each aperture which is in line with the reference photos. Here is how all those looked from the outside: Next I think I will fit the second bit of engine ducting and a light baffle to prevent any "see through" effects. Bye for now peeps, Nigel

I did consider removing the armour plating but decided it was not worth the the effort. Your observation did not spoil my dinner which was a marinara pizza but I could not face just tomatoes so added a goodly amount of Mozzarella: The first job of the day was to brush paint the grey on the cabin seat framing: Next I added all the belts to the seating: I was glad to get that done without mishap as I had no spares. Next I tried to fit the pilots seat but they had always been a tight fit and some scraping off of paint was required: Here's how they looked fitted along with the 2001 monolith in the corridor: Why they need one of those on board I'm not sure. Next I added some more detailing to the winch using 0.2mm nickel silver rod for the bolts along with 0.4mm tube for the helical cam with spirals embossed using a scalpel blade: On the instrument panel I had masked one of the blank gauges with a punched disk of tape to leave a circle of bare grey plastic: I then used one of my punch set to make a disc of the clear green film as supplied by Anil: This is how that looked after the Gator Grip used to apply it had dried: I thought this was then a prudent time to apply the cabin roof / pilot blanking hole panel as it would provide a measure to the details added to the winch: Please ignore the liquid poly fingerprint, it will not be visible on the finished model. Here's how it looks from the underside: I have also applied the first of the the three heavy duty cables coming from this equipment box. most of the black paint I had applied flaked off even though I used metal primer but enough remained to make the task of retouching that much easier: I can't add the other two cables until the floor has been assembled into the LHS fuselage half. There are still a few more jobs to do but fuselage closure is not too far away. Bye for now, Nigel

Last night I did get a bit more done after dinner. First I removed all the masking: Then it was back to the exhausts, trimmed to length I positioned the ducting over the opening like so: Then marked up with pencil I got ready to remove the surplus material with my mini motor tool and a burr: That was then finished off with these rifflers and a glaze of Humbrol liquid poly: I was about to glue that in place but thought I had better check the externals again first. It turns out there are these meshed areas which need dealing with before fitment of the duct: In fact there are lots of holes, lights and what not which need instating so I marked them up in pencil: I started on the first pair of grills by stitch drilling with a 0.5mm drill: I also used my motor tool / burr combination to locally thin the fuselage skin: After bit more work with knife and files I had all three openings: I thinned the skin some more and came perilously close to making a hole right through: But just got away with it: I'm sure any solvent based filler or CA would melt this film of plastic so backfilled it with water based PPP: Next the openings needed to be meshed over, some of the plastic tea bag mesh supplied to me by @milktrip was ideal: Now the ducting could be fitted. I had assumed the plastic was styrene based but when solvent glues did not work with it I used CA (I now think it's most likely to be PVC): I was pleased with the resulting "black hole" effect: That will be even more effective with a coat of matt black applied. Bye for now, Nigel

I had the same problem with pictures in last night's post, I had to repost them three times before they worked. I suspect it's something to do with the new site.

I actually got a bit more done last night. Upon inspecting the primed parts I spotted that this 0.5mm longitudinal had snapped. I had made it using some old plastic which was brittle with age - I was aware of this but though I would get away with it: Never mind, it was not much trouble to replace it with some new, tougher plastic, I also applied some PPP filer to the ribs where there had been some small holes: I also got all the parts ready for their top coats so this morning I was straight into applying them using my set up in the garden. The colours I applied were FS17875 white (slightly creamy), Madder red on the seats and matt black: While they were drying I had a look at the exhausts, I wasn't happy with the shape and definitely not happy with the blanked off appearance: The ones on this machine should look more like this: The first job was to razor saw off the offending articles: My starting point for the replacement exhausts was to cut some 6mm brass tube at an angle: Next for the ducting I opened up some thick wall plastic tubing: I then used my spirit burner to bend it to something not quite a right angle: I then razor sawed off the stub to reveal the chunky interior: Back to the exhausts, after cleaning up and thinning the wall thickness I hack sawed off a short length at the same angle as the first cut: That was then cleaned up and the required hole marked up like so: Drilling of that commenced with a 3mm pilot hole: After much filing and sanding action I had a nice snug fit in the correct place, I also at this point removed the last traces of the kit exhaust: On the inside it is pretty much flush with the fuselage: By this time the black paint had nicely dried in the sunshine so I masked up for the cargo roller tracks: This is how those came out: I tried various shades of Alclad aluminium, eventually settling on "white aluminium"". Being Alclad that was soon dry and I then masked up for the grey on the bulkheads: Before I applied that I finished off both of the exhausts, gluing them in place with regular super glue: The final job before dinner was to apply the FS366376 grey: Not a bad day's progress. Airbrushing wise the interior is now finished, there are few other paint and decal jobs to sort but those should not take long so hopefully will be completing the assembly of the interior tomorrow. Bye for now, Nigel

Looking good.

No, I've just got the seal that came with the brush. I will have a think about the investment. This afternoon I retrieved my brush from the celulose bath and started to give it a deep clean. The nozzle assembly had been locked solid but came apart with minimal effort after it's week long immersion. I have never cleaned the back trigger area of my brush and was amazed at the amount of junk that came out That explains why the trigger was not springing back properly. I even got some use out of a set of cleaning brushes that I have had for years but never found a use for them before. I also used these interdental cleaners which are ideal for cleaning out nozzles. Anyway after a bit of effort my airbrush is looking like new: Another bit of maintenance work I had done was on one of my airbrush cleaning stands. The rubber grommet that holds the brush was lose so I soaked it in white spirit for the week to get the rubber to swell: Right, I was now nearly ready to start painting but before that I degreased the seat padding with the fish eyes using a fine cotton bud and IPA and gave it a light bit of abrasion, here it is after a second coat of white primer: Much better. Then I switched to grey primer. The first part I painted was the inner face of the cabin door. That way by the time I had gone round all the other parts it was dry enough to remount and spray the outside: So here are all the interior parts with primer: I will give everything a check over in the morning and then it's onto interior colour coats. Bye for now, Nigel

This is looking like a nice solid bit of modelling, great skills on show.

Me too!

Some very useful photos there, thanks!

Agreed, this is a little bit of a worry bead. There is one O ring in there and I am hoping it comes out OK. If not I do have two replacements...

Very nice progress.

That is one superb looking model and yes, the rear view mirrors are impressive. Your hosting of this GB has also been excellent, it is appreciated.

I did not make an update yesterday as frankly I was busy doing other stuff but I am pleased to report that the paints I had ordered for this build arrived just two days after they had been ordered from the Scale Model Shop: My go to EMA Plastic Weld was also getting a bit low so I got some more of that too. I also wanted to order some Humbrol LIquid Poly as that's getting a bit low as well but they were out of stock so I got the Tamiya Extra Thin which I haven't used before. The two jars of orange are an ordering mistake on my part, I already had a jar but wanted to get another just in case. Now I have a lifetime supply. I did manage to spend some time preparing for painting by masking the fuselage edges with 1mm masking tape and a few other areas where paint was not wanted: I also glued on the floatation sponsons. I also wanted to sort the PE prepainted seatbelts before painting so here are those: Then while degreasing the cabin seats the central diagonal brace came away. It took four attempts before I got it fixed and in the end I used a bit more solder than I would have liked but at least now the joins are nice and strong: Returning to degreasing I had another minor disaster with it when this leg snapped: I have no idea why it did that. I first tried to repair it with a sleeve of 0.7mm tube: That lasted all of two minutes. Having slept on it overnight I decided this morning the best way forward was to remove the offending leg and replace it with a new replacement: It was a bit of a pain but eventually I got it sorted: The solder has spread onto the lead foil a bit but it is on the hidden underside so isn't really a problem. So after finally managing to get the thing degreased I mounted up for painting using four blobs of CA like this: In hindsight I should have angled it forward a bit more to make access to the underside easier. Another little job before painting was to mask the winch cable: So towards the end of the afternoon I had all the interior related parts mounted up ready for paint: The first paint job was to apply some Mr Metal Primer (clear from an aerosol) to the metal parts or ones with a high metal content. Next I fired up my airbrush which I haven't used in months and applied some white Alclad primer to the cabin seating: The white will need a second application as its drawn away from the surface in a string of little beads on the rearmost seat cover for some reason. Then, without bothering to clean out my airbrush I switched to grey primer. That was when I hit a snag as the nozzle became repeatedly blocked. Repeated strip downs did not fix the issue so I decided to call it as a day (it was 7pm by now) and put the key parts of my brush to soak for the next week in cellulose thinners: That was all the thinners I had so I clearly need to get some more as well as some of those interdental brushes to help with nozzle cleaning. I suspect the problem is down to not using the brush for several months, he does get a bit grumpy in such cases. Bye for now, Nigel

It's comforting to know that someone in this GB is actually less advanced than me, no doubt you will be overtaking me soon. The replacement control column is impressive.

For the various cable runs in the cabin I used part of the kits runners to jig up a couple of different sizes of lead wire ready for painting I have also done a bit more on the lower side door, adding a tiny piece of 0.3mm nickel silver steel tube to the top right hand corner and wrapping the treads with some bare metal foil for later weathering purposes (bringing the final parts count to 23): Here is that little tube I spotted on the door - no idea what it's for: I also added a bit of bare metal foil to the ramp as well as a strip of masking tape over the raised panel line: Most of the day however has be spent of working on the cabin seating, starting as per normal with a drawing: I am using the shots from this walkaround as my main reference material so can happily manage without any seat backs and still have a clear conscience: After that I made four legs from some 0.5mm brass rod and got ready to solder the first of them to some 0.8mm tube with this arrangement: A second length of tube was then attached using 145C melting solder with this arrangement: I then got the remaining legs attached like so: The first of the diagonal braces was then tacked in position like this using 145C solder again: After trimming and moving into position the other end of the brace was soldered in place with 70C melting cadmium based solder: With the other brace attached in a similar fashion, here we have a finished seat frame: With four holes drilled in the floor here's what it looks like in the cabin The seat is a bit simplified towards the rear of the cabin as it becomes progressively more invisible back there. Now it needs some canvas padding, as per my illustrations on page five, lead foil is an ideal material for representing this. A rectangle was trimmed up for this like so: With a second cover added and both superglued in place here we have the finished seat ready for some paint: I have also added a bit more detailing to the cabin side wall and escape door: I never did find a good picture of that door so the framing is just (hopefully) educated guess work. With that done I think all of the interior is pretty much finished to my satisfaction so I just need to do a few little things before getting some paint on this baby tomorrow. Bye for now, Nigel

Thanks Ced, much appreciated.

I am pleased to report that good progress has been made today, best day so far I think. I made a start on the cyclic controls, the kit offerings are not terribly realistic, here is one of the main reference shots that I used to scratch build some replacements: Here is another version with a different end shape to the control which is what I based my efforts on: My starting point was to sleeve some 0.6mm brass rod with some 0.8mm aluminium tube, leaving just a small portion exposed: The method I am using can be found here. A blob of solder was then added to the exposed brass tip: That was then made more spherical using my spirit burner: That was then shaped using sanding sticks and files to the blocky sort of shape seen on the real thing: Then after adding some 0.8mm brass tube, plastic heat stretched tube, notching, annealing, bending to shape and adding some triangular pivot / mounting plates and then making the other one we have them both installed: Definitely better than the kit offerings. Next the joy sticks, the kit parts have an odd, square section to the hand grips So I carved the grips into something more realistic and got them installed: This was the main reference photo I used: For my lunch I made up a refreshing watermelon and feta salad with a lime dressing: After lunch I started work on the rudder pedals using 0.5mm rod and tube and 0.3mm aluminium tube to stop the solder filling the brass tube: After trimming that up I made three more and got them all installed: Next in went the foot rests: With those in I think the cockpit is finished and ready for some paint. I still had some detail to add in the cabin though, one of these required a plate with a swage in the middle, again I used the thinner metal of a numbered tab to create the swaged effect: Here is that installed along with a few other details, including another length of Archer raised panel line decal on the sloped floor, more on that later: The whole floor is nearing completion, I think fabricating the cabin seats is the last big job left before breaking out the airbrush. Bye for now, Nigel

Nice to have you back on board, I was starting to wonder where you were.

Today I am pleased to report that my postie came bearing modelling related items. First we have the pre-painted seat belts for this build: Not strictly accurate but they were the nearest I could find. Then we have some more Archer rivets which I bought from them directly: These are not strictly intended for this build but they may come into play. I also popped out to collect the masking sets Anil has made for my on his vinyl cutter along with some clear green film I intend to use on the landing lights and instrument panel: I have not had much time to do actual modelling but I have installed all the wiring on the back of the instruments - all 26 of them: I have also added this blocky gunsight thing to the top of the instruments using some 1.5mm card and drilled some additional holes for the wires to feed into: Next I am going to work on fabricating the cyclic controls. Bye for now, Nigel

If only such a thing was available I would definitely be making use of it. Sadly it's not. Not the greatest photo but to make the guide tracks for the upper side door I started by flattening some 0.5mm diameter lead wire using one of my bigger punches as a roller: That was then progressively installed using extra thin superglue: The track for the other side will only be fitted once the fuselage has been closed up. I have also finished adding the instrument mechanisms to the back of the IP: I ran out of stretched square section material so added some circular ones for a bit of variety and visual interest made as per the method described above from round sprue. The next job will be to add the wiring to those. Bye for now, Nigel

This is looking superb after the panel line wash. The rotor head and additional detailing are also really nice.

Having been away visiting my cousin on Friday and Saturday, today is the first chance I have had to get any more done on this. First let's have a closer look at the instrument panel: Here is a good set of photos of the real thing, or at least one of it's versions: Hmm, bit of clever html manipulation going on there - quite pleased with myself. Like @milktrip I want to add some substance and wiring to the back of the IP so marked out in pencil where the instruments should be: Next I drilled through some 2.5mm square Evergreen strip: Then using my spirit burner I stretched that out like so: When cut through I now had some nice squarish 1mm section with a tiny hole running through it: That was then cut up into blocky lengths and applied to the back if the IP to represent the instrument mechanisms: Next I made a start on the foot rests. I found some suitable candidate parts in my spares box and got them ready for soldering up the unrequired holes like this: After soldering, they looked like this: With some cleaning up and trimming I got them to this stage: This is one of the best photos I could find on what the pedals and foot rests should look like: I think I will leave actually applying them until after the pedals themselves are installed. @azureglo has reported that he has finished the canopy masks and dropped them off with his mum who lives near me and so I will be collecting them on Tuesday. Happy Easter to everyone. Bye for now, Nigel

Ah yes, his own tin island. I was wondering what that meant till I met him.

I for one can't wait to see this slightly dirty bird, sounds a bit kinky. I'm always in for that.