TheBaron

Sorry G, half asleep today - yes I'm going to try exactly that, print canopy bucks for vacforming. I don't know how the resin will respond to hot transparency draping over it so might have to bung it in the freezer beforehand?

Afternoon all. The thought. Perish it.... (Bought yonks back when I actually believed I was going to build a Vixen out of kits....) Plus there's the Palouste for those who have trouble getting started..... I hadn't mentioned it thus far G but am intending to go with vacforming (partly as I miss doing it!). At some point I need to sit down and examine the canopy differences between FAW.1s & 2s in this respect. I think he did the plumbing on our house..... Nein - I bought the jumpsuit there but waited until I got home to Belfast in order to wear it in more peaceful surroundings. Always an experience going through an RUC/Army checkpoint looking like a refugee from Sigue Sigue Sputnik... Thanks Bill. Said millitad applied and that's close enough for my purposes (allowing for differences betwen a flat plan drawing and a photo having perspective) My thoughts too James - having squinted at lots of those side-ons on the AB pics site, I'm going with the above as a reasonable expression. We could bloody do with you back CC! Late June and July so far have been ghastly - occasional blasts of sun but otherwise stratus and wind warnings. It did get a bit dramatic at sunset last night though: It's taken me a lot longer than I anticipated to get the main gear to a satisfactory state as there are some complicated things going on inside of there regarding non-symmetrical parts and angled assemblies. It took a while to puzzle it all through but as always, interpretative drawing from multi-angle photos helped greatly in understanding the visual relationships: Some basic detailing added to the well to form a baseline for the radius arm: I'd also at this stage added that triangular cross section to the main shock absorber strut: The really time-consuming part of this involved getting the various parts of the radius arm aligned and shaped, bridging as it does the well with the gear leg in two places: Bearing in mind the required thickness for printing tolerances I've had to thicken one or two of the arm parts at this scale, though hopefully not by enough to detract from a pleasing expresssion of the region: In addition, I've been having to rationalize not just print scale and orientation issues but also keeping in mind how to assemble the parts robustly enough afterwards, such as the square peg at the top of the leg above that matches an opening in the underside of the wing. Below I've added some male/female locating lugs to the interface between leg and radius arm as well: - along with a similar male/female junction at the radius arm pivot point inside the well: A key constraint I referred to repeatedly during this stage was the frontal view: You can see above that I've left the radius arm bearing open where it meets the gear leg, the intention being to use a brass pin to lock them into place for added bearing strength. Tony

Good to see u in such fine form CC!

Much better illumination on the undersides of that one than my refs showing this angle James - thanks for the confirmation. Giorgio & Ian: I'm starting a rumour that The Beatles' Yellow Submarine film was originally to be called Pink Vixen, with all the voices done by Victor Borge.... Is that at 1/72 Heather? Come for the filth, stay for the CAD..... Not now Pete. He's on a trunk call: All well thanks. Carpet tossed to become weed suppressant in the graden where needed and a new dishwasher arriving Monday. The ghastly pong of damp shag-pile has thankfully abated too... Tell her to get on with it Chris - I'm sure it would look wonderful! Be careful what you wish for Alan: from 1988-89 a pink jumpsuit, silver belt and motorcyle boots were a routine part of my wardrobe - partly on account of living in Glasgow for a few months on an exchange and discovering the brilliant Barras market! Sartorial iniquities aside, amidst all the domesticity there have been some moments free to repair to the interface and slap some more drawings togegther. Unlike the front gear - which has apparatus all nice and cleanly displayed from multiple angles - the main gear coquettishly giggles at you from behind a fan its door and wheel. Late, but not too late, I remembered the Prime Portal site had been incredibly useful back in the Iron Chicken days, and again it came up trumps with some excellent shots of the main gear by Howard Mason, which were duly added to the 'mood board': One thing I've learned to be cautious of in this respect is that across many shots online there are considerable variations in how far the shock absorber unit is extended, which can fool you into producing elements to the wrong length. In Mr Mason's shots for example, most features are well-shown, however the shock absorber is almost completely closed, whereas on James' shots and the Red Bull one I'm using on the mood board above as references for extents, the shock is naturally opened up much further. The Navy Wings guys have a lovely video of an undercarriage test here with the Vixen up on jacks so that you can see the shocks fully extended with no loading: To use a phrase repeated regularly here: 'as with so many other things about the Vixen', the main gear leg is not a straghtforward pillar but changes cross section significantly in a number of areas from wheel to well, so - as with many stages here - I started with a rough pencil sketch to understand the key alignments: First up was to buld the wheel of known dimensions in order to have a visual baseline to judge the accuracy of surrounding parts against: - and the more prosaic reverse, that's most covered by sundry excresences: You can see hin the above screenshot also that the 'blister' has been added to the outer gear door. A later part of the leg build will be forming the traingular top section of the leg so I made sure to record the width of the wheel well at that point in order to ensure the gear cross section fits (there being a clear gap between the leg and well wopeing in this respect): After creating the lower section of the shock absorber, I added a couple of (dashed, brown) construction lines to help me work out angles of the 'scissors' arms that stick out forwards of the gear: Some necessary cheating on thickness with those arms I'm afraid as the actuality scales-down as too thin to print successfully at 1/72; this is the best compromise possible in that it retains two arms top and bottom, but they lack the more involved angles and wider horizontal separation of the original: That took much longer to acheive than the corresponding level of work on the nose gear due to the need for constant readjustment and modification along the way. Before going any further I decided to pause and see if the all-important 'sit' of the aircraft was working: What do you think - does it need a little more down-angle at the back? My eyes are too tired now tonight to make a clear call. Gear displacements form the front though looking ok to me so far: The main legs still look slightly askance of course because I still need to add the triangular vertical section to it starting about halfway up, and unless my eyes deceive me, it is itself canted slightly outward from the already angled centreline of the main gear leg. We'll get to that tomrrow after a night's sleep hopefully, along with completing the gubbins around the axle area too: Tony

That's happening James. (With the axis of rotation in relation the door shape at its end point this seems to be a natural consequence) Commence 'Operation Arsecheeks'..... This is not by any means thread drift Alan but enrichment - post away old thing! Always do. After I've tried everything else first. As long as they don't turn into police enquiries..... Ahhhh, the classic Boolean THAT operator in action Keith! Unfortunately that wouldn't play At this end Michael - maybe a copyright restriction for Ireland? Mr. Lehrer's work has a perennial welcome here however. Presumably on account of the surfeit of boys that Kelis' milkshake had attracted to it. What's that in shillings Heather? Is that French for 'small brown horse'? Hard to believe the average mobile phone now has more memory than cars back then Roger. I can still remember where I was when President Kennedy landed on Marilyn Monroe. Having decided to flood the guest bedroom soon after the recent flooding of the kitchen caused by the dishwasher, the Baronial chambers have been moister than usual. Cleanup operations and disposal of a ponging carpet put matters Vixonian somewhat further back in the hustings than hoped, although I did make an initial start on a main gear wheel earlier. In relation to James' previous point about the angling outward of the main gear door, in looking at head-on photos it seems also to be the case that the main gear legs don't go straight down but angle inwards a few degrees from the vertical something like this? Tony

Your work on IPs continues to astound Ced. Brilliant.

Agree with Giorgio - looking very lively indeed!

Smooth results on those vacforms Jon. You're dead right about the satisfying nature of the task - I giggle very time!

Distressed at tidings of you getting all Hannibal on the opposable Ced but glad to see it hasn't affected progress on the Hurricanos. Hope you get some sun to enjoy the new furniture!

Like they're saying G, lovely work on the tail feathers. Spent some time on Lightnings myself back in the early 90s. Take-off was extremely quick but it always ended in a crash....

Highly remiss of me to be so late to notice this James but a most evocative subject and deeply satisfying read to catch with the detailing and revisions so far. Good luck with this!

Not 'arf it ain't! I reckon that underside FAW.2 plan photograph I've been using as a primary reference for shape in Fusion gave me tunnel vision even though the evidence is there to see in loads of other refs. Updated now to something more fit for purpose: I'll add the blister to it tomorrow.... Extraordinary! I spent ages trying to puzzle what such singular notches might be for but ordnance never sprang to mind! My supposition that it was a bottle-opener for the deck crew beers cruelly wide of the mark then. Only S. Pellegrino and Eau de Soir soap chide the bone china of Maison Baron to cleanliness Michael. One simply must maintain standards. Only if I put a rush on it...

Ahh dammit - no wiggly cutouts on the ouboard door for a FAW.1! What a rookie mistake for de Havilland to have made.... Back to the drawing board to straighten....

I can't a fjord that kind of lifestyle.... Oooh a! : Genuine guffaws at that Alan. I guess it's too late now for Victor to do a late spot at the bar? - which I'd never seen Pete. Absolutely superb - what timing and grace he had with that audience. Made my evening. I errr....it.....wait - he's better at it than me : Having slept on the wingfold problem last night I'd worked out how to deal with the assymetric top/bottom nature of the fairings (don't build it as a single design but construct the fairings separately from the wing first in order to cut out the required regions, only then joining them to the sliced wing afterwards, gas mark 10 for 15 minutes...). Caught myself just in time though from slicing through the wing first thing as I remembered that '481 isn't going to have a wingfold so its wing needs to remain unaffected!. Equally important,, there are certain features common to both wings that I need to add to the existing one first (before producing two versions from it) in order to avoid having to do the same set of jobs twice to both wings i.e. the ailerons and main undercarriage for starters: The aileron was a simple enough job to separate out from the wing shape by virtue of drawing out the aileron profile onto an image plane above the wing and then using this to cut along the seam between wing and control surface: I'll come back to detailing the leading/trailing edges of those two parts later. Following the methodology used on the nosegear, I established a profile for the overall area of the wheel wells doors: First use of this profile was to produce the outline of the doors in the underside of the wing: In terms of producing those doors first, this is by necessity a two-step operation in that the undersides here aren't a flat plane but you've got instead to deal with both the changing angle and camber of that wing surface along with the front extent of the boom. Firstly using the profile as a cookie-cutter to cut down into the wing about 1mm, then making another sketch along the edges of the resulting piece to produce a second horizontal slice that follows as faithfully as possible the changing innner profile of the doors too: I'll need to vary and deepen those inner profiles in places of course to match the reaactual doors when I deal with contouring them to accomadate the legs/wheel in the next session, but this gives the general idea at this stage. With that done it was a case of reusing the same profile to cut out the negative spaces of the wheel wells themselves (doors transparent): Transparencies reversed to show wheel wells in underside: As per the nosegear, it probably makes most sense to build a wheel/tyre (35"x10"x17" Dunlop tubeless) and associated leggery to keep the wells and doors honest when detailing them further. Our dishwasher has megalomaniacally decided it wants to wash the entire kitchen floor now rather than just dishes so we have to spend some time tomorrow purchasing a replacement (it's lasted over a decade and been repaired twice so can't complain). With that and having to clear out Steptoe's yard time may be limited tomorrow but nevertheless I hope to keep momentum going here. You ever get those stages of a build where things seem to 'flow'? A lot of it's to do with preparation I know but nonetheless am enjoying the continuing process of discovery involved in making this aircraft. Tony

I like the cut of your jib. Not to mention a very purposeful-looking drone. Hope you had a good time with the kids/grandkids Pete.