TheBaron

Wotcha! Could you clarify the bit you mean hendie I'm not quite clear. (Apologies for seeming dense). The box section of the arm that I've built so far will terminate where it meets a slightly larger collar that spreads out into a kind of hollow shovel shape around the wheel, with a tubular section above it. Is that the flange bit you mean? Addenda: Aahhh, see what you mean. I'd been relying upon the photo above and this one: as close-up references and in both the radius arm looks a box section to my eye. Having carefully scrutinised other contemporary pics (as well as a look at the Special Hobby moulding) however I reckon the combination of lighting and camera angle had me well fooled. It seems obvious of course once you follow the line of the side down to where it would intersect the wheel i.e., toward the centreline of it. .. It's unfortunate that this is one assembly not covered in the maintenance manual! Tip of the hat hendie for flagging that up I see some de-soldering on the cards tomorrow....

Oooh. 56K downloads. Feel the power of progressive GIFs! Been at the Bath Olivers and malmsey again Ced? #westcountrydecadence Whilst anything over six inches is a bonus.... Grazie Giorgio. Expect to feel floored for a day or two more yet but that's just the hangover from it. The beastly ague seems to have departed otherwise on a chariot of tissues. Gracious of you Martian. Dentrassi beans? http://thedentrassi.blogspot.com/2012/11/purple-cape-beans-vs-red-beans.html No, 'tis not just you hendie. In fact I've spent an obsessive amount of time today trying to represent that 'subtle-but-there' curvature along the radius. It started with these bits: Which were turned into rough blanks: These various parts were then paired up and Gator-Grip'd together to try and keep their various profiles uniform during final shaping and then the GG washed off again. I knew the soldering was going to be tricky in trying to build what is essentially a box-section made up of differing curves and widths - in the back of my mind I had retained a Plan B of going back to reshape and bulk-out the radius arms of the original kit parts if necessary - but I really wanted to try and push my skills as far as they would go on this task in order to get better at building these more complex structures from scratch. After some thought I decided that the most reliable method would be to silver each two adjoining parts first, tack them into place at 90° to each other, and then make the final seam by running a bead of solder along the join on the tip of the iron. It wasn't easy at this scale, but to my pleasure it worked! Of course it gets exponentially more fiddly adding each new section due to both limited access to solder in along the seams and also not pushing too much heat in to the structure that the previous solder-seam gives way. Eventually a second side was on: Then it was just the final wall to add: The angles are pre-bent by eye in the etch folding tool and to introduce the slight curve that hendie has already noted I ran the piece through some round nosed pliers, gentle-like. And so: Needs all the yucky-mucky liquid flux and whatnot cleaned off but otherwise a more pleasingly-proportioned fairing than the kit part: With the excess solder knocked-back hopefull you can just about make out a slight inner curvature now in this test-fit shot: One down, the other ready to go tomorrow: Then it's time to think about the 'horshoe' bits on the front of this section that reach out and grab the axles. Hope you lot are having a decent Saturday. I'm just off to boil some spuds to go with the smoked ham joint that is tonight's tea. More tomorrow with luck. Tony

Errr...no Keith. Is it a prolonged and meaningful one?

Just spent ten minutes of pure pleasure catching up with your work here Bill. This is bravura stuff indeed and chock-full of thoughtful solutions. Mighty work.

Looking fantabulosa in that grey clothing! You've earned more than a pint on those appearances Ian. Reckon that's worth a second pint along with a Ploughman's lunch and a go on the fruit machine. Joyful to behold it looking so great after all that hard work.

Enviable wing-foldery Dr.Massimo. Truly you could teach the birds to do it!

Thanks Tomo. As regards moonlight I'm currently re-reading this for the winter nights: Most illuminating on us pagan British. Anyone know is there a Masonic Lodge for modellers? Wow Keithster! I must have seen it the same amount, but over a period of 20 years... 'There's no need to display your talents for insubordination quite so readily Calvert....' I drank three bottles of Lucozade in quick succession. The resultant belching displaced the coughing quite satisfactorily.... I'll have to - she refused to go out in the rain to get 'Warlord' comic from the newsagent and that copy of 'Biggles Flies East' from the library... That raised a chuckle Adrian. Thanks! Roger Roger. Argh CC! That sounds ominous my friend! I hope that you're ok? Sounds like: Thanks for the cold remedies too! I managed to sing a few bars of 'There's a Boy Coming Home on Leave' whilst bathing this morning, followed by Peter Gabriel's 'Games Without Frontiers' at full cry. I don't know whether that counts as improvement or relapse though.... You read that in The Lancet, didn't you Simon? Well, I'm feeling somewhat better Martian, though whether any of this is remotely entertaining I'm not well enough to say.... I know I'm going to regret asking this but did any of you hear the Martian wind during the week? Bedridden I may have been but idle I was not. Amidst the sputum and groaning the loyal old brain got on with the clever stuff in the background and hatched up a scheme for trousering the undercarriage, if you get my drift. To whit, Ex. A: The kit outline may be a bit of a fiendish claw in the way it's moulded to grip the wheel, but the shape of the radius arm itself is sufficiently accurate to let me take outline aspects from it with tape in order to scan them into the Silhouette software for outputting some masks: Good old brain, thinking that one up! I've stuck those down onto some thin brass strip and will et them cut out tomorrow hopefully: The intention is to solder that big boxy fairing together and then build the front horseshoe shapes that grab the axles from shaped and flattened tubing later. I believe that the road surface to Hades is comprised in large measure of a number of those intention-things, but one can but try... I have fantasies about banging these latter sections out on the anvil like a miniature blacksmith, pausing only to sip thimbles of cider and admire comely maidens on their way to the dairy. Another job that had been irking the instincts also completed: poking out through the starboard side of each Cheetah nacelle is a kind of double-horn affair - no idea as to the function of the blighter but it is a prominent enough feature to warrant building. To acheive this I soldered the mounting framework for it to the firewall and then built up the required detailing on it from plastic: I'll have to cut a hole on the port nacelle and have one of those sticking out through the skin on t'other side of t'Anson as well... Like ourselves, many of you around these Isles will have the hatches battened down for weather tomorrow; whether here or eslewhere on the globe, do take care of yourselves and I hope to have a tad more to show over the weekend. Tony

Blurghhhh. Bed-ridden with the foulest of colds and furious, quite furious. My immune system can expect a very strong letter from my legal representatives - make no mistake about that. The worst of it is feeling so sheight that you can't actually enjoy a decent level of misery and self-pity; umpteen books tossed aside with sighs of disinterest, music of any kind frankly irritating, whilst the thought of attempting a film - even When Eight Bells Toll which is my go-to panacea for what-ails-ye - is without merit. Ah, but I can at least seek solace in what modelling chums have to say... Nowt so distressing as seeing so many fellow human beings wandering around staring into phones in complete oblivion to the world immediately surrounding them. As long as there is light there are things to see. Even amidst the concrete. An alternative explanation is that social media simply represent a Malthusian mechanism to divest societies of their most pathetically self-obsessed individuals via manholes and road-crossings... And the thread is richer for your presence Bill. That's what we like to hear Max. Are you going to be including that rectangular upper frame above the oleos that articulates up and inward? I'm still mulling the best way of representing that curvey great radius rod. The internal framework looks a lot easier than the wavy fairing that covers it tbh but there's no credible way I can see of leaving it off, plus they are a key visual characteristic.... The waxing's painful of course but nothing else gets them so smoooooth.... Oh for those lost occasions in life when one yearned to hear such praise.... You are one dedicated parent CC. There is also the 'Dublin second'; being that interval between the traffic light turning green and the driver behind honking their horn whilst speculating loudly about your resemblance to the male generative organ. Any longer than two seconds leads to the use of headlights accompanied by speculation regarding your supposed sexual congress with women who have borne one or more children. Teuchter, Ed, Ben, Pete: thanks for your replies also fellows!

Which is to say, that it gives a fantastic sense of how you've improved the dimensions of the original kit Ian. Nice work on the soldering too!

Magic masking Maestro! Something satisfying about laying out markings for paint like this isn't there? Followed by the Peel-Reveal-Squeal of seeing if it all worked of course.

Lovely colour and shape on that John. Splendid work sir.

More quality stuff Keith. That Tiger Moth in the sunlight is simply resplendent!

Have a good holiday Steve. Those last few shots look superb. I'm going to ask Santa for magnetic Formica....

Glad to hear you got that fixed Giorgio. Saves me having to write 'You'll easily fix that Giorgio' as I was just about to! I love that Oramask stuff and am forever in yours and Ced's debt for convincing me to shell out for a roll.

Looking enviably smooth around those roots now CC. I must admit that sanding such areas on compound curves always has me a bit skittish in that you need to pay such close attention to keeping the curvature and not end up with a 90 degree corner....