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TheBaron

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Everything posted by TheBaron

  1. Photo etch update: Gin and a microscope. The only way to approach these bomb racks...
  2. Some people will argue that black is white...seriously though, a nice 'weatherly' feel developing to that airframe. Tracing paper also goes onto my list of 'shamelessly purloined techniques'. Enjoying seeing this come together sir.
  3. Admire your persistence and determination in wresting this beast into shape. Following with interest. Nice one, Tony
  4. Thanks John. Hope you've wrestled that FW into submsission. Sure it doesn't need any bomb racks?....
  5. Am so using this 'cut and thrust' method next time rather than the current 'glue and pray'. Get stuck in to that curry! Ok, so this is a bit of a mega-post of images as I had today off and basically got stuck in to the last really fiddly bits of the build. I realize I'd been finding other things to do rather than tackle these so time to man up... Prior to rigging up to their respective control horns, untangling and application of a coat of grey for the 'cat's whiskers': Leaving that part aside for a while, onto the main event - a first ever bash at using PE for the flare racks: A ruler for scale so you can appreciate the scale of racks - that's not modelling it's nanotechnology surely I'd looked at a few Y-tube posts last night about techniques so made sure I was cutting the bits out on a hard surface with a sharp blade. Hang-on, these parts look a bit familiar...Space Invaders! I'd decided to try a variation on the razor blade/ruler trick for bending, using two pieces of one of those long Stanley blades snapped in half. It worked surprisingly well despite my inexperience. Here's the first fold of some ridiculously small tabs at either end of the rack. There's some equally small mounting brackets to glue onto these bits later believe it or not... Then the 'hangy-down bits that hold the bang-bangs'...I've got to be honest sometimes it was a little hard to work out which direction to fold these elements initially as the instructions show a rather ambiguous looping arrow: At this stage I was pleasantly surprised how with a bit of concentration I seemed able to get the hang of this folding metal lark. Then of course the gluing stage and reality set in: I know some people use accelerator with the CA in this situation but I'm rather glad I didn't as there was a fair bit of wiggling to get the tiny piece onto the rack and lined-up straight in two dimensions. The first row completed: Once both racks were done to this level, I decided to make an 'executive decision' You can see two different metal lengths in the photo below. The smaller of the two are diagonal braces; no matter how I tried, without a magnifying glass and some very fine pointed surgical tweezers there was just no way of fitting it accurately in place between the uprights: At this scale it's such a minor detail that it is not going to compromise the build so I simply left them out and attached the longer horizontals without them. The last elements were the miniscule mounting brackets I mentioned earlier - gluing these in place - at least accurately - is a complete nightmare. I got them done but don't know can you even notice them in this photo: Having done a quick dry fit to test the racks at this stage, it's apparent that these little bits add so little space between the wing and the rack that you can really leave them out without any heartache. Rather helpfully Marabu include a drilling guide on the PE sheet to mark out the holes on the wings correctly. Less helpfully these guide holes are so small that you'll need to drill the PE to be able to fit something like a 0.3mm pencil nib (or similar through) to mark the holes out on the wings: Prior to attaching the racks to the aircraft, an undercoat of Alclad followed by a strong black oil wash: Once fixed in place they actually look rather good, despite my mauling: Last task of the day was to get the cat's whiskers into place, making sure to get the rudder and elevator cables in the right configuration: Despite my trepidation, the control horns all held despite the pressure of tightening the cables onto them. In reality the top elevator cables have a small guide at the front that leads the cable up over of edge of the tailplane. I won't be bothering with this detail as in comparison with the cable it will look too fat and out of scale. Finally, added the bracing wires from tailplanes to rudder. This was a single length of line with a knot tied in one end that could be passed back and forth through holes drilled in the rudder: After filling the gaps with a blob of CA dripped from a cocktail stick and painting over, that's it for the day. Over the rest of the week I want to cast a critical eye over the beast, a few little bits of oil wash, and make up a flare for the rack. If all goes well I hope to have an RFI up over the weekend for scrutiny. No curry tonight but a and a salad. Cheers! Tony
  6. Top tube tips my man - much obliged! I'll let you have my recipe for slow-cooked beef madras....
  7. Any more detail on this baby and you'll be able to offer public tours via endoscope: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Findoo-Microcam-Endoscope-Camera-Micro/dp/B004FE0UUW?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0 Continues to astound...
  8. Expect a solid stream of photos to be forthcoming now Nice redtail!
  9. As with other comments-I'd have pegged this at 1/48 from just the visuals. Lovely build of a graceful craft. The photos bring it up a treat. Nice one. Tony
  10. Thanks for the encouragement Tomo...You know that fixing procedure of yours makes much more sense than Mr. Sticky Fingers here gluing his thumb to the rudder (twice). I'm going to steal...err...introduce that idea into my next biplane build. That and get myself a cheap Dremel clone off the 'bay. Just been looking at that fancy silver Glad of yours. Some lovely rigging work and those skis are just outrageous. Looks like I'm off to Albion for some tubing as well. What diameter did you use for the gun replacements? Tony
  11. Goshdarnit, Midweek and only now able to get the carcass to the bench. Stuart Lloyd's excellent and erudite volume on FAA camo and markings arrived in the post this morning - too late to save me from any egregious colour errors but I see why it's name-checked by so many people on the site. Superb. As a bonus my youngest nabbed it and can now tell a Skua from Fulmar... A limited window for operations this evening so straight down to business getting the elevator and rudder cables CA'd to their respective entrance points on the rear fuselage: They'll need a dab of grey to blend in, though I do seem to recall seeing a colour pic online somewhere where they appeared to have been painted with the same camo colour as the fuselage; I'm not going to obsess about control cable colours at this stage though given the nerdstorm I set off by posing a question on colour scale effects over on the 'Paint' part of the forum at the weekend... Then onto one of those fiddly bits I'd been dreading - building the control horns on rudder and elevator to attach these cables to. I'd umm'ed and ahh'd about what to use knowing at this scale that the weak spot is going to be the area available at the bottom of each horn to attach it to the fuselage. In the end I plumped for plasticard, two larger ones for the rudder, four smaller for the elevator: Profanity guidelines on the forum prevent a full and accurate account of the procedure involved in attaching these items to their respective points. Rudder and lower elevator first: Followed by the upper elevator once they'd cured: When you look at this arrangement, the Swordfish experts on the forum will immediately hone in one the visible compromises I had to make regarding the thickness of the horns and their respective positions on the elevator: the horns are obviously too thick for this scale and had to be moved outboard a little more than on the real thing. Any smaller and the horns would have been unusable to attach rigging to-any closer together and elevator and rudder horns would clash. As it is I'm expecting further Anglo-Saxon linguistics when affixing the cables to them tomorrow. The PE racks for the flares are starting to prey on my mind now. I'm honour-bound at this stage to finish the job properly so need to bite the bullet on this and get stuck in Tony
  12. Cheers Paul. Unfortunately I'm in Ireland though and your site says about not delivering the Zap outside mainland UK. Cheers plasmahal. Added your pic to the growing library of images on my phone that I use as a visual shopping list every time I'm in likey looking shops. I used to. Buy food once. Now it's just modelling supplies. I'll keep an eye out in my local versions of P-land.
  13. Thanks for the H&S info on this Christian. I'm none too keen on the spraying option so am going to try CedB's pen-based option for rigging work. Cheers, Tony
  14. A model shop you say goodly Dave? History recordeth no such chimerical beast to have ever inhabited this part of the world, though wondrous tales of these creatures do keep our plasticard warm and supple on winter nights.
  15. Cheers for that CedB. I'm going to go with that as it looks just what I need for the next build. A Stranraer with all the attendant rigging...
  16. Hudson Wrestling. A new era in sport... Enjoying watching this one come together.
  17. Thank you both - Albion it is. Alan P: thanks for the search tip. I wasn't aware of this search limitation but will do so on future. Apologies for reopening a previous topic. Tony
  18. Hi all. I'm anticipating (giving my growing obsession with this wonderful bankrupting forum) buying some brass rod of various thicknesses for novice scratch building experiments. What's the best place online to buy said items? I don't need a huge amount but as I'm new to this would be looking for a bag of different diameters to play around with. Apologies if this has already been covered but a search of forum topics just now didn't pull up any specific topics. Thanks for reading, Tony
  19. Always good to see a build of this particular aircraft Jerzy. A great 'used' look you've achieved on the paint/weathering- can almost see it bobbing on the Danube! Nice work. Tony
  20. That is one serious and beguiling piece of work Jeroen. Great to see it here. As a novice to scribing, may I ask what process you used to do the riveting you mentioned? Lovely work. Tony
  21. This build is fair cracking on! Each time I come back another major problem has been solved. Consider the chapeau well doffed.😎
  22. Exquisite. Your evocative paint job has the fabulously 'busy' geodetic detail spring to life. Really nice work. Tony
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