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Bandsaw Steve

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Bandsaw Steve last won the day on July 18 2022

Bandsaw Steve had the most liked content!

About Bandsaw Steve

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  • Gender
    Male
  • Location
    Western Australia
  • Interests
    Aviation, History, WW2, painting, modelling

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  1. If you have a really high reputation score I think it earns you…. absolutely nothing… except the satisfaction that someone somewhere reads your stuff and enjoys it. That’s my understanding anyway! I hope that answers some of your queries. Welcome aboard! 👍
  2. As I understand it, If you get too many warnings or say something really ‘over the top’ you might get suspended or even banned. But these occurrences are very rare.
  3. As for warnings; the site moderators give these out very occasionally, but really - unless you go out of your way to upset someone by insulting them or swearing or making a political diatribe - in my experience at least, it just won’t happen.
  4. I’ve just clicked ‘like’ on this post, so you should now have a score of ‘1’ in your ‘reputation’. By no means a full answer I understand but it’s a start. 👍
  5. It might seem that way, but each time I complete one step I seem to find three more that need to be done. I really can’t wait to get to the ‘proper’ painting phase now as that really will mark the end of this very prolonged construction project.
  6. I did try that but had trouble turning two identical units. I also tried casting in resin, which worked OK but the resulting surface detail was a bit soft. So in the end I resorted to using plastic as shown and I think it’s working well. The best answer would be to get a proper metal-working lathe. But for that I would need more space and $$$
  7. It’s certainly a heavy burden and a call to a higher form of service than most will ever know! 🤔 Certainly far beyond risking one’s life fighting bushfires in 40 degree C plus temperatures as volunteer fire-brigade slackers like yourself are sometimes known to do. 🤣
  8. That’s the goal but -ironically enough- as I am now the Chairman and Secretary of WASMEx (West Australian Scale Model Exposition) I might not have enough spare time to get this over the line. 🤔
  9. Wheels Looking at the photo below it's pretty obvious what the next step is going to be. This thing needs wheels. Wheels can be a bit tricky because: they must be exactly circular they must have an axle running dead through the centre of them to 'look right' the axle must be the only contact between the wheel and the rest of the undercarrige this can put a torsional ‘lop-sided’ ‘twisting’ force on the axle and the wheel structure which can stress it at the thinnest point. they must be able to carry the weight of the model they often come in identical sets (here the main wheels are an identical pair) and so must match perfectly their shapes - although well known to all - are somewhat more subtle in 3D than we might at first think For all of these reasons the wheels on this model have caused me some consternation and delay, in fact I've even toyed with the idea of using aftermarket parts! 😱 But in the end I tried various means of making them and have come up with the following, fairly straightforward, methods. For the nosewheel I chose to use the lathe. Starting with a piece of dowel I reduced the diameter down to the correct size and then... Shaped the wheel carefully with small lathing chisels and used a jeweller's saw to add the tyre tread. After adding some surface details, including a wheel rim added by trimming about 1mm off the end of a short piece of aluminum tube, I had this. I then strengthened the trailing arms with some black milliputt and drilled a hole through them to accept the axle as shown. (BTW, later on I tidied up the milliputt so the final job is not quite as rough as it looks here). Here's what it looks like all threaded together. and dry-fitted in place. The main wheels were a bit more challenging. The first thing was to make sure that the main UC legs had the correct hydraulic rams and so forth added to it would be both accurate enough and strong enough in the long run. Each one also needed an axle onto which the wheels would fit. I found a circular template that was almost exactly the correct size for the wheels (in this case a washer about 0.5mm too big in diameter) and traced it's outline onto a piece of HIPS (High Impact Polystyrene Sheet) plastic which was just the right thickness. Next I used a curved chisel of almost exactly the correct diameter to press-cut out the circle as shown. I then used a centre-finder (not shown in the photos) to find the centre of the circle and drilled a hole the right size for a length of brass tubing that will act as a bearing surface for the axle. I do not intend these wheels to turn but I think that the bearing surface will be needed as otherwise I fear the narrow axle will, over time, 'cut into' the plastic and cause the whole thing to weaken and wobble. Here's the result so far. She's standing on her wheels and I'm excited! Here she is from a different angle... And finally, this shot, specifically taken to show-off the 'stance' of the jet, which I think is about right. In these photos the main wheels look a bit too large and that's fair enough because they are about 1mm in diameter over-scale, but I will fix that soon. Furthermore by contouring the shape of the tread into a curve (at the moment the tread surface is dead flat) I think I will reduce the bulky appearance of each wheel. Also once the UC bay covers are added the wheels will be less visually intrusive. At this point I'm happy! I think the trickiest parts of sorting out the undercarriage are behind me, although I’m still not sure what the best way to attach the undercarriage doors might be. Other than that, from now I'm hoping that further undercarriage work will mostly be straightforward detailing. Happy St Patrick's day. ☘️ Bandsaw Steve
  10. Great model of a great subject. What scale?
  11. Pure guess. River Rhine; I seem to remember some rivers now have a legal status as ‘non-human persons’ and I’m sure the pathfinders would have used it for all sorts of navigation purposes.
  12. Thank you! I would be most interested. Please note though that it might be a very long time before a project eventuates. I’ll PM an e-mail address to you if that’s OK
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