Bandsaw Steve

Nothing ‘run of the mill’ about those markings!

Long?!?! @Bertie McBoatface Call eight pages ‘long’. Have another look at Xantho mate. That thread is ten pages long and I haven’t even started the model!

This is shaping up well. Some really interesting subjects being proposed. I like the new heading BTW.

How about… ‘Deathtraps; dysfunctional, defective or otherwise dangerous’ To be clear. Under this definition soundly designed but outdated gear would be ‘in’. (eg the Bristol Blenheim) as these were ‘deathtraps’ but not ‘widowmakers.’ Poorly designed but generally safe gear would be ‘out’ (eg the Austin Princess) Gear that was well designed but just had bad fortune would be ‘out’ (eg the Andrea Doria) That’s my suggestion but of course it’s your call. If you need a co-host just sing out. I think I’d be game. Oh…. and maybe put me down for an F-104G

I don’t want to hijack your proposal (which I think is a good idea by the way) but think that a common theme of ‘less than excellent’ -or some such - rather than just ‘widow makers’ might work in your favour. I’ve noticed that the more inclusive and generic group build proposals are more likely to succeed in the bunfight. WRT cars a Ford Edsel might might a great ‘less than excellent’ subject but I don’t think they normally killed their owners.

OK - good idea but time for the first ‘clarification’ question… Are ‘sound designs that were out of date by time of use and hence “death traps” in or out?’ For example- the Fairey Battle was basically a sound aircraft but was obsolete by 1940 and mis-used in action and is now widely regarded as a ‘death trap’. Also are ‘things associated with mass loss of life through no design fault’ in or out? (I’m thinking Titanic, Andrea Doria, or possibly DC10’s). just curious and trying to cut off possible confusion before it arises.

Wow! 93 is too old for COVID. I hope he’s on the mend.

Maybe…. But on the other hand maybe I should just post some Xantho work on the maritime pages and distract you until you forget about it!

Bugger! The photo I was referencing was taken from the ‘several small slot-shaped holes’ side. Too late now.

Awesome work! A difficult but really worthwhile subject. I can’t believe you are going to have a modelling room on board your boat!

Fiddly Bits Now that the big structures are complete and the bulk of the paint is on this thing it's time to dive once more into some details. in this case three pieces of removable, external gear rather than integral parts of the vehicle itself. For a model builder these are fiddly bits, the first of which is the MG3 machine gun. The MG3 is an interesting weapon. Apparently it's just a revised-caliber (7.92mm to 7.62mm) MG42, so it's essentially the same weapon as the Germans used in WW2, the Imperial Stormtroopers used in 'Star Wars' and Dr No's Henchmen fired at James Bond. It's possibly the oldest combat weapon in the NATO arsenal. From a modelling point of view it's a difficult subject. The main challenge being the elongated cooling slots along the barrel housing. Here I've tried to model them by drilling holes side by side into a plastic tube and then sort of 'routing out' the remaining plastic between each hole using the drill. As you can see, It proved very difficult to get the slots looking uniform and convincing, in part because the plastic was too soft. So then I tried something similar with brass tube. The result was unsatisfactory. Then I tried cutting the slots at appropriate spots along the barrel places along the to about one quarter depth using this extremely helpful little grinding / cutting tool. and very carefully filing out the excess brass. This worked fairly well but, at the end of the process I realized that I did not really have an answer as to how to build the rest of the gun nor how to affix this to it. That was when I came up with this idea... Find a bit of polystyrene sheet that's the right thickness and draw the entire gun's profile onto it. Use a scoll saw to cut a series of slots from the top of the gun toward the barrel as shown. It turns out that this scoll-saw loves cutting polystyrene and does a beautiful job of it too! (Note to future self). So, just press on and cut out the rest of the gun. Cement a strip of polystyrene along the top. Then use sandpaper to shape all of the round contours, add some mildly convincing-looking greeblies and sit back happy with one's effort. Although not 100% accurate, I think this will look fairly convincing with a coat of gun-metal paint and some dry-brushing. The next bit of gear is a shovel. Each PZH 2000 comes equipped with a shovel affixed just to the right of the driver's hatch. Let's make one. This is simpler than the machine-gun but was still a bit more tricky than I thought. The fact is that in side views, shovels have quite a distinctive profile to them; they aren't just straight sticks with a spade head stuck on the end. So here I've bent and shaped a brass pipe to the 'correct' shape. Under all of that green masking tape is a 1/24 shovel head just waiting to be shaped to the correct contour. Boil up some water and dunk the whole kaboodle in until you are sure that the polystyrene is nice and soft. Then withdraw the scalpel from the water and - while protecting your fingers from heat - press the plastic to the correct shape. Which should leave a result like this. Which once sharpened-up and attached to the handle will make a fairly convincing-looking shovel. I also added a dab of solder on the end of the handle so that the brass tube would not appear hollow, but you cannot see that in this view. The final bit to discuss is a... goodness knows what... It's the long thin tool that is always mounted across the vehicle toward the front of the glacis plate. You can see it quite clearly on the photo below just above the number plate. It seems to consist of three or four long bars terminating at one end in a small triangular structure. I do not know what this is and if any of you do, please sing out. My best guess is that a tool used in track maintenance or tensioning? Anyway - to build this thing I chose to resort to my collection of surplus kit parts. Here I'm using injection molded ratlines provided by from a ship modeller who no longer needed them. I was just being lazy really. I only used these because they were already held together and their cross-sections looked about right. After a bit of goofing around with a scalpel and some cement I had this. Which after some 'greeblies' were added, looks like this... So, I have made some progress on this project, which is now about 1.5 years 'overdue' and continues to inch along. I promised various people that this thing would be finished by the end of the Southern Hemisphere winter and now that 'deadline' has also passed... Right now I'm running a little low on mojo for this thing and am gagging to model some bigger pieces rather than being mired in this endless stream of details. Keep your eyes peeled on the maritime section folks. I think the time has come to finally give the SS Xantho a KUTA! Best Regards, Bandsaw Steve

Looking good!

Great subject and some nice tidy work too!

All very true! My understanding (and I’m a mine geologist by profession so have some knowledge about these things) is that breathing any kind of dust is always a bad idea, although naturally some dusts are much worse than others.

BTW - just in case you don’t know - when sanding MDF try to avoid breathing the dust. Apparently it’s pretty nasty stuff.

I’m very interested to see how you are building this. Lots of new ideas in play. It’s also nice to see someone else using MDF. I sometimes feel like I’m the only fan of this stuff on BM but, as you have demonstrated, it’s a versatile and highly useful material. It’s also very inexpensive.

Lovely. It’s a shame no modern manufacturers make kits of subjects like this. I would have thought there would be a market.

16 hours! That is ‘blitzing!’ Well done.

If you do have a crack at this please post on here because it’s a very interesting project.

In my view the relative scarcity of kits and the endless variety of interesting subjects tends to make scratchbuilding and maritime modelling natural partners. Perhaps more so than any other class of subject.

Now this may seem a bit harsh but frankly I’m enjoying watching Hendie struggle with all this. It’s obvious that his scratchbuilt Avro 504 is about 10 times (maybe a hundred times?) better than mine, but at least he had to fight to get that result. If he’d done it effortlessly I would have cried.

What a beautiful rendition.

I think the new colour scheme looks much better. Good work all round.

I don’t see why not.

I always encourage people to have a crack at scratchbuilding so go for it. This could prove a very challenging subject though, as the fuselage would be hollow but still has to be strong enough to be structurally sound. At this scale the model would probably demand interior details throughout. Also, All of those little windows have to be both glazed and identical… One day I’m going to have a go at an airliner (probably 1/72 scale) but in the meantime these things scare me a bit… If you do have a crack at this I will watch with interest. @Fozzy is the man to talk to. He scratchbuilt a hollow fully detailed B17 fuselage. It’s all here on BM somewhere in the WIP pages. Sorry I’m browsing on my phone; I don’t know how to post a link using my phone.