Bandsaw Steve

Watching with great interest. Love the subject too. Keep 'muddling' along, this is going to come out really well.

Hi Prop-nut. I had no idea that Ashburton had a Mig15! I love that museum but haven't been since 2014. Do they have a Strikemaster yet? That was their number one acquisition goal when I was last there.

Somewhere to put that Glenfiddich we were talking about earlier!

Canopy - Part 7 - Getting there... At the end of the last post I had got to the point where the cockpit aperture was only very slightly wider than the 'canopy base' for a few mm just behind the pilot's shoulders, but there is a 3D aspect to this problem. Look at the photo below to see what I mean. On the starboard side of the cockpit you can look right through a gap between the bottom of the orange base and top of the fuselage, that gap is there simply because the orange plastic is flat while the fuselage, when viewed from the front, is circular. So we need to get the base to conform much more closely with the top of the fuselage. Here's how I've done it - I've never used hot water to assist shaping sheet plastic before, but it turned out to be dead easy. I'll be using this method again. First assemble the tools as shown below. A coffee cup probably isn't really a 'tool' but you know what I mean; perhaps equipment is a better word. Boil a jug of water and pour the water, while still very hot, into the coffee cup. Dunk the piece of plastic into the hot water - not for long; only about as long as you would dunk a chocolate chippie biscuit into hot cocoa. Pull the, now very soft and pliable, piece of plastic out of the water and press it onto the outside of the dowel so that it is forced to mold a gentle curve along it's long axis. In this case the dowel is a much smaller curvature than the top surface of the fuselage, but luckily less than 100% of the curvature was transferred to the plastic. The resulting contour was a pretty close fit. Now all I had to do was knock back some of the paint-work and scribe in some cross-hatching so that the soon-to-be-applied araldite would have something to grip. Following a quick spray of primer over the bare plastic (note that it's no longer Woolworth's orange) I used two-part epoxy to glue the 'canopy base' onto the top of the fuselage. I held it tightly in place with Tamiya tape and let it sit for a few hours. The tape helped enforce the close conformity of the part with the top of the fuselage. Whew! that's looking better. Now I have a sensible looking structure to attach the canopy to. The canopy clips onto the base now, so although glue will still be necessary it won't have to do 100% of the work. I am happy with the outcome here. You may note that there is still a very small residual gap between the canopy and the fuselage, again just behind the pilot's shoulders, but this should be easily filled. I'm now confident that I've got most of the 'engineering' associated with the canopy sorted out. Phew! I think I'm getting there...

Awesome!

Hi Adrian, For what it's worth, I find myself using two-part arildite epoxy more and more. Very strong, grips plastic and wood ok and plenty of wriggle time. Also very cheap and readily available. Only drewback I can see is it tends to be a bit thick and 'gluggy' so if you want a thin skin of glue might not be so great. And it stinks the house out!

Canopy - Part 6 - Taking a big problem and making it smaller Hello, It's been a while since my last posting here, mostly due to life getting in the way - families, holidays, work... you know the kind of thing... Anyway, at my last major posting I suggested that I was about to re-start the entire fuselage and to my delight Hendie seemed to believe me - at least briefly! Suffice to say I am not actually going to build the whole damned fuselage again! Here's another view of the problem that I have to solve, there's a gap approximately the size of the Grand Canyon either side of the canopy. Hmmmmm... I have decided on fairly simple and rather dodgy fix - but in the interests of time and simplicity it will do. I just cut out two small lengths of 1.5mm evergreen styrene sheet, each a bit longer than the cockpit aperture and smeared a blob of two-part epoxy on the top side of each end of each piece. I then ran a bit more along one edge of the plastic strip. I then used tweezers and bad language to position each piece of plastic inside the cockpit and along the top of the cockpit wall. As each plastic strip is longer than the aperture the excess plastic at either end sits sit inside the cockpit under the fuselage skin. I then forced the plastic upwards, using the tweezers, so that the glue on either end attached to the inside of the fuselage skin. I also pressed outward so that the glue on the outside edge gripped onto the outside fuselage wall. I then held the piece in place, manually, for about 10 very boring minutes until the glue gained a secure grip. I should have taken more photos to make the process clearer but that would have required 3 hands! Using glue in this 'upside-down, inside-out' kind of way is not very smart because any bump from above will subject these 'hanging' strips to forces that will tend to push the strip downward and as glue is very weak under tension (as opposed to under compression) the bit of plastic will drop off easily. Therefore I let the glue cure for 24 hours before gently smothering the plastic strips in perfect plastic putty to smooth out the dodgy work. As you can see in the photo below - the gap is now considerably reduced, not quite eliminated, but now much more manageable. Don't worry about all of the PPP smeared all over - it cleans up very easily with a bit of sandpaper. From here I think I can see my way clear to sorting this canopy business out once-and-for-all and I am getting my 'mojo' back for this project. So expect the posts to start coming a bit quicker in the foreseeable future. I am starting to think that with a good set of military spec binoculars the finish-line might now just be visible in the distance! Hope you can all sleep easier now knowing that this situation is under control! Reconcilor

I second Phoenix's comments above. Always nice to see scratchbuilt projects, especially to this standard.

It's been a while since I've last seen this thread but now I've caught up and am impressed with your progress. Keep going, it's looking good.

Hello Frank, A 'Hinkley 43 sloop' - that's what I needed to know! As you say, good drawings available for this class of yacht. I wouldn't mind betting that there are one or two here in Perth, so now I know what I'm looking for, this project is starting to look a bit more viable. I don't know if you have seen my mig 15 thread but if you are interested on pages 6 and 7 'Renshape' gets discussed a lot as does composite decking and some comments on your excellent work. I would stick a link in here for your convenience but am using an iPhone and only know how to do that when using a P.C. Anyhow I've picked up quite a few ideas from your posts so thanks for that. Reconcilor

Awesome! Yeah - that's what I'm talking about!

Hello Albergman, So nice to hear from you. I fear this may be getting confusing. It was ZooL several years ago who was thinking of building his father's yacht. I'm thinking of building the yacht that John Lennon chartered in 1980 'Megan Jayne' subsequently re-named 'jubilee'. If I were to build it it would be full-hull, fully rigged.

I don't mean to offend, but when I first saw the photograph I thought you were holding a large cow-pat.

Go for it. What could possibly go wrong?

Wow! Good photos there. Haven't seen these before. Thanks

Oh Hendie! If only this was April the first I could have so much fun telling you I've already chopped the wings off. Don't worry, I'm not actually going to start again. Just dial your BS detector up a few notches when reading my posts.

Canopy - Part 5 Taking a small Problem and make it bigger Good suggestions concerning sorting out my tech issues Hendie, thanks for that I will give those fixes a try sometime when I'm less pressed for time. Also great suggestions regards composite decking. I have googled suppliers here in Perth and they are abundant. The stuff looks ideal so will definitely be trying out that idea. But for now, let's see if I can take a small problem and make it bigger - why not? Back to the dreaded canopy. You might remember I was using this rather rough canopy mold as a template testbed to work out how to fit the canopy onto the fuselage and discovered that, when the canopy was placed accurately, there was a rather significant gap behind the pilot's shoulder. Unsure about what to do abut this I decided to postpone solving that problem and start working on my plan to secure the bubble. Found this old discount card from a supplier that will remain un-named. Very, very carefully marked out the outline of the canopy - Hmmmmm... Cut out the shape and checked that the canopy would 'pop-on' over the top of the new...whatsamacallit... 'Canopy base'? It actually fitted pretty well and I was happy. Marked out the hole for the cockpit. Just look at the research effort that going into this would ya! Drill some holes... Grind out some plastic... Ah-ha... Now I have a structure that I can essentially just clip the canopy onto (as shown above) and secure with a beading of well-placed canopy glue - sweet! Only problem is - now the plastic canopy base is flat and it's just made the gap look even bigger - I'm not sure the gap actually is bigger, but it sure looks bigger. So now for the real crushing irony - the root cause of this whole problem is actually a lack of research on my part. Now I know that some of you love, love, love research - and good on you if you do. For me it's 'Research - Smeasearch' (I know that there's no such word). Research for me is pretty close to just another word for homework! (Wow - I bet this post isn't going to get many likes!) So I'm highly dependent on the accuracy of the plans that I'm using; chances are if they are wrong I'll be wrong, and I'll have no-one to blame but myself. So the root cause of the problem here is laziness on my part - the plans that I'm using show no detail inside the cockpit. The canopy is rendered as if effectively opaque so they do not show the size, shape or exact location of the cockpit aperture and when I was carving it out I was just making it up and guessing the size and shape. It seems in my haste I guessed wrong. More homework required. Next time I will be more careful. Now the obvious solution here is to start again. Carve a new fuselage, this time out of composite decking - chop the wings and tail off this one and re-fit them to the new one. Maybe that's what the next post will be about. Best Regards, Reconcilor

Well, in case any-ones interested, its definitely an issue with the PC. I'm writing this on a Mac on page 7.

By the way - just in case anyone can offer any advice at all, I'm still having to write all of these replies on page 2. The 'reply to this thread' tool is still not working on this computer on all subsequent pages. I also cannot quote anyone. I'm a bit worried that if I start another thread for my next project I won't be able to post anything except from my I phone - and that would be a royal PITA.

Hello Hendie and Sprueloose, Thanks for your comments - both good suggestions on the 'Renshape' front. I'm still dead keen to try this stuff and I think I will take up Hendie's suggestion of approaching the retailer and seeing if he has any customers likely to be able to supply me some off-cuts. To ask for that favour though I think I should really meet him in person, and because his shop is not open Saturdays that will mean I will need to take a bit of time off work (probably a few hours off one afternoon)and work is very busy at the moment. Probably won't get out there until June at the earliest. As for the idea of using composite decking as a substitute for Renshape - well I'm all for having a go. In my estimation Albergman's work is some of the most inspiring on Britmodeller and that Lola is just fantastic (and he got bored and didn't finish it!). Did you see the pleasure cruiser he's made a few slides below it - unbelievable! So, next time I'm down at the local hardware store I'll check out 'composite decking' and see what's available. It's funny some of the things one can learn on this forum. One of the 'issues' I've been struggling with over my next possible build is getting a thick enough piece of 'liquid ambar' to work on. I've been thinking that maybe I can join two pieces of it together and that that might be OK - and then looking at Albergman's thread he had exactly the same 'problem' stuck two bits of Renshape together and used the join as a permanent centreline always visible regardless of how he carved! This essentially assures symmetry as he can always measure equal distances from it! Genius! That's a very simple but very, very practical idea that I will be using for sure on my next build, in fact it's got my little brain buzzing thinking about all sorts of other related possibilities and I'm now in a 'can't wait for the next project to try this out' state of mind. Best Regards, Reconcilor

Hi Longshanks, Thanks very much for those links - I did not realise Albergman did maritime work. I don't know if you are familiar with his work but it really is outstanding (have a look at his Flying Scotsman some time). All very inspiring stuff to be sure. Now I might as well get specific and just post here what I've got in mind just in case anyone has any resources or information that might be of use. I'm not starting my own thread at this point because, and I must emphasise this, I have not decided to do this particular project yet - it's just an idea at this point and is one of several possible projects competing for priority. Last week I bought a small book called 'Notable Boats' by Nic Compton (Ivy Press). It's just a small coffee-table book outlining the history and basic specifications of 40 boats that have been influential or 'notable' in some way. One of them has caught my eye... In 1980, not long before his untimely demise, John Lennon chartered a yacht - the 'Megan-Jayne' in Newport, Rhode Island and sailed, as part of a small crew, to Bermuda. The journey is said to have inspired John's last album 'Double Fantasy'. This is the boat that I am considering scratch-building in 1/50 scale. There are basic - very basic - drawings in the book. Just a simple plan and profile view along with some dimensions and a rather attractive colour scheme. There are few specifications given for the boat beyond that its rig is that of a 'sloop', it has a crew of 5 and was built in 1977. I don't know what class of yacht she is. Here's a photo of this rather attractive vessel. A simple google search reveals that the boat has subsequently been re-named 'Jubilee' and it at some point (and perhaps still is) owned by a Mr Stephen Fuller and his wife. Now I'm sure that I could find Mr Fuller and on 'Facebook' or 'Linked-in' and probably get some details that way - but doing so would I think morally compel me to commit to this project. So if anyone on britmodeller has some readily available information to share - that would be great, but I must emphasise - please do not go to any great trouble on my behalf as this project may yet come to naught. Best Regards, Reconcilor

Hi Adrian- look! I've found the updated thread! Thanks for the directions. Looking forward to more Fairey Monoplane action. Reconcilor

Excellent news. I like this build!

Stand - Part 2 Hello, A lot to discuss in the last few postings and I promise I will get back to the points raised. Firstly though, after 'Stand - Part 1' John-W expressed an interest in the hand-sander I was using and I promised I would post the model number. Well I have looked and can't see a model number, it just says 'Ryobi Palm Sander' and that's all. Here's a photo in case John's chasing some detail. Along with a bandsaw and an electric drill this is one of the three power-tools that I really would not want to without for this kind of work. There are plenty more excellent tools out there, but I have limited space and so tend to run on a minimum - I consider this part of my minimum kit. Last time we looked at the stand, this was where I was up to; stand 'roughed out' and the aircraft balanced on top, ready to drop off at the slightest gust of wind. The stand currently looks a bit angular and 'blocky' to my eye, so let's round off the sharp edges. First I just marked out a rough guide as to how much material I wanted to trim from the sharp edge around the base. No fancy methods required, if you can hold a pencil steadily in the manner shown it's fairly easy to mark sufficiently even guide lines. And now carve away the shaded bit between the two relevant guidelines that you can see on this photo. In this case I'm using MDF which is a good option for some jobs but has it's drawbacks; firstly any cut surface tends to leave a furry edge that needs significant work to clean up, secondly, it's very dusty to work on and I believe that it's dust is not especially healthy stuff to breath, and finally it has a reputation for blunting tools. Just as a good tailor or upholsterer will not use fabric scissors on paper for fear of blunting them, a good woodworker will not use his or her chisels on MDF. Oh well - I never said I was a good wood-worker, so here I go! Same deal on the upright stand. Sand to round the edges off, even them out and make them look a bit more respectable. I think that this photo tells it's own story really - mark out holes in the right place on the upright and the base and fit some dowels in preparation for joining them. Note that a drill-press would be very useful here, but again - I'm running fairly tight for space and don't have one set up, so I just 'eyeballed' these holes. Scribe the mating surfaces, add glue, and whack the bits together. Check that the upright really is upright and just gently press and hold it into position if it needs some persuasion. Looking good! Just needs some more time for the glue to dry, some plastic wood to conceal the join and a bit more sanding and I will be able to give it a test run... And here's the result... The stand seems to be working quite well. The model is a Kifr C2 that I made when I was in my early high-school days - about 14 years old I think. Dad helped a bit - thanks dad! The model's survived OK, but never had it's own stand before. I should make one for it some time. This model is made in almost exactly the same way as the Mig-15 but is considerably larger. It's based on drawings in Bill Gunston's excellent 'Encyclopedia of World Air Power' from 1980 and hence, to my knowledge is not at any particular recognised modelling scale - I've never actually done the maths but I'm pretty sure it's somewhere between 1/48 and 1/32. I'm still quite proud of it. Hope you like it too! Best Regards, Reconcilor

Searching for 'Jeaneau' takes you straight to ZooL's rather impressive project.