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Sprueloose

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Posts posted by Sprueloose

  1. Looks really nice Gadget. I think that your paint job is subtly done. Speaking as anther newbie here, lurking in awe, your admonition to “swallow your pride and post the picture” is excellent advice. I too have struggled with the wires and finally discovered E-Z line, an elastic thread which makes it all much easier. Plus it gives if you accidentally hit it after installing it!

    Great work. Thank you for sharing it!

    Terry

    • Thanks 1
  2. 19 hours ago, corsaircorp said:

    Hello Terry,

    Good job on that old kit

    I send my best wishes to your Navigator, hope that he will grew better soon:P

    I also have that old Monogram kit.

    I enjoy the way you create these hinges, that's clever !

    Congratulations ! :yes:

    Sincerely.

    Corsaircorp

    Thanks Corsircorp, coming from you, high praise indeed! Thanks for stopping by.

     

    17 hours ago, keefr22 said:

    More great work Terry, this will never be recognisa

    10 hours ago, keith in the uk said:

    Wow , I admire your patience , this kit has so many faults it should be binned or the easy option would have been a Tamiya FB IV kit.

    however your skill shines through and you have my admiration for turning this old howler around. :thumbsup2:

    ble as the old Mono kit wit when you've done with it!

     

    I do like that little anvil you have there!

     

    Keith

    I can't remember where that little anvil came from but it has been quite useful!

    Thanks for keeping an eye on me Keith.

     

    16 hours ago, Devilfish said:

    This is amazing, for such an old kit. But, after the confusion at the start as to what version you are building, you stated you are making the nightfighter, yet you seem to have given it bombs....

    LOL , well you caught me out there Devilfish, apparently I'm building some sort of night fighter bomber! Truly a "What the heck is it?". Basically I just like the shapes involved and after wavering about at the beginning and decided to go with the flow... 

     

    10 hours ago, keith in the uk said:

    Wow , I admire your patience , this kit has so many faults it should be binned or the easy option would have been a Tamiya FB IV kit.

    however your skill shines through and you have my admiration for turning this old howler around. :thumbsup2:

    Thanks  for the kind words Keith. I appear to enjoy the challenges of working with these old kits..

     

     

    To bring us up to date.

    I have been working on the cannon bay. Here is the real thing (up side down):

     

    36287535332_88a2f6d56d_c.jpg

     

    I had to remove the bulkhead that I had added previously (a common practice with me it seems, add a bit and then rip it out!) and then constructed the new piece out of three thin sheets of plasticard :

     

    36287535592_b39e1028df_c.jpg

     

    I had started mocking up the cannons earlier but then I actually did a little research and I have been re doing them:

    Here I am just checking the height of the spacer beneath:

     

    36287535522_f12b7f6780_c.jpg

     

    Here are the real things (upside down again):
     

    36471547635_4716a57d6a_c.jpg

     

    And my attempt so far:

     

    35663447253_f5d77813e3_c.jpg

     

    All for now folks!

    Hopefully things will continue and I might get some paint on the Whirlwind!

    Terry

     

    • Like 4
  3. 11 hours ago, keefr22 said:

    Excellent stuff Terry, the crew looks great after undergoing all that major surgery! And aren't people really all different scales anyway...?! 

     

    Good info on twisting lead wire together in a mini drill, I've never tried that and it always breaks when I try to twist it by hand!

     

    Looking forward to more!

     

    Keith

    The hand grinder that I have can be turned down to fairly slow rpm so that made it easier. The cooper wire is really fine and worked well. I think that with practice I could produce longer runs of useful stuff. The lead wire was interesting as it would twist up so easily and then automatically break off! 

    Really I was trying to represent what we call Romex cable or metal-sheathed cable. I saw someone here doing it by winding really thin wire around a thicker wire and then coating it. Looked much more like Romex that my twisted affair. 

     

     

    After getting the crew sorted I started working on the bomb bay. Installed a couple fuel tanks and strut details:

     

    35608324843_bd3dbcbe85_c.jpg

     

    Made room for the cannons which I will have to scratch build.

     

    35608300733_8ba867fd59_c.jpg

     

    More details. 

     

    36247748532_d63e8a9cbb_c.jpg

     

    Made the hydraulic cylinders for the bombay doors out of several sizes of brass tubing:

     

    35608326153_6d39be8494_c.jpg

     

    Added bits of PE for the mounting hardware and lead wire for the hydraulic lines.

     

    36247749092_ac210f57e6_c.jpg

     

    Installed and ran the lines for the bomb doors. The doors for the cannons are separate and don't have hydraulics.

     

    35580831464_8767e8454a_c.jpg

     

    Set the doors in place and realized that my previous attempt at representing the hinges is not good enough:

     

    35608329753_6153c37414_c.jpg

     

    So I started to make the hinges out of copper wire. Heated the wire, then bent it around a pin and hammered it flat. :

     

    35580831834_5db283faa4_c.jpg

     

    Made a jig to help me cut the hinges at the right angle:

     

    35608332123_b5d1b29eaa_c.jpg

     

    Here is what I am trying to represent:

     

    35580832744_d6dfb373e8_c.jpg

     

    I bent a little foot on each leg of the hinge to facilitate attaching them to the model. There are 18 of them for the bomb and cannon doors and the engine nacelles as well. Made a few spares and picked the best ones for the model. Hope they do the job!

     

    35580816674_b9e20e654e_c.jpg

     

    That's enough for now. Almost up to date! 

    Thanks for watching.

    Terry

     

     

     

    • Like 2
  4. 12 hours ago, Martian Hale said:

    Great to see this underway again. I am looking forward to seeing the paint going on.

     

    Martian

    Thanks for checking on me Martian. The weather is still a bit too hot for painting I think, but I think that it will be sooner than later..

    I have been enjoying your tug build. Wish that I could scratch build as cleanly!

     

    Terry

    • Like 3
  5. Still working on the cockpit. Gave it a coat of Mr Surfacer 500:

     

    35608299783_44a53ab125_c.jpg

     

    Began making wire harnesses to detail the cockpit, out of lead wire and foil.

     

    36279382161_cf79219a26_c.jpg

     

    Added wires to the radio equipment:

     

    36279382751_371515561f_c.jpg

     

    Discovered that if I chucked up thin wire in my Proxxon I could twist it evenly. Even worked with the lead wire!

     

    36247744932_24894b1eea_c.jpg

     

    Added the pilot and navigator's seats. Made the boot that covers the linkages to the column. 

     

    36279383481_0140f7766e_c.jpg

     

    Decided to populate the cockpit. It became very crowded very quickly. I can see why Monogram didn't add any details! The width of the kit's fuselage is about 3 mm too narrow and putting the resin bits in there really made it a tight squeeze for the navigator figure... plus his feet didn't want to reach the floor!

     

    36279396511_5e22714964_c.jpg

     

    Added the resin control panels and radar equipment (night fighter, remember? )

     

    36247745382_5703a1a3a4_c.jpg

     

    Decided not to use the rudder pedals as they won't be seen once the canopy is on and besides I had trouble getting the pilot to place his feet on them!

    Made the little boxed drawer below the radar set.. not sure what it was for..

     

    36415901245_e94b653f1b_c.jpg

     

    You can see that space is cramped as the piece of radio equipment that sat behind the pilot's see had to be mounted up on the shelf above. Made a little bracket to support it out of spare PE. Added gunsight and throttles with their linkages that slide beside the pilot's seat when the nose is put in place.

     

    36415902955_7d5ff249bd_c.jpg

     

    The navigator figure had to undergo some major surgery to fit into his assigned seat. I work hard to get his feet on the floor and had to cut him in two , sliding his legs and hips in from the front and wiggling his de-armed torso in from the top.  He doesn't look too happy

     

    36415903795_443f8ed3da_c.jpg

     

    With the nose on, you can see the height difference between the two figures is greatly exaggerated. (Monogram kept the height of the fuselage about right but with the width narrower....) I suppose that the figures aren't exactly to scale either...

     

    36247746502_96280ed965_c.jpg

     

    I hacked off some arms from a figure set that I had and bent the navigator over (had to take a saw to his neck!) so that it would appear that he was hunched over a map in his lap..

     

    36299109121_ed47010eb3_c.jpg

     

    Enough for now... 

    Thanks for checking in.

    Terry

     

     

     

     

    • Like 11
  6. I think you are right about it being for the NF or interceptor. I just couldn't remember last night what version I had settled on!  As I mentioned, I'm playing catch up as I started work on this thing months ago and I've gotten absorbed in the details of the cockpit (with the radar equipment installed!) and I am currently having fun in the bomb bay. As you can tell accuracy is more of a tool I use to find interesting things to do on a kit not a end in itself! I will upload another batch of photos tonight and might bring the thread up to date within a few days. 

    This build is a bit odd as I am not working with a particular aircraft in mind. Image working on a kit and forgetting which version you are doing! Perhaps it will end up being a "What If" or more likely a "What the **** is it?"

    Hope you are doing well. Cooler today. 

    Terry

    • Like 1
  7. 7 hours ago, keefr22 said:

    Good to see an update Terry, I was actually wondering over the weekend whether this had been forever banished to the shelf of doom!!

     

    Can you post a link here to your Mossie thread so we can see what you're up to with that golden oldie?!

     

    ATB

     

    Keith

    Thanks for checking in Keith. I am sure that I will get the Crikie moving again soon. It's been so hot here (40 degrees C) that I didn't think airbrushing would be a good idea!

    Terry

  8. To get some relief from my Whirlwind, which has stalled a bit over the summer, I found this old Monogram kit and thought it might be fun to bash together. The kit supposedly gives you four options to choose from, the MK IV Bomber, the MK II Night Fighter, the Mk II Night Intruder and the MK VI Fighter Bomber. I decided to do  the MK VI Fighter-Bomber... I think. I bought a cheap cockpit resin kit designed for the Tamiya kit and a set of resin wheels to correct the too narrow kit wheels.

     

    36371765736_6ed1088256_b.jpg

     

    The kit had been opened and was missing one of the propeller blades.

     

    36248547042_88fe4db7f4_c.jpg

     

    So I cast a new blade in resin using dental alginate for the molding material. 

     

    36415893485_29789581f4_c.jpg

     

    Attached it to the hub with a metal pin and epoxy.

     

    36279395451_0517663b22_c.jpg

     

    After doing a little research about this kit online I cut the tail fin down. The fuselage is too narrow but I decided to not mess with that..

     

    36415894335_89c5979e4b_c.jpg

     

    I inserted some brass tubing for the missing canons in the nose (I decide to use the gun nose and so sawed off the bit of nose for the glassed in version). I substituted brass rod for the radar antenna and subsequently added the additional bit of antenna missing on the kit part.

     

    36019368560_aac47ffe5a_c.jpg

     

    36279392531_5954cf8a1a_c.jpg

     

    Drilled out the oleos and pinned the resin wheels in place. I think that the stiffening fin on the mud flap is wrong and will fix that later.

     

    36415895915_04bfc62e9f_c.jpg

     

    The kit cockpit was minimal and had both the pilot and navigator on the same level. Started to modify the kit to accommodate the resin.

     

    36415896775_88409b6234_c.jpg

     

    I attached the wings at this point which may or may not have been a good idea. i certainly made modifying the cockpit easier in some respects.

     

    Enough for now... sorry for the long post... doing catch up here..

     

    Thanks for watching.

    Terry

     

     

     

     

    • Like 7
  9. So it's been awhile since I posted to this thread and that represents the intervention of life and all it's nasty bits and frankly I hit a wall with this build. But I did make a bit more progress. I gave the "new" model another complete shot of primer after deciding that my bits of foil on the wings had to be removed. So after hours of sanding and filling and sanding :

     

    35608303753_74b2f26ab0_c.jpg

     

    Then more time spent burnishing the primer and re-scribing panel lines on the wings:

    35608305743_8583e09c5d_c.jpg

    You can see the patches of distressed plastic where the foil had been. More sanding...

    36279394311_16956ea8e3_c.jpg 

     

    Finally some scribing:

     

    36279394921_81f29d446c_c.jpg

     

    Night flier anyone?

     

    36415892625_a387b805a3_c.jpg

     

    Finally I gave both models a coat of Vallejo Metal Color acrylic Duraluminium:

     

    36019367880_6006682711_b.jpg

     

    My plan was to then coat it with hairspray or the equivalent medium to allow me to scratch through the camo layer and reveal the aluminum since the plane that I am representing was heavily weathered that way..

    And that is where my mojo left me back in June or was it July? Anyway I think that I was getting too "precious" with the darn thing and afraid to screw it up with the camo and the painted markings... sigh.  So I set it aside and looked for something that I wasn't worried about messing up....

    Enter the old (1985) Monogram de Havilland Mosquito kit that I got for almost nothing... I will start a new thread to show you the fun that I am having with that... and I will be back to continue this build soon I hope.

     

    Thanks for baring with me!

    Terry

     

    • Like 3
  10. So after breaking off the flap guide once again.... I decided to replace them with brass... 

    Sculpted the guide in brass rod:

    34323638924_3cf6d7c3b3_c.jpg

     

    And then soldered a bit of brass sheet to the end hidden inside the wing:

     

    35128614966_c9aacd62bd_c.jpg

     

    Cleaned up the over-solder and did a bit more sculpting:

     

    34323641174_c7634746a6_c.jpg

     

    Glued in place with epoxy:

     

    35128616756_4fd6580270_c.jpg

     

    I'll let the epoxy cure over night and then clean it up a bit... 

     

    Thanks Martian for the sage advice.. too true.. like my basement.. the clutter does grow to fill the available space...

    Keith, I am glad to know that there are others out there who work in a "messy" environment.. Reminds me of an old carton, where a scientist is showing someone around his lab and the gentleman comments on the mess. The scientist says "If you think this is bad you should see the inside of my head!"

     

    Cheers,

    Terry

     

    • Like 3
  11. Thanks Martian and Keith for the kind words and support. I seem to be at a bit of a low point, struggling to get over a hump and move on!

     

    So... back at the bench and after a couple of days of sanding and filling I managed to knock off one of the Fowler flap guides that protrude at the aft end of the flaps.. this makes about the third time that I have managed to remove one of them. They have been replaced at least twice with carved sprew... Sigh.. 

     

    What I decided that I have learned from this experience, is one, I should seriously consider replacing all of these protruding bits with brass firmly anchored to the airframe. Like I have done with the pitot tube and antenna mast, and two... that my work space was way too cluttered and that added to my problems..

     

    35085544566_f87d1f6b51_c.jpg

     

    I admit to being rather a messy creator, (you should see the inside of my head!) but I am starting to see the benefits of have room to swing a cat! (without knocking off the sticky-out bits!)

    So as a general first step in the campaign to ORGANIZE MY WORKSPACE, I decided to build a set of shelves for the paint and other jars of stuff.

    Scrounging some peg board and slats of various woods I set to work. 

     

    34280578824_e64a36e50e_c.jpg

     

    Room is at a premium in my shop that does double duty as a woodshop (god help me when I start painting the crikey!), so I tried to fit the shelving into the existing space. A couple of coats of paint ,( the weather has improved), and here I am today... Doesn't that work space look lovely... Like Paul Budzik's! HA!

     

    34738701570_670d4e2fcc_c.jpg

     

    Of course now I have to clutter it up with all the stuff that was there before and is now on the table saw!

     

    35085544866_e81da5157f_c.jpg

     

    So that is what I have been doing .... model avoidance on a large though thoroughly rationalized scale!... 

    But I did build something! (felt good!)

    I think that I needed to take a bit of a breather in the build and gain some perspective... It's not going to be perfect... but that's is not the point!!! I will see if I can keep my eye on the prize and soldier on!

     

    Thanks for your patience and understanding! 

    Terry

     

    I forgot to add that it felt so good to do some work today that I treated myself to:

     

    34994387081_8e84306319_c.jpg

     

    I usually lean toward stouts and porters, but one of our local brewers has come out with a pilsner that is quite tasty. A little hoppy but you can get away from hops and live in the Northwest!.. 

    Cheers you guys, 

    Hope your modeling is progressing nicely!

     

     

    • Like 5
  12. Back to our regularly scheduled program.... Life does seem to get in the way sometimes...

    I just set the radio access door in place (sort of) and gave it all a shot of primer.

    34592280820_b3d21d78ea_c.jpg

     

    I have been working on the gun camera trying to get the shape right...

    Also I used strips of Tamiya tape to represent the reinforcing on the fuel tanks..

     

    34847359841_92c407f25c_c.jpg

     

    I gave the strips of tape a brushing of Mr Surfacer to try to soften their edges..

     

    34592245290_0acde0622d_c.jpg

     

    Good to be back at the workbench... hope to make some progress toward completion..

     

    Cheers 

    Terry

    • Like 4
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