neilfergylee

Thank you. Mind you, you should see my snagging list!

It's done! I have placed a set of images in the Ready for Inspection section here: Thank you all for your support and encouragement! Best wishes, Neil

I have documented this build under the thread below and it is now more-or-less complete, certainly ready to present to this august group. You can find a full set of images for the build here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/26690797@N02/albums/72177720318477513/with/53870864441 Best wishes, Neil

I can't wait for this one! I modelled XA778 about 40 years ago using the FROG it and I know that this one will be something to behold! Neil

It's coming together. A week in Cumbria with family gave me time to work on the decals and undercarriage. Here you can see the nearly finished model: the cockpit needs finishing and the canopy attaching and those silvered decals need seeing-to. The main undercarriage has been a pig. With no attachment points, I eventually had to bury the hinge points in Mulliput filler to hold it in place. As one of the whitemetal undercarriage legs is rather thin, it's not strong and I have an uneasy feeling that it won't last too long. Nonetheless, I feel the model is coming together. Neil

OK, we're on the home stretch. Basic painting now complete. Masked-up ready for Green over DSG: Just prior to removing the masking: Ta da: Next is touch-up, canopy and gloss varnish! Neil

Very close to starting the paintwork. Last night I built-up the flap enclosures with ribs cut using a Cricut machine.

This weekend has been brought to you by the letters 'W' and 'D' for Wet and Dry. The emphasis was on filling gaps and getting the airframe as close as possible to being ready for painting. Here we see the underside with the filler going in for the rear wing/fuselage joint but prior to the gluing and filling of the forward joint where I had the added complication of ensuring the intakes were even on both siders. Surprisingly, this worked well with just a little packing and trimming to get a good fit (@johnny FYI). Note also the yellow filler. This is Milliput, a great epoxy filler I have used for over forty years. I realised that I needed to reinforce the area behind the 3D-printer wheel wells and one lovely feature is that it can be sculpted very easily with the application of a little water. Here are two views of the model priori to initial priming. Finally, here's the first post-priming view. I am pretty pleased with the filling and hope there will be only a minor bit of fettling before printing can commence. Cheers, Neil

Got the tailplanes on using brass rod and trial fitted the afterburner can. Looking like a Swift's back end!

An update. First some detail work, taking advantage of the 'reproduceability' of items designed and produced. I created a second set of patterns for the flaps and attached the new set over the old with a piece of plastic rod acting as a spacer. The result is a proper 3D representation of the flaps' structure. Yesterday, the big and dreaded job: attaching the wings to the fuselage. It's a bit like playing three-dimensional chess insofar as attaching in one place has to lead to the attachment in a second place and so on. I placed a lead weight in a plastikard 'cocoon' to allow it to be attached to the belly and did same for a magnet (to allow the belly tank to be attached later on) and I do wish I had taken a snap before attaching. I have achieved a strong attachment of the assemblies, the only problem being a 2mm gap between the starboard wing and the fuselage, fortunately the port side is fine and having checked alignment, I think it's a feature of the mouldings, not misalignment. I shall create a fillet and apply filler to fix it. On the underside, it looks like ,my 3D-printer undercarriage bays a a wee bit too deep, so once the fillet is attached, I'll have to do some tidying up there. Here are a couple of views. Best wishes, Neil

Thanks for that, I hope not to disappoint!

Thanks, to me it's just another arrow in our quiver. Take these flaps: I used a drawing package to take a scan of one of the flaps and use it as a template to create the inner panels. I think copied and flipped it to create the other side. Using a Cricut machine, I was then able to cut out the shapes. The beauty of this is that it's repeatable: if I need more, I can then just get the machine to produce another set. It uses a different set of skills and might even, at times, be more time consuming but it's fun and probably produces better results than I could do by hand.

A quick question for the hive mind. I'm building a 1/48 scale Swift (see below) and want to complete it as version with PRU Blue undersurfaces. Would the undercarriage bay, undercarriage door interiors and flap inside surfaces be silver or PRU Blue? I suspect there is no clear answer but would like to check! Many thanks, Neil

Just a tiny amount of progress this weekend as we were away at a wedding. I have been fettling the wings in preparation to joining the halves and, just to add the masochism factor, I have decided to show the flaps partially deployed, consistent with this example shown in the Walkarounds section. Here is tonight's progress, including stiffeners to act as wingspars and the 3D printed undercarriage bays.

Remember that when you've glued it top and bottom, it makes a pretty rigid box. Neil

Sorry, good question. I did it as follows: I assembled the cockpit section as a free-standing unit. I then assembled the main fuselage and made sure it was completely set. I then inserted the cockpit and attached it at the top to the matching parts of the intake faring to hold it in place. I still haven't attached it underneath. I'm waiting for when I attach the wings because I think there's going to be a bit of alignment work between the wing (which contains the lower fuselage), the lower fuselage itself (the geometry of which affects the size and shape of the intakes) and the base of the cockpit section. It is indeed a bit of a so-and-so to align and the next job I have will be to assemble the wings after adding a spar (probably a U-shaped channel section) and then adding ballast towards the front of the wing / fuselage section and a magnet to the rear for me to attach the drop tank. Now that I'm building a 1/48 Swift in vacform, an injection moulded version is bound to be announced! Cheers, Neil

A little bit more work today: the undercarriage bays were opened up and having spent last night designing the wheel wells, I printed them out today and gave them a test fit. Here are the undercarriage parts fresh off the printer. Test fit of the whitemetal undercarriage leg against the door. And a test fit of the bays in the wing. Thank you all for your kind comments, onwards and upwards! Neil

Update from last night. Fuselage cemented together and wings cut out and rough sanded. It's starting to look like a Swift.

An update on two fronts. To begin, I have been working on the cockpit. The kit comes with a vacformed tub and instrument panel and, having assembled the nose halves, I have been working on creating a moderately detailed tub that can then be inserted into the assembly. Below are a couple of WIP shots. On the 3D printing front, I tried a new approach to creating one of the mainwheel doors. I started with scanning the doors from a drawing. Using a drawing package (Inkscape) I drew around the door and exported as a .SVG file. This I could import into TinkerCAD and from there I was able to add to the basic shape to create a reproduction of the door. Here's the nice bit: duplicate the door and flip it to create a mirror image for the other side. I then imported this into the software for my 3D printer and added supports. I created a second set for the heck of it. And finally, the finished items, one in rough position, another turned over to show the other side and the other two still on their supports as they came off the printer. My plan next is to assemble the fuselage, get the nose attached and then start on the wings. Best wishes, Neil

You know you want to!

I think scratch building will always have a place in our hobby 3D printing is just another way of doing it. Yes, I eep meaning to have a go with resin casting although here's another thing: using a Cricut plotter to cut small plastic parts out of sheet! It's the potential for 'repeatability' that appeals too. Make one, break it, so print another one, while one can also share the files so, for example, I could send you my design files for you to print for yourself.

After building about 30 Spitfire models in 1/48 scale, including the S.6B, Spiteful and Attacker, I felt the need for something different. BritJets are my other passion and having recently built a run of pretty easy to build kits (not least the superb 1/32 Tamiya Spitfire VIII), I fancied a challenge, so I have gone for this: Quite a challenge and having enjoyed converting the original Airfix 1/48 Buccaneer into an S.1, I know it'll be a big job but ultimately satisfying. Recently, I acquired a 3D printer (resin type) and have stepped gently into the world of TinkerCAD (tinkercad.com) which is an excellent, web-based, tool that I think we all can manage to play with. What I didn't expect was controversy! From my standpoint, 3D printing of small components is ideally suited to vacform kits as there are numerous details that one has to make and I would argue that designing a part in CAD and then creating it from a vat of gloop is as creative as, say, carving a piece of plastikard. The controversy came when I posted some early details of this build on a Reddit thread and, initially, it was rejected with a "we don't do 3D printing" message. Fortunately, that was reversed but I left me a little bruised. Anyway, I hope this is acceptable to the forum. The model itself is a crisp vacform on good heavy styrene sheet with no thinning at the corners. You will see that there are two alternative noses so the truly adventurous could model the Swift F.7 and the sheet includes wingtip extensions for this über rare variant. I've decided that I know my limits! One area that I felt needed attention was the jetpipe. Later marks of Swift had a reheated Avon and this involved an 'eyelid' nozzle. Here is the 3D model I made: And the finished component. Similarly, I decided to have a go at the nosewheel bay: Finally, a tiny detail: a simple Gyro gunsight to go with a very attractive vacuformed instrument panel. There will be more to follow, this link might take you to the parts I have created: https://www.tinkercad.com/dashboard/collections/g3baRc6Bfhq/3d More to follow. Best wishes, Neil

I recall no problems at all! Go for it and share what you have done! Cheers, Neil

Might I possibly highjack this thread slightly please? For the harnesses from the magnetos, the left-hand magneto's harness seems comparatively straightforward as it extends around the 'midriff' of the engine but I believe the right-hand magneto feeds the plugs accessed via the top of the engine. Does anybody have any guidance as to where the harnesses go please? Many thanks, Neil

Thank you - I'll head there now! Neil