SaminCam

Positive rivets?!? Having spent many happy hours destroying raised panel lines and popped-up rivets it's been a strange experience adding them back on to this build! The Hasegawa moulds are quite crisp but they don't have much detail and I've been poring over the walkaround photographs here (thanks @Julien and Gary)! : I concluded that the back half of the Osprey is covered in rivets and panel lines and the front half is quite smooth. I began my adding the two extra longitudinal ribs with thin plasticard and sanding them back so that they are raised about the same amount as the moulding that is already there. I then began by adding rivet "holes" using Rosie but felt this wasn't quite capturing the look of the photographs so bought some Eduard raised rivet decals which I've carefully applied based on the walkaround shots. I've no idea how these are going to look under paint but I've enjoyed applying them so far and will be switching to the other side next. I'm not getting much time for modeling these days (busy work, bit of hockey and a little one at home) so I'm flitting around more than usual on this build and already suspect this is going to keep me occupied well into the summer! Eventually I'll bring everything together though feel I need a bit of a run up and a whole afternoon free to tackle the electronics without stuffing it up. Stay tuned for more, I will get there in the end, promise!

It'd be nigh on impossible to pick the best modeller on this site, but many, many of us would agree that you, without doubt, are the best writer. Great to have you back, looking forward to this!

Thanks Jonathan, hadn't seen this before but looks great. I've been using stretched sprue which is OK but don't think I could pull off what you have here. Are you using the 0.01" (0.25mm) stuff?

Hi Jonathan, I just came over from your fantastic Vanguard build following the promise of a detailed wheel bay and undercarriage and I've not been disappointed! Can I ask what material the brown stuff is you use for cables? It looks thin, flexible but not wire? And how do you glue it and avoid big supergluey blobs?!?

Evening all, just a little update: I've been fiddling around with detailing and painting the wheel bays and pretty much there now: Everything is invented as I couldn't find any reference pics but looks better than nothing and plausibly busy now!

Thanks @S4Simon! The glow in the dark tape looks amazing, will definitely give it a go. I'm using similar motors, tiny high speed one worked great in a 1/72 Spitfire I electrified last year - presumably because there's virtually no additional torque either to accelerate the prop or push the air backwards. The Osprey is a different matter and my solution has been to use similar high-speed, mini motors but with a small epicyclic gearbox built in to boost torque and lower speed and hopefully prevent the motors from cooking themselves. Think the gears are plastic so I'm not sure how long it will last but working at the moment on the desk. I'm also finding it challenging to mount the rotors bang on-centre so they don't wobble - I like your idea of adding the gear designed to fit to the thin shaft. Your electronics is really neat, especially the solution for the strobing / flashing lights - I've gone for a small wireless Arduino (still cheap compared to the light and sound kits!) which I should be able to code up for a start-up sequence and flashing lights. Anyway, enough of my rambles, thanks for your help and I look forward to seeing more!

P.s. the rest of the channel is fantastic as well... the Bismark, wow! 🤯

Love the use of motors in your B17 and the damage and paint job are excellent! ...then I saw the post with the Apache and Osprey and after a detour to YouTube I'm gobsmacked - the Osprey in particular is fabulous 👌 I'm trying to do something similar in 1/72 with the Hasegawa Osprey and this provides fantastic motivation and helps confirm some of my choices. Two quick questions: where is the white light underneath located? I can't find a convincing reference picture. And how did your achieve the glow in the dark tips? They look amazing in your video. Thanks! Sam

Awesome, thanks Andre, I'll give it a go!

Evening all, Happy New Year! I've been enjoying some time off over Christmas and have been nibbling away at a few things on the Osprey. On the arduino side of things, I've figured out how to switch on and sequence a set of LEDs and this morning managed to turn on and off some little motors. I'm learning lots and *think* it's going to work, next thing to do is iron out some bugs in the motor operation and figure out how to control their speed with a pwm signal, then I'll try and get it all working together. I've also been umming and arring over how to interface with it in the end - bluetooth from a phone app would be cool but also quite a lot of coding and interfacing which I don't know how to do yet! My current idea is to have two physical switches accessible on the underside of the model, one to turn power on and off and another to trigger a "start-up" sequence where things turn on one-by-one, cockpit lights, external lights, engines, etc. More to come on this as I figure out what I'm doing! On the model itself I've been noodling away in the wheelbays as the kit has them completely blank. Top photo shows one side part way done and the other ready to start with sink marks cleared up. I couldn't find any reference shots so making it up as I go along, though I was inspired by @dimaADA's Eurofighter here: where the added detail in 1/72 is completely outrageous! I use plastic card cut into strips for the framework, stretched sprue for the small straight wires, copper wires from a cut up usb cable twisted together, little bits of red plastic insulating cable, and soldering wire with ally tape wrapped around for the thicker cables/tubes. It's quite slow work but strangely relaxing once you get into it and I'm pretty much their with all three bays. I'll also add some extra detail to the landing gear itself (these are just placed on for now) and will attach these near the end of the build. The wheelbays are ready for paint now - a basecoat will be airbrushed on, then I'll use a brush to pick out the details. Thanks for dropping by!

@turkeyfan what masking tape are you using? My experience is that the tamiya tape (yellow stuff) is super forgiving and rarely if ever lifts any paint, gloss or matt varnish, I've only ever had trouble with metallic finish paints. It's a touch pricey but definitely worth it imo! For masking large areas, I use tamiya tape at the edges and kitchen towel to cover the rest, and I'm stingy about reuse, it goes up and down OK at least twice. Cheers, Sam

@heloman1 thanks Colin! In the uk you can get most bits off amazon but there's other sites like pihut as well. Happy Christmas!

Happy Christmas everyone! I hope Father Christmas brings all those kits you want! Only a bit of progress on the Osprey since the last post, though real life has been pretty amazing with a little bundle of joy coming along a few weeks ago! As you can imagine not getting much time for modeling but I have managed to get the tail assembly together - it's hard to see here but I've added some more surface detail with trusty Rosie riveter. I'm also in the process of jazzing up the wheel bays. I couldn't find a reference for these so made up an internal structure and will add some lines and cables to busy things up. While not modelling I have been reading up on how to control the LEDs and motors and a few days ago took the plunge and bought an uno r3, for playing around with and learning, and an arduino nano with Bluetooth, for putting in the model: These things are relatively simple electronic controllers, they plug into a laptop via USB and there is a user friendly programming language to make them do their thing. I've got a fair amount of experience coding and controlling bits of electronics, but not with arduino, so I'm just starting to figure things out - I'm going to need a motor driver or transistor for the motors and maybe a shift register for the LEDs. I'll figure it out on a prototype board first then package up to go inside the v22 with batteries and Bluetooth control so hopefully it will be wireless! I'm not sure if anyone is interested In this type of thing?!? I'll try and explain what I learn along the way if people find this useful, plus any advice is greatly appreciated! Cheers, Sam

Fantastic John, thanks for posting and congratulations on the medal!

Couldn't resist slotting her together with help from some tape: