Rob de Bie

Indeed 'E' is for 'ecole', school or training. 'A' is for 'appui' or attack, Rob

I decided to make heavy paper mockups in 1/72, 1/100 and 1/144 scales (left to right). For scale I used a standard Humbrol tin as the monolith. The 1/72 version was so large that I skipped the surrounding moon surface. It was amazingly large, too large to my taste; it would result in an A1 size diorama. The 1/100 version looked like I had imagined the diorama. It would be A2 size. The 1/144 version was a bit to small for me. It would be A3 size. Another view of the 1/100 version. Rob

Sabrejet, good to hear you know how it works 🙂 I've done military markings as well as race cars, many many more than shown on the 'Custom decal design service' webpage that I linked to earlier. Like half the field of the 1993 Indy season. I never got complaints about the decal quality, and I think they look excellent 🙂 However, custom decals are generally dither printed, not silkscreen printed. So if you zoom in, you will see dots instead of solid colours. It can be avoided that by using the old Alps printer, but then your colour palette is limited. I can work with both. John, thanks for your recommendation! The waiting time for your decals was excessive, since SpotModel (the custom printer that I use mostly) had their printer out of action, followed by an enormous backlog when the new printer went online. That was stressful for me too, since I needed my own decals for an upcoming model show. 😞 As a teaser, here's another recent project: Rob

Thanks for the enthousiasm guys! 🙂 A small warning: custom decals are expensive. It's mostly the time spent on the design. The printing (outsourced in my case) is relatively cheap. So it takes a commitment to have a single custom decal sheet done. Many plans for custom decals fail to take that hurdle, in my experience.. Rob

If your question hasn't been answered yet, I've been doing decal design for more than twenty years now. I'm not in the UK, but on the other side of the North Sea. Time permitting, I do custom decal design work for other modellers, for a fee. On average, I do one or two assignments per year. Here's my most recent car project, a full decal set for a Porsche 935K3. And here's an example of the decals applied to a model, the old Revell 1/72 F-16: More information can be found here: https://robdebie.home.xs4all.nl/models/customdecals.htm Rob

In the mean time I had a 1/72 paper version of the walls and ramps printed. And it's huge 🙂 I will also do 1/100 and 1/144 versions. Also I need to check the 'printability' of the 1/32 astronauts at those scales, and figure out whether I can build working spotlight with SMD LEDs. Rob

Dale, thanks for your extensive reply! The STL-files can be reduced to any scale desired, until you reach the limits of what's printable. My current calculations show a 42 x 17.5 x 7.5 m pit, or 138 x 57’ x 25’ in imperial units. Very roughly shoebox size in 1/100 scale. Mock-upping is definitely called for, for the reasons you mention. Thanks too for checking your 2001 books. I will work from the screen shots, with their limitations. I found a site with 100s of BlueRay screengrabs, pretty amazing: https://movie-screencaps.com/2001-space-odyssey-1968/ Maybe I'll get a first 1/72 test print of a single pit wall panel, ~18 hours from now, at a club meeting 🙂 Rob

Hamiltonian, thanks for checking your references! I think I saw at least a few in this massive 2001 photo collection: https://www.flickr.com/photos/2001archive/. But as you say, they don't match the final movie set, so they are of limited value for my diorama plans. Rob

Yoshizakura, thanks for the suggestion. I think I will mock-up two scales, to see the overall sizes. Rob

James and bentwaters81tfw, thanks for the confirmation! Corsairfoxfouruncle, if you want to start casting, I happen to have a tutorial on my website: https://robdebie.home.xs4all.nl/models/casting.htm Here's the result of the most recent casting session. Rob

Matt, thanks! Indeed I found the parts in the instruction sheet on Scalemates: https://www.scalemates.com/products/img/4/2/3/111423-41-instructions.pdf If anyone knows another kit with these racks, please let me know! Rob

Are there any B-17 kits that have the external bomb racks, in any scale? Here's a webpage on the subject: http://axis-and-allies-paintworks.com/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?10679 I looked around in the instruction sheets of various kit at Scalemates, but saw none. Thank in advance for any information! Rob

I've always loved the moon excavation chapter in '2001', and thought a few times of building a diorama of it. It would be a large undertaking with nearly everything scratch-built, so it never progressed past thinking about it. That was, until a few days ago, when I found a great set of figures for 3D printing: https://www.cgtrader.com/3d-print-models/miniatures/figurines/vintage-lunar-astronaut-set That made me reconsider building that diorama. Still a ton of work, but with some 3D printing and resin casting, it might be do-able. Three questions: 1st question: what scale would be most logical in the SF modelling world? As a mostly aircraft builder my first idea is 1/72, but maybe 1/96 is more standard? I'm thinking of Revell space models in that scale. 2nd question: did anyone here attempt the same diorama idea? I'm very interested to learn from it. 3rd question: were any drawings of the moon excavation published in the 2001 reference books (of which I have none)? Rob

You probably mean they were pressurised with air, and a gauge told the crew whether a crack had developed? I have been thinking about a stand-alone chassis made from soldered Albion micro-tubing, that would allow the use of different sizes of tubing. I even drew some jigs that would be required. I know what sizes tubing were used, but not where, that stopped the plan.. Rob

I forgot my medication too, and started work on the rear half of the frame. Black is Heller, white is mine. Rob

Your 11 year old post suggests that you don't know that the Union kit IS the Heller kit. It was also issued by Wave and Testors. I too like this kit a lot! I've made a Porsche 917 kit list (1/8 to 1/24 scale) with 166 different issues: https://robdebie.home.xs4all.nl/models/917kits.htm Rob

Yes, those are the bombs I built for my F-84F project. The front one, the B28EX, is the corect one. In the middle is the B28RE, but it's REtarded, and that doesn't work in LABS bombing, so it's out for the F-84F. In the back is the Mk7, as used by USAF F-84Fs. Note the fin orientation. I think the center part of the bomb should be more cilindrical by the way. I thought of something more regarding the Mk7 / B28 choice for the NATO air forces. I have to investigate this further, but I think the B28 had a Permissive Action Link feature, that the Mk7 does not have. If I was the US government, I would really like have this extra safety feature against inadvertent use, for allies that might have their own agendas, and personel that's not under US control. Rob

Armando, glad to be of help with the nuclear armed Thunderstreak. For much more on Streak stores, see my RNLAF Streak stores project. Regarding the Dutch or Belgian F-104G with a B61: from 1977 on, USAF replaced the older weapons (B43 and B57) in the air forces of Belgium, Italy, Germany and the Netherlands. with the B61 weapon. Rob

Armando, with some doubts I would say none. It's my presumption that the B28 was the weapon used by NATO F-84Fs. I investigated RNLAF extensively, and I'm sure that it used the B28. The RNLAF Streaks never had the special pylon required for the Mk7 on the left inboard position, always the standard pylon. That pylon could be configured for two purposes: fuel tank / conventional weapon *or* nuclear weapon. To be always ready, the Volkel Streaks always flew with latter, Eindhoven with the former. Volkel therefore flew with a right inboard tank only, an asymmetrical configuration. So far I've seen German, Italian and Greek Streaks in that same asymmetrical configuration, with the standard pylon. But seemingly not as a standard configuration like Volkel. But I've never seen the Mk7 pylon on any of them. That lead me to think all other European also used the B28. But the proof is not as strong as for RNLAF, that I investigated far deeper. The only NATO country that ever showed the Mk7 pylon is BAF, when their Kleine Brogel Streaks were put in storage at Koksijde. But that *could* be to cause confusion, why else show that nuclear capability with stored aircraft? Rob

Ah yes, of course, a street 911 could be used too. I have to add another comment: I based my 'door width' theory on the assumption that the Tamiya 935-76 is 100% correct. Which is not proven, at all. But you can see the 'thin' doors in any Porsche 930 photo. Rob

The following is not meant as a comment on Davi's model, but mostly as a review-type comment. I studied my own Italeri 935-77 a bit more, concentrating on the shape. I don't have a fixed method for that, so it's a bit hit and miss. But I found one clear problem. Earlier, I had noticed that the width of the model is 4 mm over the published overall width of 1998 mm, but I could not identify the cause. I think I found it now: the doors are too wide by that same figure. What I mean is that the 911 from that era had quite 'thin', delicate doors, as depicted by the Tamiya model. Nitto made the doors far thicker below the windows, they almost look bulky, and that extra width is continued in the rear fenders. It's a fairly subtle shape problem, one I hadn't encountered before. That's why I'm posting it here. I've been wondering whether it can be corrected, but that's really difficult I think. A kitbash of the Tamiya 935-76 greenhouse with the Italeri 935-77 is a solution, but close to madness.. Rob

Thanks for the comments! I just updated the page with photo of the equipment. Rob

Thanks Giorgio for clearing that up! I learned something new about the 104. Rob

Thanks Giorgio. But I phrased my question unclear. Here's the 'Fuselage Pylon Assembly' of the G-model, from the Structural Repair manual. The assembly attached in the slot for the centerline pylon, i.e. in the middle, with a cover plate over the centerline pylon slot. That's not clearly shown in the drawing BTW. The flight manual indicates that only AIM-9s could be carried on the pylons. My real question was whether the 'BL22' pylons of the S-model are also connected by cross braces and attached on the centerline, or did they connect directly to the fuselage? Here are a few hi-res photos of the G-model installation on RNLAF 104s: https://beeldbank.nimh.nl/foto-s/detail/0faf4de7-f0d4-6f42-b5eb-5e636bb6bd61/media/d32fb99c-2822-e492-da44-52ef7e8a3219 https://beeldbank.nimh.nl/foto-s/detail/c15adb96-eca2-6b89-cf77-748dc1f546ee/media/ec0aad96-e854-b333-15b4-72052387b779 https://beeldbank.nimh.nl/foto-s/detail/50896240-2600-0600-21f7-ad3ce1950c11/media/4dd838f3-1e59-d733-b3fb-31b255781e36 Rob

I've updated my web site with a tutorial on vacuum resin casting: https://robdebie.home.xs4all.nl/models/casting.htm. I've been using this technique for many years now, and the results are perfect 99% of the time. Shown below is the result of a full day of casting - quite satisfying! Still need to add photos of the equipment though. Rob