nheather
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Posts posted by nheather
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1 hour ago, Niall said:
Not about rigging thread but I'm working on designs for PE ratlines, top sails, driver and jib for the Warlord Games. Here is a screenshot of the design for the 74 -
Black areas are not etched, yellow are front 1/4 etched and green are front and back 1/4 etched.
Looks interesting - it's Black Seas BTW, or is that to avoid copyright.
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7 hours ago, Courageous said:
I wouldn't be too worried about the lines being overscale, you want to be able to see the lines after all and the elastic will be miles better than any thread. I use Uschi 'standard' (0.03mm) on my 1/700 ships and you have to be pretty close to be able to see it.
Stuart
I absolutely want them to be overstate, they wouldn't last 5 minutes otherwise. Also the triangular sails at the front hang off the rigging so it needs a bit of substance to it.
I'm just trying to work out what which one I need to buy. Specifying it in Denier is crazy because as @Fukuryu correctly states, denier doesn't refer to a diameter but a weight - may make sense in the fashion industry but for model rigging makes no sense at all.
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3 hours ago, Fukuryu said:
@nheather, AK DOES give the approximate diameter of the threads, is the "+/-" number in parentheses to the right of the Denier rating:
Mega Thin - thickness 20D (0,02 mm)
Hyper Thin - thickness 40D (0,03 mm)
Super Thin - thickness 70D (0, 045 mm)
Thin - thickness 110D (0,055 mm)
In this context the "+/-" means "more or less", or "approximate", not the diameter variance.
I had assumed that the +- number is a tolerance - though it is weird that they give the nominal dimension in one unit (denier) and tolerance is a different unit (mm).
I've reason to believe that 110D is 0.121 mm (According to the Infini Model products)
Cheers,
Nigel
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6 hours ago, Paul Thompson said:
Looking at the examples on their website, the photos of 1/700 scale thread being used on ships masts (albeit 20th century) looks very overscale, but probably okay for what you need. Have a look at https://ak-interactive.com/product/elastic-rigging-bobbin-mega-thin/ . 4th photo on the right should give you a good idea. As to if it's any good or not I can't say because I don't have any, but I've used other brands and they all seem variations on a theme, AKA much of a muchness, so if it's cheap I'd just try it out....................
Paul.
Yes I expect it to be overscale, war-gaming models are over-scale, reduced in detail or both - has to be to withstand hand-fisted gamers, with a couple of beers under their belts moving them around the table.
I don't mind buying one to find out it's just a case of which one. They some in four sizes
Mega Thin - thickness 20D
Hyper Thin - thickness 40D
Super Thin - thickness 70D
Thin - thickness 110D
But no idea how to equate those sizes into normal millimetres or micrometres
I've asked AK - no response
I've looked at their website - they show pictures but they don't indicate which size of product is shown, nor what scale of model it is on.
Cheers,
Nigel
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I’ve already tried the dedicated wargaming forums and discord and had no responses at all so I thought there could be no harm in trying here.
I have some Napoleonic wargaming ships by Warlord Games. They are 1:700 scale and they are intended to be handled on the gaming table so detail is limited and/or exaggerated to keep the models as robust as possible.
The kits come with some thread for basic rigging, the rat lines are printed on acetate sheets, the sails and flags are paper.
I probably won’t bother with the rat lines but I would like to add some basic rigging - especially as some sails hang from it. The models some with a spool of fine thread for the purpose, no size information, I’ve tried measuring it with my callipers and I reckon in the range 0.08 to 0.1 mm.
I’d like to use elastic rigging because the normal thread sags, but I don’t know much about it. I’m attracted to the AK rigging primarily because you get a decent amount for a reasonable price. The problem with it is understanding the sizes - they give suggestions of what type and scale of models it would be good for but I suspect that is scale and my need is over scale. They do provide a size but it is like 40D +- 0.03 mm. I don’t know what that means, the only thing I could imagine is ‘denier’ but when I look that up it is not a straight forward measure as it factors in the material being measured.
I have emailed AK but got nothing back from them.
Any advice, suggestions, in particular is the AK stuff any good, are there better/cheaper options, and what do the sizes mean?
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45 minutes ago, PhantomBigStu said:
They are thinner than usual for acrylics but with care brush fine
So any different that the Vallejo Air that I already have?
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What do you think of Mig Ammo Interior Light Green - MIG-219, FS-3426, BS283
It looks a good shade, but I’ve never used them before so don’t know what they are like to hand brush.
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Can anyone recommend an acrylic paint “that’s a close enough” match for RAF Interior Green that can be brush painted easily - no mixing please - just out of the bottle, close enough.
I have the Vallejo Model Air that looks quite good but it is very watery - good for airbrushing, but I have tried hand brushing and it needs loads of coats.
Just want something where I have just a small amount to paint in small, barely visible cockpits when it seems a faff to break out the airbrush.
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Appreciate this is an old kit but it's only £9.99 in the Crawley store. Possibly the same in other stores.
Crawley has a few left.
https://www.scalemates.com/kits/revell-03296-flakpanzer-iv-wirbelwind--1274770
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That look’s fantastic.
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8 hours ago, laurie82 said:
Thanks Kingsman ,looking at your photo they look like they were painted the vehicle colour many thanks.
Different matter coming out of the factory, but I always imagined tha5 when vehicles were painted in the field the maintainers just slapped paint on with a big brush - I doubt they bothered much with masking tape.So even if it was deliberate for camouflage reasons I can easily imagine that pimple, couplings etc simply got painted over.
Another good example is the D-Day invasion stripes - we modellers go to great lengths to mask them to get pin sharp stripes, correcting any creep. But if you look at actual archive footage you’ll plenty of examples where they have been painted toughly by hand, probably using a big brush whose bristles have seen better days.
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If you are using third party modules (rather than creating your own) they should specify the scale which is what you get when you print at 100%.
To get a different scale you need to change the print scale from 100% to an appropriate value.
Sometimes the model instructions will advise what print scale to use to get different model scales but you may have to do the maths yourself.
Example
Say a model is designed for 1:48, that will be for a print scale of 100%.
If you want to print in 1:72 then you need to set the print scale to
(48/72)*100% = 66.6%
Bear in mind that the printer will attempt all detail but some detail that is achievable at 1:48 might fail when scaled down to 1:72.
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Airfix 1:48 Chipmunk - £18.50
Cheers,
Nigel
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On 8/1/2023 at 8:54 AM, Latinbear said:
The books have always been mixed with kits. As it happens I have four kits and two books arriving from Hobbylink via FedEx tomorrow and no request for duty or service charges have been made so whatever the reason I'm happy.
It may be that you are being lucky, they don’t check all shipments. In fact in years gone by it was the case that you’d be unlucky to be checked. But ever since they allowed couriers to charge you for processing the import on your behalf the chances of being checked have risen significantly. The cynic in me is that couriers often make more from the ‘handling fees’ then they do from the shipping price so i5 is in their interest to present packages for duty.It used to be that customs officers would select items for checking, they didn’t really have the time to do this, so not many got caught. If your package did get caught then you would get passed an invoice to release the item and the courier got nothing. Often the courier would pay to speed up the process and invoice you themselves but they still got nothing. Then the rules were changed, allowing the couriers to present packages that they think are subject to duty and that they could charge the customer a fee for processing the transaction. As soon as that happen the percentage getting caught shot up.
What is declared on the declaration that the seller has to complete can also affect whether you get hit by duty or not. Very low values might just get waived through, if it is marked as gift it might get waived through, also it might be described as 0% rated goods like books and toys - so if the customs declaration describes model kits as toys then they might be seen as zero rated.
The other possibility is that sellers can have an arrangement to add VAT onto UK sales and pass that onto the UK government - I know that AliExpress and Banggood do that now.
Of course it could be that you have just been lucky.
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I mostly do 1:35 armour (when I say ‘do’, that is more collect than build) but I also fancied adding some aircraft and after much thinking decided to specialise on 1:72 British WWII (with a leaning towards the earlier part of the war).
Several times, I have seen half-tempting deals on the newer Airfix Lancaster but what puts me off is the lack of a bomb load - not impressed with the instructions suggestion to go buy the ground support collection just to get a few bombs.
I have my first resin 3D Printer arriving soon, more as a gadget to play with as I don’t have any real defined need to justify the purchase. But it does occur to me that printing some bombs would be a good use.
Not planning in getting into my own CAD designs so wondering if there are any pre-made model files (preferably free) that I could use?
Cheers,
Nigel
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Much like others are saying, aircraft and ships would not be the same scale unless the aircraft are sat on carrier decks or on catapults.
What collection of scales would depend on the focus of the diorama. If the focus is on the aircraft - like behind the aircraft attacking the ship then you would use a bigger scale for the airc4aft and a smaller one for the ships. But if you are focusing on the ship, the viewpoint is close to the ship looking into the distance of aircraft attacking then the ship scale would be larger than the aircraft scale.
Cheers,
Nigel
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8 hours ago, Latinbear said:
I don't know whether it is related but since we signed the Free Trade Agreement with Japan none of the kits and books that I have had delivered have been subjected to customs duty. My orders have been with Hobbylink, Hobby Search and Plaza using a mix of DHL, FedEx and Japan Post. Prior to the FTA I reckon 85pc of my orders were affected by customs duty.
I doubt anything has been enacted so quickly - and besides I don’t think free trade agreements apply to VAT on personal purchases - it’s about import taxes at a business level.Another point is that if the courier and customs do their job properly there shouldn’t be any import taxes on books. Import taxes are made up of VAT and import duty. There is a general arrangement that import duty is applied to low value items and books are zero-rated for VAT. So for books there should be no VAT or import duty due and therefore, no need for courier fees either.
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1 hour ago, JackG said:
Squadron publications, yea another old source, refers to the blunt with hole spinner as cropped. The term though is found in a caption of a 1936 photo of the third prototype Bf 109V3 and add it fired one of its three MG 17s through the specially designed spinner. The B-1 prop nose had a small hole but as already stated did not use armament in this area . The book refers to this as the Schwarz Fixed-Pitch. With the B-2 came the Hamilton Variable-Pitch (sample pic below) and it too had a hole in the prop nose but had larger concave entrance around the hole.
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E series the concave shape of the opening is replaced with a more streamlined appearance
Anyhow my references all seem too old as none state the prop nose opening was created to cool the engine. Though I can see that in the interim while waiting for the bugs to be ironed out it could be used in that way have to wonder how helpful that extra airflow was since eventually the openings were capped over.
Just posing an idea without any real insight - earlier aircraft were started by a mechanic swinging the prop with his arms and then vehicles with motorised starting axles were used.Could it be that the early Bf-109 was a hang over from those days, where a starting truck would be used to swing the prop to start the engine and that the hole in the spinner was the coupling for the starting truck axle?
And of course with technology moving on the starting struck was no longer needed so different spinners were introduced.
Of course, the other idea is that a machine gun or cannon through the nose was always envisioned - why else would the design have the engine mounted upside down?
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2 hours ago, Graham Boak said:
The point I was making was the difficulty of identifying an E-4 from an E-7. other than the drop tank or the letter N for an E-7/N. In view of Nohara's drawings above, then the answer may be a rounded tip to the spinner rather than a pointed one. Otherwise the suspicion of misidentification in captions cannot be discounted - except perhaps by Werknummer, as I said.
Beware tapping post before finishing!
Many thanks. This has opened up a whole new world, I never realised that there were so many different spinners on the Bf-109E. Note that in my posts when I say the blunt or flattened spinner I referring to the one that has a definite flat on the end with a big hole in the centre. And when I refer to rounded I was referring to spinners that didn't have that flat/hole. At that point I had absolutely no idea that there were four different types of non-flat spinners, some more rounded and some more pointed, I'd just lumped those into a single 'not flat' category.
Just to add some context - I'm making an off-scale radio control Bf-109. It is definitely an 'E' or before because it has tail struts, but any scale modeller will be able to point out so many things that are not right - it is designed for flying and to look reasonable in the air. I plan to use a flattened spinner because a) it is much easier and cheaper to take a generic RC model spinner, lop off the tip and have it look reasonably correct than find an RC spinner that will pass for a non-flat spinner and b) having a hole down the centre will assist with cooling the motor and speed controller.
Thinking of colour schemes I fancied doing a desert scheme but this is where it appeared that tropical versions did not have the flat spinner. It's a very off-scale model so I could simply ignore that but I wanted to stay reasonable accurate. So with what I have found so far I'm going to finish in a temperate 'Battle of Britain' scheme - as an E-3 or an early E-4.
Cheers,
Nigel
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7 minutes ago, Ray_W said:
I found the drawing I was looking for. I expect it is Shigeru Nohara's work. My copy is not that good. Hopefully you can read the descriptions. You can see the closed in spinner cap starting from summer 1940 (e.g. see images of Galland's E-4).
Ray
Thanks, this is really useful, possibly what I am seeing is that the desert E-4s are later builds (or servicing) so have the rounded spinner.
Cheers,
Nigel
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5 hours ago, Graham Boak said:
Or perhaps because they were all E-7s? Not too surprising, given the date. I don't know why the late spinner couldn't be fitted to earlier variants nor why it should. Seems to be an idea in search of evidence. Appropriate Werknummer might provide some, but wouldn't exclude rebuilds.
Looking at photos and models on the internet and books that have at hand, none of the desert 'Emils' have blunt spinners. That includes E-4s and E-7s. In fact I have a World Air Power book that shows a non-desert E-7 that has a blunt spinner.
Basically, what I am finding is that if it is a 'Trop' version, whether E-4 or E-7 then it has a rounded spinner but if non-desert then the E-4s seem to have flatted spinners and even sometimes the E-7s, but mostly the E-7s have rounded spinners.
Be interested to see a photo of a Trop E-4 with a flattened spinner.
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5 hours ago, Graham Boak said:
Where does this E-3 with central cannon come from? Had issues been discovered in testing it would not have been placed in production. It does show that once an idea is planted into the world it is very difficult to expel it. As the existence of so many contradictory religions/cults shows. Perhaps the way to riches is to become the Grand Panjandrum of the Church of the MotorKannone. Donations to my Paypal account please.
My mistake, typo which is now corrected, I meant E-2 not E-3.
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What I have been reading since starting this thread definitely backs up that the ‘E’ did not generally have a centreline cannon. I’ve read that the E-2 did but was only produced in limited numbers - I imagine that was where issues were discovered and why it was dropped for the E-4.
Getting back to the ‘Trop’ versions, I have yet to see a photo of a ‘E-4 Trop’ with a flattened spinner. So was it the case that when the E-4 was adapted for desert use a different spinner was used, or was there a cap that could be fitted to the blunt spinner? I can imagine this was to stop the ingestion of sand.
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10 hours ago, Troy Smith said:
The E never had a engine mounted cannon. The opening was IIRC for cooling. And there two, maybe 3 spinners.
@SafetyDad may be able to add more.
I never realised that, I always assumed it was for a cannon.It is also very interesting, because my research is for a radio controlled model, I’m adapting a design originally intended for two stroke motor to electric. One of the benefits of going electric is that I can contain the motor wholly within the cowling so it looks more scale, but a disadvantage is keeping the motor and speed controller cool. My plan is to use a cut off spinner that will allow air to pass over the motor to keep it cool.
Had no idea that was the original purpose.
But not all ‘Emils’ had the flattened spinner - am I correct. I was planning to do a ‘Trop’ scheme but as far as I can tell they didn’t have the flattened spinner.
Elastic Rigging for 1:700 Napoleonic
in Historic Vessels to 1914
Posted
Yes that is correct. In these wargame models they will simply attach to the thread and I have even seen some suggestions to use guitar string as this rigging, even more over scale but it gives the jib a fighting chance of staying in place.