1:72 Italeri H-21 Flying Banana

[IGKent]

Cool! Add a little bit rust on the shaft.

[Nigel Heath]

Good idea Igor.

[Shalako]

I like the ingredient ehhhh I mean the interior work you have done!

[Nigel Heath]

Thanks Shalako and feifeitim,

Food is no longer allowed and this is the new me.

This triangular detail part can now go in the spares box:

It can't compete with the more realistic detail on my lovely new engine:

The main canopy has a single, heavy gate, best razor sawn off me thinks:

Like this:

While I'm on this I decided to remove the annoying wiper, shaving it off first:

Sanded:

And polished into obscurity with Micromesh:

Right, I'm now off to get my Christmas haircut. I'll be trying to give the shops the widest berth possible, working in the centre of the city does have some benefits - I can get my Christmas presents any time I want.

[Winnie]

Unless you are building it as an outside museum-piece, I would not put any rust on the shafts... They get a lot of attention and the shafts would have been rubbed down practically daily by the engineers/mechanics. even if not flying. Preventive maintenance is a continuous effort and very important in these old formations of bolts and metal...

But I like your progress, and it is inspiring me to THINK about starting my 1/48 Special Hobby one...

[Nigel Heath]

Good point, the real machine is an outside museum piece but I would rather do it as a working machine (plus the shaft I have seen on the real machine looks pretty clean). The Special Hobby kit looks very good.

Edited December 14, 2013 by Nigel Heath

[Nigel Heath]

I have made a start on rescribing the poorly aligned panel lines, on the undeside:

And on the roof:

I have sanded all of those now and made a start on the rescribing. Unfortunately it has not gone so well, some I am going to have to redo. I think the problem is my new magnifier-light, because it is always overhead it doesn't cast any shadows. I think I will revert back to my old set up so that I have shadows in the lines and I can see them properly. I am a bit fed up with panel lines now so I'm stopping for dinner.

[mekon]

Lovely work Nigel, every day seems to be an adventure with your builds. Are you going for brass for the rear undercarriage struts on this one?

[fatalbert]

Hi Nigel,loving this build,can i ask you where you got your razor saw from,and how thick the saw blade is,many thanks ........Neil

[Nigel Heath]

Lovely work Nigel, every day seems to be an adventure with your builds. Are you going for brass for the rear undercarriage struts on this one?

Thank you Mekon, yes the two lower struts will be replaced with 0.8mm brass rod and a 1.2mm stub axle. If you go back far enough you will find I got to this stage then had to stop as I didn't have any 1.2mm brass rod - I do now so could progress this tomorrow:

Hang on, you live in Cardiff, England??

Hi Nigel,loving this build,can i ask you where you got your razor saw from,and how thick the saw blade is,many thanks ........Neil

Thanks fatalbert, a good question, the razor saw is from Little cars (JLC make it) and the blade is 0.14 mm thick. This is quite a bit thinner than my other razor saws which have blades 0.3 to 0.4 mm in thickness. It is an excellent saw but the steel used for the blade is very hard and brittle so it has to be used with care.

Edited December 14, 2013 by Nigel Heath

[fatalbert]

Many thanks Nigel .........Neil

[Nigel Heath]

Conducting more deep field research I find that the main rotor shaft is green:

OMG - this one has square mesh!!! I wish those Americans would make up their minds.

And that something looking a bit like Dougal out of the Magic Roundabout lives on the engine bay floor:

For my overseas viewers and to save g-usa some Googling time:

See what I mean?

Edited December 15, 2013 by Nigel Heath

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Looking good Nige.....Those parts definitely look better in your model than they did sitting in my spares drawer!

[Live_bait]

Good work, taking care of representing the real McCoy in all its details.

[Nigel Heath]

I'm still not convinced its worth it. Why buy a cow when you can get milk for free.

Banana Build - Day 21

I could see that from last night's research (well some of it) that I should add some more ribs to the engine bay bulkhead:

Here they are all done:

I made my own version of Dougal to go on the engine bay floor:

I think Jorgen will like this, it uses one of my old Airfix Vasa gun port covers.

Edited December 15, 2013 by Nigel Heath

[Sgt.Squarehead]

But what about his twin?

[Nigel Heath]

Good point KT, I had not spotted that. I will make another one.

[Nigel Heath]

Here is Dougal with his slightly more svelte (that's a word I learnt off Pete in Riyadh), cousin Angus (Don't worry if you can't remember him, he only appeared in one episode):

They are both Skye Terriers BTW.

I have trimmed down the floor grating and will mount them like this:

Edited December 15, 2013 by Nigel Heath

[Nigel Heath]

I then decided to man up and tackle the rescribing, here is my set up:

I restarted on the underside, the first one is for a rectangular panel so I fitted an end stop:

Here are most of the ones completed on the underside:

I think they are an improvement over the ones with the kit. Some tidying up will happen as we go along.

The last one on the roof requires a curved template:

Used like this:

Here are all the ones on the roof:

Now I can get on with building the engine bay.

[Nigel Heath]

This, rare as hen's teeth, overhead shot shows what should be visible through the engine intakes:

I have added four lengths of 0.8mm brass tube to represent the fittings for hydraulic lines - which will be 0.38mm lead wire, inserted temporarily here to give the idea:

I punched out a 1.5mm hole in this old scribing template in 10 thou plasticard:

To make this:

To go here:

I have added a few more details and drilled a rash of 0.3mm holes for control cables to be added later.

[IGKent]

Great progress on the topic!

[Nigel Heath]

Thanks Igor and feifeitim.

I wanted to add a little retrospective brace detail here. My sticky pencil is ideal for this sort of job:

Here it is finished:

I also added all the control wires in 0.15mm copper wire:

Glued on the back like this:

I think I can now start to glue this and the perforated reinforcement in place.

[Nigel Heath]

I did add a couple of more 0.4mm holes for the braided cables which I will represent with some lead wire, I also added a thicker piece of copper wire for another cable / control link:

OK, this is where things start to get interesting and a bit hairy / scary. I glued in the bulkhead and a length of the Evergreen L strip which I had sanded to a slightly thinner profile (under the air intake):

Then in goes the perforated brace after a little fettling to get it to fit under the L section:

Note that it did split at the top hole. This is one thing I did see coming, hopefully not too much of a big deal as there is going to be a flat section mounted on top of it which should put back the structural integrity, to make a T section on the top of the reinforcement.

Edited December 16, 2013 by Nigel Heath

[Nigel Heath]

The section of fuselage above the air intake on the other side had now broken it two places and threatened to detach completely so I glued it and clamped like this:

I will leave it well alone overnight to harden up.

I cut and glued a strip to go on top of the perforated bracing to strengthen it and make the necessary T section:

It then needed the big fish plates, I only need one now but made both:

Here it is installed:

I might go and write up my dinner recipe now, stay tuned.

[Duncan B]

It has to be said that when you actually do knuckle down and get some modelling done you do some amazing things. I just couldn't be bothered adding all that detail so top marks to you.

Duncan J B