Vintage Pair's Vampire T11 XH304

[Cheshiretaurus]

More on the centre canopy this afternoon, After dry brushing the interior with white, the masking came off, With plenty of photos and the help of Vintage1/Bryan's memory I've scratch built the canopy raising jack from plastic rod at the rear, I've only done the bit that will show the rest of the jack hides behind that horizontal bar aft of the seats so wont be seen.

Heres a diagram from the service manual shows how it all should look

Also had a frustrating time wondering why CA & PE parts will stick anywhere but where you want it. Mirrors were painted matt black and the mirror itself I tried brushing Alclad chrome onto, was good enough for what I wanted but not the super shine one would get by airbrushing on to gloss. Eduard provide 2 yellow handles, one spare! I lost both to the carpet monster in quick succession. Only one thing for it, 0.25mm plastic rod painted yellow! it may get a black stripe or three later.

Think this bit is now finished and will be fitted near the end, in the open position

Mark

[Fritag]

had used a male mould but the resulting canopies were too big

I found that too - it was always niggling away in the back of my mind but I hoped it wouldn't manifest itself; should have own that it would.....probably most evident in 1/72.

It was an easier problem to solve for me seeing as it was just the windshield I needed to form. I made a male resin cast by using the inside of the Pavla vac form as a mould and so got a slightly undersize male mould (it ruined the pavla vac form as it needed cutting/prizing off the resin - but I anticipated that). The resin cast then reproduced the overly soft Pavla canopy framing but I just sanded that back on the resign cast. I'll have to have a practice at vac forming with a female mould tho' as it's obviously the 'proper' way to go....

Vacuumed a canopy 1mm plasticard and cut out the centre canopy to make a cover for the spraying,

Ooh. Cracking Idea. Never thought of that. One of those elegantly obvious ideas (in retrospect) that I would never ever have thought of myself........

Great work Mark.

[keefr22]

Mark, firstly lovely work on the Vampire so far, it looks great!

I'm a lilltle confused by your female vacform mould though. You said the male mould produces oversize vacforms, which is a problem I've come across too, but then say you used the male mould to produce the female one - wouldn't that make the female one oversize too? And do you then have to use the male mould to plunge form the acetate into the female? If so wouldn't the resultant vacform be the same size as originally? If you don't use the male mould for plunge forming, how do you use the femaale mould? I know i'm probably missing something blindingly obvious, but I just can't get my head around it....

Cheers

Keith

[Fritag]

Keef,

I'm probably being daft here - but I thought this.

The outside dimensions of the male mould are accurate - therefore the added thickness of the clear sheet used to make the canopy makes the external dimensions of the vac form oversize.

But using the male mould to make a female mould means that the internal dimensions of the female mould equal the external dimensions of the male mould. When the clear sheet is pulled into the female mould the external dimensions of the vac form are therefore correct as they are the same as the external dimensions of the original male mould.

That's right isn't it?

[keefr22]

That does sound right Steve - if you don't actually need to use the male mould to plunge form the vac ? Because if you did wouldn't the extra thickness of the clear plastic make it too big to use? Is it because you have those vacform machines & can get away without plunge moulding? Does the machine heat the clear enough that it just melts into the female mould - I'm guessing from your terminology of it being pulled into the female mould it does? Having only old fashioned technology available, I think I could only use this method with plunge forming....

Anyway, all these questions have made my head hurt, I'm off for a cuppa...!!

[Fritag]

Is it because you have those vacform machines & can get away without plunge moulding?

I'm assuming yes. In theory (I've not done it - but I'm gonna) you drill/mould a few holes in strategic places in the female mould (i.e. in the canopy framework rather than the clear bits as there will be resulting suction formed 'pips') so the vacuum action of the machine can pull the heated polyester/PETG sheet into the mould without needing a plunger.

I probably should have left it to Mark to tell us how he actually did it......Tis his thread after all... and he is the one wot did it after all....and his is rather good at explaining technical stuff to the rest of us after all....I blame the fact that I've got a light workload this morning and too much time to sit in coffee bars browsing BM. I couldn't resist interfering. Sorry Mark - sorry Keef- sorry All.....

Steve

[Cheshiretaurus]

Keef, Steve

The female mould was made by using a cast of a male mould with a M3 nut embedded in the cast held in place by its screw with the end of the screw sticking out of the cast. once the cast was set the screw was unscrewed leaving the nut in firmly encased but with the access hole left by the screw. Bottom of the cast was then smoothed out on sandpaper. cover the screw hole with a bit of tape and glue the male mould to a flat surface (Hotel room key). Purpose of the nut will be explained later.

0.25mm acupuncture needles were pushed in at those strategic points on the canopy frame (bit of guess work) while this was being done I also glued together a wooden frame from 12x4 mm baton from B&Q. The mould was then sprayed with silicone mould release oil and the frame placed around it and dammed with plasticine around the outside. The mix of resin and aluminium powder was poured into the frame just enough to cover the male mould. After 15 min the needles were pulled out with pair of small pliers leaving air evacuation holes. After an hour the mould can be pulled away from that flat surface with a little force but the male master will be stuck inside. You cant get a grip on the male as it is flush with the rest of the mould and well stuck in. This is where the nut comes in, screw the screw back and use it as a grip to pull the male out. It will take a lot of force to break the seal. I mound I needed to jam the screw in a vice and pull the female mould away from it. The female mould is now complete but

I gave it another 24 hours to fully harden.

On the vacuum forming machine I reduced the suck down area to size just smaller than the frame of the female mould with masking tape and put the mould on top of that making sure it was also positioned so it would fit through the hole in the carrier adaptor I made. Its now moulded in the same way as using a male mould but just draw the carrier and plastic down just so it touches the mould and the vacuum will do the rest.

Im still experimenting with different barriers between the male & female parts to make the separation stage easier. Airbrushed and polished gloss paint with a layer of car wax might work. Shoe polish even!

I'll try to get some pictures together to illustrate it.

Mark

[Fritag]

Mark - could you make a male mould out of RTV instead of resin - having sprayed the inside of the original female RTV mould with silicone mould release? and then use that male RTV mould to make a subsequent female resin mould?

[Cheshiretaurus]

Mark - could you make a male mould out of RTV instead of resin - having sprayed the inside of the original female RTV mould with silicone mould release? and then use that male RTV mould to make a subsequent female resin mould?

Yes you could, I have a lot of trouble still getting RTV &RTV to separate and have never been able to transfer a shiny canopy surface across to from RTV to RTV. It's something I still need to develop a reliable technique with and would probably the way ahead.

Edited July 15, 2014 by Cheshiretaurus

[keefr22]

Mark & Steve - thanks both for your explanations - Steve for firstly helping me out of my confusion by showing me I was way out with my thinking it was a plunge mould, and Mark for that very thorough explanation! I do like your forward planning with the nut & setscrew! I think I need to liquidate some never to be built plastic 'assets' on fee-bay so that i can get one of those vacformers!

thanks again both

[Cheshiretaurus]

Mark & Steve - thanks both for your explanations - Steve for firstly helping me out of my confusion by showing me I was way out with my thinking it was a plunge mould, and Mark for that very thorough explanation! I do like your forward planning with the nut & setscrew! I think I need to liquidate some never to be built plastic 'assets' on fee-bay so that i can get one of those vacformers!

thanks again both

No problem keef,

I do like your forward planning with the nut & setscrew!

Trial and error Keef, trial and error. somewhere on a refuse tip nearby is a seagull getting frustrated and unable to get that white sweet out of the grey sweet its just found.

[perdu]

i'm still gobsmacked at your work Mark, art and science perfectly blended

I'm not asssuming I could do anything like you do, but I wonder if you have given up on 304's hand made panel number?

I use MS Word to do these things

It is almost dreamlike in its simplicity

Say I wanted small (very!) stencils in white letters on black I would write the XH304 in a suitable font. I used comic sans to practise with and there's hundreds to choose from

select highlighted text and use black as the highlight colour and type XH304 on the screen

Then highlight the text and select text colour white in the highlighted section

The lettering then appears as if by thingy, magic

Then whilst still highlighted select font size which gives you numbers down to 8 points

But here where we get technical, while it is still highlighted in the font size box, input the size YOU want

I have printed 1 point or 2 points before when making aircraft stencilling

then change the paper upper margins to the minimum and you can print wot you made on a strip of decal paper

without losing lots of the sheet at a couple of squids a throw

Just a thought that you might like to try out

b

[Cheshiretaurus]

Did give it a go on the inkjet Bill, but the size of the lettering needed is around a 5th of a millimeter. at that scale all I got is a black rectangle with no detail, even with the printer on set to its sharpest settings.

One day home printers will be able I'm sure.

Thanks

[perdu]

If I have that trouble I have achieved a kind of success by setting the font to BOLD which gives better resolution

I suppose you will just have to paint it in with a thin brush

or not

[hendie]

Did give it a go on the inkjet Bill, but the size of the lettering needed is around a 5th of a millimeter. at that scale all I got is a black rectangle with no detail, even with the printer on set to its sharpest settings.

One day home printers will be able I'm sure.

Thanks

That may be a limitation of the software and not the printer. - Have you tried printing using CAD software or a true graphics program?

With CAD software you can generally set the line weight, and with graphics software you can increase the resolution.

I can set my line weight down to 0.05mm or even 0.00mm which gives me a very very fine line indeed

[Cheshiretaurus]

Tell me about your weak points Mark

Well I'm sometimes easily influenced by others

Right had another think about the serial on the IP

When I got the eduard PE frets, I scanned them in so if I lost a part (yes lost some)I would have something to help me to create an artwork from to replace the part. (no not done that bit yet)

So heres an indication of the size were talking about

On a break at the moment so been having a play with photo shop again

The idea of using bold might help avoid the black rectangle I got, I cant remember if I did use bold first time or not. also the black on the Eduard IP is not black its more of a bluey dark grey. So Ive taken an average of the black on the scan and used that as solid colour for the background of the decal artwork. also done a black one to compare.

I'll give it another go when I get home failing that I'll try and find a suitable printer at work, trouble is I dont think there is anything other than laser printers, and Ink jet decal film might not work very well in them.

[keefr22]

How about doing it the low tech way - paint a small rectangle of white paint where the serial is to be, let it dry thoroughly, overpaint with the panel colour & then when that's dry, gently scratch the serial through with a sharp pin....

Keith

[Cheshiretaurus]

How about doing it the low tech way - paint a small rectangle of white paint where the serial is to be, let it dry thoroughly, overpaint with the panel colour & then when that's dry, gently scratch the serial through with a sharp pin....

Keith

Never thought of that, I like it. just the issue of colour matching to master, cant be impossible though.

[bigbadbadge]

Wow, fantastic work, this looks great,, very inspirational thread.
Keep up the good work

All the best

Chris

[perdu]

LOVL

I was going to suggest doing the white overpainted - black scratched out - technique too

TBH I rather think it will be the best way to do it

Hi-tech doesn't ALWAYS rule tha' kens.

[Cheshiretaurus]

Hmmm, bit better than the last but still no cigar.

Scratching idea sounds like a good plan, maybe HU67 Tank grey would be a good match for the Eduard black!

[Cheshiretaurus]

Admission of making a hash of things time

When the grey dried, It didn't dry the way I thought it would, I had primed it directly from a rattle can of Halfords primer, This left a bit of a grainy surface. The Humbrol yellow went on well was forgiving to the grainy surface. The Xtracolor grey was nowhere near as tolerant the grainy surface of the primer was faithfully reproduced with a glorious gloss finish making it look much worse. Also there were a couple of areas that were orange peeled. Only one thing for it, it all has to come off. After a week of waiting for it to be solid enough to smooth out with t-cut and sand areas beyond the ability of t-cut. During the sanding a couple of bits came off, , bezel for the landing light, lower aerial, pitot & elevator balance weights. Still need to put the aerial and pitot back on. the laning light bezel immediately got abducted by the carpet monster and has never been seen since. I didn't take any pictures of the mess as I really didn't want to record it. The landing light still looks ok with the original Airfix scribing now replacing the lost PE once again.

Anyway this time it was primed with a rattler of Mr Surfacer 1200, once that was on I was much happier again.

While trying to find and answer to the Xtracolor slow drying time BlackKnight in another thread has introduced me to a fantastic product called Terebine driers and it really works, done a few tests with it on scrap parts and its reduced the drying time of Xtracolor from nearly a week to around 12 hours, with Humbrol its even less. I also needed to thin the paint more to prevent the orange peel.

So armed with my new formula for enamel thinners (50% paint 25% White Spirit 25% Cellulose thinners and 1% terebine driers) Yeah it adds up to 101% but dont worry about it. The yellow went back on a bit more carefully again, with the airbrush at 10PSI and thinner paint than I used to use I got a reasonably smooth finish. 3 coats over 3days. Did a test on a small area with the Xtracolor and that gave a smooth finish too. - Defiantly a happy bunny now.

Ready for masking again now. found I didn't cut an accurate line with parafilm, so taken a leaf out of Fritag's book and used sqares of Tamiya tape for the nav lights this time.

Thought I'd do the main gear doors as the yellow was in the brush

Start doing the grey again this week.

Went to the Farnborough Airshow last Sunday for the first time ever. though I'd share a pic of the modern day Vintage Pair that displayed there.

Now Been giving this some consideration of getting it started soon, would be nice to get them both finished together.

Would do this as WA669

Mark

Edited July 27, 2014 by Cheshiretaurus

[robvulcan]

Looking very nice indeed

[Tomoshenko]

Ouch! The primer episode must be very frustrating. Especially after all the graft you put in. Glad you pulled it round though with minimal compromise to detailing. Welcome links to the Terebine drier stuff too. I mostly use Humbrol enamels so will follow this up. Looking forward to the Meteor.

[Fritag]

Nice save Mark.

When I came back to modelling last year I decided to go with acrylics and I find them a bit of a challenge. I can't say that I start any painting session feeling particularly full of confidence.

Glad you've solved your Xtracolor issue.

Steve