A pair of Airfix Hawks in 1/72. Finished.

[Martian]

would never have had that problem if you'd been building a helicopter!

No, just the gazillion and one problems you have had/yet to have with the Italeri Wessex!

Nice work

Martin

[Fritag]

I think I'll have to dedicate some time to learning the resin game, as it clearly pays dividends in terms of giving you what you need to create the model you want. Roll on!

You've got me thinking of casting now!!! .....

Go for it chaps. I copied CT to begin with. It's surprisingly easy and it's definitely got a place in the techniques cupboard,

will you cast / manufacture the tyres and hubs separately or as one? More work I know, but had a thought that it would be easier to mask and would look dead sharp and defined. Not that I suspect that will be an issue either way. Oh yeh, no expert but as for the hub bolts, I reckon 5/8 inch cos I'm old school

Well Tom.

Having thought about it - I'm gonna do the hubs and tyres as one. I've found it quite difficult to get a neat result as the wheel is so small and trying to do them separately is a good idea that I'll put to one side for if and when I need to do a bigger wheel.

I gave up on the idea of wheel bolts whether 5/8 or otherwise! Trying to drill 8 bolt holes symmetrically equidistance around the centre hole on a 2mm diameter plastic disc was beyond me. I got 8 holes in there easily enough - but they looked scruffy Had to have a go tho' didn't I?

Actually the whole thing has been a bit of a pain to try and get neat and square. Easy enough in principle - but in the absence of sophisticated tools it's surprisingly difficult to cut accurate, clean and neat 1mm or 2mm lengths off of plastic tube and rod, and ditto when enlarging the internal diameter of the tube. I had to produce a couple of little jigs to help me cut and sand them square.

If you look closely you'll see that marked 8 quadrants on one of the jigs - that was when I thought I might be a smart ar*e and replicate the bolts.....

It was an easy decision to cast a couple of wheels rather then try and make up a second one from scratch using more tube and rod

RTV is curing as I type - so better get back to real work and earn some money today..........

[perdu]

looks quite the business Steve

I have been playing at castingmaster myself

I am not very good at it,(bordering on the bl***y useless in fact) but I did have a go at copying a set of wheels I laid my hands on, in a mould just like yours.

The rubber mould pulled them all of the moulding stems so I had to dig them out gently

Might be an idea to ensure a big enough demoulding clearance on the interface stem, yours certainly looks better than the ones on my own preowned version

Or resort to similar tactics to mine, use a wooden tool to help ease the wheels out if you do

(do you really need to ask?)........

I suppose I should do a recap of my experiences on the Jag build thread

Later maybe

[keefr22]

Steve, wasn't it CT that used decal 'dots' to represent tiny bolts on a nosewheel? (apols if not CT) - I'm certain it was someone on here, but don't recall 100% as I just read it, thought 'that's nice' & then 'life's too short'...!! But for someone like yourself with infinitely more patience, might be worth a try?

Keith

[Fritag]

....... I did have a go at copying a set of wheels I laid my hands on, in a mould just like yours.

The rubber mould pulled them all of the moulding stems so I had to dig them out gently

Half expecting that to happen here Bill

The wheel is 2mm thick/wide and the moulding stem is 1mm where it meets the wheel and 2mm otherwise and then I used plasticine to bulk out the other end of the stem to ensure a generous resin reservoir for pouring - as I've found this to be a key aid to getting rid of air bubbles.

It's a trade off between a thin and easy to clean up stem and strength I guess. I think/hope that I'll be able to pull the wheel out without damaging the mould if it does pull off the stem.

Steve, wasn't it CT that used decal 'dots' to represent tiny bolts on a nosewheel? (apols if not CT) - I'm certain it was someone on here, but don't recall 100% as I just read it, thought 'that's nice' & then 'life's too short'...!! But for someone like yourself with infinitely more patience, might be worth a try?

I've got some rivet decals - and I s'pose I could have a try on a spare cast? It's just so small tho' that I'm not sure it will matter much after the wheel is painted/weathered

Edited April 27, 2015 by Fritag

[perdu]

Those wheel nuts, no more than 13mm in my opinion (14 at the outside) so 1/2 inch maybe 9/16ths

Paint dot time methinks

editated to add

do you have a sharp pencil in H or harder?

I have been trying out lining with a 4H on my grey Jaguar with results that essentially please me

dots from a 4H might do the "its there honest but I cant squint hard enough to count the dots" trick

Bear in mind those nuts hold both halves of the wheel together usually, they need to be symmetrically disposed on it

Is it worth it in 72th scale?

Edited April 27, 2015 by perdu

[Cheshiretaurus]

So 8 bolts on a 2mm diameter hub, seems a question of accurate repeatability.

My thoughts would be a laminated jig similar to what you have a solid base layer and a middle layer glued on thick enough for the hub to sit down snugly in a drilled hole deeper than the width of the hub. The middle layer should be marked out with your 4 lines 45° apart drawn out to the edge of the jig. Make a top layer smaller than the main jig consisting of a circular plug same diameter of the hub glued in the centre with a line marked on going right through the centre of the plug. with a pilot hole drilled in off-set from the centre of the plug where the ring of bolts are to be.

Now put the hub in the jig and put the top layer on. line up the line on the top layer with one of the ones on the main jig and drill the first hole all the way through the hub to the other side of the jig. Use a bit of rod or a spare drill bit to lock the hub in place to stop it moving round in the jig.

Put the top back on and align it in turn with the other 7 positions and drill the remaining corresponding holes into the hub.

I've knocked up a quick diagram.

Hopefully the holes in the hub should all now be the same distance from the centre and equally spaced apart.

Seemed like a good idea when it was in my head anyway.

The rubber mould pulled them all of the moulding stems so I had to dig them out gently

I've found that making the end of the mould just a few mm thick at the end of wheel will let you push the master and casts out from underneath rather then having to pull them out.

wasn't it CT that used decal 'dots' to represent tiny bolts on a nosewheel? (apols if not CT)

Wasn't me guv.

[HAMP man]

A little red faced for mentioning the size of the nuts fnar fnar - sorry! Wrong thread, and not wanting to second guess Steve, I understand the need to have the detail there instead of hinted at, why else would you put the leather straps on the rudders bars of a Spit, no one will ever see them, but we know they are there. Steve has highlighted the fact that the holes/nut heads need to be symmetrical, so an accurate template would be needed of a very small size, well, necessity being the mother of invention, (as Peter Gabriel once sang) then why not look to a cheap watch and disassemble the innards, plenty of little round things with grooves to guide a really small drill? Some may be handy as riveter wheels as well, not tried it but I can't any reason why it wouldn't work.

Regards

[nimrod54]

That's a well engineered solution to the problem Cheshiretaurus.

[Fritag]

necessity being the mother of invention, (as Peter Gabriel once sang) then why not look to a cheap watch and disassemble the innards, plenty of little round things with grooves to guide a really small drill? Some may be handy as riveter wheels as well, not tried it but I can't any reason why it wouldn't work.

Funnily enough my thoughts initially ran along similar lines - I've got a riveter tool which is a sort of needle like punch which you press into the surface using photo etch guides for spacing. Some of the guides are curcular - but unfortunately the smallest circle was still a tad too large.

Ok so the RTV cured and a test cast looks ok:

So then I started to think about the bloomin bolts again

So 8 bolts on a 2mm diameter hub, seems a question of accurate repeatability.

My thoughts would be a laminated jig.........

..........

CT got me thinking. Don't want to make another hub. Been there - don't want to go back there..... but I thought I could maybe modify his idea with the aim of producing a template/pattern to put over the cast wheel and drill through to suggest the bolts.

So here's the jig and a quickly produced template/pattern. I cut a 0.5mm slice of 2mm rod - glued a circular section of card backing to it, and then rotated it in the jig, lining it up on the quadrent markings and drilled 8 holes (thw larger hole in the jig is there so I could use a cocktail stick from the back of the jig to push the template/pattern out of the jig):

Then the template/pattern fits onto the cast wheel:

Drill through each of the 8 guide holes and:

Neat enough for a quick test

Ok so the bolts protrude in real life - but in this scale I could maybe get away with suggesting them in this way.

Still not sure I'll bother with em. We'll see

Steve

[perdu]

I like the cast wheel Steve, tres bien monswer (practisng for LM, had to miss last year and language skills need reinforcing)

re the sticky outnessness, why not drill 'em out them pop eight short bits of rod into the holes and a quick swirl of liquid poly to lock 'em in

Your extension of CT's jig idea is great

[keefr22]

Teehee, knew you wouldn't be able to leave them there bolts alone Steve!

And Bill beat me to posting the plastic rod idea. Go on, you know you have too...!!

K

[hendie]

aren't bolts supposed to be hexagonal ?

between you, Perdu and a few other 1/72'ers, I may as well take up stamp collecting

[perdu]

I'm no fanatic hendie

I didn't propose using hexagonal stock from stretched hexagonal sprue after all

Did I?

and I didn't even think of adding a short length of protruding threaded bit to each hex

just for completion

No it was me that proposed just pencilling them onto the wheels

[Cheshiretaurus]

That came out neat

[Fritag]

It's no wonder I never really make any proper progress is it?:

Start by finding that the nose leg is way overscale.....decide to do something about it.

Decide to separate the fork from the leg.

Find that there's no decent replacement nose-wheel.

Find it too difficult to cleanly separate a nose wheel from the moulded-in fork to make a useable nose wheel .

So - decide to make a new nose wheel by drilling out the hub from a kit wheel leaving a useable tyre section - and then fabricate a new hub.

Find that fabricating a new hub is a lot easier to say than to do....

When I do sort of get a satisfactory wheel - get subtly (and in some case not so subtly ) egged on to add bolts......(Mug - Moi?)

Sort-of achieve an impression of bolts (not without a good deal of assistance and faffing ) and now! - now! the bolts have got to protrude..........

The inside of the hub is only 2mm in diameter you know - them holes is only 0.2mm diameter you know....These eyes have seen more than 50 summers you know. No-one will ever care about the nose wheel or even see it - you know.

It's no wonder that the missus thinks the whole thing is daft ("are you every going to start sticking that thing together"?)

Course - it is sort of fun - and faffing about with little things is sort of pleasing to the sad mind that is me.........

[nimrod54]

The inside of the hub is only 2mm in diameter you know - them holes is only 0.2mm diameter you know....These eyes have seen more than 50 summers you know. No-one will ever care about the nose wheel or even see it - you know.

It's no wonder that the missus thinks the whole thing is daft ("are you every going to start sticking that thing together"?)

Course - it is sort of fun - and faffing about with little things is sort of pleasing to the sad mind that is me.........

It must be a man thing, Mrs Nimrod constantly looks at me with an expression of "are you mad, who is going to see that"?

Never a word of praise or encouragement, it can start to get a bloke down. Maybe she is right, but it won't stop me doing it.

[keefr22]

It must be a man thing, Mrs Nimrod constantly looks at me with an expression of "are you mad, who is going to see that"?

Never a word of praise or encouragement, it can start to get a bloke down. Maybe she is right, but it won't stop me doing it.

Does she call your models toys? Or say 'when are you going to tidy up your toyroom' in the same voice she used when talking to our son when he was 10 or so? If not, think yourself lucky....!!!

[nimrod54]

Does she call your models toys? Or say 'when are you going to tidy up your toyroom' in the same voice she used when talking to our son when he was 10 or so? If not, think yourself lucky....!!!

No, she doesn't do that, but there has been an odd occasion where I have had to don the tin-hat whilst issuing a severe reprimand for speaking to me like one of her pupils (primary). But maybe that is down to the other man thing of behaving like a big kid at times.

[Leonl]

@ #218 I get the same comments too, along with "it looks fine to me..."

More importantly, I think your cast looks great and in this scale you could get away with the 'suggestion' of bolts as you put it.

If you were to go for the protruding bolts, I'd use lengths plastic rod stuck in to the drilled holes. once the glue has dried 'snip' them as close the hub as possible. In theory you'll be left with a minor protrusion that, with a wash, will stand out a treat IMHO!!

L

[Gary West]

Genius ........or is this one.............

[woody37]

I learn so much from your builds Steve, but realise I never have the patience to put the detail in that you are able. Thing is, we all know how special these Hawks will turn out, so keep up with the inspiring insane detail!

More...I say more Mr Fritag!!!!

[HAMP man]

There's bound to be a valve dooffer for the tyre somewhere on the rim.... just joshing, superb as always and the CT/Fritag roundie-ma-jig is pure genius. Mange tout Fritag...mange tout!

Strickers

[xffw45343tg]

Balancing weights?

[Tomoshenko]

I'm no fanatic hendie

I didn't propose using hexagonal stock from stretched hexagonal sprue after all

Did I?

and I didn't even think of adding a short length of protruding threaded bit to each hex

just for completion

No it was me that proposed just pencilling them onto the wheels

It's no wonder I never really make any proper progress is it?:

Start by finding that the nose leg is way overscale.....decide to do something about it.

Decide to separate the fork from the leg.

Find that there's no decent replacement nose-wheel.

Find it too difficult to cleanly separate a nose wheel from the moulded-in fork to make a useable nose wheel .

So - decide to make a new nose wheel by drilling out the hub from a kit wheel leaving a useable tyre section - and then fabricate a new hub.

Find that fabricating a new hub is a lot easier to say than to do....

When I do sort of get a satisfactory wheel - get subtly (and in some case not so subtly ) egged on to add bolts......(Mug - Moi?)

Sort-of achieve an impression of bolts (not without a good deal of assistance and faffing ) and now! - now! the bolts have got to protrude..........

The inside of the hub is only 2mm in diameter you know - them holes is only 0.2mm diameter you know....These eyes have seen more than 50 summers you know. No-one will ever care about the nose wheel or even see it - you know.

It's no wonder that the missus thinks the whole thing is daft ("are you every going to start sticking that thing together"?)

Course - it is sort of fun - and faffing about with little things is sort of pleasing to the sad mind that is me.........

Don't listen to these bad influences. You'll never get the job done..However...when you do the threads on the bolts I recommend British Standard Whitworth (BSW). Be easier to replicate a coarser thread at this scale

Seriously though, truly great micro modelling. Especially since you don't have access to micro technology tooling come keyhole surgery instruments. Reckon it's worth keeping your eye out for some nano-bots at Telford this year (though wouldn't be surprised if Mr C hasn't knocked up some schematics )