Ray S Posted June 7, 2015 Author Share Posted June 7, 2015 Hello all, yet again not a lot of progress, but I have done a bit of amending of previous work. I was not overly happy about the size of the ammo drums and was going to leave it as it was, but... I felt they were definitely too large, so out they came (thankfully) and I got some 3.2mm rod and made some more. This time I was able to get them in the way my plans showed they fitted I also added a bit more at the aft end of the fuselage too I have popped in a propeller on both fuselage halves as they carried spares (actually they had four spares, two each side but I decided to leave it at one), and I used the vacform props as they will not be visible unless you get a real close look through the rear gunners position, and even then only the tip! I had to cut off part of the forward end of the prop as the bulkhead they are butting up against would not be there in the real plane, but is needed for strength in this model Also added was a representation of the parachute pack for the rear gunner, and although not visible in the picture, I have a toilet vent fitted to the starboard side just in front of the not-required bulkhead, and the pan is in progress (it is actually made from a plant holder leg I just pinched from the garden as it was just the right size). I am also making a fire step for the mid upper, and need to figure out how the scarff ring would be mounted, as it is smaller than the opening. Well, I think that is it at the moment, I now have to start masking the portholes from the inside, ensuring I can remove the masking through the windows. I hope the pictures come up properly this time, one of the ones I tried to post in my previous update came up with something totally different to what Tinypic showed me it was! All the best, Ray 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trickyrich Posted June 7, 2015 Share Posted June 7, 2015 there is some nice detailing there Ray, it nice to see you are even adding details that would be hard to see normally. There are a lot of us who would do the same thing, add detail even though it can't be seen because you know it needs to be there! You're making nice progress with this one, and it 's a great build to watch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ray S Posted June 13, 2015 Author Share Posted June 13, 2015 Hello all. I am now getting very close to being able to close up the fuselage to this. I mentioned about how to sort out the mid-upper Scarff ring mount, well - here is my idea. It is not going to be fitted for a long time yet, so if anyone has a better idea that I could use, please feel free to let me know. I am probably going to put a square base onto the bottom of the poles to allow it to fit better on the fire step (which due to lack of information, I have decided to make as a wooden structure)... I used the injection moulded part for the Scarff ring left over from a civilian Supermarine Stranraer I am also building (there will be two more used later along with 3 injection Lewis guns but that will be it I promise), I tried to drill four small indents into the underside, then fitted four .3mm plastic rod legs to act as the mount. Hopefully, when I create the square base (out of rod again) I will be able to add wire rigging to the structure as is shown in the plans, and I hope I have interpreted it correctly. Anyway, this is what may be the last time I see most of the interior: I have now also fitted the control columns and seats, but I left off the foot pedals (forgive me please), and added a fire step to the front gunner position. For the crew who ended up being caught short in flight, there was a rather drafty area where things could be resolved - I do not know where the loo roll would have been put, but there is still time if anyone can let me know, this should get closed tomorrow when all the tabs are set. The final interior part I added was the catwalk up to the rear gunner position, this I made from a strip of plastic, painted a wood shade again, with a representation of ribs for traction on the relatively steep slope up to the position I have masked off the windows. I wondered about how to do that but still enable me to clear the masking. I have sometimes tried Glu'n'Glaze, but on the Stranraer I found it difficult to remove cleanly. I decided to try masking tape. First up I put in a long strip just slightly wider than the port holes, and then tried to remove it from the outside. No dice, I could not get the tweezers to grip the tape properly, then I tried small squares and had much better success, so that is what I went with. I am glad I tried this before I glued the halves together. I have also made a spar for the lower wings, that was awkward too. the profile of the lower wings is quite tricky, so I have got something quite close but no cigar, although I think it will do. Everything seems to line up, but the wing joints are something else ( I will show you another day). Despite having done many vacforms in the past, this is the first time I have used a spar. Well, that is it, hopefully more progress tomorrow. All the best, and any advice as usual always welcome! Ray 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndyC Posted June 13, 2015 Share Posted June 13, 2015 Love the work you're doing on this Ray - brilliant watch Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Romeo Alpha Yankee Posted June 13, 2015 Share Posted June 13, 2015 Great detail you are including in the interior Ray, pity much won't be seen when you button it up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ray S Posted June 14, 2015 Author Share Posted June 14, 2015 Hello again. I mentioned yesterday about the poor fit of the wings to the fuselage. Well... I think I may have my work cut out on this one! I have a few ideas in mind to solve the problems. There is some mis-alignment with the wings from the original mouldings, but I am also sure that I may not have been too accurate in my sanding out so I will take any blame for this. To enable me to be a bit more vigorous with sanding at the wing front and rear attachments I have used some filler to bulk up the interiors of the wing fillets - I have also started to fill some of the gaps and irregularities on the fuselage join, and will also try to sharpen the chine edges as mentioned earlier in the thread. The filler is white against white plastic so I did not worry about photographing that work. Wish me luck please! See you soon, Ray 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trickyrich Posted June 14, 2015 Share Posted June 14, 2015 Wow that interior looks really great, well done. The wing joins do look.....interesting! I'll be interested to see how you go about sorting these out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ray S Posted June 17, 2015 Author Share Posted June 17, 2015 Hello! A couple of days ago I tried something I have not done before. As a filler, I used the highly recommended Isopon 38 two part car filler. I needed to use quite a lot of filler, as my gluing of the fuselage halves did not quite go to plan, there being quite a hefty step all along the fuselage upper seam. I think there may have been a difference in the plastic thickness, possibly due to the fact that the joint was not dead centre, one half being larger than the other. I felt there was too much for Perfect Plastic Putty, so out came the Isopon. I think I may have dabbed it on a bit too thick... I need to practice its application, I used the wedge of plastic that was supplied, but I don't think I had good control, especially on the curved areas. Anyway, a couple of evenings sanding produced this: It turned out quite smooth, but I found it quite difficult to sand down, probably due to over plastering the stuff in the first place! I still need to do a bit more smoothing out, and have started using PPP as the repair putty. One good thing with the Isopon is that it is slightly coloured, so I can see where a small disc of plastic will need to go later on, that white circle just off centre behind the cockpit. It just happens to be hole-punch size so that is sorted. Just behind the plane you can probably see part of one of my cunning plans. Greater vacform modellers than me have a great knack of showing how easy difficult things are, and someone (Sir Tom Probert, Master Modeller) has very kindly shown us a few of his tricks, one of which is a superb box structure which acts as a spar for his wings on the Beverley, so I thought 'I can do that' and knocked up a small scale model of the spar that needs to fit the Singapore's upper wings. I popped it in between the wings and it fitted just right (I prised open the wing tips and could see that the small test piece touched upper and lower halves) and did not buckle the wing profile. So I built up the full sized version and fitted it. It is somewhat better than the spar I have made for the lower wing... And the upper wing still fits - thank goodness. Thank you so much Tom for showing us these tricks (the Isopon 38 is another), it really does help us time lapsed vacformers. The big depression you can see on the leading edge is duplicated on the port side too, it is where the engines mount to the underside of the top wing, and to be honest, I cannot see how they were formed during the vacform process. They are very deep, and I would have thought the plastic would have been very thin and damaged, but no. I have filled both of these with PPP to add strength for later. I will also, when the top section is finally fitted, need to part cut through the upper half, and bend the wings upwards a bit to get suitable dihedral. These cuts need to be just outboard of these blobs. I have also just spent quite a while paring away on the tailplanes, this time following John Aero's advice from a recent Vacform modelling guide he posted here on Britmodeller. I used a flat scalpel blade and that has helped thin the wings a lot, very quickly, so thanks for that too, John. What a great forum this is! Well, that is it for now, thanks for the advice and comments, they are really appreciated. All the best, Ray 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trickyrich Posted June 19, 2015 Share Posted June 19, 2015 Nice work there Ray, she is starting to look quite impressive. It's great to see there is so much helpful advice and tips to be found here on Britmodeller. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caerbannog Posted June 19, 2015 Share Posted June 19, 2015 Great work - very interesting build Rene Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ray S Posted June 21, 2015 Author Share Posted June 21, 2015 Hello all. Back on Page 1, CarLos gave me a suggestion to sharpen the edges of the planing surface which had been damaged and was rather rounded. I took a while to think about that, my filler work is not too good at the best of times, and I did not want to muck this up. But the thought kept returning to my mind that if you don't try, you don't learn. So, I picked out some 0.5mm round plastic rod, and used liquid poly to glue it along the edge of the planing surface. This stuck quite well and rapidly, and just needed to use a bit of masking tape to lock down the rod on the more curved front end. Then needed to be careful and not pop it back off when handling later! Then I used Perfect Plastic Putty to blend things in. I was relatively sparing on the filler, and used a curved blade to smooth it on, then a wet cocktail stick to try and smooth things down a bit, then added a bit more filler when I saw that it was still needed. I was still better at adding this filler than the Isopon the other day. Anyway, I gave this lot about an hour or two to go off but not fully set, then out came the sandpaper and sanding sticks to finish this off. PPP can go really hard when it fully sets, so I did not want that to happen, and things went well with the abrasives and sharpened up the edges quite well. I still need to add a bit more filler when there are one or two hollows, but for a first go, I don't think it turned out too bad - So, Thank you Carlos for giving the suggestion! I have also turned to the engine pods. I have been using Hugh Markham's article in Scale Models from October 1977 as a guide. A copy of this was sent to me by John Aero when I ordered the exhausts and props from him (thanks John), and although there are not many images, the text gives plenty of suggestions. First up, the original pod: There are two large blobs on each of the four halves, they needed removing, and also the long raised areas fore and aft where the exhausts will go had to go too. The recessed areas on the sticky up it was filled with some 5 thou card, and will be filled and sanded when they have set properly. Mr Markham also suggested filling and re-scribing all the panel lines on the pods, so I will try that as well. I have only tried re-scribing once, on an Airfix Chipmunk and it did not go too well, so it is another thing I need practice on. One thing that you need to keep an eye on and where I did not, is the thickness of the plastic. On one of the pods, the squarish blob had been over-extruded and I sanded through it when removing said blob. I back-filled it with some PPP when I finally realised. Having finally got the fuselage together, the other day I checked the canopy fitting, and although I have not cut it out yet, it looks like it might be a touch too wide, so I am glad that Britjet has shown a potential solution on one of his threads http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234981146-can-i-bring-this-one-to-play-as-well/page-2 His suggestion starts at post 22, and I think it is a fabulous explanation of how to go about this! That would be yet another thing for me to do for the first time, but we will see. Anyway, I think that is enough, thanks again for the encouragement and advice. Regards, Ray 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BritJet Posted June 21, 2015 Share Posted June 21, 2015 Looking good Ray, you're tackling each problem sensibly and not backing down because it's something outside your comfort zone. Any vacform kit will make you stop and think about the way forward but many of the older kits, such as your Singapore, do need a lot of thought! It will be worth it in the end as I can't see too many other kits of the Singapore being released....... Keep going and glad I've been able to help so far, but just shout if there's anything you need. Steve 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trickyrich Posted June 25, 2015 Share Posted June 25, 2015 gee Ray you're making this look sooo easy. I've built a few of these older vacform models and know they can be a bit challenging but you're doing a great job there, well done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ray S Posted June 26, 2015 Author Share Posted June 26, 2015 Hello all. 5 days on since the last post, and how is progress? Well, the answer is - Not a lot! Sand, fill, sand, fill - you probably get the picture! The Perfect Plastic Putty does not seem to like filling shallow panel lines first go, and it took three nights work to get the nacelles close to being smooth. I think next time I will try and deepen and roughen the panels lines to give the putty something to bite onto. I have masked off all the fuselage openings this evening, and will crack the lid on Halfords Filler Primer spray over the weekend, as it has been mentioned that this is good stuff for this type of work. This evening I also glued the upper and lower wing halves, ready for attaching when they and the fuselage are fully prepped. Well, that is it for now. Cheers, Ray 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ray S Posted June 28, 2015 Author Share Posted June 28, 2015 Hello again. I actually have something to show today. I have been working on the nacelles mainly these last couple of days, and they need a bit of improvement. First up was cutting out the radiator front and rear sections. The upper housings moulded onto the nacelles are for the radiators, and the rear is open faced, and the front has a pair of shutters which can be opened and closed as required. I used an etch saw to cut down the horizontal cuts and scored a line to join those cuts and snapped off the remaining rectangle of plastic. Having done one, I used that as a measure to ensure that the other three were close size-wise. I am not sure if you can see it, but the nacelle halves are different thickness, just like the fuselage was, so I have marked the interiors for port/starboard and inner/outer, to ensure that one thick and one thin half are attached to each other, rather than have one really fat and one really skinny. That would not have been right would it? I also needed to do that so I can ensure that certain additions are put on the correct side of the appropriate nacelles. I needed to fit eight strengthening strips to each side of the radiator housings, where I had previously added 5thou card to fill dips in the mouldings. I used some .3mm plastic rod for this, although stretched sprue would have been better. I made a right wotsit of trying to stretch some sprue, and would it work? No it would not! I tried all sorts of different makers plastic, and different waiting times over the candle flame but no good came of it at all. Ah well... I don't think it looks too bad. I scribed a panel line in at the front of the housing (only to find Perfect Plastic Putty crumbles just like the rest) then butted up the strengthening strips to the scribed line. The numerically superior amongst you may notice there are only seven strips, but I could not mark the gaps accurately enough for 8, these are 2mm apart which was easy to measure. I am only telling you because you are my friends, so keep it secret, heh? I have also fitted a floor to the radiator housing, which will help stop the void being seen fif you look inside Which brings me to a bit of a hitch. What the dickens was in this housing? Contrail supplied a moulding that could appear to be a radiator-type mesh, so I may well use that front and back on a thin piece of plastic, and then I may just put a few pipes and so on in to busy it up a bit. I will paint it all a rather dark colour, so it will not be too visible anyway, but do want something reasonable in there. Anyway, that is it for now, any suggestions as always will be highly appreciated, and thanks for the comments and 'likes'. See you soon! Ray 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BritJet Posted June 28, 2015 Share Posted June 28, 2015 Can't help with the inside of the housing but if you need a scribe a line on filler use a razor saw as it removes the filler rather than just forcing it to the sides and crumbling away as a blade does. Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trickyrich Posted June 30, 2015 Share Posted June 30, 2015 some nice work with the engine pods. Hopefully someone will be able to help you with the details you need. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ray S Posted July 4, 2015 Author Share Posted July 4, 2015 Hello all. BritJet, thank you for the advice concerning the razor saw for scribing, I will try that out. Today I decided to use the Halfords Filler Primer spray. It seems to have done a good job. I used blobs of BluTak to stick the parts to my spray board, but then forgot when I did the engine pod halves, and they blew all over the place! I have said before I am a slow learner, so it was only when I did the second coat it sank into my brain to do the same with these too! Anyway, the results: I think it is quite a nice shade of yellow...my good lady asked why I could not add some other colours to it. I said this was going to be brown and green and I got told 'that is not what I meant!'. She is insistant that I do an aircraft in multiple bright colours. I am going to give this a rest for a week or so now, and am taking a short break from modelling, but will be back. Hopefully I will be able to complete this before the GB finishes. See you in a week and a bit! Ray 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whitestar12chris Posted July 4, 2015 Share Posted July 4, 2015 All the best Ray, so in a bit, great build so far. Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trickyrich Posted July 4, 2015 Share Posted July 4, 2015 It looks good with a coat of primer on it Ray! The engine pods turned out very nicely. You next build will have to be something nice and bright from the Italian or French air forces to keep SWMBO happy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philp Posted July 4, 2015 Share Posted July 4, 2015 Here are some bright options for you. l.aspx 144525-11185-11.jpg ac8bt.jpg What? Too soon? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ray S Posted July 13, 2015 Author Share Posted July 13, 2015 Here are some bright options for you. l.aspx 144525-11185-11.jpg ac8bt.jpg What? Too soon? Thanks for those! One trouble, too few wings on each and not enough wires, or whirly bits to drag/push the thing through the air. I think they would also still not be bright enough. Superb try though, 11/10 for effort 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CliffB Posted July 17, 2015 Share Posted July 17, 2015 Just catching up again with your progress Ray. It's obviously been a bit of a mission, but looking fabulous now - great job. Cliff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ray S Posted July 21, 2015 Author Share Posted July 21, 2015 Hello all. What with having been away and on holiday, I have not been able to do much in the way of updates, probably not helped by having no broadband due to an external fault. Anyway, hopefully I can now give a few updates. I have started adding some of the detail I had removed earlier, here the entry door and a raised panel around one of the windows. 5thou card and a few snippets of thin rod helped here, and I put a small pilot hole in ready for reaming the porthole out to the correct size later. It was also time to think about getting some dihedral into the upper wings, so I put some masking tape either side of the two cut lines, then used my finest razor saw to cut through the upper surface to just under the front leading edge joint. Then I taped the wing to a flat piece of wood, ensuring the two blobs at the leading edge (remember those) were overhanging the wood. I then propped up the wing tips with a couple of 1 pound coins, and flooded the joins with liquid glue. I then gave the lot time to set, and then re-did the liquid glue four times I think overall, and let it set for a couple of days. In the meantime, I have also been playing with the engines. I decided to add a couple of pipes in the void behind the radiators, I used a couple of sizes of rod, and painted them copper. It is probably not right for the detail, but at least there is something there! Now it was time to make the plane come of age, and it was time for the grand (filled with trepidation) fitting of the lower wings! I fitted the spar I had made and test fitted oh so long ago, glued it in and left it for a day then slid each wing over the spar and up to the fuselage At this point, an immortal line in a Woody Allen film sprang to mind, where an imaginary me was stood on the fuselage, and I asked (shall I walk to the wing, or shall I call a taxi?) The gap was huge (but you already knew that I had shown you before, and it needed filling. The solution was to bend some .9mm plastic rod to shape and used thicker glue to fix it, ensuring the glue was applied both sides of the rod to try and prevent the join splitting later. After leaving it to dry for another day (and having given it wash of liquid glue two or three times), it had set and thankfully had not eaten the plastic. Then it was time for a really messy job - miliputting. I mixed the two part stuff up, realised why they suggested using disposable gloves (will do next time) and then liberally slathered it all over the upper joins, and tried to blend it in with wet cloths, toothpicks and finger. It turned out reasonably smooth, but I will need to do some sanding Oh yes. The spar. I had test fitted it and all was well. So why did it split the leading edge join on the port wing? (rhetorical question - I know the answer - I did not test fit properly!) Well, I think you have put up with enough for now, so thanks for looking in, and for the advice and comments. All the best, Ray 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BritJet Posted July 21, 2015 Share Posted July 21, 2015 Coming together nicely now. Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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