The EDSG Files # 2: Fairey Barracuda 1/72

[AlexN]

On 09/11/2016 at 23:12, TheBaron said:

Panto season starting early on BM I see! He's behind you etc....

 

So...what's the Panto Horse? The Barracuda?  

 

Alex  (<-- there's an obsure joke there - if you can find it)

[CedB]

(And he's back - and this time it's personal...)

Great scratching on the support Tony, although you do need to brush up on yer French spellin'. Trays bonn

[TonyTiger66]

Sest tray bee-Ann.

Je Em bow-coo le 'scratching'.

 

Quel Journee au bas de la terre.*

 

 

 

Our vwoir eh bee-Ann toot!

TonyT

 

*This bit means: 'Eeeh, what a day down't pit'.

T

Edited November 11, 2016 by TonyTiger66
French-Yorkshire translation included

[AlexN]

Ouch! Implicit 'like' until the gnomes have ground me out some more, Tony. Poor long-suffering gnomes: they must never sleep or rest...

 

Cheers,

Alex.  <-- not a gnome (???)

[TheBaron]

15 hours ago, AlexN said:

I have r/c plans for a 1/7 scale Fairet Gannet for 12-channel radio, which includes retracting-extending radome and arrestor-hook (from memory). The author, in the magazine build-article, suggested that while he didn't design it in, motorised wingfolds would be perfectly feasible

'Feasible': the optimist's spelling of 'ill-advised'...

[TheBaron]

15 hours ago, AlexN said:

 

So...what's the Panto Horse? The Barracuda?  

(<-- there's an obsure joke there - if you can find it)

I'm showing you the Barracudoor!

6 hours ago, CedB said:

(And he's back - and this time it's personal...)

Great scratching on the support Tony, although you do need to brush up on yer French spellin'. Trays bonn

Mersey Monsewer Ced. Jacques Delors! May mon francay ner beyan pah.Enjoyez-vous le Telford!

5 hours ago, TonyTiger66 said:

Sest tray bee-Ann.

Lucky Ann, having her own tray. When I were a lad we had to carry boiling tea in our bare hands...

You 'um it son, I'll play it:

 

Tony

[TonyTiger66]

Something tells me that advert wouldn't be allowed on TV these days  !

TonyT

[The Spadgent]

What? Where? Who? Then I notice that I hadn't clicked the follow button on this the Barra build of Barra builds, Barons Barra build no less.

Sorry Tony I'm no ignoring you, I'm just an idiot.

glad to hear you're feeling better, The build has moved on quite a lot since last time I looked. Very impressive stuff, the scratch building has moved up a notch and your lovely new engine is a thing of beauty.  Fingers crossed your musings bear fruit amigo.

I see that pesky Tiger is on your case too. He's trying to get my new spinner spinning in a motorised fashion too. The swine.

In other news, your super clean cutting mat has made me green with envy. Well grey/brown as I have just purchased myself a shiny new one in said colours mine was a bit of a state.

keep up the epic work sir, I'm following now so I should get updates.

btw I'm hoping to get the new build thread up today.  If you fancy a pew that is.

 

Take care boss.

 

Johnny sausage fingers.

[TheBaron]

On 11/11/2016 at 2:45 PM, TonyTiger66 said:

Something tells me that advert wouldn't be allowed on TV these days  !

Too musical..

5 hours ago, The Spadgent said:

In other news, your super clean cutting mat has made me green with envy. Well grey/brown as I have just purchased myself a shiny new one in said colours mine was a bit of a state.

keep up the epic work sir, I'm following now so I should get updates.

Missed ya cheeky chappie! 

That mat was a necessity. The last one hadn't a square inch of level surface left due to such generous and profligate dispersal of glue and paint over the last few months..

Looking forwards to that Seafire RFI later!

 

Anyhoo. With most of the posse probably engrossed in their plastic Bacchanalia at Telford, I spent an hour or two preparing the engine areas. I'd got all gung-ho on those cantilevers and realized I was getting tunnel vision in not sufficiently preparing the spaces they are to eventually live in. Firstly therefore some attention to thinning down the fuselage and cowling walls where they will be seen. Here's the bottom done - you can see the difference compared to the side walls in their original state:

Nextly, repeated sand n' fit on building the lower part of the firewall:

I've a few bits of surface detailing to add to that, though the cage that the cantilevers attach to on the real thing will be more cosmetic here as I want the tubing to pierce the wall and be fixed securely at the back of the firewall, probably with large blobs of CA.There's also kind of upper lunette to go on on top of that panel, which will be sorted later due to some more fuselage cutting to follow. More 'scary-saw' removing the upper cowling:

Putting the engine in for a test-fit I'm really pleased with how it closely it matches the reference photos regarding placement of engine in relation the those exhaust channels. Don't worry about the brutal-looking nature of the cuts, all those parts still have to have their cross-sections thinned-down yet. 

 

Here's the size of brass tubing I intend employing to build the cantilevers from:

Not precisely to scale, but any smaller and it will be too flexible to keep rigid under the weight of the engine (with a resin engine you'd no doubt be fine). The critical measurements here in terms of length are from the firewall to the front of the cowling:

Although not a single continuous run all the way back as shown here, I need to make sure to leave enough length on the brass tubing during construction in order for it to act as an extra support for holding not just the the engine but the front intake covers - the exhaust channels alone won't I suspect be strong enough to support the weight of the propellor on top of everything else up there at the front. 

 

I seem to be regressing back to my old ways in that there's as much coming off of the original kit as there is going on at the moment. That's enough now tonight though - I know I'll make mistakes if I do any more now this evening. I must say it's nice to feel I've got my groove back though: for a few days there I was so washed out with that ghastly dose of lurgey that there was a worrying lack of enthusiasm about the project starting so set in. I feel better about things tonight having cut some stuff up. Knew I should have been a surgeon...

 

If you're at Telford, I hope you're having a shamefully fantastic time and doing everything you shouldn't. If you're not, I hope you're doing whatever takes your fancy. I hear it does you good!

 

 Tony

[The Spadgent]

Excellent scratching there Tony.  Glad I have now clicked follow. this is turning out to be something awsome. Once again we are both working on similar items at different scales! To be fair I think your engine looks more detailed than mine at the mo.  Have a lovely evening bud.

 

johnny wine.

Edited November 12, 2016 by The Spadgent

[TheBaron]

15 minutes ago, The Spadgent said:

Excellent scratching there Tony.  Glad I have now clicked follow. this is turning out to be something awsome. Once again we are both working on similar items at different scales! To be fair I think your engine looks more detailed than mine at the mo.  Have a lovely evening bud.

You too squire. I spent a pleasant evening earlier with Mrs. B watching tonight's glowing moonrise:

 

It should be even more impressively brighter on Monday night nearing full, as it's another 'supermoon'.

 

For some reason I find moonlight to be an above-all silent experience. Even when there's noise around, the sight of it seems to have the power to make the acoustics recede.

 

Err. Night all.

 

 

[CedB]

Glad to hear you're feeling better Tony

What's that second photo?

[TonyTiger66]

Very nice work there on the nose of the Barracuda. It's good to hear the mojo is back.  

 

Yes, what is that second photo?

 

ATB

TonyT

[TheBaron]

9 hours ago, CedB said:

What's that second photo?

3 hours ago, TonyTiger66 said:

Yes, what is that second photo?

Thanks for the good wishes lads. 

The second photo is moonlight on fallen leaves in the driveway. The venetian blind-like shadow pattern is the front gate and its shadow onto said leaves.

Tony

[CedB]

Front gate, shadow and leaves - I knew that (ahem).

Super moon tomorrow? I'll watch out for that, thanks for the steer

The engine does look great Tony and the tube looks the right sort of size to me. If you're worried about the strength could you glue / solder some smaller tube inside or use rod? I think it's going to be pretty strong as a frame though eh?

Good stuff Tony, great work

[TheBaron]

13 minutes ago, CedB said:

Tony and the tube looks the right sort of size to me. If you're worried about the strength could you glue / solder some smaller tube inside or use rod? 

A brilliant notion Ced -  pure elegance! 

That's why I love this forum so much! 

[TheBaron]

By the sacred whiskers of Jimmy Edwards it has been a tough and intense morning at the bench, resulting in a lot of pictures to show you very little structure. I'll post them anyway in case any other Hobbits decided to head off to the brass and solder equivalent of Mordor as well.

 

It's become painfully apparent  to me this morning that there are a multiplicity of ways I can cock this up at every step of the way, due to the interdependency of all the various parts, and the attendant angles at which they must meet. As a result I've been having to slow myself right down and take things v-e-r-y slowly and patiently. Firstly, having finished shaping the main part of the firewall, measuring out the holes where the cantilever sections will be fixed top and bottom:

A .6mm drilling session and then a quick check to make sure that tubing will fit:

I realize looking at that photo that I need to angle the drill holes as the cantilevers don't go in to the firewall at 90 degrees (I'll tidy that up later).

 

I've been - to mis-squote Matt Damon in The Martian - 'referencing the hell out of' the build at this juncture:

...just to avoid being fooled about placement of components due to the various camera angles in the different shots I'm relying on. Little did I know back in July that the casual snap I took of the Barra restoration at FAAM on my phone would assume such critical importance in the winter:

I initially thought that there was a cross-bar running though the back of the engine between the cantliever sections in this region here:

I realize however that some camera angles had fooled me into thinking that there was such a component, when in fact it was just the result of two pieces lining-up in a photo in such a way as to give that impression, due to the partiuclar perspective on the structure making things line up in a specific way. (I hope that makes sense?)

Working out runs and lengths:

Just a very, very early hint of the future:

Having established the approximate separation of the inner parts of the cantilever to cradle the engine, it was down to pegging out for some soldering:

If this looks in any way professional, I apologize for the deception, I am absolutely useless at soldering.

I can't emphasize enough the need to keep testing all the bits that go together at every stage:

These triangular sections look pretty ugly - you can almost guarantee they'll fall apart when I try and solder them to bigger bits: 

It's the one problem I'm finding that with the smallness of the metal parts, the heat travels so fast along the structure that when bits are close together, the bit you're working on melts the bit next to it you've just done...

 

So to sum up: here is 2 hours of my life now symbolized in tubing.

I shall of course persevere, but this will be a slow and ugly business.

 

Presumably the next few days will see the forum alive with Tales of Telfordian Excess (That unreleased Yes album with the Roger Dean cover art of a profligate modeller not being allowed back in the house by his SO...)

 

Happy whatever-you're-doing all of you!

Tony

 

[Vanroon]

1 hour ago, TheBaron said:

 

By the sacred whiskers of Jimmy Edwards it has been a tough and intense morning at the bench, resulting in a lot of pictures to show you very little structure. I'll post them anyway in case any other Hobbits decided to head off to the brass and solder equivalent of Mordor as well.

 

It's become painfully apparent  to me this morning that there are a multiplicity of ways I can cock this up at every step of the way, due to the interdependency of all the various parts, and the attendant angles at which they must meet. As a result I've been having to slow myself right down and take things v-e-r-y slowly and patiently. Firstly, having finished shaping the main part of the firewall, measuring out the holes where the cantilever sections will be fixed top and bottom:

A .6mm drilling session and then a quick check to make sure that tubing will fit:

I realize looking at that photo that I need to angle the drill holes as the cantilevers don't go in to the firewall at 90 degrees (I'll tidy that up later).

 

I've been - to mis-squote Matt Damon in The Martian - 'referencing the hell out of' the build at this juncture:

...just to avoid being fooled about placement of components due to the various camera angles in the different shots I'm relying on. Little did I know back in July that the casual snap I took of the Barra restoration at FAAM on my phone would assume such critical importance in the winter:

I initially thought that there was a cross-bar running though the back of the engine between the cantliever sections in this region here:

I realize however that some camera angles had fooled me into thinking that there was such a component, when in fact it was just the result of two pieces lining-up in a photo in such a way as to give that impression, due to the partiuclar perspective on the structure making things line up in a specific way. (I hope that makes sense?)

Working out runs and lengths:

Just a very, very early hint of the future:

Having established the approximate separation of the inner parts of the cantilever to cradle the engine, it was down to pegging out for some soldering:

I don't solder, except for lead lights. My friend who builds stuff like train carriages says to use higher temp solders for sub assemblies then lower melt solder for the main work. 

If this looks in any way professional, I apologize for the deception, I am absolutely useless at soldering.

I can't emphasize enough the need to keep testing all the bits that go together at every stage:

These triangular sections look pretty ugly - you can almost guarantee they'll fall apart when I try and solder them to bigger bits: 

 

 

1 hour ago, TheBaron said:

It's the one problem I'm finding that with the smallness of the metal parts, the heat travels so fast along the structure that when bits are close together, the bit you're working on melts the bit next to it you've just done...

 

 

[Vanroon]

Hmm. Not sure what went wrong with my reply there. However, a friend who makes railway rolling stock uses high melt solder for sub assemblies then joins them with low temperature solder. 

Grant

[Miggers]

You should've bunged the whole lot into the motor and roared over to Crispy Towers Tony,

he's the master solderifickator......

 

Like you mate's idea Grant the Vanroon,another one plundered and submitted to the Bank of Plundered Ideas

(none of this girly "plagarised" malarky,plunder and have done I say)

Edited November 13, 2016 by Miggers

[TheBaron]

1 hour ago, Vanroon said:

Hmm. Not sure what went wrong with my reply there. However, a friend who makes railway rolling stock uses high melt solder for sub assemblies then joins them with low temperature solder. 

Grant

Thanks for that Grant: top tip!  Any particularly brands you know that your friend recommends?

 

A little more experimenting with the bending rig just now seems to have come up trumps on creating angled components:

It seems an obvious solution but I was a little chary of doing this on tubing so thin, thinking it would crumple or tear. Not at all, and this should help create a more durable structure due to the need for less joins. A good lesson for me in tunnel vision, but of course I only discover this now the weekend's over! 

Tony

[The Spadgent]

Blimey you're stepping it up a gear with your tubes and your solder.  I'm impressed. I wonder if I can get some tube action into the 109i don't even have any tubes but I want some now. beautifully fetteled sir. I'll wager your 2 hours wrestling with plastic and metal was better than my morning/afternoon hacking ivy from a wall. At least the 1:1 scale caravan has somewhere safe to sleep. 

keep up the great work kid, we need to brace ourselves for the Telford homecoming.  

 

Johnny bath.

[TonyTiger66]

 Crikey this is fiddly work  !

 

You must have very steady hands and good eyesight. Those triangular sections are just tiny. Well, it's all tiny, it's just they're the tiniest so far!

 

I don't know much about soldering, at the other end of the spectrum, MIG and Oxy-Acetylene welding yes, but the only soldering I've ever done didn't go well.

 

Any tips on set up Tony? What type of soldering iron and tip size are you using? What kind of solder/flux?

 

Before we know it you'll be hand soldering the whole geodetic structure of a Wellington  !

 

Great stuff  .

 

TonyT

[TheBaron]

 

1 hour ago, The Spadgent said:

Blimey you're stepping it up a gear with your tubes and your solder.  I'm impressed. I wonder if I can get some tube action into the 109i don't even have any tubes but I want some now. beautifully fetteled sir. I'll wager your 2 hours wrestling with plastic and metal was better than my morning/afternoon hacking ivy from a wall. At least the 1:1 scale caravan has somewhere safe to sleep. 

keep up the great work kid, we need to brace ourselves for the Telford homecoming.  

Kind of you to say so kiddo, but I'm not happy with that metalwork today. Having experimented with bending processes this evening I reckon there's a stronger and more elegant way to do this; I hope to get an hour or so free on Tues to start that part again with a better methodology. 

 

God only knows what the pack got up to at Telford eh?  We'll find out soon enough!

 

Sound like you put in a solid day's work outside. Here's a musical tribute to your efforts 

I actually thought that was p-take from the Fast Show when I first saw it! Talk about Death of a Thousand Reverbs....

1 hour ago, TonyTiger66 said:

 Crikey this is fiddly work !

 

You must have very steady hands and good eyesight. 

But very little sense...

1 hour ago, TonyTiger66 said:

Any tips on set up Tony? What type of soldering iron and tip size are you using? What kind of solder/flux?

Err. It was €10 in Lidl. That's the sum of my soldering expertise....  

I'm off down Maplins during lunch break tomorrow to get some high and low melt solder as Grant suggested.

[AlexN]

Is @Nigel Heath lurking about here? He would no doubt have some very useful soldering advice, including the use of wee heat sinks (small aluminium clamps) and Blue Tac fixtures. He also uses the differential temperature solder trick. From memory, there's quite a bit of complex microscopic (1/72 scale) soldering of micro-tube (and photo-etch) in his helicopter build threads.

 

And of course, as mentioned above, in Crisps' work (see especially his current Sea King thread).

 

Cheers,

Alex