Catching Pictures in the Air

[perdu]

Well that was nice

 

Back there again soon

[Martian]

20 hours ago, perdu said:

Tony are you going to change the tailplane size or just adapt what's there to the situation?

I think I'd be an adaptor

 

Now somebody has opened a micropub a hundred and fifty yards from home, should I take a little walk to see how it looks with punters in, instead of workmen

 

Be rude not to, wouldnt it

 

One should always try and support local initiatives. Very public spirited of you Bill!

 

Martian 👽

[perdu]

It was a worthy exercise Martian, fine pub with good beer and it turned out that I knew the owner from his time as boss of our local fifteen years ago

His pension pot has given me a new local and him a happy semi-retirement

I may possibly go down tonight, just because

 

☺

[TheBaron]

23 hours ago, perdu said:

I think I'd be an adaptor

Bill: I shall be appearing as a contestant on The Adaptation Game:

 

 

[Brandy]

On 5/1/2018 at 3:51 PM, perdu said:

Now somebody has opened a micropub a hundred and fifty yards from home, should I take a little walk to see how it looks with punters in, instead of workmen

 

Be rude not to, wouldnt it

 

Positively churlish old chap!

 

Ian

[Martian]

All this talk of beer has made this alien positively thirsty!

 

Martian 👽

[TheBaron]

On 5/2/2018 at 10:04 PM, Martian Hale said:

All this talk of beer has made this alien positively thirsty!

 

Martian 👽

In case of emergency, lick screen:

 

Brace yourselves men. 

 

I actually have something to post this evening after an enforced hiatus from the bench. Nothing too exciting mind, so you can put the oxygen mask and defibrillator unit away.

 

One of the benefits of the enforced idleness of illness is the space and perspective that removal from the normal daily round can sometimes bring, in this case allowing me time to study photographs carefully to mentally allocate procedures to the various tasks that need to doing in building back up the control surfaces. Work has gotten terribly busy of late and will be for the next few weeks, but due to the doing of said tasks being a series of smaller sub-assemblies, I should be able to keep it going in and around matters of financial gain.

 

The first stage then this afternoon was to begin work on the elevator.

 

I hear that damned awful Aerosmith track 'Love in an Elevator'  each time I write that word - a song blatant in it's disregard for fact in that there is clearly insufficient room for copulation within the cross-section of such parts on most aircraft. Possibly there is a hidden 'love-room' at the back on the larger Antonovs, but I am unconvinced Steve Tyler would have sufficient authority on the matter to be a trustworthy source in this instance. Such an indictment of the American school system is of a kind of course with the Starship track 'We Built This City (On Rock and Roll)' which - at the risk of seeming pedantic - represents a gross misrepresentation of architectural and civil engineering principles. Something fundamentally weird happened to such flatulent US rock bands in the latter half of the 80s, who seemed to respond to the banalities of Reaganism with these ill-judged attempts at educational outreach to the disaffected youth of the nation. No wonder Richard Feynman often looked about to cry.

 

Here then. Have a look at this:

Excised from a scale printout from the parts manual and spray-mounted onto 1mm sheet to give a template for the corresponding elevator and stabilizer sections at the rear.

 

I'd noticed from the OH photo of the rear of the C-119 that James had drawn my attention to previously that where  both the elevator slips into the stabilizer and the rudder into the fin, you can see slightly into the internal housing; to try and replicate this on the stabilizer I shaved this down internally along the trailing edge using a Stanley blade as a plane:

That gives a thin-looking lip to that trailing edge in keeping with the scale thickness of the actual skin of the aircraft, without sacrificing stength when it comes to seating the rounded leading edge of the elevator into that cavity.

 

The original outer sections to the elevator were then cut off and replaced with the new ones based on the parts manual template above:

That needs to sit gluing overnight now before I get down to final profiling and adding a curve to the leading edge.

 

Final job this evening was to add the housings on either end of the upper surfaces of the stabilizer from which the actuators emerge to attach to the hinge areas on the elevator. A quick grind with a diamond disk in the Dremlelclone and some 1mm brass tube at an angle reproduce this adequately enough:

A dose of Squadron green to closeup the surroundings and that too can sit for the night:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[TheBaron]

Took some photographs up in Dublin for you yesterday - a shop just across from the Mansion House that has a fine diorama in the 'Whisky Galore' vein:

 

 

 

The main reason I was lurking on that particular street was to photograph a piece of motoring history that I thought might be of interst to some of you petrolheads:

I can almost see Paul Temple pulling out of that in a roadster....

 

Make sure your hankie is well-knotted against all this sun we're going to have blazing upon us.

Tony

 

 

 

 

[71chally]

I did part of my Met Observers course in Belfast, well the airport (Aldergrove), but allowed us a night or two in the city.

Great time had by all, anyhow our tutor, a real 'old grey' meteorological guru, was a Whisky collector - your picture reminded me!

 

Nice slow, but deliberate progress there Tony.

Edited May 5, 2018 by 71chally

[CedB]

13 hours ago, TheBaron said:

In case of emergency, lick screen

What!!? I do like Sylvia Syms but I think that's going a bit... oh wait, the beer... go it

 

Great, precise work on those tiny parts Tony, good job

[perdu]

Lick Sylvia Sims?

As was or as is?

Always did like the girl but...

 

I could imagine taking my little sportster in there Tony, do they allow Automobile Association chaps in?

 

When I see all those Oirish Whiskeys I wonder when it will happen?

When will I lose the taste for the beers and take up the pursuit of the peaty aromas?

 

Oh well with a fine array of crafted beers and three lagers on tap from a 750 year old Bavarian brauerei nearby* I may never know

 

115 yds away from my front door

 

Life's hell innit...👅

 

Back on track the trailing section of the tail looks excellent, good blades those Stanleys. 

[TheBaron]

17 hours ago, 71chally said:

I did part of my Met Observers course in Belfast, well the airport (Aldergrove), 

You must be highly trained at recognizing overcast skies then I'm guessing James.

In all the times I flew out from there I never once remember it doing anything but blasted drizzle...

17 hours ago, 71chally said:

but allowed us a night or two in the city.

The sheer glamour of the place must have been overpowering. 🙄

 

I do the gaff a dis-service of course - if you're ever in Belfast next, there is a superb restaurant on a barge down on the Lagan - Holohan's by name iirc - that affords excellent noshing and a fine view of the cityscape at night if you sit to starboard.

5 hours ago, CedB said:

What!!? I do like Sylvia Syms but I think that's going a bit

I saw a great caption to that very same picture on a film blog many years ago in which the writer said:

'I wish women looked at me the way she is looking at that beer.'

A cri de cœur if ever....

2 hours ago, perdu said:

I could imagine taking my little sportster in there Tony, do they allow Automobile Association chaps in?

I took a quick squint at their website Bill and it appears to be a private members' club for which one needs to be proposed by an extant member:

http://www.riac.ie/

I suspect we are talking big bucks and social connections....

3 hours ago, perdu said:

115 yds away from my front door

Is it the same distance coming home again?

 

This damn tail - it's been fighting me on and off all morning, largely on account of trying to adapt the kit part to something more accurate but without having to rebuild the whole assembly. Suffice it to say that what seemed 'simple' at the onset, rapidly became less so, as is the way of such things...

 

Essentially I decided to at least get the elevator correctly shaped, and then reconstruct the stabilizer around it, starting last evening by trimming off a couple of mill. from the leading edge of the elevator:

You can see also I had to add some scrap card to the sides as well to give me something to work with when shaping the outlines of those areas to fit as snuggly into the sides of the stabilizer as they do on the actual aircraft.

 

Reason for hacking-off the leading edge? Replacing itwith some 2mm thick sprue from the kit to form a curved edge that fits into the trailing edge of the stabilizer:

That received some filling and reshaping earlier, thence commenced a dispiriting set of back and forths required to get the elevator edges and angled rear of the stabilizer to fit as neatly as possible, nearing in mind the kit inaccuracies in this area. It was a PITA and full of non-excitement.

 

Eventually however:

Something I feel I can stand over: the elevator is now correctly-shaped and looks like it is nestled into the stabilizer in a realistic fashion whilst the rear regions fit snugly. I don't know how well you can see it but the actuators leading to the elevator hinges are also in place on each side now , acccompanied by some liquified sprue to fill around the fairings for them on the upper surfaces

Some final adjustments with the odd sliver of shim needed on the underside but overall that looks like an 'articulated' structure of two parts rather than a single monolithic slab. The job won't be properly finished of course until these sections are joined to the booms and I can extend the outline of that whole sub-assembly flush against the tailplanes buy filling and rescribing.

 

I'm sick of that piece now for the day so will come back to it in the morning in a more positive frame of mind to tidy it up. Besides the sun is out and it's time to bask.

 

Mrs. B was away at the poultry market first thing today and returned with two new hens, a Black Rock and a Bluebell that will hopefully keep the rooster happy. Think I'll be making some ice-cream tomorrow as well now that the ducks are in full delivery:

This little fella we've dubbed 'Chocolate':

He's a stray we've been feeding for several weeks who is still quite timid but pops up on the kitchen windowsill happily and gives it the winsome eyes at you through the window until food is proffered. Our other two cats are slowly coming to terms with his presence so we'll see how things go.

 

 

Tony

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[perdu]

Funny thing, climbing home is often more difficult than walking down there

Odd huh? 

Like driving home from some places always take thirty minutes less, by sat-nav calculations

 

Beautiful Frise-ery there Tony, outstanding performance

 

null

[CJP]

Fairchild Boxcar elevators, chooks, eggs & stray cats - truly multi skilled modelling - fantastic job

CJP

[CedB]

Great job on the empennage Tony - all that effort has certainly paid off

Duck egg ice cream? That's a treat I've yet to sample...

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

Some superb elevatory fettling there, Tony.  But now I have Aerosmith in my head.  Boo.

[TheBaron]

21 hours ago, perdu said:

Beautiful Frise-ery there Tony, outstanding performance

It's driving me demented in that quest for a completely non-attainable perfection of shape.... 🏋️‍♂️

3 hours ago, CJP said:

Fairchild Boxcar elevators, chooks, eggs & stray cats

Thanks CJ.  I can only take credit for the first of those regrettably: Mrs. B is the one who runs the miniature farm oot back!

3 hours ago, CedB said:

Duck egg ice cream? That's a treat I've yet to sample...

Duck eggs imho make all manner of things from sponges to ice-cream much lighter and fluffier Ced. The ice-cream couldn't be any simpler to make, in this case a basic Italian gelato mixture.

 

Take the yolks of about 10 duck eggs (or 13 hen eggs due to smaller size)  keep the whites to make meringues with separately. Whisk the yolks in a bowl with 240g of caster sugar until pale and creamy.

Warm 750 ml of milk in a pan and add to the yolk mixture before it boils.

Return to pan and stir continuously on med. heat until mixture starts to thicken to a custard-like consistency.

Allow to cool  - if you don't have an ice-cream maker to churn it, leave it in the freezer for about three hours and then give it a good stir with a fork ( this breaks up the large ice crystals and  stops it freezing into a solid breeze-block), repeat again after another couple of hours.

 

You can add what flavourings you like whilst cooking at the custard stage and I usually tip in about 75ml of cream as well which explains why I'm turning into a fat bastid...

28 minutes ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

But now I have Aerosmith in my head.  Boo.

Betty Boo? Surely not Crisp. 🕺

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sM_9As_2VAg

 

Mojo is suffering a spot of erosion at present due to the range of demands being made on time: you know the feeling yourself when it feels like pushing a boulder uphill getting the smallest job done. It feels like I'm making far too much hard work of this elevator/stabilizer assembly tbh so I had a final crack at getting the overall structure sorted and want to move on to the other control surfaces. I redid both actuators and their fairing at each end:

Those now look more business-like:

 I'd forgotten previously to add the cutouts for the elevator hinges so these were formed by the simple expedient of drilling out the slots and sliding in some plastic strip to give expression to the internal hinges:

Don't ask me why this particular part of the aircraft should be obsessing me so much - it's possibly partly due to dissatisfaction with my own work on previous build when it came to articulating things like ailerons - they never quite looked like they were two parts slotted together as a working structure in the way you see here with the elevator and rudder:

Of course, like cleaning a child's face, you do one bit and you have to do the lot....

Rudders next but not until the motivation picks up so probably later in the week.

 

Turned into a lovely dusk here yesterday after an overcast afternoon. Here's Mrs.B enjoying a bonfire with our (ice-cream producing) ducks in attendance under the evening cirrus:

Tony

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[perdu]

Idyllic Tony, has to be worse ways to live

[CedB]

Great work on the tail Tony, well worth the effort IMHO

As my MiL said yesterday "There's nothing like sitting in your own garden when the weather's fine".

[giemme]

18 hours ago, perdu said:

Idyllic Tony, has to be worse ways to live

Definitely! 🌼

 

Tail looks brilliant

 

Ciao

[Andwil]

Looking at the photo of the tail, will you be modelling the pigeon deterrent spikes on top of the fins/rudders?

 

Andrew 

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

7 minutes ago, Andwil said:

Looking at the photo of the tail, will you be modelling the pigeon deterrent spikes on top of the fins/rudders?

 

Andrew 

Stretched sprue for that extra museum realism!

[corsaircorp]

On ‎5‎/‎2‎/‎2018 at 11:04 PM, Martian Hale said:

All this talk of beer has made this alien positively thirsty!

 

Martian 👽

yek yek yek !

I'm havin' a good Chimay on your behalf O Dear Tentacled one !

CC

[TheBaron]

22 hours ago, perdu said:

Idyllic Tony, has to be worse ways to live

As long as it's not windy it's fine Bill, but being on the downslope of a ridge-line means you frequently get lots of air at high speed - more than one family can possibly breathe. I'd looked into getting a domestic wind turbine but it's just not economic enough here yet and needs to change.

5 hours ago, CedB said:

well worth the effort IMHO

I'm glad one of us is convinced! 

5 hours ago, CedB said:

"There's nothing like sitting in your own garden when the weather's fine".

Said Adam to Eve....

This image has so many confused messages: I could be wrong but it seems to be Robert Lindsay pimping Scarlet Johansson to Sebastian Coe.

3 hours ago, giemme said:

Tail looks brilliant

Thank-you. I've been working out you know... 🏋️‍♂️

1 hour ago, Andwil said:

Looking at the photo of the tail, will you be modelling the pigeon deterrent spikes on top of the fins/rudders?

 

1 hour ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

Stretched sprue for that extra museum realism!

Ye are bad people Andrew & Crisp. Bad people saying bad things.

I may have to put pigeons on it now just out of badness:

1 hour ago, corsaircorp said:

I'm havin' a good Chimay on your behalf O Dear Tentacled one !

You posted that at 11.00am Cc. 

Sounds fine - carry on!

 

[CedB]

2 minutes ago, TheBaron said:

This image has so many confused messages: I could be wrong but it seems to be Robert Lindsay pimping Scarlet Johansson to Sebastian Coe.

Indeed!

See how Adam is holding his side? Hiding a scar perhaps where the rib came out...

Looks like the blood has attracted a Tiger too, worrying...

 

Thanks for the chuckle Tony, I do love reading your musings