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FM Breguet ALIZE the Gallic Gannet - RFI posted


CJP

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I just updated my links on my other posts to postimg.cc - the funny thing is before this my Alize post only lost the photos briefly and then they mysteriously returned - time to forget it all and focus on modelling again

CJP

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I decided that the white metal generator cooling air intakes in the kit were a bit ordinary so I made two new ones from plastic card and 2mm channel strip - I had to repostion the left hand one but it flicked away when I sawed it off never to be seen again so had to make a new one.

Also fitted the struts in the annular intake - they are positioned at irregular intervals & its not me being sloppy.

I have since tidied up the cooling air intake behind the propeller using a fine round file & scalpel

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CJP

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi - it has been a week of mixed blessings for me - we had a lightning strike across the road from our house and it took out my access to the internet via the NBN (our latest attempt in OZ at a modern broadband network) and also our TV and phone so have not been able to access BM or do any updates until today - I've had some progress on my Alize followed by a set back with the canopy - by now I had made several vac formed canopies only to mess them up with a careless cut or too much material removed by sanding - my home made vac box is below to a design by lesthegringo - sure takes a bit of getting used to using - for heating the ABS/PETG plastic I use a Black & Decker heat gun which has 3 heat settings and I use setting 2 which seems to give adequate heat to soften the plastic.

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As you can see from these photos I had my latest version of a canopy fitting reasonably well

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Until I inadvertently got superglue on my finger & of course I wiped it across the windscreen and ruined it so I have to start again and mould another canopy - I was in the process of fitting the overhead instrument panel and framing inside the top of the canopynull

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Prior to this setback I had added a indicator light fairing to the top of the instrument panel coaming and some tissue soaked in PVA glue to represent a canvas cover at the front of the panel all painted black - also added a square of 60 thou plastic under each seat to raise them up a bit.

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Hopefully I will be back up to where I was in about a weeks time!

 

A week later -

After several attempts with my vac box I managed to get two decent canopies - I selected one and started carefully cutting and sanding it to fit the cockpit opening

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after a couple of deep breaths I cut away the sliding cockpit doors - so far so good.

close ups are pretty cruel but show up work still to be done

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I will be using Testors clear parts cement to fix the canopy to the model after my setback with super glue which took about a week to rectify

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CJP

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  • 1 month later...

I have continue with work on the canopy area and used copper foil tape to represent the framing - this tape has black adhesive backing which is useful colour for the inside of the framing - I punched a strip of copper foil tape with a series of 2mm holes & cut out the curved corners of the framing - I found it easier to cut the corners individually & fill in framing strips between them.

 

Copper foil tape was also added to the inside of the canopy sliding doors where I wanted to glue on plastic strip representing parts of the canopy runner system - I was able to carefully superglue the plastic parts to the copper foil tape avoiding getting glue on & clouding the clear parts.

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Copper foil framing was also added to the canopy roof and windscreen - the rest of the framing will be added once the canopy is permanently glued in place - I will be using Tamiya Liquid Surface primer to blend all the joins together.

CJP

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Despite all the odds you are making a fine job of taming this kit. I'm still having therapy from my last build of an FM kit.

 

Martian 👽

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1 hour ago, Martian Hale said:

Despite all the odds you are making a fine job of taming this kit. I'm still having therapy from my last build of an FM kit.

 

Martian 👽

Thank you Martian - anything I can do to help you recover?

 

1 hour ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

That’s looking excellent - the persistence with the canopy has really paid off 

Thank you Ex- FAWAFU

 

CJP

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2 minutes ago, CJP said:

Thank you Martian - anything I can do to help you recover?

Send vast quantities of real ale, Deliver to:

 

Martian

 

Martian Towers,

Wibblesville,

Planet Mars

WV1 6WTF

 

Martian 👽

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

In the last couple of weeks the canopy was glued into place with Testors clear parts cement and faired in with putty where required - the remainder of canopy framing was completed along the bottom of the windscreen and an additional strip was added to the curved frame below the radio mast - as I did not have really good drawings to work from I referred to photos and estimated the positions & shape.

The radio mast was reshaped slightly with microstrip and super glue/talc mixture.

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Attention was then turned to the landing gear and I modified the nose gear first as the fork was not long enough and the wheel fouled the front of the fork - the fork was cut through and extended with brass wire drilled into each side and then strengthened with plastic strip and then filled with super glue/talc mixture.

PLEASE NOTE - did at a later stage reduce the length of the extension by about half as it was a bit too long.

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A line of holes was drilled into the arrester hook shanks rather than using the kit etch part for this.

Next was the main landing gear - I decided to scratch build the oleos rather than modify the kit ones which did not look compressed enough to me- I cut the hubs off the main gear and drilled them to take a piece of 30 thou brass wire - over this I fitted three different sizes of aluminium tube that fitted inside each other - 1.58, 2.36, 3.14 mm OD - I ended up with a length of 19.5mm from the top of the hub which gave the model the sit I wanted - the outer tube I made 17mm long - the resin wheel bay locating holes for the main gear were drilled out to fit the aluminium tube - detailing will be added to the oleos later.

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Homemade leg and kit leg - this picture was taken before I shortened the length of the oleo to 19.5 mm - you can get the sit you want by adjusting this length - I could not get the main wheels to fit neatly on to the hubs so the axle stubs were drilled to take 30 thou wire and the wheel hubs filled with plastic rod and redrilled to fit the wire

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Above is a test fit of the main gear just pushed into place to check the sit and I'm happy with the way the tail down sit is looking so far - the masking tape and roundel circle of tape were added to check camouflage line and the position of the rear fuselage port hole.

IMG_7230.jpg

CJP

 

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5 hours ago, Lord Riot said:

Superb. Not seen one of these made before. Kind of like a French Gannet.

Thanks Lord Riot - I've always been interested in the Alize but it is not a popular subject & not much available in the kit department - this one requires a lot of work to get it looking reasonable - a bit like a vacform kit I think - as you say it is like a French or Gallic Gannet.

CJP

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48 minutes ago, corsaircorp said:

Hello CJP,

You did really an astounding job on the Alize !!

Congratulations !!

Sincerely.

CC

thanks CC -this will be my first and last FM Alize!!

CJP

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2 hours ago, heloman1 said:

Excellent work with the vac-forming and canopy fit, not the easiest.

 

Colin

Thanks Colin - this was my first foray in to vac-forming a canopy so I had quite a few failures before I got one half decent

Chris

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This is looking extremely impressive! The sit of the model looks to be spot on. My own kit continues to glare out from beneath my workbench, crying "build me, build me" with an ever increasing siren sound.

 

Martian 👽

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59 minutes ago, Martian Hale said:

This is looking extremely impressive! The sit of the model looks to be spot on. My own kit continues to glare out from beneath my workbench, crying "build me, build me" with an ever increasing siren sound.

 

Martian 👽

Listen to the poor FM kit, listen to the poor FM kit...:hypnotised::hypnotised:

So the Chimay Therapy was not enough ???

I must find one for me.....

Sincerely Oh Grand admiral of the galactic fleet !!

CC

 

Great work CJP, now, I'm eager to look for an Alize too !!

Sincerely.

CC

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4 hours ago, corsaircorp said:

Listen to the poor FM kit, listen to the poor FM kit...:hypnotised::hypnotised:

So the Chimay Therapy was not enough ???

I must find one for me.....

Sincerely Oh Grand admiral of the galactic fleet !!

CC

Do ever want to get out of that naughty corner CC? I am more than capable of getting myself in the brown and smelly by myself!

 

Martian 👽

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6 hours ago, Martian Hale said:

This is looking extremely impressive! The sit of the model looks to be spot on. My own kit continues to glare out from beneath my workbench, crying "build me, build me" with an ever increasing siren sound.

 

Martian 👽

 

5 hours ago, corsaircorp said:

Listen to the poor FM kit, listen to the poor FM kit...:hypnotised::hypnotised:

So the Chimay Therapy was not enough ???

I must find one for me.....

Sincerely Oh Grand admiral of the galactic fleet !!

CC

 

Great work CJP, now, I'm eager to look for an Alize too !!

Sincerely.

CC

Well that's decided then Martian & CC - looking forward to you two starting a production line for the FM Alize!

 

CJP

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9 hours ago, CJP said:

 

Well that's decided then Martian & CC - looking forward to you two starting a production line for the FM Alize!

 

CJP

Signed on, now I must FIND an Alize, start looking on Evilbay !

Note to myself… Is this reasonable to have your mits on 3 FM kits at once ????

AFAIK from my naughty corner, I'm mad enough to try !! :rofl2:

Sincerely.

CC

PS, Pierre is also engulfed in 2 FM Kits at once… Halifax mated with sanger parts and a Hampden….

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34 minutes ago, corsaircorp said:

Signed on, now I must FIND an Alize, start looking on Evilbay !

Note to myself… Is this reasonable to have your mits on 3 FM kits at once ????

AFAIK from my naughty corner, I'm mad enough to try !! :rofl2:

Sincerely.

CC

PS, Pierre is also engulfed in 2 FM Kits at once… Halifax mated with sanger parts and a Hampden….

Maybe someone has an Alize in their stash and would be willing to part with it for you - doesn't seem to be any on Ebay at moment but who knows -good luck - I'm guessing all FM kits are a bit of a challenge so it is nice to hear of you and Pierre tackling them - will let you know if I come across an Alize

CJP

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12 hours ago, Martian Hale said:

Do ever want to get out of that naughty corner CC? I am more than capable of getting myself in the brown and smelly by myself!

 

Martian 👽

It seem that I will stay in my naughty corner for a while...

Here's the list of my Fonderie kits...

Bell P-63 Kingcobra

Grumman F9F-8 Panther

Sikorsky HOS

Bell X-2

Grumman F11F Tiger

Lockheed PV-1 Ventura

Bloch MB-152

SNCASO Griifon II

and SNCASO Vautour IIb

Still looking for an Alize, a Zephir, a Halifax and a Hampden…(Maybe should we have an Airfix Hampden however)

I know, I'm mad ! Surely need more rocket fuel for the coming years !!

1 hour ago, CJP said:

Maybe someone has an Alize in their stash and would be willing to part with it for you - doesn't seem to be any on Ebay at moment but who knows -good luck - I'm guessing all FM kits are a bit of a challenge so it is nice to hear of you and Pierre tackling them - will let you know if I come across an Alize

CJP

Thanks CJP, Do not hesitate if you find one !!

At a good price of course

I was about to buy an Halifax at Telford but 220£ for putting myself in :poo::poo::poo:is a bit too high priced !!

Thanks for the kind words and for sharing good job

Sincerely.

CC

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