Listening to the Solstice

[keefr22]

10 hours ago, corsaircorp said:

And IT IS NOT a photoshoped pic 

 

Decoy. Or the result of a drunken Officers mess dinner?!

 

K

[Andwil]

1 minute ago, keefr22 said:

 

Decoy? Or the result of a drunken Officers mess dinner?!

 

K

Belgium’s top secret supersonic interceptor project.

 

AW

[corsaircorp]

2 hours ago, keefr22 said:

 

Decoy. Or the result of a drunken Officers mess dinner?!

 

K

decoy at Bierset AB or.. How to recycle old F-84's

They usually call it the Tundermirages...

And This is possibly the result of SOME drunken officers mess dinners  !! 

 

2 hours ago, Andwil said:

Belgium’s top secret supersonic interceptor project.

 

AW

Oh believe me, they can do worst !! 

After all, one must remind that the chief engineers Lobelle was responsible of the design of the Stringbag... 

Just sayin' 

 

Sincerely.

CC

 

 

[The Spadgent]

Creeping toward page 100 I see. 🥳 Lovely ribbage sir. 😉🕺👷‍♂️

 

Johnny

[corsaircorp]

13 hours ago, The Spadgent said:

Creeping toward page 100 I see. 🥳 Lovely ribbage sir. 😉🕺👷‍♂️

 

Johnny

Hey !! Johnny's back Hooray !! CC

[TheBaron]

Evening gang.

Thursday already and barely a teacake buttered, let alone much time for matters Ansonian.

Monday took wife and sons up to Dublin to visit my cousin and her family who've moved over from England. Here we all are on Portmarnock Strand walking towards the famous Howth Head:

My two giant sons on the right and Jess my coz's lurcher going mad in the surf to the left.

'Tis funny getting older and feeling the dynamic of the generations shifting.

 

Ok then. Let's see what the assembled rakes and wits have been saying:

On 8/18/2019 at 2:47 PM, hendie said:

I would have been afraid to even attempt that.

I know. 🤣

From what I've seen you capable of H I suspect that this would have erred on the side of 'a bit too straightforward'. Yours would have had lightbulbs and probably the filament too I'll be bound.

On 8/18/2019 at 2:47 PM, hendie said:

Because Fly had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with it in any way, shape, or form?

After your recent enlivening of Ced's thread with that carnival of dead fly souls , I've saved you a few recruits...

Normally flies aren't so much of a problem here in summer but our neighbour-  Frank - who farms the fields front and side of us kept cattle instead of his usual sheep this year. I actually drove past Frank feeding the herd a week or two back and shouted out the window 'Jeez those sheep are looking big Frank!' Frank stared at me blankly but here's the thing - I swear his dog laughed.

On 8/18/2019 at 3:30 PM, limeypilot said:

I have that Marabu set, guess what for?

You've a new car but the intense sun has impaired your sense of scale?

(Please say it's really for the Battle Ian,  I really need you to finish it so thatI know how to build my one properly....)

On 8/18/2019 at 8:14 PM, giemme said:

How can you solder such tiny and complex things?

It's involves such higher-state physics Giorgio that I really couldn't explain it without a blackboard, some chalk, and a long pointy stick.

 

Hang about.

What's this?

On 8/18/2019 at 8:14 PM, giemme said:

Must be sorcery....

 

On 8/18/2019 at 8:35 PM, Terry1954 said:

I think you have it exactly Giorgio,

I'm not sure I like where this is headed.....🔥

On 8/18/2019 at 11:44 PM, CedB said:

Very nice lights Tony, they look really good in place

Thanks Ced: those Marabu bits are the business and no mistake. I must check out what else they do!

On 8/19/2019 at 11:11 PM, corsaircorp said:

Hello dear Baron...

Just another little demoniac temptation !!

I drop it here 8

What

I say boy

What is that thing CC?

Somebody stole the middle section out of a Mirage?

Please tell me that's in your back garden. 😁

On 8/20/2019 at 7:57 AM, Fritag said:

Or sorcery I s'pose.

I say!

And this isn't you homebrewing PE I suppose Steve?

On 8/20/2019 at 9:10 AM, CedB said:

 

I reckon he's cast a spell… that can be the only reason

Heat is your friend - or rather - the selective application thereof Ced.

Punch the concave shape into the rear bowl and rub some flux around the rim.

Tin the underside of the front framing then drop it into place onto the rear section of the lamp. Apply a little heat to the centre of the front frame with the iron until you feel it stick to the rear bowl. Takes very little heat and only a second or two to do.

 

Quicker and stronger than CA!

 

On 8/20/2019 at 9:17 AM, corsaircorp said:

One more lesson of modelling

We're all of us learning from each other continually CC. It's why the forum is so flipping addictive!

On 8/20/2019 at 10:05 PM, The Spadgent said:

Creeping toward page 100 I see. 🥳 Lovely ribbage sir. 😉🕺👷‍♂️

Cheers Johnny.

 

Have found it hard to settle down to the bench this week - distracted rather than mojo-diminution. Partly I guess because we're now in that tidy-up and finish-off phase of the build which means lots of little jobs all over the place to keep up with. One thing plaguing my conscience has been fixing the tailplanes, both of which had snapped off due to the brittle age of the plastic in those parts. For strength I decided on a rectangular scrap of brass as internal bracing:

it was mounted into the port side by the simple expedient of heating the end of the brass with a blowtorch and plunging it into the inside of the tailplane by about 6mm or so and then leaving the plastic to contract around it. Simple and direct but a one-shot operation if you stick the hot metal in at the wrong angle and pretzel the moulding (which thankfully I didn't). The holes drilled into the brass are just there to give extra surfaces for the epoxy to grip into. The corresponding starboard side:

The slot to accept the brass strip was down by drilling a series of 6mm deep holes and then using the drill as a router - moving the vice back and forwards gently to cut out the slot.

 

These two halves were then epoxied and jiggled into place on the obligatory Lego jig:

As per SOP I've been generous here withe the epoxy so that it simultaneously acts as filler to be carved back when cured - which is why I've also left all the final shaping and profiling to after the gluing stage as well so that all can be done in a single operation.

The important longitudinal aspect:

Probs the weekend before we're back in harness again - if the rain stays off tomorrow I have to spend the day bricklaying the founds of the greenhouse.

Tony

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[giemme]

40 minutes ago, TheBaron said:

Heat is your friend - or rather - the selective application thereof Ced.

Punch the concave shape into the rear bowl and rub some flux around the rim.

Tin the underside of the front framing then drop it into place onto the rear section of the lamp. Apply a little heat to the centre of the front frame with the iron until you feel it stick to the rear bowl. Takes very little heat and only a second or two to do.

Yeah, yeah, you threw in an explanation, but before that you basically admitted it's sorcery

 

All jokes aside, thanks for providing an insight on how-to, Tony

 

And you are a brave man with that thrusting hot brass into plastic

 

... or should we question your sanity?

 

 

 

 

Ciao

[bbudde]

1 hour ago, giemme said:

or should we question your sanity?

 

No, for me not as I think, but I'm not quite sure. Won't go  politicial too much (much worse than that ever could be) e.g:

Mr Johnson tries to rearrange the Brexit again here (by no chance here).

Mr. Trump cancelled his visit to Denmark for being denied to buy Greenland

Italy has cancelled his gouvnerment so far.

Germany has some serious elections for our gouvernment future in the forthcoming two weeks

 

So all in all,  I should ask the Queen to  purchase me the Orkney's by chance in the next time. So I could salvage and refit the german High seas Fleet there again to put these coal monsters escorting the tankers against the pirates in the gulf of Aden by doiing a veil of smoke around these . But I have to talk to the Queen of course first.

Cheers Benedikt

Edited August 22, 2019 by bbudde

[TheBaron]

On 8/22/2019 at 9:40 PM, giemme said:

All jokes aside, thanks for providing an insight on how-to, Tony

No problem Giorgio.

That's what this place is all about isn't it?

Learning the multifarious ways there are to do different jobs with different materials and being excited by the process and then forgetting half of them when you come to do the job yourself in six months' time!

On 8/22/2019 at 9:40 PM, giemme said:

And you are a brave man with that thrusting hot brass into plastic

It's the Uther Pendragon method!

On 8/22/2019 at 11:03 PM, bbudde said:

But I have to talk to the Queen of course first.

Arise Sir Benedikt? #summonstothepalace 😁

 

Slow but patient progress on Annie lately in between bricklaying sessions out in the garden. With the current humidity bringing out all the insect life into late summer activity it's like laying bricks with a 1000 plane raid of flies constantly at you so pleasant to knock off and come in for a refreshing shower followed by a bit of time at the bench each day.

 

Whilst reprofiling the tailplanes (which were simply too fat at the trailing edge) I noticed that the way that the outline of trailing edge of the port one where it angled up to the tip was too acute. Back in the mists of time if you recall I'd heavily modified the kit moulding for these parts as they needed reshaping in a number of respects and vaguely recall making a mental note at that time that I needed to do something further in the shape dept. Months later I now discovered what it was!

 

As on the aileron work, I ran a line of Washi tape along the required edge to act as a support for some CA/flour compound:

This got filed and sanded back to match its counterpart to starboard. I thought I'd taken a picture of that process but apparently not - must be the humidity!

 

Having spent a lot of time now looking at the back of the Anson I also came to realized that I needed to alter the shape of the tail region beneath the rudder as it was too chunky in cross section. To get this right took quite a bit of time on account of constantly filing and referring to photos from multiple angles to make sure the 'look' matched in multiple axes. Eventually:

You can see I've also boxed-in the fin in readiness for the rudder as well as - just possibly - see at tail light fitting added at the rearmost apex of the fuselage. Here's a closer view from the side showing where I used more CA/flout to create the necessary sharp 'beak' at the rear:

The light fitting itself is just 0.5mm brass tube. I'll add a bulb from a drip of CA after painting - in colour photos I've seen of this area the bulb seems to be clear rather than coloured but please correct me if that's wrong....

 

Also added was the collar for the rudder pivot, to which was also added more 0.5mm tubing:

Test-fitted:

At the rear of the fin you can see just how much of the kit moulding I had to sihrsc away to get an accurate profile for fin and rudder. The net result of the hours that took though is I think worth it in terms of improved slenderness of aspect: there are a number of subtleties to rudder and fuselage in this region that can easily get overlooked and yet which contribute so significantly to the overall charm of the Anson's looks:

Still a couple of hinges to add 'twixt rudder and fin but I'll attend to those next time.

Thanks for looking-in guys.

Tony

 

 

 

[giemme]

Tony, I can't really wait to see some paint on this, so that all your efforts for detailing and correcting the shapes of this thing will pop up in all their glory! 

 

 

Ciao

[CedB]

Lovely work on the empennage Tony - I hope the block laying is going as well, despite the flies!  

[hendie]

your back end is looking very sharp Tony.  The hot brass plungery is a stroke of genius.

[keefr22]

Interesting Anson story here Tony - may tempt you to build another (it'd be a breeze after trailblazing with this one!)

 

https://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/blog/avro-ansons-vs-messerschmitt-109s-dunkirk-1940/?fbclid=IwAR3wQ-Qse6cXuhnjfFPOmiVMmf8WAzD_8jY1th-pnNyBbtITIZ6-OG_LhRg

 

Keith

[Brandy]

Nicely adjusted at the rear there Tony! The tail light is indeed a clear/white light, with the wings of course being red left and green right.

 

Ian

[bbudde]

23 hours ago, TheBaron said:

Arise Sir Benedikt? #summonstothepalace 😁

Don't know. Have to ask the Queen once more, but probably more possessive than posh, if she doesn't mind and feels comfortable with that (and my ideas) 

Cheers

Btw: NICE work!!!!!

Edited August 26, 2019 by bbudde

[The Spadgent]

Eye catching rear end you have there sir. X💃

 

Johnny

[TheBaron]

I love the way that in the approach to the equinoxe in the Northern hemisphere the windows of the house become a theatre of shadows cast by the evening sun.

 

On 8/25/2019 at 10:20 PM, giemme said:

Tony, I can't really wait to see some paint on this, so that all your efforts for detailing and correcting the shapes of this thing will pop up in all their glory! 

Got to cover up all the imperfections I've made over the various surfaces first Giorgio!

After a year of 'vigorous' attention there's a good few dings and dents I need to take good care over.... 🔨

On 8/25/2019 at 11:26 PM, CedB said:

Lovely work on the empennage Tony - I hope the block laying is going as well, despite the flies!

Thanks Ced.

Finished laying the last of the bricks on the internal runs at lunchtime today just before the rain hit - clearly perfect timing to finish as rain now for the next few days... 🌧️

During events today I discovered that my cordless drill had finally croked after years of abuse so one of these arriving from Screwfix tomorrow:

Normally DeWalt would be out of  budget but there was a summer sale on: all I need is a copy of the Currant Bun showed down the bumcrack to complete the look. Reminds me nostalgically  of graffiti I saw on the cubicle wall of the  toilets when I worked on sites in the early 80s:

'Down the glen came Mcalpine's men

Just like Bengal Lancers.

But only one in ten were time-served men,

The rest were f*****g chancers.'

On 8/26/2019 at 12:00 AM, hendie said:

The hot brass plungery is a stroke of genius.

Cheers H!

As Guido the Killer Pimp was wont to say: 'Sometimes you just gotta say 'What the f-''

On 8/26/2019 at 2:06 PM, keefr22 said:

Interesting Anson story here Tony

Thanks for that link Keith - appreciate it!

I'd read something similar in:

about Annie and her men acquitting themselves with valour when the chips were down.

On 8/26/2019 at 3:29 PM, limeypilot said:

The tail light is indeed a clear/white light, with the wings of course being red left and green right.

My thanks Ian. Knew I could rely on you for a pointer in the right direction.

(I was going to say 'cast light on the matter' but that would of course have been a cheap joke and I respect you more than that.)

On 8/26/2019 at 5:33 PM, bbudde said:

Don't know. Have to ask the Queen once more, but probably more possessive than posh, if she doesn't mind and feels comfortable with that (and my ideas) 

After the putsch in London this morning Benedikt I suspect Her Madge has put all knighthoods on hold for the foreseeable...

On 8/26/2019 at 7:22 PM, The Spadgent said:

Eye catching rear end you have there sir. X💃

Cheeky boy!

 

Just to prove there has been some activity since the start of the week:

The pitot under the nose is a surprising bulky affair, which I made from some 0.4mm rod and a 1.2mm tube crushed around it with pliers in order to make the streamlined fairing.

 

The large dorsal antennae also got done using the same internal skeleton/crimped tubing method:

The DF loop I think I showed you before but not perhaps in place. Those ornaments have been put in the precious bits box now for painting and adding at the end of the build. IThere's the additional matters of the thermometer and sunshield for the port nose plus the plumbing and gubbins for the windscreen wipers which again give a certainVictorian steampunk air to the Anson in places. Hopefully I can get those tackled in the next session.

Pleased with the way they look as a pairing but you can see from the photos the amount of crud that's accumulated over time inside the cabin that will need tickling with a paintbrush and blowing out with the airbrush on high later on.  As discussed earlier Giorgio you can see what I meant about tidying up the fuselage and so on...

 

Need to remask the side windows also but that last shot gives a nice sense of how using a high-build painting process for the narrow framing works better imho than trying to add anything like pieces of plastic (or even etch) at this scale.

 

That's it for tonight guys. Back in to work tomorrow but hopefully an update at the weekend.

Tony

 

 

 

[Spookytooth]

Looking very sweet there Tony.

Can`t wait until some primer goes on to unify everything that you have done to her.

 

And yes, these evenings are drawing in earlier now.

 

Simon.

[bbudde]

58 minutes ago, TheBaron said:

I suspect Her Madge has put all knighthoods on hold for the foreseeable...

Sadly!!!!

And the worst thing is, that I cannot recommend anyone here to pay attention to get somehow a bit back to the roots again, especially to the young ones, when Mr. Trump now tries to sacrifice major parts of Alaska's nature. So my hat of to the people of Denmark, who denied this lunatic idea by a major foreign president!! So enough about that theme by now. Maybe more at sunday evening; the german gouverment will be shattered again (what I expect to be in the east part of Germany-not a good development at all so far).

Cheers Benedikt

P.S.: Nice loop antenna (not Airfix obviously)  "und der Rest sowieso"

[hendie]

On 8/28/2019 at 3:56 PM, TheBaron said:

so one of these arriving from Screwfix tomorrow

 

ah, dear old Screwfix.  One of the things I miss from the UK.

 

oh, and black pudding, sausages, pies, bridies, fish suppers, decent bread, rolls, haggis, neeps, mega soor plooms, decent crisps, treacle toffee, ...

 

 

 

On 8/28/2019 at 3:56 PM, TheBaron said:

... and I respect you more than that.

 

what about in the morning?

 

 

On 8/28/2019 at 3:56 PM, TheBaron said:

that last shot gives a nice sense of how using a high-build painting process for the narrow framing works better imho than trying to add anything like pieces of plastic (or even etch) at this scale

 

Indeedly so.  Those frames look nicely in scale which is very difficult to accomplish partickly in that scale of which we must not speak

 

[TheBaron]

On 8/28/2019 at 9:18 PM, Spookytooth said:

Can`t wait until some primer goes on to unify everything that you have done to her.

It feels as if I'm dragging my heels the closer we get to the end of the construction stage Simon but am conscious that this is that slightly anxious 'what have I forgotten?' stage of a build.

 

The end is in sight and there are certain details like trimming tabs which will only get a light scribe with a needle and nothing else but otherwise we're just down to a handful of mechanical and electrical fittings that need expression now.

On 8/28/2019 at 9:18 PM, Spookytooth said:

And yes, these evenings are drawing in earlier now

Exactly! Even in the last week the change of light levels is suddenly noticeable. We've an ash tree on the Western horizon here that acts as a marker for the changing positions of the setting sun and already 'bright Phoebus' is charging southward along the edge of the world each evening.

On 8/28/2019 at 10:26 PM, bbudde said:

my hat of to the people of Denmark, who denied this lunatic idea by a major foreign president!!

Quite right! There's also been a couple of superbly adult and good humoured slapdowns done by Danish parliamentarians countering the blatant lies on US television about education and social healthcare in Scandianvian countries.

 

Is feeling more Scandinavian as you get older a thing?

(Not a cue for Britt Ekland jokes...)

On 8/28/2019 at 10:26 PM, bbudde said:

und der Rest sowieso

Was bleibt, ist eine Hommage in die Vergangenheit (Wo wäre ich ohne Online-Übersetzung?)

10 hours ago, hendie said:

ah, dear old Screwfix.  One of the things I miss from the UK.

B&Q is just the gateway drug. Screwfix are the pure product.

10 hours ago, hendie said:

oh, and black pudding, sausages, pies, bridies, fish suppers, decent bread, rolls, haggis, neeps, mega soor plooms, decent crisps, treacle toffee

It appears that our appetites are broadly similar hendie! 

By coincidence I saw this earlier....

'It strayed in off the moors.'

10 hours ago, hendie said:

what about in the morning?

#gonebeforedawn

#papawasarollingstone

10 hours ago, hendie said:

Indeedly so. 

Think I've worked out that Fly's approach to such matters of detailing are based upon an abiding love of German expressionist cinema:

 

Interesting discovery. Have switched browser to Ecosia on all my mobile devices and find the forum loads much faster now (as well as planting trees).

 

Laid up abed today with nausea and pounding head* intermittently watching old episodes of Wycliffe on Grueltube. This has to be the most dullest-yet-perversely-engaging cop series ever to feature on British television: a kind of bleak Cornish existentialism for those who've never beheld its flimed-in-off-season-deadpan-Jack Shepherd glory.

 

Too many hyphens. Told you I was unwell. (Send laudanum.)

 

*No, drink was not taken previously and yes, I know this makes me sounds like an effete Victorian clergyman.

[perdu]

Ecosia?

 

 

 

Hmm, determines to look into that....

 

 

Tony please get bettererer, there is need for your top line wit 

 

And a fully finished Anson, I wonder are you worrying about what colour we will get on her bottom undersides?

 

 

[Terry1954]

8 minutes ago, TheBaron said:

Is feeling more Scandinavian as you get older a thing?

(Not a cue for Britt Ekland jokes...)

Well I regularly feel Scandinavian as I grow older........ my wife is half Norwegian 🤗

 

Terry

[perdu]

Never fear Britt Eckland joke, stories or just about anything else

 

I could be a tad partial to the rather fierce lady...

[TheBaron]

5 minutes ago, perdu said:

Hmm, determines to look into that....

It's certainly  worth a look at Bill. Am conscious also it may depend on processor/amount of memory available on a device, however neither my phone or tablet are fancypants by any means.

10 minutes ago, perdu said:

Tony please get bettererer, there is need for your top line wit

Thanks pal.

Think this is just one of those days where the system has decided to put up a 'Building closed for renovations' sign....

15 minutes ago, perdu said:

I wonder are you worrying about what colour we will get on her bottom undersides?

You're dead right to query this Bill; it has given me some pause for thought regarding lack of documentation about the potential appearance of aircraft in this Special Duty flight.

 

According to data in Ray Sturtivant's excellent 'The Anson File', N9945 seems to have gone straight from the factory to operations at Boscombe and thence redeployed on operations to Wyton shortly thereafter, so a Silver Dope underside factory finish could reasonably be inferred. However there are some examples contemporary to the time with that 'not exactly black' Night Black underside scheme in place.

 

This poses the question as to whether (during this fraught period) resources would have been applied to repainting the factory finish black:

1. on an aircraft rushed to Wyton at short notice for night ops to detect the Knickebein transmissions.
2.  as standard to BATDU aircraft at Boscombe involved in clandetine radio/signals work.
3. at all, and just left her with silver dope undersides.

Given the unusual circumstances of these night missions alongside the (quite understandable) lack of recording for such technical and operational minutiae in squadron records or elsewhere,  it would seem to come down to a matter of possibility rather than a balanced probability.

 

This is a long-winded way of saying that in absence of compelling absence in either direction:

I nod in honest acknowledgement to the fact that N9945 could have easily have stayed in silver dope

but:

am going to go with a purely speculative guess that she was repainted Night Black at some stage due to operating on these clandestine night missions.

 

Which is a less long-winded way of saying Night Black.

 

In addition to guessing the underside colour, I only have:

the squadron code

and

serial number

for this aircraft but have no evidence to base a guess upon what specific aircaft letter to bung on the side of the fuselage...

44 minutes ago, Terry1954 said:

Well I regularly feel Scandinavian as I grow older........ my wife is half Norwegian 🤗

I bet you make a handsome pair together Terry! 👏