Listening to the Solstice

[Brandy]

I have come to the conclusion that you're absolutely bonkers! Scratchbuilt wipers in 1:72? Having said that, they look bloody good!

 

I hope you can keep from adding soldered brass to your roasted chickens, they really don't need it!

 

Ian

[giemme]

I almost forgot about the flaps... even slightly open, they add a lot to the general aspect, also in this early rough state

 

Ciao

[Spookytooth]

Well Tony, it proves a point, you`re bonkers mate.

Great work on those wipers, and those flaps look fantastic.

 

Not much of the original Airfix Annie left now.

 

Simon.

[CedB]

Nice flappery Tony but you know what they say, flappery gets you nowhere  

[stevehnz]

On 9/17/2019 at 7:25 AM, TheBaron said:

The landscape where we are in Connacht one of the main native trees is hawthorn like these that in winter look like ink spilt across the Western skies at dusk:

Caspar David Friedrich would have had a field day here with all those gnarly forms against winter skies I reckon...

 

In high summer, rapid heating of the air near the Atlantic wrings lace from blue skies.

Soon the only green will be ivy on the hawthorn's arms:

Very evocative, both the photos & prose, I love it. The modelling isn't half bad either.

Steve

[hendie]

On 9/21/2019 at 4:44 PM, TheBaron said:

the sun has moved south along the horizon enough at sunset that it hits the disco ball on the upstairs landing

 

and I suppose your kitchen floor tiles light up too ?

 

On 9/21/2019 at 4:44 PM, TheBaron said:

It seemed time to unveil The Finger of God:

 

I wondered how long it would be for you to pull your finger out  

 

(sorry, I'll just  exit stage right    )

 

 

brilliant work as always Tony.  This just keeps getting better and better.

 

 

 

 

 

[Martian]

Some very educative updates there Tony but I didn't quite get the blob of snot in the first one.

 

Muddled of Mars 👽

 

[Pete in Lincs]

2 hours ago, hendie said:

sorry, I'll just  exit stage right

Mind the trapdoor.....OOps!

[TheBaron]

On 9/22/2019 at 4:33 PM, limeypilot said:

Scratchbuilt wipers in 1:72? Having said that, they look bloody good!

Well, when they're as steampunkish as this, it would be a missing feature! 🎛️

On 9/22/2019 at 4:33 PM, limeypilot said:

hope you can keep from adding soldered brass to your roasted chickens, they really don't need it!

Just shove the soldering iron up the business end for 20 mins and Hey Presto - Chicken Surprise!

 

My new cooking series Diner, Drives-in and Dies is soon to be  broadcast on the Lifestyle channel btw....

 

On 9/22/2019 at 4:33 PM, giemme said:

I almost forgot about the flaps... even slightly open, they add a lot to the general aspect

Whereas I'd been trying to ignore them Giorgio due to the fiddliness of gluing all those little ribs.... 😆

On 9/22/2019 at 4:45 PM, Spookytooth said:

Well Tony, it proves a point, you`re bonkers mate.

That's what Gag Halfrunt said too! 👨‍🔬

12 hours ago, CedB said:

Tony but you know what they say, flappery gets you nowhere

"Cedi: tell me a music-hall joke."

10 hours ago, stevehnz said:

Very evocative, both the photos & prose, I love it. The modelling isn't half bad either.

Glad that you're enjoying both Steve.

 

Bizarrely to some perhaps I find Autumn & Winter in the N. Hemisphere a more visually entrancing time of the year, in the classic Romantic tradition.

 

Prepared to admit however that this may be just a Midlife Goth Crisis.

 

3 hours ago, hendie said:

and I suppose your kitchen floor tiles light up too ?

Baby when this is playin' on loop it's like a lurex inferno in there!

(Still have the original single of this I bought in Woolworth's...)

3 hours ago, hendie said:

I wondered how long it would be for you to pull your finger out

It's when you pull out one of your plums that people get all "Ooh someone call the police..."

1 hour ago, Martian Hale said:

Some very educative updates there Tony but I didn't quite get the blob of snot in the first one.

"I'm sorry sir but your 'Friends of the Mucus' card seems to have expired."

1 hour ago, Pete in Lincs said:

Mind the trapdoor.....OOps!

Trapdoor!

Saturday mornings!

Recovering from a hangover!

 

 

[hendie]

3 hours ago, TheBaron said:

Well, when they're as steampunkish as this, it would be a missing feature!

 

 

ooohhhh lordy - that is an itch that's just crying to be scratched.  How could you not?

[perdu]

7 hours ago, hendie said:

 

 

ooohhhh lordy - that is an itch that's just crying to be scratched.  How could you not?

So he did

 

Outstanding Tony, one of the finest comedies on t'intynet 

 

And a guaranteed 'best build' of '19

 

I love how you come up with oddities that are simply just the thing for the task in hand

Jack Horner, brilliant and you drew him so well

[CedB]

Great post Tony, as usual  

 

Wiper box? Can't wait…

[corsaircorp]

Dear Baron !!

You really are a source of inspiration... 

These jurassic wipers look really fine !!

if the word "fine" can be used to describe these steampunk devices !!

Brass Annie will be a nightmare to paint with all tese tiny bits an bobs protruding every here and there !!

Thanks for gracing us with the pics !!

Here are mine from sunday at 6 AM

I like this transition... You look east, sun is appearing, look south, it's still night there.

And clouds are pure beauty... 

Thank you again Tony !!

Sincerely.

CC

[keefr22]

4 hours ago, perdu said:

And a guaranteed 'best build' of '19

 

And 20 and 21 if he doesn't stop finding more and more fiddly, twiddly bits to add....!!

 

K

[Terry1954]

Having a catch up here .......... wonderful wipers, fantastic flaps, and a reminder of my youth, Hot Gossip, who I had the drooling pleasure to meet once when they were in a coffee bar I frequented, on a break from a shoot, close to where I worked (in the MOD would you believe). Seeing them "in the flesh" was a major distraction I can tell you, and it was lustlove at first sight. 

 

Your craftsmanship withy brass has been commented upon many times, but I still find it fascinating and immensely inspiring.

 

Well done!

 

Terry

 

 

[The Spadgent]

Agog! Again. 😮 im currently thinking about wing lights and I find myself asking the question . ” What would Tony do?  “  Then when the answer is hollow things out, add brass tube, throw the kit away and build your own I feel I need to leave that to a better man than I. Bravo sir. Wonderful, wonderful work.

 

 Johnny. 🤯

Edited September 25, 2019 by The Spadgent

[TheBaron]

On 9/24/2019 at 12:54 AM, hendie said:

 

 

ooohhhh lordy - that is an itch that's just crying to be scratched.  How could you not?

 

On 9/24/2019 at 8:32 AM, perdu said:

So he did

T'would have been a crime against nature to leave the eyebrows off!

On 9/24/2019 at 8:32 AM, perdu said:

Outstanding Tony, one of the finest comedies on t'intynet 

Every day's a Les Dawson seance on this thread Bill...  💆‍♂️

On 9/24/2019 at 8:32 AM, perdu said:

And a guaranteed 'best build' of '19

Steady on old thing - we've still the painting to get through... 😓

On 9/24/2019 at 9:13 AM, CedB said:

Great post Tony, as usual

Ta Ced!

With an audience this raucous one wouldn't dare but give the full modelling Monty. as it were....

On 9/24/2019 at 11:01 AM, corsaircorp said:

Here are mine from sunday at 6 AM

Stunning Cc! Those colours are positively Californian!

On 9/24/2019 at 11:01 AM, corsaircorp said:

I like this transition... You look east, sun is appearing, look south, it's still night there.

I know exactly what you mean. The colours changing from moment to moment in subtleties that escape words.

On 9/24/2019 at 12:55 PM, keefr22 said:

And 20 and 21 if he doesn't stop finding more and more fiddly, twiddly bits to add....!!

They shouldna made the Anson so attractive Keith!

On 9/25/2019 at 7:16 PM, Terry1954 said:

Hot Gossip, who I had the drooling pleasure to meet once

Oversharing Terry. Seriously.

The whole saliva thing was quite unnecessary....

On 9/25/2019 at 10:58 PM, The Spadgent said:

” What would Tony do?  “  Then

....reverse away at speed before the darkness engulfs you!

Quite right Johnny: stick to the true path. There be monsters in the undergrowth....

 

Seems like I'm only really getting weekends at the moment due to work pressures so with Mrs. B off for the day taking our youngest to play in a) a GAA match this morning, and b) a rugby match this afternoon, there's little for it but to hasten over to the flugwerk.

 

The roof windows had been giving some pause as to affixing them into place. With thinned-down cabin roof (and the glass bricks that came with the kit long ago passed on to a fellow modeller in the States) there was not a lot of bonding area available to attach the windows that I'd cut out from PET on the Silhouette previously when doing the side windows. Took me ages to find the parts of course as I'd done them originally back at Easter iirc.

 

Tracked down these were held into place crossways with Washi tape and heavily diluted Gator's Grip (Thin blend) wicked in around all the edges:

The combination of a glue being both amenable to thinning down in this way along with the flexibility of the cured result will (I hope) give a reasonable enough bond to last through until all the painting is complete.

Next task was to spend an hour and a half going round the wings, tail, fuslage sides with a small scalpel blade in thumb & forefinger scraping and planing away the considerable amount of glue blobs, stray smears of filler, over-thick primer and all the sundry blemishes that have gathered on the surfaces during construction. I find a small E11 blade almost perfect in this scale for such jobs and holding it in your fingers conveys maximum information about the smoothness of the surface.

 

The it was time for a preparatory polish:

Truth be told I've ditched Micromesh for this kind of work these days. lord knows I'm slow enough as it is so that anything that can give equal quality results more rapidly I've no qualms about adopting. After a basic going over with some W&D as a preliminary pass, all those surface (bar the roof because of curing windows) got a going-over with a felt disk in the Dremel on slowest speed:

A smidgeon of polishing compound on the disk gives a nice burnish without leaving residues to affect paint/primer:

One reason for focussing on cosmetic looks today was that I wanted to replace the inaccurate kit detailing for the wing tanks with some foil replacements. I've seen a number of dodgy (in terms of both shape and size) drawings/illustrations floating around online and in publications for these items so ignored these and worked directly from contemporary photos:

Having pencilled-in a decent-enough (and perspectivally-correct) shape on the wing, these dimensions were transferred into the Silhouette software and cut to foil using the metal vinyl setting:

A few rubs of the magic agate later and:

There's a small raised fairing that sits to the right (on the starboard wing, opposite on port) of those fuelling flaps which I might have a crack at resin-casting to produce as I need four identical.

 

Also a this stage I remembered to drill holes in the nose section for bead sight, drive shaft for wipers and the barrel of the Browning:

As with many features on the Anson, the contrasting 'looks of the engine nacelles need attending to also, so as with the wing roots and fuel tanks, foil sections are being added to delineate the front panels - especially as in  a number of views you see these forward panels sit slightly 'proud' of the rear scalloped sections of the nacelles so a slight surface relief is required:

That's the top ones on port & starboard today. If I can get in again tomorrow I'll add the underside ones and sides also using the same approach:

Eldest's birthday tomorrow: off to an Italian restaurant this evening so I shall be channelling my inner @giemme!

🍽️ 🍷

Bless you all.

Tony

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Stevejj]

With all the wonderful work done to make this a proper "faithful annie" you could build one oob as a comparison to show the differences, if that wouldn't offend your sensibilities. Just a thought

Best wishes

Steve

[CedB]

I thought, after that polishing, you were going to paint something! Silly me. 
 

Nice tank covers though. 
 

[hendie]

your work on Annie's bottom is breathtaking Tony.  Up top is good too

 

 

I'm looking forward to seeing the crayons come out

[Brandy]

Niiiice and smooooth!

The panels are looking good too. Remind me what foil you use... I tried BMF but there isn't enough depth to make it work.

 

Ian

[giemme]

It's been a very productive Saturday for you Tony, hasn't it?  

 

Hope you are enjoying your Italian dinner, BTW  

I'm not sure you really want an inner me, but if it helps with tasting propre food... what the heck, I'm glad to help

 

Ciao

[TheBaron]

On 9/28/2019 at 2:18 PM, Stevejj said:

With all the wonderful work done to make this a proper "faithful annie" you could build one oob as a comparison to show the differences,

Thanks Steve but I think that one's enough at this stage!

If the truly demented need to compare the two then I'll leave it up to them to go through this thread.....

On 9/28/2019 at 3:40 PM, CedB said:

I thought, after that polishing, you were going to paint something! Silly me.

Paint will be soon Ced I can promise. Just need to go round finishing the snag list, of which more done today. 😄

Only a few items remaining uncicrcled now!

On 9/28/2019 at 3:57 PM, hendie said:

I'm looking forward to seeing the crayons come out

Also useful in power cuts! 😆

23 hours ago, limeypilot said:

Niiiice and smooooth!

The panels are looking good too. Remind me what foil you use... I tried BMF but there isn't enough depth to make it work.

Ta very mooch Ian.

The foil I generally use is this stuff from Coralgraph (unfortunately sold out here):

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Coralgraph-Inc-Aluminium-Insulation-Adhesive/dp/B01HF3EF0U

It's thinner than the roll of 3M metal tape I also have and conforms really nicely to even quite complicated curves. Good strong adhesive on the back too.

21 hours ago, giemme said:

Hope you are enjoying your Italian dinner, BTW  

I'm not sure you really want an inner me, but if it helps with tasting propre food... what the heck, I'm glad to help

We're lucky to have a restaurant about a half hour drive away run by an Italian family and it's the best in the area by far.

Went on the Olive Marinati to start with followed by Tagliatelle Brasaoicola (sp?), all washed down with a long cold glass of Peroni. Yum! 😋

 

Today I've been mainly obsessing about nacelles, or rather, finishing the foiling of same that started yesterday. Al told it took about 3 hours of concentrated effort to get them to my satisfaction to the both the range of adjoining compound surfaces involved as well as cutting out and applying multipe panels to a cylindrical shape.

 

Some were cut freehand in situ and others standardized on the Silhouette; with all the toing and froing (plus the repetetive nature of the job) I didn't bother with any 'in progress' shots.

 

Here's a synoptic view of today's results first:

Below:

Straight-up confession that those wheel bay panel lines aren't completely accurate. They should come in closer on either side to those 'notches' that allow the wheel axles to retract up into the nacelles; when making the brass starboard nacelle underside I had to leave a wider margin in that vicinity (about 1mm either side iirc) otherwise the thinness of the metal at this scale would simply have buckled at the slightest pressure upon it.

 

You can start to see the individual panels in this shot, plus the way that the fairings on the rear of the nacelle curves outwards and onto the wings inboard and outboard:

The port outboard view also shows the entrance hole for the starting handle, plus an access panel just behind it that I've long ago forgotten the purpose of:

Also note the angled nature of the front panel seam there to match the angle of the firewall behind it.

 

I haven't gone utterly mad with burnishing the entire nacelle to a pristine flatness as in many shots of operational aircraft there are lots of signs of Messrs. Dent & Ding that I've tried to retain in places for visual interest. Under primer of course what you see here wil become more subdued.

 

Finally a self-indulgent front view to finish with as a way of bidding 'Adieu' to what turned out to be a quite intensive set of jobs:

 

Off to poach some cod for the tea. Milk, bayleaf and a few black peppercorns for 30 mins on low. Gentle tea for the knackered foiler....

 

I wish you all peaceful Sunday evenings.

Tony

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[keefr22]

1 hour ago, TheBaron said:

Finally a self-indulgent front view to finish with as a way of bidding 'Adieu' to what turned out to be a quite intensive set of jobs:

 

Self indulge away Tony that looks blooming marvellous!

 

Keith

[Pete in Lincs]

Ooh, shiny bits!

I needed some thin tape for the wing leading edges on my latest bodge creation Kreiger scratchbuild.

I looked for the one you mentioned, but no joy. Instead I found what must be a similar one on the bay for 1.99. So I've risked penury and ordered a roll.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ALUMINIUM-TAPE-ADHESIVE-STRONG-AND-RELIABLE-HEAT-PROOF-EXHAUST-PIPE-REPAIR-2M/132672943301?epid=1023167924&hash=item1ee3ec74c5:g:jusAAOSwzRpaNdeF