Listening to the Solstice

[TheBaron]

On 2/16/2019 at 7:55 PM, keefr22 said:

There's also the D-Day museum in Southsea, next to a nice little aquarium. Didn't get chance to go into the museum due to the fascination with fishes the grandaughter has! They had two tanks on display outside, a Sherman and Churchill IIRC. With this being the 75th anniversary year they may have some special events on?

Thanks for that Keith!

Looks like all the efforts to get my bikini-body back in time for the beach at Lyme will be unnecessary if I'm going to spend so much time indoors!

(Just posting that little mental image for the benefit of @Martian Hale) 

On 2/17/2019 at 12:04 AM, NigelD said:

18" rail gun anybody? 

Virgin Trains are looking into the idea as a way of firing passengers between stations and thus cutting down on the need to have any rolling stock at all.

 

(Cheers for the info btw Nigel - the Fort guys have a most timid website when it comes to letting you know what's there).

On 2/17/2019 at 1:15 AM, Cookenbacher said:

Ridiculously good work Tony.

Characteristically generous of you to say so Cookie - I'm just sorry the pace has slowed to a crawl these days.

On 2/17/2019 at 9:01 AM, bigbadbadge said:

Whilst visiting the lovely county of Dorset, you could consider a visit to the Swanage area for the beautiful Railway and get some inspiration for the steam locomotive build!!!

You know we did go on that fabulous little run years back when the boys were little and I'm hankering to go back again Chris. I'm no believer in the concept of 'ye good olde days' as a rule but I defy anyone who has been on a steam train to not acknowledge that it is a romatically sensory means of getting from A to...well anywhere!

23 hours ago, Terry1954 said:

A work opportunity has distracted me of late,

That's just the sort of thing James Bond used to say Terry.

You don't work for 'Universal Exports' do you?

23 hours ago, Terry1954 said:

I can't say I am surprised by what I have seen

I am!

I still look at two bits of brass soldered together with a vague feeling of:  'did I really just get that to happen?'

2 hours ago, CedB said:

If you'd like some company PM me closer to the time

 

46 minutes ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

I’m up for it, definitely.

@CedB, @Ex-FAAWAFU: that's three of us up for it then. Excellent!

Will be over in Blighty for 2nd week in July so PM conference you a few weeks beforehand to synchronize sundials....

53 minutes ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

Everyone seems intent on luring you anywhere but Yeovilton, for some reason.  

It's a psychological condition: 'Naval Aviation Denial'.

We should feel sorry for those who suffer from it and not hasten to condemnation. 😇

 

Nice pic of that S.1 in the Spring light btw!

 

[Martian]

50 minutes ago, TheBaron said:

Looks like all the efforts to get my bikini-body back in time for the beach at Lyme will be unnecessary if I'm going to spend so much time indoors!

(Just posting that little mental image for the benefit of @Martian Hale) 

🤮

 

Martian 👽

[TheBaron]

4 hours ago, Martian Hale said:

🤮

My work here is done....

[Martian]

1 hour ago, TheBaron said:

My work here is done....

My work with you hasn't even started yet, beware the long tentacle of the Martian! 

 

Martian 👽

 

[bbudde]

57 minutes ago, Martian Hale said:

My work with you hasn't even started yet

I knew you would answer that Mr. Riesenkrake:

Edited February 18, 2019 by bbudde

[Martian]

29 minutes ago, bbudde said:

I knew you would answer that Mr. Riesenkrake:

That's my fifth cousin Splot! It looks like he's been on the Pan-galactic Gargle Blasters again.

 

Martian 👽

[Terry1954]

On 2/17/2019 at 9:01 AM, bigbadbadge said:

Hi Tony, what great work on the control consul and amazing soldering on the levers.

Fantastic work.

Whilst visiting the lovely county of Dorset, you could consider a visit to the Swanage area for the beautiful Railway and get some inspiration for the steam locomotive build!!!

 

Keep up the good work

All the best

Chris

Well as Chris says, f you are coming to Dorset in July Tony, don't forget I am a mere stones throw from Swanage itself,  a short range artillery shot from Bovington, and given the right weather and wind direction, less than an hour from the FAA museum! Would be great to synchronise plans and pull off a meet.

 

Terry

[bbudde]

5 hours ago, Martian Hale said:

It looks like he's been on the Pan-galactic Gargle Blasters again

Hopefully he's not injured that much

 

[TheBaron]

On 2/18/2019 at 5:21 PM, Martian Hale said:

My work with you hasn't even started yet, beware the long tentacle of the Martian! 

 

Thought of you at work on Thurdsay when we had a new toy delivered!

On 2/18/2019 at 7:30 PM, Terry1954 said:

Well as Chris says, f you are coming to Dorset in July Tony, don't forget I am a mere stones throw from Swanage itself,  a short range artillery shot from Bovington, and given the right weather and wind direction, less than an hour from the FAA museum! Would be great to synchronise plans and pull off a meet.

It most certainly would be great to meet up Terry as it's always nice to put faces to threads  I'm rapidly running out of time this trip to get everything done in and around family duties (we're only over for six full days) but I'll give you a shout nearer the time tolet you know how the land lies on this excursion! 

 

Given current events I also had to renew my UK passport as a precaution for the holiday, which gave me decidedly mixed feelings at having to do....

 

On 2/19/2019 at 12:29 AM, bbudde said:

Hopefully he's not injured that much

Who does one report a Martian to in the event of an incident such as this Benedikt?

 

Much to my surprise after a busy week I woke up this morning to find that it was Saturday and nobody wanted anything, so took the opportunity for a meander down Alloy Alley in the company of some fumes.

I really want to get a move on with the cockpit detailing but seem to constantly keep noticing bits that need adding due to the large amount of glazing involved on this aerial Crystal Palace. The pilot's control collumn is now done:

The control yoke itself is the only surviving bit of PE (both of those in the set were soldered together to make one with a decent sense of dimensionality), rest of the structure being made from brass sheet and tube.

 

After that, the rest of this morning's slot was taken up by building the rudder pedals. As a multipurpose aircraft this has a removable control collumn for the 2nd pilot which you occasionally see lashed to an upright on the starboard side of the cockpit, though in many shots it's not there. On this build I'm leaving it off on the purely invented reason of saving weight and extending loiter time for listening to the bad men's radio beams. The 2nd pilot's pedals fold up fore and aft when not in use, this allowing passage through into the bomb-aiming compartment in the nose so I'm going to go with that arrangement. First stage was to rough out the respective components - .4mm tubing for the horizontal torque tubes, .4mm rod bent in the etch folder to form the pedal bars themselves:

After trimming the pedal bars to length, these were then soldered-on to plates from the Reheat set whilst in situ, which I find makes it easier to do, rasther than faffing around later trying to hold tiny flakes of brass together:

All trimmed and ready:

The 2nd pilot's pedals have those odd spade-like footplates on them - I don't know if these were a permanent fixture or replaced by stirrup-looking ones like the pilot has when in use operationally. These all went on easy enough though, with aid of some wet tissue heat-sinking:

Actually getting that structure subsequently soldered into place behind the IP console was another matter. Bits dropped off. Things got bent. I learned that it is not always a good idea to solder the smallest/thinnest bits on to such a structure before then having to fire more heat into it to attach it to a larger piece; buuuuut, having invoked more demons than Alesteir Crowley on a fortnight-long demon-invoking canal holiday on which it rains every day, I eventually ended up with this and it looks close enough to the real thing to suffice for the scale:

The forward (toward the front of the aircraft) pointing pedal for the 2nd pilot dropped off at the last knockings but tbh, as it sticks up into the roof of the nose section I don't think that it's absence will be a significant one. If it bothers me that much I'll whack it on again later; we'll see.

 

I know.

What's it look like inside?

Pleased enough at that now.

 

I'm avoiding thinking about what needs to go inside the nose at this stage but do have to build a bulkhead to separate the rear cockpit from the turret platform and add one or two panels and fittings around the walls of the fuselage still. The radios too of course need fabricating. I've a good image of the Hallicrafters set used to pick up the Knickebein signals to form the basis of something decent visual-wise, but as to the other items of radio gear, as with the external aerials themselves I've no documentary evidence as to what standard items remained and what were modified an removed for the mission.

 

I know many of you are worried by space debris. Worry no more:

 

 

Be safe chums.

Til next time!

Tony

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Martian]

Beautiful! The work not you of course.

 

Martian (Double Entendres since stardate 13.12.62) 👽

[TonyTiger66]

Hello Monsieur Le Baron 👋 

Its good to see that you are in fine modelling form. Not quite as fine as Twiggy used to be, it has to be said, but relative to, for example, late era Bernard Manning or Benny from Crossroads, absolutely radiant.

 

I’m very, very slowly catching up on this, and a number of your builds right back to the Dornier. The same applies to builds by the tentacled one, the lost one and many others in the cast of thousands that go to make Britmodeller the epic that it is 🎥.

 

It may be mainly silent-era, but it’s a wonderful mix of Battleship Potemkin, Voyage a la Lune and Harold Lloyd that has no equal. 

 

I keep running out of likes. Rather like an Arctic explorer, I then have to bash a pole into the thread, hang a pair of unwashed but bright red long johns from it and trek back to base camp for more likes. I usually stock up on Bovril, Goblin Meat Puddings and Horlicks tablets whilst I’m there. I then begin the long trek back to my flailing long johns and begin following the thread again, carefully distributing likes, mindful of any crevasses or unknown perilous creatures along the way.

 

This is, of course, native Martian habitat. I am always fully armed with the latest weaponry.

 

🏹

 

Keep up the good work Mr. Baron. How you solder these tiny parts, I do not know. I suspect that you May have grafted on a Martian hand, comprising of 15 fingers, all a foot long and a quarter of an inch thick 👽.

 

Ok, back off for some more likes. Just strapping my undies to the pole.

 

Best regards 

TonyT

[TheBaron]

2 hours ago, Martian Hale said:

Beautiful! The work not you of course.

Always the bridesmaid, never the bride......

2 hours ago, TonyTiger66 said:

 

I keep running out of likes. Rather like an Arctic explorer, I then have to bash a pole into the thread, hang a pair of unwashed but bright red long johns from it and trek back to base camp for more likes.

You have not lost your touch with the earthy epithet I see.

Welcome back  TT!

2 hours ago, TonyTiger66 said:

How you solder these tiny parts, I do not know.

These guys are my gods Tony:

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2019/feb/22/art-watchmaking-craig-rebecca-struthers-jewellery-quarter-birmingham-pictures

 

 

One last addendum this evening.

 

I've had a section of that 'RAF Ferry Pilot' film I posted a while back playing on loop earlier this afternoon. Moving pictures - as always - are a boon in helping to visualize the three-dimensionality of an interior both spatially, and seeing people moving around within it to get a sense of scale against the human body:

This angle made me recollect that there were issues with the cabin windows (you'll recall I'd already blocked off the small ones at the back on either side as they were moulded in the wrong places) and looking this view reminded me that I also needed to cut the main run of windows further back by about 5mm, as has been done here:

You can see the replacement smaller windows and starboard door drawn in readiness for cutting out, (I'm using a jeweller's saw for all these jobs now and the razor saw is in retirement as a consequence) plus I need to sort out that downward curve along the top rear of the main windows to account for their extension. That can, however, wait until next time, as I smell homemade pizza wafting from the kitchen and Nigella does not hold a candle to Mrs. B in such matters.

 

God bless this ship thread and all who sail wail in her it. 

 

 

[keefr22]

4 minutes ago, TheBaron said:

God bless this ship thread and all who sail wail in her it. 

 

 

 

[giemme]

Ok Tony, now you're definitely a soldering god

 

And welcome back TT @TonyTiger66 !

 

Ciao

[perdu]

Tony, as a man who worked in many of those Jewellery Quarter buildings I want to thank you for the link you posted

 

Nostalgia huh, you canny whack it mon

 

👍

 

Annie will of course simply be the best yet or even ever

[Andwil]

I thoroughly enjoy watching these brass details come together and when I stop to remind myself how small they must be in reality I am completely gobsmacked.

 

Amazing work.

 

AW

[bigbadbadge]

Hi Tony

On my weekly catch up.  More amazing brass work on the pedals etc.  Looking fabulous fella.

Keep up the good work.

All the best

Chris

[TheBaron]

18 hours ago, giemme said:

Ok Tony, now you're definitely a soldering god

I'm thinking of moving into ferrofluids next!

 

Thanks for the kind compliment Giorgio.

16 hours ago, perdu said:

Tony, as a man who worked in many of those Jewellery Quarter buildings I want to thank you for the link you posted

Brilliant. I'm glad it brought back some pleasant memories Bill.

12 hours ago, Andwil said:

I thoroughly enjoy watching these brass details come together and when I stop to remind myself how small they must be in reality I am completely gobsmacked.

Glad you're enjoying it AW, no matter how glacial progress might be.... 😁

4 hours ago, bigbadbadge said:

More amazing brass work on the pedals etc.

That Reheat stuff really is superbly etched Chris - I'm just sorry they no longer seem to be in business and prices are starting to go up for the remaining stuff on the 'bay.

 

Modelling as you guys don't need me to tell you is a tawdry business sometimes, despite the unrealistically glamorous way it gets hyped up in the media. This morning I was doing an Ant Hill Mob by machine-gunning the beast with a drill in preparation for excising the door opening:

 - when some injudicious pressure 'twixt forefinger and thumb resulted in the previous patch (to cover up the Airfix door being in the wrong place) popping off:

Looks like one of those mental dreams in which you imagine your teeth falling out. 😠

 

Anything can be repaired of course - and this is no exception - but the few hours I'd hoped to crack on to other things this morning by necessity turned into the plastic equivalent of:

 

All that starboard mullarkey is done and s0 an set overnight now, plus I did successfully get the rearmost  window opening cut in it's corrected location to port:

Looks ghastly in that rembryonic state as always but I do believe in posting pics of the bad and the ugly, as well as the good of the process.

 

Them rivets around the wing fairing may well end up going as they're a bit Brunel-like in intensity, plus I need to finish hollowing out the recess for the Browning up in the nose and rebuild that. There's a set of Quickboost  barrels floating around in a Blackburn Roc box somewhere that I might cannibalize for that.

 

With work pulling the brain in so many directions these days I'm often too knackered to do more than read the papers of an evening but have of late discovered the pleasure of the Paul Temple series of audiobooks to fall asleep to. Like a supremely snooty English version of Scooby Doo (virtuous and condescending upper classes, evil foreigners, deferential proles &etc.), it's interesting how much they differ from the radio plays of the same series (with Peter Coke and Marjorie Westbury), which were heavier on the exciting drama and kept much of  the the class-conscious crap in abeyance. It reminds me (in a different way) of how Lovejoy translated to television as a  hugely entertaining rogue rather than the blackly humorous con-man and woman-beater of the original novels.

 

There. That's cheered you up! 🤦‍♂️

I'm off to listen to Paul Temple and the Front Page Men. I bet Colonel Mustard did it in the Library with the Lead Pipe and amazed the Vicar....

Tony

 

 

 

 

[Tomoshenko]

Lovely work Tony as ever, albeit quite mad (in a thoroughly nice way). Enjoyed the link about the Jewellery Quarter in Brum. Sad to see the industry decline, oh well, at least soon we'll be able to boast being home to the world's largest Primark.... 

[perdu]

And henceforth I may return to The Judas Pair, a very suitable black hearted tale

I confess I never read/heard any Temple audio books, I may search the local charriddee shops for examples

Gwyn my long suffering/suffered wife oftentimes returns from such forays with a Christie or a Mortimer in tow to help absorb the sins of having wed a looney

 

me!

 

Perzoomably that is a nepoxy resin affixing the side repairs on there

 

(Cant say I'd be in favour of inverting a Strat to get at its gubbinses, Beck must be too avante-garde for me then if he approves. Must write to Eric to see where he stands on the issue...)

 

[here Bill cheerfully interrupts his narrative to munch a very satisfactory Lidl own brand bakery Bramley Apple pie, he might be some time...]

 

 

[corsaircorp]

Hola El Baron !!

Glad to see that there will be some plastic parts on your B&S jewel !!

It's Always a pleasure to look at your build !!

Glad to see TT back too !!

On ‎2‎/‎18‎/‎2019 at 8:30 PM, Terry1954 said:

Well as Chris says, f you are coming to Dorset in July Tony, don't forget I am a mere stones throw from Swanage itself,  a short range artillery shot from Bovington, and given the right weather and wind direction, less than an hour from the FAA museum! Would be great to synchronise plans and pull off a meet.

 

Terry

One hour from FAA Museum….

sound like a dream to me !!

On ‎2‎/‎18‎/‎2019 at 7:19 PM, bbudde said:

 

 

for God sake Dear Martian

Put your pant back on !! There could be kids around here😨

 

[CedB]

Bad luck with the door fix Tony but well recovered.

Loving this stuff  

[hendie]

4 hours ago, TheBaron said:

 

 

Looks like you have uncovered a serious infestation of the lesser known cousin to our old friend, the British woodworm... the Styrenicus Munchalotus.  Though I find it a bit strange you found them in this particular kit - they do tend to prefer the more exotic Matchbox colors and those of Far Eastern Sci-Fi subjects

 

 

 

4 hours ago, TheBaron said:

Looks ghastly in that rembryonic state as always but I do believe in posting pics of the bad and the ugly, as well as the good of the process.

 

as the old adage states - Thoust cannot an omelette au Fabergé maketh, lest thou commiteth first to the breaketh of les oeufs de Fabergé

 

 

 

 

 

 

[pheonix]

Catching up again Tony: when I look at your brasswork I realise that I am but a mere beginner.... The size of those parts is such that I would need an eye loupe just t see them - getting the tip of a hot soldering iron anywhere near and having any control would be pie in the sky for me!

 

I do sympathise with the door disaster though - that seems to happen all too often to me - I seem to spend as much time repairing pieces (or just making new ones) as I do sticking new bits together..grrr.

 

However I have enjoyed greatly more of your undoubted skill, (and what we do not see - nearly unlimited patience), in putting together the remnants of an Airfix kit.

 

P

[bbudde]

Looking great so for Tony. Some mishaps here and there and the world is going around.  But wait: Not always: I was very saddened (still) as I heard about the death of Mark Hollis of Talk Talk. One of my favourite bands in difficult times of my youth as a teenager. Grand music!  Can't be bad after loving it 33 years later or nearly!! So for him:

Sorry being off topic with this, Tony. Cheers

Edited February 28, 2019 by bbudde