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Listening to the Solstice


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To sharpen the edges you could always sand down a little and glue on strips of plastic rod then use filler to smooth it all out. That's what I did with the Donnet-Leveque and it worked a treat.

Lovely looking buck though, I'm looking forward to this.....

 

Ian

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7 hours ago, perdu said:

:yes:    Lookie right to me

 

6 hours ago, Terry1954 said:

They look right to me too.

Thanks you two. :thumbsup2:

6 hours ago, Terry1954 said:

They are surely the biz!

That was the problem Terry - I bought them thinking "Need rocket launcher + they look nice = buy" and only later stopped to :hmmm:were they indeed appropriate for the era!

6 hours ago, Fritag said:

Might be worth vacforming one or two prior to reducing the size of the buck?

Reads this *after* reducing the buck. :facepalm:

 

6 hours ago, Fritag said:

Experimentation is probably the only way forward.

Indeed: the very spice of life Steve! 😄

You make a most persuasive  - if not downright elegant - case of course for a thinner 'shell' on the moulding of course re: reinforcing bulkheads &etc. :thanks:

I learned on the Iron Chicken build that I'm nowhere near good enough a vacformer to achieve a perfect crisp moulding straight out of the gate so in this instance will try a 'belt & braces' thicker moulding which can then have any final shaping/sharpening carried out in situ. And then of course there's:

3 hours ago, limeypilot said:

To sharpen the edges you could always sand down a little and glue on strips of plastic rod then use filler to smooth it all out. That's what I did with the Donnet-Leveque and it worked a treat.

Which may well come into play Ian. :thumbsup2:

 

There's going to be some damn fiddly stuff to get those little fanlight windows in lower side and front of the nose sorted too but at least I can a avoid doing the big bomb-aiming one by having the central panel closed.

 

Anyway.

Here's the reduced/polished buck now tonight:

IMG_1178

A blob of spare Milliput from the freezer (finally learned to store excess after a session rather than wastefully throwing it away as I used to do) to stand it proud of the base for the vacformer:

IMG_1180

Did get the DF aerial built last night as well but forgot to post a shot:

IMG_1164

Unlikely to get any more achieved tonight now as the kittens have discovered the sun-heated flags in the kitchen and need playing with:

2019-07-16_07-37-25

Hopefully pull a test vac tomorrow!

 

Night all.

:bye:

Tony

 

 

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1 hour ago, TheBaron said:

Unlikely to get any more achieved tonight now as the kittens have discovered the sun-heated flags in the kitchen and need playing with:

2019-07-16_07-37-25

That lot look perfectly capable of entertaining themselves - and causing untold mayhem....!!

 

Love the cheetah spots on matey in the foreground!

 

K

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Glad to see you are back Tony and are resuming your masterclass in making a wonderful silk purse from a dog's ear. Will be continuing to follow along so that I can pick up some more good ideas from you.

 

P

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2 hours ago, TheBaron said:

A blob of spare Milliput from the freezer (finally learned to store excess after a session rather than wastefully throwing it away as I used to do)

Wait, that sounds interesting: can you expand on this procedure, please? In particular, how do you reactivate it once pulled out from the freezer? TIA

 

Commendable job on the milliput master, BTW - as ever :worthy:

 

Ciao

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14 hours ago, keefr22 said:

That lot look perfectly capable of entertaining themselves - and causing untold mayhem....!!

Four of them on the bed first thing this morning. Headphones chewed, socks stolen, cold tea sampled. Bliss....

That's them doing it not me, obvs... :laugh:

14 hours ago, keefr22 said:

Love the cheetah spots on matey in the foreground!

That's Max: he's the parkour expert of the group in blazing trails to the highest and most perilous spots in any room. The other three are Marmalade, Lumi, and Tiny Kitten.

14 hours ago, pheonix said:

Glad to see you are back Tony and are resuming your masterclass in making a wonderful silk purse from a dog's ear.

And to see you back as well Mr. P. I hope all goes well with you sir?

14 hours ago, giemme said:

Wait, that sounds interesting: can you expand on this procedure, please? In particular, how do you reactivate it once pulled out from the freezer? TIA

Giorgio: I recall reading this hack some time back on the forum here so kudos to whoever discovered that if - as I invariably do - you mix up too much Milliput for the job in hand, simply roll the remainder into a ball and pop it into the freezer covered in cling-film. Then you can simply thaw it out and continue to use in a following session. Current ball has already been through the freeze/thaw cycle now three times with no loss of utility. I guess the low temp/lack of air inhibits whatever chemical reactions usual take place in the curing process -  the 'Black Sea Wreck' principle of preservation? :laugh:

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2109843-dozens-of-ancient-shipwrecks-spotted-deep-beneath-the-black-sea/

It's great to have a way to conserve materials and thus avoid adding to landfill...

 

Shorts and sweet this morning.

Vacform pulled and dropped on to Annie for a quick eyeballing:

IMG_1181

Not yet trimmed to height and depth in that above shot but anxious as you can imagine to check dimensionality hot off the grid.

Personally astonished to see that the first instance fits as required when sanded down (sorry for blurry photo):

IMG_1184

I used the same 1mm thick black stuff here as previously on the tail of the Iron Chicken and it seems to have brought out curvatures nicely whilst giving a strong surface to mount the pitot onto later on (another concern with thin walls).

A couple of issues need taking care of, a) as you can see above the planar undersurface where the sliding door that covered the bomb-aimer's window needs (as predicted) to have the edges sharpened. Needle files alone might sort this, otherwise @limeypilots previously posted technique may come into play as required. There is some surface detail and panelling to add so this may alleviate the problem in itself.

Item b) is that as you can see below:

IMG_1185

the shape match between vacform and kit works nicely in this view but also reveals that for some reason I had a blind spot that the white plastic rib added previously (for it to mate with at the correct height) was clumsily glued at an angle. I think when filing the kit smooth in that area after cutting the original underside off I had the file at an angle and stupidly failed to notice when sticking the rib on. As a result, what looks like a difference in height in that above shot is a 1mm gap just along the very top (which I've since cured by inserting a wedge of scrap plastic).

The front face of the nose and sundry window openings will be dealt with later when me nerves has settled down a bit.

 

With the vacform now glued into position, Annie is this morning looking a bit nicholsonbarchintown_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqqjZXSKb4-hnf3JEA7FdENu1lnTGARUN7P1anNu6W8gc.jpg?imwidth=450 swathed in tape whilst it cures:

IMG_1189

 

Coffee I think. And that last tripel-choc shortbread.

 

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Thanks for the milliput procedure, Tony - this is going to come in very handy :thanks:

 

Glad to see the vaforming worked properly straight away :clap: :clap:

 

Ciao

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Very nice!

I'd be tempted to use a fine razor saw to remove the entire lower surface of the moulded part, or at least the forward part of it, and replace with a piece of plastic sheet (or file it down a little instead). That way you won't have to deal with 4 edges on the sides, only 2 plus the front, and you're guaranteed to have a flat underside which can be blended into the curvature at the rear end with filler/milliput.

 

Ian

Edited by limeypilot
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Cracking vacforming Tony, the lower nose piece looks better than anything plastic that came in the Airfix kit!

 

3 hours ago, TheBaron said:

Tiny Kitten.

 

Bet (s)he grows up to be the biggest, baddest cat in the whole posse...(or pusse... :coat:) Four lovely little felines! :)

 

K

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On 7/15/2019 at 7:40 PM, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

Took the words right out of mouth, obviously: quite clearly an oblate curve with increasing planar-itude.

 

At least, it would be if I had anything more than a very, very hazy idea what any of that meant.

 

[Tricky profile to reproduce, but for a Baron armed with SIHRSC, all is possible].

 

One of those awkward moments when you refuse to accept that you truly don't have a freaking clue what someone just said. And I used to climb 100 foot pine trees to mount planar microwave antennas for digital entertainment services, and I didn't have a clue what the Barron is talking about!

 

(walks away whistling and kicking rocks)

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5 hours ago, Stalker6Recon said:

One of those awkward moments when you refuse to accept that you truly don't have a freaking clue what someone just said.

 

Glad you said that, I was scared to....!!!

 

K

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Given the fact that my Met instructor was always banging on about how the Earth is an “oblate spheroid”, (a sphere which is slightly squashed at the poles) and I know roughly what ‘’planar” means, I think our Baronial friend is saying that the profile of the Anson’s lower nose starts out as a flattened curve, and gets flatter as you go forwards.

 

Quite why he couldn’t simply say that is a mystery that only he can explain...

Edited by Ex-FAAWAFU
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7 hours ago, Stalker6Recon said:

 

One of those awkward moments when you refuse to accept that you truly don't have a freaking clue what someone just said. And I used to climb 100 foot pine trees to mount planar microwave antennas for digital entertainment services, and I didn't have a clue what the Barron is talking about!

 

(walks away whistling and kicking rocks)

I hope no rocks were harmed during those sad self-doubting sessions

 

I am a great believer in being a friend of The Earth...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Honest

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23 hours ago, limeypilot said:

I'd be tempted to use a fine razor saw to remove the entire lower surface

You'll not be surprised to read Ian that.... (see below) :laugh:

On 7/17/2019 at 12:37 PM, giemme said:

Glad to see the vaforming worked properly straight away :clap: :clap:

And then got more complicated again! 😆

22 hours ago, keefr22 said:

Cracking vacforming Tony, the lower nose piece looks better than anything plastic that came in the Airfix kit!

'Tis getting there Keith.

That nose underside is a bit more complicated than it appears in many photographs (and causing me to puzzle it out in greater detail as a consequence), not only with the number of small windows concerned but equally to do with the way a series of variously curved, angular and flat surfaces come together in the for'ard most parts...

It all looked so simple on the kit.... :frantic:

21 hours ago, CedB said:

Well done Tony - you've pulled ( :D ) marvellously.

:rofl2:

Never tell your wife you're heading into the workroom for a quick pull before bed.

30 years of living together and yet still I forget about context....

10 hours ago, Stalker6Recon said:

I didn't have a clue what the Barron is talking about!

:rofl:

They say a prophet is always misunderstood in his own country Anthony

I appear to have gone global. #profusionofconfusion

5 hours ago, keefr22 said:

Glad you said that, I was scared to....!!!

On the subject of confusion Keith: first time driving my wife through your homeland in the late nineties she noted how many places there were named 'Gwasanaethau' on the various signs that we passed. Not wishing to admit my ignorance I muttered something vague about Welsh being an ancient and mysterious language. Later find out 'Gwasanaethau' is the Welsh word for 'Services' (as in petrol stations)...

3 hours ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

Quite why he couldn’t simply say that is a mystery that only he can explain...

And I cheat at Scrabble.

3 hours ago, perdu said:

I am a great believer in being a friend of The Earth...

A friendly planet is a happy planet. 🌍:heart:

 

You'll recall my earlier concerns about getting the windows as well as shapes in the forward nose section sorted. As on many occasions, careful study of photographs reveals this region to be more complex in close-up and so I had to take a critical decision to either approximate or express more faithfully. It wasn't really much of a choice as the latter is the only satisfactory route and so @limeypilots prescription came into play, to whit contour saws brandished and problematic sections removed:

 

IMG_1190

Looks brutal but there is a method behind this surgery. To explain requires pulling a second *transparent* version on the buck:

IMG_1192

Which is then turned into:

IMG_1199

in order to go into here:

IMG_1202

This solves two problems simultaneously. There's now a nice sharp change from planar to curved surface (as Ian prognosticated), plus the required areas of transparency front and side that can now be mask off to form the lower windows. Being pulled from 0.5mm transparency, this latter mould didn't quite fit the 1mm black stuff of course but since that shot above revealed this issue, I've been able to bend those front transparent edges nice and flush.

Epoxy applied and taped down to cure:

IMG_1204

I suspect that the front part of that transparency may not be at the exact angle to meet a rebuilt front of the nose but it should be feasibly enough to slice at each corner and bend the top of that 'chin' forward as required to meet the inward slop of the nose in that region.

 

Pleased with that solution as not getting them windows sorted would have bugged me no end.

 

Thanks for looking.

:bye:

Tony

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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wow again.  complete overload in trying to catch up here.  It's almost too complex to even begin to respond to.  Suffice to say that I think I have caught up now with the exception of understanding any of those big words that have been thrown about from post to post.

Them windaes is pure dead brilliant (as west coast parlance would have it)

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This is some strong work Tony, I of course would have just given up (please see past liberator build for an example) but I knew this would not be the case for you.

 

After the vixen’s, so some time at the start of 2021, can we do a Tony’s challenge section on BM? Like with the group build everyone can think of ideas and put them forward then we vote.... and you build it?

 

Personally I think it’s got legs.

 

Rob

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On 7/18/2019 at 4:38 PM, Martian Hale said:

Your efforts with that transparent section are most impressive

Why thank-you dreamboat!

rBVaI1l5eiWAKuWxAADo2p5u6eQ776.jpg

On 7/18/2019 at 5:15 PM, hendie said:

Suffice to say that I think I have caught up now with the exception of understanding any of those big words that have been thrown about from post to post.

Garn.

And you one of Scotland's most ardent alloy transcendentalists....

On 7/18/2019 at 5:19 PM, rob85 said:

I of course would have just given up (please see past liberator build for an example) but I knew this would not be the case for you.

The faith is strong in this one. :laugh:

:thanks:

On 7/18/2019 at 5:19 PM, rob85 said:

Like with the group build everyone can think of ideas and put them forward then we vote.... and you build it?

I thought slavery had been abolished. 😬🤪

23 hours ago, CedB said:

Nice work on the nose Tony - impressive, as usual!

I got a new nasal hair trimmer on holiday too!

23 hours ago, limeypilot said:

Not quite what I was thinking of, but it works!

:rofl:

You potayto, I say potahto chips...

46 minutes ago, giemme said:

Oh boy....

Language please Giorgio! :shocked:

Martians may be watching and are notoriously prudish.

 

Spent a large part of today calculating cement/sand/ballast/brick quantities as need to get a delivery done and start work building a greenhouse foundation before August. We inherited a rather handsome 8'x8' metal and glass affair from my mother-in-law after she passed away last year and had disassembled and hauled it over here to Baron Acres (due to it being one of those indestructible 70s ones that seem to have been built to a military grade of durability).

 

And now we're in the middle of a loud and louring thunderstorm so don't know it the power will go before finishing this....

2019-07-19_05-20-26

Did make some more progress on Annie however, starting with building up the nose to correct length and angle at the very front using scrap plastic strip:

IMG_1206

Once the glue had dried, this was filed/sanded to the reguired curving profile:

IMG_1207

Because there needs to be a big circular window facing forward, a front panel of 0.5mm transparent PET (same used for vacforming the lower windows) was then epoxied into place:

IMG_1208

 - on the principle that  it's easier to mask off a circular section for painting than trying to add in a separate circular plastic window later. I need to shaped the sides of that PET in to match the side curvatures of the nose tomorrow once the glue has cured. Then it will be times to turn attention to extending the rest of the belly, which can hopefully be done using the 'scored plastic' method outlined on here previously by Ian.

 

Remaining snag list as it stands today:

  1. build ailerons, actuators and hinges.
  2. make replacement blisters for rear of the rear wing roots.
  3. construct landing lights for port wing and all navigation lights.
  4. add foil panels to port engine nacelle (to make stand *slightly* proud from rear section) and add dinghy panel to starboard nacelle.
  5. build remaining aerials, pitots, windscreen wipers, and thermometer housing.
  6. finish empennage regarding hinges &etc. for elevator and rudder (which also needs a mass balance for the top).
  7. add port engine, cowling and exhaust.

Most of these tasks are detailed rather than complicated and although most are individually small, will require careful attention due the amount that they will affect the final visuals of the aircraft.

 

Thunder's getting really loud now.

Better send whilst the network's still up!

:bye:

Tony

 

 

 

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13 minutes ago, TheBaron said:

Remaining snag list as it stands today:

  1. build ailerons, actuators and hinges.
  2. make replacement blisters for rear of the rear wing roots.
  3. construct landing lights for port wing and all navigation lights.
  4. add foil panels to port engine nacelle (to make stand *slightly* proud from rear section) and add dinghy panel to starboard nacelle.
  5. build remaining aerials, pitots, windscreen wipers, and thermometer housing.
  6. finish empennage regarding hinges &etc. for elevator and rudder (which also needs a mass balance for the top).
  7. add port engine, cowling and exhaust.

 

8. Paint the thing....!!

 

K

 

(the 'thing' looks marvellous b.t.w....!!)

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