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The Brummagen IPMS Beer Mat Challenge – RS Models 1/72 Avro Rota C.30


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Yerssss  that falling out of bed bit is a bugger isnt it

Last time I did it stopped me getting out at the crackodawn to drive to a Motor Racing Forum Film show

 

Proper peeved about that but I was too damaged to drive to Herts

 

As to the models, research thereof, I would love to see how you tackle the racing Mustangs and Corsairs

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Thank you gentlemen. the links are most useful Dave (PS you need to do a Thomas Flyer in honour of my namesake -  my thread, my orders). I have a couple of those. Here's a lovely image from Getty:

 

cierva-c-30.jpg

 

The natural metal finish is quite pronounced.

 

On ‎2‎/‎20‎/‎2019 at 10:04 AM, Courageous said:

Go on @Tomoshenko, you know you want to...:wicked:

 

Stuart

You're a naughty man Stuart.....

 

I think I'll leave the brass tubing to the Baron. I have been up to some scratch building though. I won’t be adding quite as much detail as in the diagram, but that said I made some progress on the side wall. I removed the plastic blobby bits first.

 

IMG-4714.jpg

 

Then I made the throttle and mixture levers, plus a reinforcement plate will lies behind the footwell on the exterior – hence the slight bulge (you can just about see it above). This were made from take-away foil, copper wire and bits of plastic rod.

 

IMG-4711.jpg

 

Here they are assembled with the addition of little flare gun box from the kit's sprue.

 

IMG-4718.jpg

 

The wire will be trimmed back obviously, and it is all dry fitted in place for the time being. The plan (what could possibly go wrong) is to paint these cockpit green (dark red for the flare box) separately and then just glue them in place.

 

I will try and get another update in on Saturday before I go on holiday for ten days. See yous later.

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Still on my holibobs Bill, soaking up sunshine, beer and Britmodeller in Gran Canaria. I return to soggy Blighty on Friday, whereupon fiddling with plastic and take-away tin foil continues 😎

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Beautiful work Tomo. Those details are sublimely supreme in their tiny eye-aching splendour. 

Head back to the bar and have a Dry Martini on me.*

 

*It's knowing that I cared enough to tell you to pay for your own drink that counts, doesn't it?

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I just caught up with this Tomo.

Lovely work on the interior 👍.

 

I have the old Azur kit, it’s a little different to this one. Unusual and worrying things like the attachment points at the base of the rotor blades being tiny pieces of resin 😟.

 

I have never dared to start it. I will watch carefully and try to glean some clues to help me build up the courage.

 

I’m looking forward to seeing you do the shiny bits on the cowl 👍.

 

I hope you’re having a great time in Gran Canaria. I went there in 2004 and completely fell out with the lady I went with. The first relationship after my late first wife passed away.

 

My nightmare holiday from hell was saved  halfway through due to a young lad of about 17 that had similarly fallen out with his mum and sister, that were, as such things work out, spending the time with my now ex and her daughter.

 

I had a grand time with the lad on the airgun range and tennis courts of the place we were at. He made superb model aircraft, motorcycles and cars out of aluminium drinks cans and a pair of scissors and had a fairly endless supply of rather superb Gran Canaria cigars too.

 

I felt like Hugh Grant in ‘About A Boy’ 😂!

 

Holiday completely  rescued, much to the chagrin of the now ex. 

 

It’s a good place for a holiday; with the right company 😉 

 

Best regards

TonyT

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Thanks Tony. Glad you had a nice time there. 

 

Roight up then. Back from a couple of weeks in sunny Gran Canaria. Lovely weather, beer and food. Here is a piccie of the island on approach to Las Palmas airport and a Ryanair Boeing 737 engine.

 

IMG-4719.jpg

 

On my return awaiting me were bills, chilly weather and my computer completely crashed. Anyroad, first world problems. I have returned to work, both in the paid employment arena, and the more enjoyable modelling arena. Here’s a brief update.

 

I’ve turned to the starboard side of the pilot’s pit. The trim tab control lever is urm nicely cough cough moulded … In fairness it is in approximately the right place and could be picked out with a little dry-brushing etc. However, I felt it could be improved upon.

 

IMG-4776.jpg

 

The blobby plastic was sanded away and the ribs were replaced.

 

IMG-4787.jpg

 

Then I scratched the petrol on / off rod, a fire extinguisher as I am a follower of the Nigel Heath school of fire extinguishers (I’m still a budding student trying to emulate the master himself); and the trim tab lever. These are not glued in place yet, as it will be easier to paint them separately.

 

IMG-4790.jpg

 

I think that’s an improvement and once painted should stand out nicely. Methinks this isn’t going to be a quick build despite its size given the extra fiddly bits I’ve taken upon myself to add. However, I’m beginning to get into the build and enjoy it. Next is the co-pilot’s / navigator’s pit, and I want to see if I can improve the IPs. TBC.

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Nice

 

The beer, nosh and sun of course

The plastic looks as if it was crush moulded from all the bits under my workbench

 

Which means you are doing a remarkable job in taming it and turning it into the fabulous little thing its going to be

 

Glad you had a good time, see ya soon

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The actual representation of the instruments and dials isn’t bad. They appear reasonably accurate when compared with the plans Patrik sent me and some reference photos (museum restored so the proverbial pinch of salt is required). However, the moulding is a little lumpy come blobby. I thought I’d see what I could do to add a little more definition. Rather than faff around sanding back and drilling out the kit bits, I started again from scratch.

 

Some beer can foil was glued to some thin plastic sheet to give it more depth and marked out approximately.

 

IMG-4793.jpg

 

The dials were punched out.

 

IMG-4800.jpg

 

With this being the result.

 

IMG-4804.jpg

 

It was then sanded to shape and tidied up a little. Here it is compared to the kit original.

 

IMG-4806.jpg

 

And here it is with little bits and bobs stuck on.

 

IMG-4817.jpg

 

And here is the forward IP:

 

IMG-4820.jpg

 

What I will do is glue a sheet of acetate to the back, and then either paint the back of the acetate black or stick a sheet of black painted plastic sheet on the back, whatever looks better. I suspect there will be little difference between the two options so the former sounds less hassle. The IPs will be painted NATO black and the raised bits proper black, yellow for the thermometer. Once dry-brushed they should look pretty respectable.

 

Here they are together. There is a little dial on the bottom right hand side of the pilot’s IP which I will glue onto a little stub of slater’s rod. By the way Bill here is your shilling. If you want it back then it’ll cost you 12p!

 

IMG-4843.jpg

 

As you can see they are not wholly accurate in comparison with the originals and reference data but not far off – let’s just hope they fit…

 

Next up is the forward cockpit section, co-pilot or navigator. Not a lot of reference piccies of much detail for this area on hand, so some edjumucated guessifaction may be in order.

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5 hours ago, zigster said:

I would love to see some (or all) entered kits. (photos please!!)

Moa should fit with his "production" though :-))

zig

Its a real fun competition and we've had some fantastic entries

Last year was a ditched USN Wildcat that won and the year before was a folded up Westland Wasp

This year might be a Rota, we know that Tomo is a hard act to follow/beat

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  • 1 month later...

Roight up then. Hope you had a bostin' Easter. Weather was certainly the dog's. Good to be back at the bench after the usual domestics and works stuff got in the way of proper enjoyment. I must confess to being a tad stumped as to forward details at this point. Because the pilot occupied the rear seat, many references focus on this area. In some instances the forward area was blanked off. Search after search on tinternet drew a blank until I stumbled on a couple of Russian sources. It appears that the Avro Rota has quite a following in Russian circles. One particular source caught my eye below is a number of museum exhibits – what’s not to like.

 

My compliments to the contributor:

https://igor113.livejournal.com/778197.html

 

Rota-side-view.jpg

 

Rota-side-view2.jpg

 

Anyroad I accepted I was never going to get a definitive source of the front end, but as you can see from the above, there are similarities across the different versions. Some of the controls are replicated and there are control cables and stuff visible. Much of this would be from the IPs which run through apertures in the forward bulkhead which are just about visible in some of the piccies. First up was to discard the kit bulkheads and make new ones. Then I corrected the seats, which sit much lower than the kit version does (I filed down the plinth they sit on) and sanded the top of the seat flatter so it fits lower down in the fuselage.

 

IMG-4850.jpg

 

IMG-4857.jpg

 

Approximate dry fits so you get an idea. Next was to tackle the door opening. It is a retractable door, a little like a breadbin door I reckon. In the museum exhibits above it is clear that there is no ribbing beneath the door aperture and there is a flange come recess that the door slides up and down in. I’d never be able to quite replicate the thinness at scale, but the kit version left me wanting. Obviously had I not opened up the door aperture in the first place then I wouldn’t have been presented with this problem.

 

Anyroad the internal moulded ribbing below got sanded away.

 

IMG-4888.jpg

 

I sanded quite a lot of the plastic away to thin it down. Not that I’d ever be able to get it down to scale but any improvement was welcome.

 

IMG-4890.jpg

 

Next I made the door out of beer can foil. The advantages of using beer can foil is that it is still ultra thin, but thick enough to retain its shape and be soft enough to work with. The disadvantage is that you have to drink beer in order to get the foil. However, I am prepared to take one for the collective modelling team as it were and drink plenty of beer – duty calls. Unsurprisingly I have a lot of stock!

 

 

IMG-4896.jpg

 

Now with this completed another problem presented itself. As you can see the thickness of the plastic is not in scale at all and there is no impression that the door slides up and down within an aperture come recess.

 

IMG-4910.jpg

 

Below gives some idea of the look I want to emulate.

 

Rota-side-view3.jpg

 

I glued a piece of plasticard onto the foil to bulk out the door – only the area showing above the lower aperture frame so it looks as though the door fits inside some sort of recess. More beer can foil added to represent a flange along the top of the door and along each side of the aperture.

 

IMG-4943.jpg

 

I wanted the flanges showing showing so the casual observer (very casual from a couple of foot away) will think the door really does slide up and down in a sort of Trompe-l'œil way.

 

IMG-4940.jpg

 

I rebuilt the internal framing so it sort of looks the door would slide up and down. Not perfect but I do feel it is an improvement on the kit offering. Plus it is more 3D dimensionalike…

 

IMG-4941.jpg

 

OK I hope that makes sense. I’ve been busy making more levers and controls and stuff, and remade my earlier attempts which in retrospect were a little overscale. That’s for next time.

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That's the way to...

 

Looks very b. excellent Tomo, nice Trompe-ing mate

 

Glad you're getting on so nicely, I thought you'd been overtaken by the pleasures of the Fightin'Cocks and left us behind

 

🍻🍻

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 3/19/2019 at 8:01 PM, Tomoshenko said:

What I will do is glue a sheet of acetate to the back, and then either paint the back of the acetate black or stick a sheet of black painted plastic sheet on the back, whatever looks better. I suspect there will be little difference between the two options so the former sounds less hassle. The IPs will be painted NATO black and the raised bits proper black, yellow for the thermometer. Once dry-brushed they should look pretty respectable.

 

 

Hey Tom, invest in some of these:

 

http://mikegrantdecals.com/shop/product/cockpit-details-world-war-ii-3/

 

33956451318_f6af6f7905_b.jpg&key=3a3fb6e

 

I'm using them on my current build and so is @Nigel Heath, given your  attention to detail so far it would be perfect and give me something to squint at when you bring it to SMW this year...

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On 23/04/2019 at 21:40, Tomoshenko said:

drink plenty of beer – duty calls

I have a similar problem with wine bottle foil and seat belts. My wife helps with stocking up too. I just can't model fast enough...

 

The door is certainly good enough to for this casual observer! Very convincing mechanism.

 

Regards,

Adrian

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Thanks Anil. I haven't shelved this by the way. I've been busy on my allotment which soaks up a lot of work this time of year. Have been doing bits n bobs and will update when have a little more substantial to post.

 

3 hours ago, AdrianMF said:

I have a similar problem with wine bottle foil and seat belts. My wife helps with stocking up too. I just can't model fast enough...

Glad you're taking one for the team Adrian...

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