We Three Kings...

[andyf117]

1 hour ago, Head in the clouds. said:

I have been looking for pics of these so I could build theme but could not find the one angle I wanted until now and wouldn't you know it, I found it on BM. It seems that the bottle is not held by a cross shaped bracket as seen here but by 2 parallel plates with a cross bar  at each end and a plate between, as seen here;

Apologies, Gary - I should have picked up from your earlier photos the direction you were headed in with the bomb fins; I neglected to specify in our message exchange that I'd used WW2-style 'squared' ones for mine, and assumed you'd have seen the bracket style and shape from the second pic I linked to there:

Edited February 4, 2020 by andyf117

[Head in the clouds.]

10 minutes ago, andyf117 said:

Apologies, Gary

Not accepted Andy as non needed😀 if nothing else it kept me busy and honed my skills a little and lets be honest, a large part of modelling is trial and error.

Back to the drawing board then 😉

I did see the second pic but for whatever reason I did not see what I was looking for, I once witnessed an accident and gave the police a totally contradictory report to everyone else. My observational skills are at best poor, at worst comical. This also probably explains why I build my kits twice within the same build thread 😂

[NavyWessex]

Really nice work so far, but can I ask your thoughts on the new tooled Airfix Sea King? I've just binned one close to build finish as I had a problem with getting a good fit on some parts.

 

Especially the single hull piece which fits between the two fuselage halfs, gives a 1mm or 2mm gap to either sides. Alot of filler was needed and ended up looking rough and messy. It's almost as though the cabin section is slightly too wide?

[Head in the clouds.]

6 hours ago, NavyWessex said:

Really nice work so far, but can I ask your thoughts on the new tooled Airfix Sea King? I've just binned one close to build finish as I had a problem with getting a good fit on some parts.

 

Especially the single hull piece which fits between the two fuselage halfs, gives a 1mm or 2mm gap to either sides. Alot of filler was needed and ended up looking rough and messy. It's almost as though the cabin section is slightly too wide?

Thank you @NavyWessex.

My thoughts on the new Airfix kit are mainly positive, the caveat being that the way it is engineered is such that if you get a preceding item slightly out of line or incorrectly placed it will most certainly manifest itself further in the build process. Point in case, the cabin roof can affect joins at the cockpit roof, crew door join in the same area, (very small contact area) cockpit glazing being in 3 parts needs care too. I did take much time dry fitting and trying to pre-empt any issues further in the build but I still had the occasional misalignment that needed some filler or touch up.

I don't know if you have read all this thread but I made a monumental balls up on the hull of XV651 and I too had that sinking feeling.

 

In summary then, the kit has nice detail, goes together well; with care and it's accuracy is, according to my keen eye (see post above)  good.

 

Is the your kit recoverable from the bin, sometimes a spell on the naughty shelf for the kit allows you too gather your thoughts and find a solution?

[Head in the clouds.]

Well, after 6 years back in the modelling chair I had my first dose of ' mojo absent with leave', I dont't know what the industry standard is but I just had a fading of interest to sit at the desk. Much has been going on with within my life at the moment but from a modelling point of view it may be down to duplication. Doing 3 of the same airframe at the same time means a lot of repartition with only small variation and I think this is why, in part, the mojo disappeared, so a note to self, do not build a flight of any single type again. So to this end from now on I shall be concentrating of getting XV371 over the finish line first, then ZB506 and finally XV651. This will help as finding info on XV651 seems to be like trying to find Hen's teeth, the International Helicopter Museum have no more on the subject than myself and Leonardo have not replied to my begging letter so other avenues have been explored. One of these was the PPRuNe forums, I did find a gentleman who worked on the project but his post was over a decade ago and he was already in his senior years so this closed off that avenue.

The search continues....!

 

Just before I plod on with XV371 I did some work on ZB506, in particular the flotation devices that sit under the stub wings. Due to there small size and having no old style bombs with the square style stabilizing fins in my spares box I decided to manufacture them from PE skeleton, a pin vice was invaluable for this task as was my recent purchase of a pair of Escapememnt files, not cheap but necessary with this material at this scale. Anyway, as the saying goes, 'a picture speaks a thousand words' so here are a few of the process;

 

 

 

 

 

Up to this point I was pleased with my work but when it came to soldering the items together that's when it all came un-stuck! The problem was with holding the plates in place while soldering, I just could not get it right so, for the time being, this idea is on the back burner until I return to ZB506.

 

So on with XV371.

 

I felt that to get my mojo flowing again I needed to get to a point where paint was applied and I could see progress so to this end I started adding the last bits of brass and hand hold rails;

 

 

 

These three pics illustrate the final PE items fitted, the home brewed hand holds, fuel vent pipe, tie down points and various aerials and antenna.

 

Not to be forgotten was the little lamp that sits above the sliding door. After looking at my pics of ZB506 I cannot see this lamp fitted in the time frame I am modelling it so I used this for XV371 as the kit did not supply this item. When I came to fit it, it can be seen to sit above the rail guard for the sliding door but the old Airfix item is that large, even after thinning down that I had to fit the lamp to the guard, the alternative was to have it sitting too high and too far back so a comprise was the order of the day.

 

With this done I felt it was time to see what she looked like in grey primer;

 

On the whole, for a kit that is more filler than styrene it look reasonable, some small areas required attention as is expected, one being where the sponson strutt meets the u/c sponson. A light sand and we are good to go.

 

My plan for the painting process is to paint the strips on rather than use decals. The first process is to spray the white areas where the day-glo will be, after doing some test runs I felt the day-glo had a better colour depth than spraying directly to grey;

 

The day-glo I have chosen is the Hannants own brand of International Orange which is a good day-glo choice, not being to harsh to the eye. Some of the photographs of XV371in some publications seem to show the strips being red but the pics I acquired from FAST show day-glo Orange so in light of the evidence before me ma-lord I am opting for Orange.

So on it went;

 

Now, this next stage is fraught with opportunities to ruin the look of this build. I now have to mask for the top blue coat of paint and this is where it can fail. While the Sea King can look like that it is mainly slab sided, it does have many curves to it's form and I have to make sure the strips are all vertical and equally spaced.The main areas of concern are the sponsons, hull and airframe near the radome, as it turned out it was the sponsons that created the biggest headache. I could find no pics to support the fact that the strips wrap around so the day-glo only extends to the centre line of the sponson which was just as well as it would have been much harder to gain a satisfactory result had it been so.

When the masking was applied no matter where I placed them it looked wrong from above or from the side elevation, I just could not so I went for the middle ground.

 

One of the reasons I choose paint over decals was for this very fact of wrapping the decal around the sponson, also, if the painted strips look wrong or fail I can just overpaint and try the decal approach, it would be much more work to do it the other way round.

 

Masking on;

 

As can be seen, one of the masks is different to the others, this is where the airframe has more complex curves so Tamiya flexible tape was used. Also of note is the last of the strips on the rear of the sponson, this was the most difficult to fit, even after this pic it was adjusted several times. All that is left to do was the geese motif, of which there are 3, one on the corner of the sliding door, one to the crew entry door and one on the nose. @andyf117 sent me some spare geese decals just for this task so I put them to use.

First, photocopy decal;

 

Cut out;

 

At this point it would have been nice to be able to stick this straight onto the airframe but I could not think of a way to do it so it was stuck under some masking tape and again cut around;

 

 

The emblem on the nose is posed in a different flight postion with it's head looking back!! This was hand drawn onto the masking tape then cut out in the normal manner, twice in fact as the first was way too big.

 

That's it for now, next up is to fix the geese and overspray the day-glo with more grey primer to give a uniform base for the top coat.

 

Seeing paint on the old girl seems to have restored my mojo, I feel like I am moving forward rather than standing still.

 

Enjoy the rest of your weekend, more to follow later.

 

Thanks for looking.

[hendie]

wow.  great update. Sorry to hear about the mojo going awol but it looks like you're working through it - and beating it.

[andyf117]

Nice catch with spotting the 'bird' on the nose - which I can now just make out on the pic back on page 1....

....from what I can see of it, and with your mention of "different flight postion with it's head looking back", are you sure that it is another duck, and not the RAE Pterodactyl, as seen on the side of 371 in the Mivvi scheme in post 85?

 

[Head in the clouds.]

10 hours ago, andyf117 said:

are you sure that it is another duck, and not the RAE Pterodactyl, as seen on the side of 371 in the Mivvi scheme in post 85?

That is it Andy but  whoever thought that looks like a Pterodactyl must have had a few too many home grown mushrooms🤪, apart from it looking the other way the detail looks almost identical to the duck motif, as seen here in larger detail.

Copyright FAST.

 

This is how I remember a Pterodactyl;

 

 

Now I know I am not the brightest spark in the bucket but......I just can't see it😄

It even has webbed feet, It's a duck..🤔

[Gorby]

48 minutes ago, Head in the clouds. said:

This is how I remember a Pterodactyl

I didn't realise you were that old!

 

Just caught up with this build and been amazed with the magnificent modelling.

[Head in the clouds.]

1 minute ago, Gorby said:

I didn't realise you were that old!

 

Just caught up with this build and been amazed with the magnificent modelling.

It just about sums up how I feel of late Gorby, too tough to eat, to old to keep🤪

 

Thanks for looking in, always nice to have a broad opinion of my work so the more the merrier. As you may have gathered my builds are glacial as far as speed goes, I have been on these since June last year so I hope your chair is wide and comfy.

[andyf117]

On 3/10/2020 at 7:51 PM, Head in the clouds. said:

That is it Andy but  whoever thought that looks like a Pterodactyl must have had a few too many home grown mushrooms🤪, apart from it looking the other way the detail looks almost identical to the duck motif, as seen here in larger detail.

 

This is how I remember a Pterodactyl;

 

Now I know I am not the brightest spark in the bucket but......I just can't see it😄

It even has webbed feet, It's a duck..🤔

It may not be a particularly accurate rendition, but it is supposed to represent the Pterodactyl of the RAE Crest:

 

Edited May 29, 2020 by andyf117

[Head in the clouds.]

8 hours ago, andyf117 said:

Pterodactyl of the RAE Crest:

Now I see it.

Thank goodness our service personnel are better at serving the country than painting what once flew over it 😉

 

Crests and Coats of Arms is a fascinating study in it's own right, every colour, emblem or shape has a meaning and they are very much a story in miniature.

[Head in the clouds.]

This is my first post in a while, my mojo continued to wax and wane so I decided to do something drastic and take a model off the shelf of doom and finish it. It worked and I feel I have my enthusiasm has come back, and in the nick of time with all this time off work to fill. On that note, in these difficult times I hope I found you all in good health and high spirits.

My mojo waned again when I applied the first couple of top layers of paint only to find that it just would not cover, looking patchy and opaque. The paint I am using Xtracolour RAF Blue/Grey which I have used before with no problems but I did notice that after opening the tin a couple of times the next day it had turned to jelly, so was it on the turn, no idea, but I purchased another tin.

 

Once the new paint fell on the door mat it was in the air brush and being applied, my curiosity had to be answered. It was, I seemed to get better coverage this time.

 

Once it had dried after a couple of days it was time to remove the masking. This was a double edged moment, excitement and trepidation in equal measure. Apart from the usual paint bleed that sometimes blights our builds the main worry was that with so many stripes if one is out it will stand out like a sore thumb. They had to be both vertical/horizontal and equally spaced and the only way to find out if they are is to take off the masking, so here goes...

Done. With only the last stripe on the starboard sponson a little wonky I am pleased with it;

 

 

 

 

You can just see the wonky stripe at the rear of the sponson, a little touching up should sort it. You may also notice that green area on the tail, it looks like the masking has removed the paint and some filler;

 

I am going to see what a touch up of paint will do but if that fails I shall try what shall be a very shallow fill and repaint.

 

One thing I did forget to do was to remove the mask off the Mallard and Pterodactyl;

 

The Pterodactyl on the nose is i think a smidgen over size but I think I will let that one go.

 

While my airbrush was revved up and warm I thought it prudent to spray the metal panel where the exhaust ports are, from pics I have seen these can sometimes be polished or sometimes dull so I went for polished. Alclad Polished Aluminium was used on a gloss black under coat and dulled down with a dusting of Alclad Stainless Steel just to dampen the shine a tad;

 

( Insert pic here)...forgot to take one, sorry.

 

The next item in the spray shop is the black area just behind the sponson which usually comes as a decal. I decided that because I have modified this kit a lot any decals used from other kits may not fit so with this in mind I decided to spray them on. To make the mask I cut out the spare decals from the Norwegian option and traced around them on some masking tape, cut out with a new blade and applied to kit. A slow process but hopefully worth the effort;

 

 

Before spraying I looked at my reference pics and realised that XV371 does not have the flat trailing edge so it was duly rectified then sprayed;

 

One last job was to paint the doppler panels on the underside and paint the mounting points for the Infra Red test equipment;

 

That is it for now, thanks for looking in.

[hendie]

great update and really really nice job with those stripes

[Pete in Lincs]

Well that's me updated. I didn't realize it was so long since I'd last been here! Naughty me!

Some nice problem solving and painting going on, I hope the mojo is better today?

I like the stripes, and the Ducks. It'll be worth it in the end, a very unusual scheme.

[Head in the clouds.]

11 hours ago, hendie said:

great update and really really nice job with those stripes

Thank you hendie 👍

 

3 hours ago, Pete in Lincs said:

a very unusual scheme

Cheers Pete, I do like the 'weird and wonderful,' what does that say about me though....😜

[Pete in Lincs]

8 hours ago, Head in the clouds. said:

I do like the 'weird and wonderful

Welcome to the club!  Have you seen the stuff I build? (I know you have really). Building normal stuff would drive me around the bend!

I think it's called artistic creativity.

[Head in the clouds.]

Well, this room looks unfamiliar....

 

Ah, that's it, helicopter builds, it's coming back now🤔, all I have to do is remember where I am up to.

 

As seen from my last post the painting is all but done so now my mind was thinking of the decal process, which will need some thought as they will be a mix of old,new and home brewed. Some of the older decals are fairly thick and coming from the later boxing of the original kit were not that good so I used some from the later offering which are better but still needed some tinkering with, these being used on the sliding door, engine inlets and tail rotor. New decals from Hannants own range were used for the national markings and serials.

 

Now the home brew decals were going to be used for the RAE lettering and the RAE crest but as you know these are white, my cheap Canon printer ain't gonna play ball here so a new plan must be made. Because I cannot use a vector programme or similar I decided to try in Microsoft word, well, I am not much better with this programme either as it turns out, it took me five hours over 2 days just to produce what follows. My cunning plan was to generate a box, backfill with colour of airframe and then use white lettering on said darker background. Easy yes. No. Bleeding nightmare but I persevered and ended up with this;

 

I was now walking around with my chest puffed out, that was until I placed them on the kit;

 

Two things jump out at me here;

1/ The background is not dark enough.

2/ The background looks pixely ( I know, no such word)🤪

 

Why? I just do not know. The background colour can be improved by playing around with the RGB colours but it will still have that pixelated ( that is a word)😄 look. I even went online to look at new printers but the DPi is pretty much the same for all of them and no improvement on my venerable Canon MP490 and I am not going to spend money without knowing it will pay dividends. The crest was the same, pixelated and not very well defined. 

I have contacted a couple of people that print decals, one reply in the negative and no reply as yet from the other so for now XV371 is not going much further until I find a solution. ☹️

 

So, on with something else. XV651 has not had much attention so it is time to put this right. As previously discussed, information on this airframe in this configuration is like looking for hens teeth in a haystack while riding a unicorn so most of what follows is part measurement and part MK1 eyeball.

It all started out so well with vernier caliper and ruler;

 

These measurements are not set in stone but give me a stating point. The plane of attack is to drill a hole in the centre of the radome and in the airframe into which a brass peg will go into the hole in the radome. A rim will be fitted to the inside of the radome edge for the planks to sit on and and to give added strength, the planks will run up to the fuselage and sit directly on it.  Filler will then be built up in layers and sanded back by eye to what I think should be representative of what I want to achieve.

 

First though was to work out how to get my hole central in both the airframe and radome  and also the right height.

A template, that's what I need. 

I traced around the radome onto a piece of paper;

 

Not the most riveting of pics but bear with me.

Next up was to measure 5 mm in from each edge and mark two vertical lines;

 

Then draw 2 lines from corner to corner and make hole at the point where the lines cross the size of the peg;

 

Next up was to fix the peg to the airframe, this was done simply by measuring, checking, measuring again until I felt I had it right, drill hole and fit;

 

Fit template to peg and fix in place with PVA at the 3.5mm point;

 

As they say, the proof is in the pudding. The vertical lines are equidistant with the fuselage sides on the chin glazing and the whole template looks 98% central so I will take that as a win. I also now know how long to make my peg and hole.

 

That's it for now, more soon, probably tomorrow.

 

Thanks for looking.

[hendie]

@perdu is the resident home-brew-decals-with-Word genius around here.  if you speak nicely to him, he can probably guide you through the process

[Head in the clouds.]

Thanks @hendie, I shall drop him a line, I have seen some of his work with his decals and they look superb.

[Head in the clouds.]

Two consecutive updates, I am into unfamiliar territory here.

 

Now I have my dimensions I put my drill to good use and drilled the hole for the peg in the airframe and the receiving hole in the radome;

 

As can be seen I have also fixed the lip to the radome on which the planking will sit;

 

It does not look too pretty but then again it does not need to as it will all be hidden. Any trimming will be easy as the Evergreen square bar is soft and easy to manipulate.

 

Time to check the measurements although looking at the photograph now the radome was not far enough on the peg. What I am looking for is the ruler line to hit the underside of the hull just behind the lamp, as can be seen it is too low;

 

After another period with rule and divider I found a new location for the peg above the existing item, which will stay in place to keep some strength to this area but it will be cut off;

 

 

Recheck and the radome on the 3.5mm mark, you can now see the ruler line hitting the hull just before the lamp which is just visible;

 

This image will come back to haunt me, as will be explained shortly.

 

The radome was glued in place at 3.5mm;

 

Now to add the planking I was talking about. This is 0.25mm at the top and 0.10mm at the bottom, the reason being I need it to conform to the hull shape where as on top it is flatter in appearance. Each plank was made to fit, it was easier than I expected;

 

 

Again, looking very untidy but soon it will be under filler;

 

It was about now when looking at my handy work that I noticed something which I should have noticed in that earlier picture, another ruler pic;

 

WRONG.

That should not run through at just after the 1/8" mark it should rise up more sharply from the back edge of the radome to meet the fuselage at the end of the rule. A picture speaks a thousand words so here is a pic;

 

Hopefully this shows what I am explaining and trying to achieve. After more procrastinating and checking measurements I came to this conclusion;

1/ Move radome closer to nose to increase angle.

2/ Alter shape of radome as I feel it is too wide and possibly a tad deep.

3/ Drill 3rd hole for peg in between other two.

 

You can see here what I mean by too wide;

 

So out came the big guns;

 

Off with his nose, and so it came to be;

 

The next half hour was spent cleaning up this mess of my own making. Once cleaned up I set to reshaping the Lynx nose radome, making it more narrow and a little less deep. On the left is the new shape, the right the old;

Much cleaning up still to do and the right side to finish, once that is done I am leaving well alone while I am ahead and shall return to it later.

 

 

[Head in the clouds.]

While leaving XV651 to sulk in the corner I am going to look at ZB506, I know, I said I was concentrating on XV371 but with the decal production line down for the moment I may as well crack on.

 

The side sponsons that hold the large round camera at the front are the most prominent feature on this machine and so I am going to try and improve things by making them completely out of brass. I made some before for an earlier build, XZ570 Blue Kestrel development helicopter, these however were made from two brass square rods with plastic side panels so I am going to try and improve things a little.

 

The first job is to measure out and cut the brass square rod that will form the spine of the two sponsons, having my earlier build made things a little easier because I could use it as a pattern but still checking it against the newer kit offering;

 

A quick check;

 

Next up the side panels. It did not occur to me, although it should have, that as I cut the brass sheet with some large scissors that it would curl. Not a massive problem as it is pretty pliable and should reform with a little help;

 

Next up place and secure two brass square rods to one of side panels, glue and clamp;

 

Repeat for other side;

 

Now to fill in the cavity;

 

Once filled and dry all sides will be filed to blend everything in.

 

Initially when I tried to assemble the sponsons I used a small gas gun tried to solder them together which would have been the ideal solution but I just could not get enough heat into the brass and in the end I gave up. CA was used to fix everything together but was not ideal as it is brittle when dry and when using a file it often broke its bond. This made it a longer job than I had planned.

 

When I finally got towards and end I put them together to compare and found this;

 

For some reason one was lower than the other from tip to end but tapering towards the back. The pic was an after thought after I started remedial work.

There could be several reasons why this happened and they are all down to me but where there is a will, there is a way. I had spent to much time on these to bin them and to be honest I don't like wasting brass.

After a cuppa and a few choice words I came up with a solution.

I drilled 0.7mm holes all the way along the underside, no need to be precise in the spacings on this occasion;

 

Then cut several pins from 0.7mm rod and glue and insert into the holes. Then build up with CA glue. The idea of the pins is to give the CA something to key too and stop it all falling apart;

 

After much filing, repeat filling of small gaps we had this;

 

Side by side;

 

If I do another set of these as there is another Sea King I would like to do I am sure I will not do them completely in brass, it is more labour intensive than plastic and heavier so which ever method I choose to fix them to the airframe it need to be sturdy. At least they are straight and symmetrical.

However, they are worth nothing without the brackets that hold them to the airframe, in the instance, the rear items.

The bracket is the item with the holes in it;

 

First up is to make the holed side section from PE skeleton. Holes marked out and drilled and make the side sections;

 

 

Next up is the tricky bit, soldering it all together. It is not the soldering that presents problems but holding all in place and square while soldering. Something I learned from trying to solder the flotation bottle brackets was that I needed to take off the film that is present on PE skeleton as this is what foiled me on that little project, so, as can be seen they are nice and shiny.

To hold everything in place I used someone's copy of Blu-tac, not as good but all I have;

 

The two side plates are deliberately made oversize because when I come to fit them they are going to slot into slots I will make in the airframe.

 

That's it for now, as ever, thanks for taking a peek. 😀

[Pete in Lincs]

So it's full steam ahead in Grantham then? Good to see you back at these and some good results too.

[Westlandaircraftenthusiast]

Great work there mate, believe in or not, i also love british development aircraft (mainly copters) I was planning to build a seaspray (and blue Kestrel) seaking sometime in the future. 

[Head in the clouds.]

23 hours ago, Pete in Lincs said:

So it's full steam ahead in Grantham then? Good to see you back at these and some good results too.

Cheers Pete, I am feeling goooood 😀

 

11 hours ago, Westlandaircraftenthusiast said:

sometime in the future. 

Do it, I won't say it easy but very rewarding. The hardest part is finding research material, for some reason aircraft operated by manufacturers seem to be shy in this respect.