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We Three Kings...


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Last time I worked on XV651 it was looking a little sorry for itself as I had to remove the Lynx radome after applying filler. I needed to drop it down as the extended fuselage extension that holds the radome did not look right. After looking at my massive collection of photo's for 651, all 3 of them' and the one side illustration I settled on a new position for the much travelled Lynx radome;

20200713_194732

 

I also took the liberty of moving it a little closer to the main airframe. This involved removing some material from the plastic batten that encircles the inside of the radome.

 

Once set it was time to fill the gap. Rather than just throw copious amounts of filler in I decided to place planks made from plastic strip across the void in the hope that this will allow me to see the shape forming and cut down on sanding.

The planks were roughly measured, test fitted and altered accordingly, trying to keep it fairly even all the way around. After an hour of work we had this;

20200730_193617

 

20200730_193628

 

This was now put to one side to allow the glue to set solid.

 

This allowed me to return to looking at some of the finer detail on the " rivety X box thingy" for ZB506.

There are two stepped brackets that hold the box at the rear, they do attach through the top of the box but rather by a block attached to the outside of the side wall of the box. To this end a small block of plastic was placed at the rear and fixed.

Next up was to make the brackets, they turned out to be tricky little fellas, probably because I filed them from a thick block rather then glueing to similar blocks together:banghead:

This is they;

20200809_144804

 

After pasting this pic I have now found out that was has absconded, the little devil.....

 

Also on top of the box are two lifting eyes sat to the last third and one quarter way in. I used thin 0.2 wire wrapped around a drill bit of 0.3mm dia and twisted at the end. This then sat into a thin piece of plastic card with a 0.7mm hole drilled through it, glued and the plastic card trimmed to size.

A quick sequence of pics;

20200809_125240

 

20200809_133029

 

20200809_140520

 

Sorry for the poor pic quality.For scale you can see the Swann Morten scalpel handle above the eyes.

 

More later and thanks for looking.

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Carrying on from the last post the two lifting eyes that I made were fitted to the X box. I am quite pleased with these little fellas.

Also visible are the two blocks at the rear for the mounting block, both of the offset brackets to attach to these I have now lost so are in the process of making 2 new items;

20200823_192757

 

Keeping with ZB506, the sponsons have two items on the outside and to the front and are angled forward, my assumption is that they are the two lights that were originally under the nose but due to the ' X box thingie' they are no longer effective so have been moved forward to the sponson.

This was a simple affair to replicate, a length of flat evergreen with a small length of round evergreen glued to its thin edge. The mating point was filled and sanded flat.

Cut to length, it was then fitted to the sponson at an angle, potruding over the top and filed flat to the top of the sponson. To finish, a small piece of round stock was domed at the end, cut, and glued to the top.

A few pics to make it all clear;

20200825_202612

 

20200825_202523

 

20200825_203220

 

20200825_203624

 

A bit of a clean up and job done.

 

Just above the sponson can be seen the two new support blocks for the X box.

 

Moving on to XV651 it was time to commit to filler. Duly filled over a period of several nights, 10 mins here, 10 mins there and we had this;

20200809_123634

 

Next up was to sand it down. Not too bad a job as I did not go mad throwing on the filler so it was not too bad to work with.;

20200823_192822

 

As can be seen, the battle with the 'prune' nose cone is ongoing, as best as I might try and no matter what I use, I cannot seem to fill the little holes that keep appearing. All I can do is keep going using finer sanding sticks;

20200823_192832

 

Holes aside, I am very happy with the general shape of the green area, having no definitive drawings or plans to work from I am letting the fill and sand process dictate how the shape will be but at the same time keeping a beady eye on panel lines and join points to the fuselage. As ever it is an ongoing process and when I next look at the pics i do have I may notice something I missed.

 

That's all for tonight, see you all again soon.  

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  • 3 weeks later...

A big update, not in terms of content quantity but in milestones reached in the builds on both ZB506 and XV651.

 

Starting, or should I say, continuing with XV651, the drama surrounding the sink holes that keep appearing in the nose cone. After several attempts to fill the small holes with little success, I decided to make little holes into bigger holes;

20200830_121837

 

I also used a different filler, good old fashioned Milliput. The holes were made bigger to allow more filler in so by giving it more to anchor to instead of being washed out;

20200905_152038

 

After another session of sanding and giving it a coat of primer we had this;

20200905_155839

 

I have to admit this little issue was starting to rankle with me so I called out the big guns...a strong cuppa and some contemplation. Whilst in this no go zone I decided to spray the cockpit frame black before I forgot, I believe the frame was black internally on HAS1/2's.

The small holes were now filled with Deluxe White filler slightly watered down, after a sand and another blast of grey primer I think we have nailed it;

20200906_095820

 

20200905_155856

 

Some minor finishing on the fuselage extension but I am happy with that.

 

Buoyed by my success and with the sanding finished on the nose are I felt I could now fit the undercarriage sponons which I had left off for better access. No issues here and very straight forward;

20200912_111707

 

You may also notice that it has acquired two white prominences on the underside of the nose. I believe these to be, as in the case of ZB506, repositioned landing lights Again, simple enough to make from round Evergreen plastic;

 

20200912_111658

 

Of concern right from the start was how do I get good demarcation lines between the fuselage extension and the radome. Well, while I grumpily sanding away it came to me. On the picture in Warpaint 95 it looks like there is a band of aluminium by which the two are fixed together so this allowed me to use my favourite masking tape;

20200912_151024

 

Coming in 0.5, 0.75 and 1mm among others, the smaller sizes conform superbly to complex airframe shapes as I have here and the 0.5mm tape I chose to use seems to be just right in 1/72 to represent the fixing banding, and the bonus here is that it cleans up the filler join lines. I did try scribing them but with so many different fillers I was not getting a consistent line so in combination with the tape it seemed to work;

20200912_150532

 

20200912_150842

 

This was always going to be a challenge, having little in the way of research material and the complex shape of the fuselage extension. Some mistakes were made along the way which resulted in more work than I anticipated, 1st being mismeasuring the radome fixing point and the second being my choice of how to fill the radome and what with. The first was always going to be a bit hit and miss, however, if there is a next time on another project I will choose an off the shelf product, similar to the soluble plastic that you can buy.

 

Overall I am a happy bunny!

 

The most critical part of the ZB506 build was always going to be the sponsons, 2 great lumps of brass that if not hung correctly and true would look awful. The time had now arrived where to progress further they really had to be fitted. Much time was spent test fitting and trialling methods to hold it all true before fixing, this time it was going to be soldered rather than superglued, as I had with my earlier Blue Kestrel Testbed XZ570. Being made from brass, the sponsons really needed a good, strong positive fixing but getting the Airframe in the right position to solder need a little consideration.

 

After some trial and error I came up with this;

20200912_140233

 

The tape kept it in the right postion relative to the fuselage and the pin I mentioned in an earlier post stopped everything from going south. With a sweaty brow 😓 I soldered the rear  L bracket which is part of the sponson to the inside front of the fuselage mounted bracket.

One down.

 

After a repeat we have success;

20200912_144418

 

20200912_144352

 

Both seem even in position relative to the fuselage along the length and in height, there is a slight 'toe in' on both sponsons but this is not a bad thing as I have yet to fit the 'X box thingie'. Also, I have not glued the pins therefore allowing the sponsons to move in or out if any slight adjustment is required for fitting of the camera mount.

 

I could not resist a test fit so here it is;

20200912_144604

 

She is looking good....😃 all those cups of tea and thinking have paid off.

 

Hope you like it?

 

Gary

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  • 1 month later...

I cannot believe it has been a month since my last update, but here we are so on with it...

 

At the end of my last post I had just got to grips with all the holes in the Lynx nose radome on XV651 and hung the sponsons on ZB506, without a doubt the two biggest and potentially project ending jobs put to bed.

 

We start off with some little jobs and corrections. Staying with XV651 the two little aerial supports were fitted, no drama here;

20200919_132105

 

They don't come much simpler than that. Next up I decided to manufacture some 'hand hold' rails so set to making two sets, one each for 651 and 506. AND that was the eureka moment...I suddenly realized that only ZB506 has them and not XV651. So if XV651 being an HAS1 did not have them so what about XV371? Sure enough, looking back through my reference pics XV371 did not have them either, I had obviously made the assumption they all had them. So only 2 of these were needed;

20200919_142235

 

And they went here on ZB506;

20200919_143945

 

Not the best pic but you get the idea.

This however left me with the problem of XV371, I had to remove those fitted earlier and make good the damage to the now painted fuselage without damaging the delicate serial number decals. Once removed a little water soluble putty was used to fill the holes, gently smoothed  over with a damp cotton bud and very gently masked and touched up. It did take two attempts to touch up as I was not happy with the first attempt;

20200919_150046

 

20201004_125100

 

I now need to lay some primer on to XV651 and see what that throws up. A couple of things showed through, the blanked in windows needed a little attention and the underside also showed up some areas in need of attention, not a surprise if you think back to what I did to the hull way back in the earlier stages of the build;

20200919_145621

 

20200919_145626

 

A quick respray;

20200919_145229

 

Jobs a good en governor!

 

One last little job is to fit the pitot tube made from Albion alloys;

20201003_140612

 

ZB 506 now needed some work, in particular an aerial along the front starboard side of the tail boom. Making it presented no real issues, two pieces of scrap PE skeleton filed to shape/size and a length of Albion Alloy tube, however I did not want to but join it to the fuselage so I started hacking. Using a micro saw;

20200919_160605

 

two slots were sawn into the plastic;

20200919_160532

 

Blades inserted and held with CA;

20200919_161752

 

And the Albion Alloy rod glued onto blades....well it was until it was knocked off. This at least validated my decision to positively fix the blades as they stayed firmly attached.

 

With the sponson now in place there was one more item to make to finish them off and that is the small damper (one each side) near the front of the cockpit. These are small and were ruled out of my thinking as a way to attach the sponsons to the airframe for that very reason. To make them I needed two different sizes of telescopic brass tube, yep, you guessed it, Albion Alloy. After ascertaining the correct length they were cut using my special holding tool;

20200920_120018

 

20200920_120037

 

I use this as I can hold the brass and use my jewellers saw ( cannot remember it's correct name) but because the tube is so small it is on the limit of what the saw can do even with the finest saw blade of 40 or 50 tpi. Very slow and precise is the way to do it.

20200920_120750

 

Nice and precise.

The dampers however could not be fitted as they are to the fuselage/sponson, they have little attachment brackets which I have represented with plastic triangles. First I bevelled the edge of some flat stock and drilled two holes to accept the brass piston, cut and repeat;

20200920_124435

 

20200920_131416

 

After a little clean up they are simply glued in place. The attachment points are a little over scale but with some paint on them I think they will not be so obvious. It was one of those question, should I fit them or not know the scale issue but I think the model will look more 'finished ' with them rather than without;

20200920_160408

 

With that fiddly job done I turned to the semicircular support beam for the camera. Just as a reminder this is what I need to achieve;

SK B8182.14  28.3.90

 

I never make it easy for myself...😬 but it has to be done.

Starting off with a piece of flat plastic stock( by the way, I am making this up as I go along, not even sure it will work!) I bend it slightly while holding it in some small pliers;

20201010_193501

 

I then heated it in boiling water, formed it around a scrap piece of plastic and clamped;

20201010_194201

 

Looking OK so far;

20201010_194231

 

Some slightly larger but much thinner plastic stock was glued to the outside gradually working my way along clamping as I go;

20201010_195846

 

Once both side are done the last centimetre was filled and sanded;

20201012_195952

 

Next was the bracket that the camera was attached to, again, plastic channel was used and using a sharp tool rivet marks were punched in;

20201014_194443

 

Cut to size they are then glued in place;

NO PIC HERE...Sorry!

 

A hole was then drilled and elongated using a multi tool bit, this hole will accept the mounting bar for the camera;

20201014_202501

 

20201014_201224

 

Putting this aside for now it is time to tackle the camera. Meet my new best friends;

20201017_143658

 

I haven't gone gaga just yet, these little wooden beads will hopefully supply me with one just the right size to form the camera.  As it turns out the pink one at the front was the volunteer that did not step back when I asked for volunteers to 'step forward' 😂

First mark out the general shape and fix to brass rod so I can work it, they are as slippery as a box of eels!;

20201017_144039

 

Using a small 2mm chisel I set to working on the main lens area, using a multi tool first but then using the 2mm chisel to finish. Then this happened;

20201017_145859

 

Lost a chunk out the left corner. Oh bother!

Can't really fill it so will start on another bead tomorrow.

 

Thanks for looking.

Till next time.

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I too am playing catch up. In my case a couple of sessions. Things are coming on in leaps and wossnames and looking good too.

Neat work and problem solving, Gary. Some of your ideas are similar to my scratchbuilding stuff, I may nick the odd technique!

BTW, it may be my turn for Grantham this coming Thursday. I'll let you know.

Cheers, Pete

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On 10/18/2020 at 1:47 PM, hendie said:

I missed the last few episodes for whatever reason but it was nice to catch up on those this morning.

Nice to have you back hendie, glad you like the work.

 

21 hours ago, Pete in Lincs said:

I may nick the odd technique!

Thieve away Pete, that is part of the reason we do WIPs.

Yes, let me know and I can give you your book back, feel free to leave a keg in its place😉

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Nice piece of scratch building you have going on there. Very curious how the bead transformation will result, but looking at the other things you have done, for sure will be spot on. 

 

Thanks for sharing and have a good one.

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  • 2 weeks later...

An update I promised and an update I shall give, albeit a small one.

 

When I signed off last time I left a load of mangled wood on the bench and that has now gone in the bin, in it's place is a nice shiny new one. The wood is fairly soft so needs care when putting anything sharp near it. The same routine was followed as before but taking more time and care. 

Two parallel line cut with micro saw;

20201018_132629

 

Carefully with a 2mm and 1mm chisel  cut out window;

20201018_133952

 

Mark out for triangular opening. At this point I was at a crossroads, did I dare take a chisel to such a small opening or should I try to use decals instead? Decals would be safer...

But where's the fun in that so I took my chisel to it;

20201018_154451

 

The main chamber does not go too deep as the real thing does, I will be runing a shaft through the middle and my fear was if I went too deep it would split in two. Once painted black with a few oddments in it I think it will pass muster.

 

Next up remove that orrible green coloured paint, a gentle sand did the job;

20201018_162700

 

One thing these beads came with was a ruddy great hole through the middle as can be seen by the size of the brass tube on which it sat while I worked on it.

To attach it to the cradle armature I needed to reduce the internal diameter to about 1mm from 6mm. To do this I used decending sizes of telescopic tube using my tool seen earlier to cut them to length. There are 8 inclueding the pivot shaft;

20201018_162715

 

20201019_190757

 

Each one was coated in thin CA and inserted. Once dry they were cleaned up and filler used to smooth things over. From this;

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To this;

20201027_193234

 

Now a little undercoat to see if any clean up required;

20201027_194028

 

Not much too clean up. That turned out better than I thought it would, I thought maybe that I could not get a decent finish off the wood.

 

So, from elation to deflation;

20201018_162728

 

Well, needless to say but that put a frown on my face. While making a replacement I wondered if I could just glue it back together so I did and it seems to have worked.

I offered everything up to check for size and fit;

20201027_193046

 

Result.

 

Thanks for looking.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Continuing on from the previous post it is now time to consider how to best represent the gubbins inside the camera ball, the only pic I have is this;

SK B8182.12  28.3.90

 

I have given this some considerable thought and I came to the conclusion that I cannot make out anything in there with any certainty of it's shape,size or purpose so the next best approach was to do a general representation, but how? At1/72 scale trying to build anything would be a major ask and one which I felt I could not achieve so I decided to use this;

20201108_124806

 

Old pre painted PE from an old Sword Lightning build and some other similar oddments. The idea is to build it up as best I can, cutting it down to fit and bending the odd item to give depth. After about an hours work I had this;

20201115_181541

 

I think that looks OK, it will be behind some perspex/plastic so what can be seen will be softened.

 

The 'XBox' mount was next, this is nearing completion before painting, can you remember the two stepped brackets I made earlier, if not, here they are trimmed down to size after taking the measurements required;

20201115_135003

 

These are now glued onto the 'XBox'

20201115_144715

 

The sharp eyed amongst you may notice at the front of the 'X Box' ( back of the XBox in the pic) a small round piece of plastic, thereis one on the other side and this is to represent the shaft that the pin will locate to hold it in position once finished, they can be seen on the head on view above. Once fixed a small hole was drilled in the centre to receive the fixing pin;

20201115_133720

 

The whole item was test fitted and all seemed well;

20201115_154912

 

Before I get too carried away I need to consider how to mount the semi circular camera mount, it should not be a problem, probably a piece of brass tube.

 

I have not forgotten about XV651, I have been slowly adding some paint to her. My paint of choice is Colour Coats Blue/Grey which is matt but should not make too much of a difference. I normally use Hannants own Blue/Grey which is gloss. The radome is painted black, I nearly changed it to EDSG but pulled back at the last minute. When looking at the following picture which is the only colour photograph I have found the radome looks EDSG but when compared to known black areas it matches up perfectly. Thoughts anyone?

Sea King HAS1 Sea Spray

 

Here is where we are up to;

20201017_101459

The access door is deliberately a few shades lighter which is obvious in both colour and b/w pictures.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

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Definitively, that second ball do look the part. Excellent work on it.

 

Forgot to ask you before, but could you please share some information about the holding tool you show in your post? 

20200920_120037

 

 

Please, keep it coming.

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2 hours ago, Jfgred1 said:

Forgot to ask you before, but could you please share some information about the holding tool you show in your post?

I believe it came from Squires Tools who had a stand at Telford; Squires Model & Craft Tools, BOGNOR REGIS. Tel: 01243-587009

 

Or

Expo site; https://www.expotools.com.

 

Hope you find one @Jfgred1

 

Gary

 

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