I Can See For Miles - making three go into two: Frog 340P Miles Master MkIII

[Whofan]

2 hours ago, Heather Kay said:

Sadly, I’m not a massive fan. I don’t dislike the band's stuff, but they’re of the generation before me really. I just like to try and be clever with thread titles.  

That's ok, it's not compulsory to be a fan!

 

I'll look for your thread titles in future, too.

 

 

[AdrianMF]

A little piece of rather anorak-ish archaeology...

 

Here is the kit compared to the plans in AFP volume III:

The plans show the fat fuselage, short fin and (allowing for parallax) narrower undercarriage track so I think the Frog kit was based on these.

 

I will stop digging now... 

Regards,

Adrian

[Heather Kay]

Although I've been distracted by other things this past week or so, I've found a few minutes here and there for this model. That said, I still haven't committed anything to cement yet!

 

 

First, I did a bit more work to settle the donor engine and cowling on the Master fuselage. There was a large moulded plug on the front of the fuselage, designed to mount the MkIII P&W engine and cowling. By removing it, the Bristol cowling settled further back and generally sat better.

 

 

Here's the mocked-up thing again, thanks to Blutack, showing the general fitting is a lot better. Having taken on board Adrian's comments earlier in the thread, I am still considering if any remodelling needs to be done to the fuselage area in front of the cockpit. 

 

 

Various changes and upgrades have been considered for this model, as it's destined for the cabinet after all. One consideration was whether the "spare" Pavla vac-form canopy for the MkIa might fit. Good news! The early signs are it will, with minimum fuss. That, of course, means I need to do something about the cockpit itself, so I cast about for replacement seats as a starting point. This Reheat detail etch appeared, and although the seats are not actually exactly correct for the Master ones, I think they'll do. I'm going to need to do some scratch building for other fittings, but I've found a wealth of info on the interwebs that will help me there. The next thing was the propeller. The chief visual difference there between the MkII and MkII was the use of a full-depth spinner on the former. As the donor engine came from a Blenheim kit, I thought the same kit's prop might be suitable, although I could remodel the Eastern Express one at a pinch. Rummaging around in various scavenged kits, I found a suitable three-blade spinner in an old Hasegawa Spitfire kit: if I ever get round to constructing that kit, I shall do the Watts prop version just for giggles. The EE Master main wheels looked like a deal of hard work to clean up and make presentable, and I found some aftermarket resin Hurricane main wheels that will pass muster.

 

So, apart from the huge amount of scratch building to make a presentable office, I think I have everything in place to actually start building this machine! 

[Heather Kay]

There are times when you sit down at the bench and wonder just what the heck you've picked up! I'm at that stage with this build. Some of the modifications required to make the model better seem just too much work.

 

 

I spent a bit of time this afternoon assessing the kit parts compared to the drawings. Here, I was working out what was needed to rectify what I had earlier identified as a short fin. Turns out the fin is actually about right, and - as Adrian had already worked out! - the fuselage section was too deep. It's about 1.5mm too high along the spine. In turn, this leads to the rear cockpit to be too deep. Comparing with the Pavla canopy, lowering the spine will prevent a lot of soul-searching later, as the difference in height would be quite marked. The question, then, was how to achieve the surgery.

 

 

Some styrene rod was found that pretty much matched part of the inner shape, which was glued into the fuselage. Some Squadron putty slapped on, and then some careful sanding to let the fuselage sides meet properly, and I think the reprofiling might well be achievable. I am currently considering the best way to install cockpit upgrades. With the amount of mess likely to be created with reshaping the fuselage, I think a few minutes working out a way of fitting major cockpit components from below might be well spent.

 

 

The state of play as I start to think about cooking some grub for me and Best Beloved. The stand slot has been plugged, and I've begun thinking about boxing in the undercarriage bays. The lower wing section is quite twisted, so I've again checked the parts against the drawings. The upper wing halves are more or less correct for shape, so I think carefully gluing them to the lower half and helping it to conform to the right shape ought to happen after I've worked out the gear bays. While I'm on the gear, further assessment of the resin wheels led me to replace them with the ones in the Hase Spitfire kit. I don't think that one will be built properly now, unless I go for a crashed diorama...

 

Onwards!

[bigbadbadge]

This is very interesting Heather, the work on the engine etc, fuselage spine is cracking.  Very much looking forward to the cockpit detailing.  I might be able to steal some ideas AHEM use them for future inspiration for my build.

Great work

All the best
Chris

[CedB]

Nice work Heather - lots of fettling to do by the look of those moldings.

[Heather Kay]

9 hours ago, bigbadbadge said:

Great work

 

18 minutes ago, CedB said:

Nice work Heather

Cheers both!

 

I am going above and beyond what I’d expect to do for a kit of this age and provenance. However, Adrian shows the way, and if I think of myself as a modeller then I should occasionally bite the bullet and do the graft! Knowing the fuselage shape/profile is incorrect and just building it from the box, and then trying to pass it off as an accurate scale model won’t wash. Besides, I’m also making an effort to convert it to a MkII.

 

Once the fuselage reprofiling is done, and I’ve worked out the cockpit detailing, this little plane should come together fairly quickly - I hope!

Edited June 17, 2019 by Heather Kay

[Heather Kay]

I managed a little more progress, and a lot more styrene dust, last night. I removed the shelves moulded into the fuselage halves designed to take the rudimentary cockpit floors. I'm going to reinstate a ridge later, then build up some side wall detailing before the halves get mated together. The instrument panels and other fittings will be worked out later, once the fuselage spine has been remodelled.

 

 

The wings sorted their twisting out once the parts were mated. I noticed that the port lower wing section trailing edge was short of the upper part. Checking against the starboard side, which was fine, it seems it was a mould error. 

 

 

I glued some styrene strip along the edge to make up the short section. Careful sanding and filling to follow!

 

 

 

While I was at it, I decided there was no reason not to fit the ailerons. They were single piece mouldings, and pretty chunky. Gluing them in while I was sanding all kinds of irregularities meant the wing aerofoil shape, such as it is, can be dealt with as a single entity. In these photos, filler has been applied at strategic points to relieve dimples and odd gaps. More sanding to follow.

 

Test fitting the wing assembly to the currently taped-together fuselage shows a very neat fit. Barely any filler will be required along the wing roots, and little sanding - if any - either. Such a good fit for a nigh-on 60-year-old mould that's been through several owners is pretty good going, I think.

[TonyW]

Very tidy work. This one is shaping up to be a gud 'un.

[Heather Kay]

Thanks Tony!

 

I found myself out of sorts today. I should have been working on a railway commission, but after having airbrushed a top coat of varnish on the latest one, I didn't really feel like digging out another one. I find this happens with commissioned work. When one gets very near completion, I find I don't want to pick up another job, but just want to get all the final bits of the jigsaw in place, if you see what I mean.

 

Anyway, it was my excuse to get on with some more Master work! 

 

@AdrianMF, who must be heartily sick of being name-dropped in this thread, did a splendid job of a Master MkI in the recent Trainers GB. While I could find a fair number of detail images of cockpits, I wasn't entirely sure how to go about recreating any of it, so I borrowed some ideas from Adrian's thread.

 

 

The important thing was to get something in there on the sidewalls that sort of looked right for the characteristic Miles control group on the port side. Instrument panels, floors and seats will come a bit later, because I just wanted to get to a point where the fuselage halves could be joined together.

 

 

While interior details glue was drying, I set about filling the main gear wells. I used some thin styrene sheet, which was amenable to being rolled round a paintbrush handle sufficiently that it would drop into the holes and be glued. When things had hardened, a sharp blade could be deployed to shave off the excess level with the wing. Adequate at this scale to hide a hollow wing, at least.

 

 

With the fuselage set, it was time to shave the spine down to size. From the scale drawing, I measured the overall height at the rear of the cockpit and base of the tail fin. The figures I got were 17.8mm and 13mm respectively. Setting a pair of Vernier callipers to the first figure, I set to with sanding sticks behind the cockpit until I had made a flat area on the spine and the depth was measured correctly.

 

I repeated the process, resetting the callipers to 13mm and sanding down at the base of the fin. When I was happy with the two end points, I sanded between them to give me a flat area along the spine. Then it was a case of carefully rounding things off evenly on both sides, and working the base of the fin so it faired in correctly.

 

 

Comparing the plastic to the drawing, I think that's about as good as I'm going to get. Some finer sanding sticks were used to get rid of the coarser marks, and there I left it. Happy with that.

 

 

I fitted the rudder, as that's going to need a little sanding on the leading edge to match the fin. I've also assembled the tail planes and elevators, which will need a good deal of flash cleaning up in due course. I shall start to think about finishing up the cockpit fittings, and work out how to mount the donor engine cowling properly.

 

It's all coming together, rather quickly. I should pace myself so I'm not tempted to rush things and make a hoo-hah of all my hard work so far.

[AdrianMF]

Nice work! The plastic is pretty thick but it needs the extra filler for all that sanding down. I’m slightly regretting hacking the back off mine to achieve the same change now, but Milliput is a Wonderful Thing!

 

Cockpit looks good so far, looking forward to more. And I see you’ve got holes ready for your handles under the cockpit too...

 

Regards,

Adrian

[Heather Kay]

1 hour ago, AdrianMF said:

And I see you’ve got holes ready for your handles under the cockpit too...

I wondered what the two moulded bricks were, then I looked at photos more clearly. 

 

The rest of the cockpit is in the "how do I make that?" stage. I generally get on with other things hoping something will turn up. 

[Heather Kay]

A quick morning update after I cleaned up and fitted the tailplane bits.

 

 

This is a view showing the surprisingly excellent fit of the wings to the fuselage.

 

 

 

Some styrene sheet was applied to block in the front of the fuselage, and I’ve also glued the kit part, where the P&W cooler intake and exhausts are supposed to go, into the front of the wing assembly. Some sanding and filling will be required, as this area will see new exhausts being installed later. It’s looking a lot like a Master to me!

 

I rather think the kit is missing main undercarriage doors. I shall look into this further.

[AdrianMF]

25 minutes ago, Heather Kay said:

I rather think the kit is missing main undercarriage doors

Luckily, the real ones did too! See here for example...

 

Regards,

Adrian

[Heather Kay]

It's the weekend, so I gave myself permission to work on this model.

 

 

First, canopy shenanigans. I thought it might be sensible to see if the Pavla canopy really did fit. Well, as you can probably see, it didn't quite. The Frog fuselage seems to be a bit chubby around the cockpit area, and although the rear canopy sections could be persuaded to sit in the right places, the front didn't want to play.

 

I entertained the possibility of slicing the canopy into bits, and having the front hood slid back. The windscreen section, though, still really didn't want to play ball. I found where I had stashed my thinking cap, and put it to work.

 

 

Here's the kit canopy. It has all kinds of issues around the rear, leaving aside the change in fuselage height I made. Note that odd area in front of the instructor's section, where there's a ledge that really isn't there on the real thing. Obviously, the rear part of the canopy was unusable, but perhaps I could use the front section. Perhaps a combination of kit and vac-form might work.

 

 

Well, yes, I think it might. There's a gap between the sliding hood and the centre section. I think I might be able to fabricate some thin styrene strip to fill that area. I reckon this might be the way forward for the canopy, at least.

 

 

Having made up my mind about the canopy, it was time to fit out the rest of the cockpit. I seem to have avoided taking progress shots, so this will have to do. What I did was to make up and fit a bulkhead at the back of the rear cockpit. I ended up using the kit floors, as they more or less fitted my remade ledges. I made up an instrument panel for the front cockpit, although I think I glued it in a bit too far inside the nose: too late now.  The seats were formed up from the Reheat etch, including the seat belts, and then painted silver/aluminium, as it appears the real ones were rarely painted. I made a small plinth for the instructor's seat to fit on, as it seems to have been mounted slightly higher than the front seat. I made up an IP to for the instructor, including the characteristic domed enclosure seen in photos. Using Adrian's MkI build as reference, I made up simple representations of the fighter style control columns from square styrene strip and brass wire. The instructor's IP was fitted to the central coaming, and it was all installed and painted.

 

As I failed to document my cockpit mucking about, here's a link to @AdrianMF's Pegasus Master MkI build where he set about his cockpit:

 

 

With the inside done the wings were glued on. Very little filler was required generally, although I needed a bit to fair the after section into the lower fuselage. Otherwise, things came along quite quickly. 

 

 

Underneath, you can see where most filling was required. The back end of the wings, and fairing in what was the exhaust and cooler mounting plate for the P&W engined plane. I stuck a styrene block where the tailwheel fairing is, and I'll sand that to shape when the cement has hardened.

 

The engine block was also glued in place. 

 

 

A closer view of the cockpit. I also added a shaped bit of styrene on top of the nose to represent what appears to be some kind of vent visible in photos of the MkII. 

 

I think the next stage will be to mask and fit the canopy, and get some primer on the airframe to see where we are. Coming along nicely, I think.

 

[Ray S]

Yes Heather, coming along very nicely indeed. It looks like it could be a great solution to the canopy problem.

 

All the best,

 

Ray

[bigbadbadge]

Oooooooo this is progressing well indeed Heather, great work on the cockpit and the canopy solution.  Fantastic work.

All the best

Chris

[AdrianMF]

Nice work on the cockpit! The Frog canopy is indeed odd - I think they put that step there to signify that that rear piece of glass could flip up so the instructor could pump his seat up (like the master marked “7” here) but they overdid it and it does look strange. I cut that upper curved section out so I could either replace it with an unstepped clear bit of acrylic or position it up. I haven’t found a good picture of how the instructor’s chair got raised or how the sides of the back canopy folded or dropped down.

 

Looking forward to more!

 

Regards,

Adrian

[CedB]

5 hours ago, Heather Kay said:

Coming along nicely, I think.

Me too  

[Ventora3300]

Fantastic build going on here, Heather, and your photos are so go that I feel I could jump in and get flying - looks like 'real Instructors' flew with the canopy open anyway so I'm sure posing open will be the way to go. All the best. Mike

[Heather Kay]

Another Sunday, and another chance to spend some time with this little aeroplane.

 

At the close of play last weekend I got some primer on the airframe. This always helps to spot where there are issues that need dealing with, and sure enough some dimples and scratches needed attention from Mr Filler and Mr Sanding-Stick.

 

Then it was time to see about the canopy.

 

 

Test fitting the front section showed some gaps around the windscreen. I added some styrene strip as gap filler, with the intention that further holes would be filled with canopy glue or PPP. Okay, so far.

 

 

Well, that looks like it'll work. Quite a bit of sanding also happened to eliminate quite a wide ledge outside the canopy. Happy with that, I added a block of thin styrene at the back to help fill the gap between the sliding canopy and the centre section.

 

 

The state of play. Where's the canopy? Well, I fear this model is headed for the Shelf of Doom. I spent far too long trying to get the vac-form rear section to fit. It wouldn't. Well, it would, but the adhesives wouldn't retain in place. Also, I found I was carefully trimming tiny slivers off the vac form to get a better fit, and was in danger of trimming too much off and losing the single copy I had to work with. So I attempted to get the kit transparent part to fit, or at least the bit over the instructor's seat, thinking I could still use the vac centre section. I nearly succeeded, after some careful trimming to compensate for the new fuselage depth, but it revealed the profile of my fuselage reshaping was off, and while attempting to correct that so the difference wasn't so huge, it all started to go pear shaped. The transparency got, inevitably, scratched.  I rather think the Frog fuselage is a bit too portly round the cockpit, and despite careful sanding, I am an unhappy camper.

 

I've done some polishing of the moulded kit parts, which have now been dipped in "clear" and are drying under cover. I think I'm going to have to learn the plunge moulding technique to make a new centre section of the right size and shape to actually fit. Quite when that happens remains to be seen. There's still some time before the end of this GB, so there is always hope. Meanwhile, I shall pack it all away and get on with the Magister, I think. 

Edited June 30, 2019 by Heather Kay

[TonyW]

Good plan. Walk away for a while and come back to it with fresh eyes. 

 

There's a ton of good work already in the build and I'm sure a canopy wont beat you.

[CedB]

7 hours ago, Heather Kay said:

I think I'm going to have to learn the plunge moulding technique to make a new centre section of the right size and shape to actually fit.

Go for it Heather! I would hate to see this on the shelf of doom and, if I can do it with packaging plastic, anyone can!

Have a go, it's easier than it looks  

[Rabbit Leader]

As the others have said, it may be best to rest on this one and come back when the energy kicks back in again. I'm sure you will overcome these issues and will be glad when you've won it over.  

Cheers.. Dave (unpaid modelling life-coach!). 

[AdrianMF]

Would a spare FROG Master canopy help? Send me a message if it would.

 

Regards,

Adrian