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Sink the Bismarck! HMS Ark Royal, 26 May 1941


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Short update this evening, because I’m basically repeating last night - doing the second (& final) long range tanked aircraft.  On a whim I thought I’d experiment with Uschi thread to see whether I can successfully hint at the straps on the tank. 

49493634463_45f3f1cf27_b.jpg


Yes, I know, insane.  The scarier thing is that it seems to have worked...

 

A domani

 

Crisp

 

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5 minutes ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

Yes, I know, insane.  The scarier thing is that it seems to have worked...

Fret ye not Crisp, insane is good here. You are quite clearly a natural. As for me, I fitted in perfectly and then there's @general melchett. I rest my case.

 

Supportive of Mars 👽

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4 minutes ago, patmaquette said:

The aircraft are looking brilliant, Crisp. Have you tried fitting the tail wheel yet and checking the sit?

A great build thread and I am following it with interest,

Pat

I haven’t tested the tail wheel yet, no - but you are right; I should.

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12 hours ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:


Yes, I know, insane.  The scarier thing is that it seems to have worked...

As Martian suggests, insanity does seem to be an admirable quality here, and in my case seems to grow with age, er i mean wisdom.....

 

and remember, tomorrow never comes .....

 

Terry

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19 hours ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

On a whim I thought I’d experiment with Uschi thread to see whether I can successfully hint at the straps on the tank. 

 

I just spent about 10 minutes looking for the tank in that photo!  

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10 hours ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

I haven’t tested the tail wheel yet, no - but you are right; I should.

So I did; pretty decent, I think - possibly a smidgeon tail-high, but we’re talking minute differences; in real life it looks fine.  You may be able to see that I have added a channel for the forward-firing machine gun on both aircraft, and that the wheeled version now mirrors its cousin’s tank straps.  Note also dinky wee arrestor hook under the tail, just because I can.

49497792133_e217bd06c7_b.jpg

49497729753_e54c824e3f_b.jpg

49498518787_69c68a3422_b.jpg

 

That’s both aircraft fitted with the long-range tank (2M of 810 NAS and 4L of 820 NAS) pretty much ready for primer, I think.  I will probably add the distinctive Mk1 Stringbag oil breather on top of the nose, and obviously they’re going to need rigging (you might be able to see the drilled holes for the cabane struts) and manning up - but (apart from adding one undercarriage, obviously) they need some colour in their cheeks before much more gets bolted on.

 

More soon

 

Crisp

Edited by Ex-FAAWAFU
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I've just spent 40 minutes repeatedly putting the PE sides (4 parts) on a pair of 1/350 octo pom pom mounts and think they look rubbish.

You on the other hand. Well

Crisp I salute you!

Tom

I'm now going to see if I can bend the two kit cranes into something resembling cranes.

Les,

Yep your about spot on.

Edited by Modelholic
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33 minutes ago, gunzo said:

Just out of interest what is the span of these weenie Swordfish models- around 40mm?

Nothing much wrong with the inbuilt ruler in your eyes; what’s 1.39mm between friends?

49498623581_74cdcb0e32_b.jpg

 

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Crisp,

That's the bottom wing isn't the top wing slightly longer?

Don't know what happened (maybe the Carpet Monsters are in a giving mood, hypnotised me and did it out of pity)

I've two bits of brass that actually look like cranes!

I'm well chuffed with m'self! 12 bends And minimal super glue!

(And I've still got all my fingers and thumbs)

RESULT

Tom

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11 hours ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

49498518787_69c68a3422_b.jpg

 

That’s both aircraft fitted

 For reasons perhaps unfathomable Crisp, there is something deeply compelling about getting to watch you build a whole series of miniature Stringbags. Maybe because we're usually engaged in building single instances, or maybe the size, like observing someone put a watch together. Whatever the reason this is one of my favourite builds to turn to these days.

 

When someone constructs an actual production line for their work, you know that they're not mucking about. 

 

Either that or Ark Royal was a lot narrower than I remember...

 

 

 

 

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5 minutes ago, TheBaron said:

 Either that or Ark Royal was a lot narrower than I remember...

Controversial inter-war orange flight deck scheme, too.  That’s the problem with interpreting B&W photographs .

 

[Incidentally, I’ve been meaning to say... the random set of bollards / bitts that appears in the background of some photos us not destined to end up on a Swordfish.  They fell off one of the starboard side hull openings when I was having a tidy up the other day, & I keep on forgetting to glue them back.  And the moral is.... never tidy up, kids]

Edited by Ex-FAAWAFU
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13 minutes ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

And the moral is.... never tidy up, kids

What, you found that out only now??? A man of your experience?

 

(....yes, I am untidy...)

 

:rofl:  :D 

 

Ciao

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12 hours ago, giemme said:

I thought the funnel was a masterpiece of micro-engineering, but with these you're clearly going beyond....

Thanks, Giorgio - and everyone.  It’s a lot of tiny work - and so far I’ve only done 2 which will end up on the finished model (the two LR tank cabs), so have 13 more to do.  But it’s surprisingly satisfying as an exercise in what’s possible (but also a lesson in how much difference even a small change makes in this scale).  
 

As I have said before, I think, the real point of spending so much time and effort on Stringbags with a wingspan of only 40mm is the fact that they are really the focal point of the entire scene that I have in my head.  Models - particularly dioramas, and this is essentially going to be a diorama - blow me away when you can spend ages looking at them in detail, yet every time you look you find something new.  I have referred to @andrewa‘s Hermes / Broadsword / Yarmouth on here before; that’s the benchmark for me, because it’s completely coherent and tells a story (quite apart from being stunningly executed); dozens and dozens of tiny details are there (in his case on 3 different ships close together), but not one of them looks incongruous and breaks the spell - “surely it wouldn’t have looked like that in real life...”.

 

In my head, I know exactly how I want this to look in the end - still a l-o-o-ong way in the future, I fear.  If I get it right it will tell a powerful story of 43 young men about to get airborne in truly hideous weather to attack the world’s most powerful battleship in slow, obsolescent biplanes.  However good the aircraft models are, if there is no-one on the flight deck, or the bridge looks as though they’re on a gentle sleepy Summer cruise, or the ship’s weapons and directors are unmanned and all covered up, or the paintwork looks as though she was only launched the previous week, or even if there’s no lifebuoy sentry closed up or crashboat at immediate readiness... then it will just look silly.

 

Hence ridiculously complex resin HACS director tubs a few pages ago (& I haven’t touched a single Pom-Pom yet...!), and flag lockers, and ages acquiring convincing-looking boats from Shapeways.  But most of all, these 15 Stringbags are the whole point, so they have to be decent.  
 

All this effort will be worth it in the end.

 

Equally importantly, it’s a lot of fun.

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