Sea Vixen FAW.1x2

[perdu]

Sunday morn' time for the obligatory 'gosh it's complex' to emanate from Streetly near Brummagem.

 

Gosh it is complicated in here, however a pink jump suit at the Barras but?

 

I suggest, m'lud that purchased at said Barras but worn at least two mile away!

 

Yes down a millitad more but not by much more, a degree of datum maybe.

I have a general pic on my pc of the sad wee beastie at Brunty which I will rustle up this arvo when I claim the pc that may corroborate this estimate.

 

She'd the sad look of a long disowned lady back then, although I know she is really much beloved.

[71chally]

I can't get to my main PC as kids have hogged it, but in the APs there is a diagram of how the aircraft sits ant it's various loadings, I think 10' something at normal loading. 

Best thing to use is plenty of side views of period service aircraft, and the flyer would help though I'm guessing it is fairly light.  If you go back a page or two, a link I posted to Air Britain pictures of FAW.1s is a good start.

The two you have chosen to model wouldn't have been highly loaded I wouldn't have thought.

 

I suppose one golden option open to you is to create main gear legs at slightly different oleo lengths.

[corsaircorp]

On 7/3/2020 at 7:41 PM, Pete in Lincs said:

Though there's better shade under a tree.

(Sorry, Heather. I'm in a silly mood). It's Friday and I have a glass of Ossett Brunette here. A rather nice beer.

Osset Brunette ???

Did'nt know yet... Did you have some for SMW 2021....

Asking for a friend 

CC

[corsaircorp]

Sorry to hear about the flooding Tony !

I hope that everything is all right by now...

Dampness in Ireland ?? Incredible...

Oh it's the dishwasher... Well understood !!

CC

 

The way I tell it deserve a bit of explantion...

In a 5 years span, I get 3 times in Ireland

Spending in between 15 to 20 days up there each times...

And from these, let's say 40 to 50 days, I get one rain and one day of moisture...

That's why my Irish friends wanted to keep me as an hostage... for the sun...

Sundance CC

[Pete in Lincs]

3 hours ago, corsaircorp said:

Osset Brunette ???

Did'nt know yet... Did you have some for SMW 2021....

Sorry. Best before date is 30/6/20. So I'm disposing of it in an ecologically friendly way. I drink it sitting next to a tree.  🌳

Although...When I say a tree...the sofa has a wooden frame and cotton covers. Close enough for me.

[corsaircorp]

You really are a great man Pete !! 

Greta will be proud of you...

But, I'll now search for the Osset Brunette....

This one ??

Mmmmh look more british than Ossetian to me...

Well !!

Nozy CC

[TheBaron]

Afternoon all.

On 7/4/2020 at 7:09 PM, 71chally said:

xcellent wheel renders, I would have gone the easy route on those and brought some of the excellent resin available, I knew you wouldn't though!

🤣🤣

The thought. Perish it....

(Bought yonks back when I actually believed I was going to build a Vixen out of kits....)

On 7/4/2020 at 7:09 PM, 71chally said:

The pink Vixen, sounds like something that might loiter in a knicker drawer.

Plus there's the Palouste for those who have trouble getting started.....

On 7/4/2020 at 7:44 PM, giemme said:

Have you already mentioned/thought about how you are going to reproduce the clear parts?

I hadn't mentioned it thus far G but am intending to go with vacforming (partly as I miss doing it!). 😄

At some point I need to sit down and examine the canopy differences between FAW.1s & 2s in this respect.

On 7/4/2020 at 7:53 PM, Pete in Lincs said:

I think this chimp needed a new agent, however. 

I think he did the plumbing on our house.....

On 7/4/2020 at 11:56 PM, hendie said:

you went to Ra Barras wearing a pink jumpsuit ? 

Nein - I bought the jumpsuit there but waited until I got home to Belfast in order to wear it in more peaceful surroundings. Always an experience going through an RUC/Army checkpoint looking like a refugee from Sigue Sigue Sputnik...

On 7/5/2020 at 9:40 AM, perdu said:

Yes down a millitad more but not by much more, a degree of datum maybe.

Thanks Bill. Said millitad applied and that's close enough for my purposes (allowing for differences betwen a flat plan drawing and a photo having perspective)

On 7/5/2020 at 11:28 AM, 71chally said:

The two you have chosen to model wouldn't have been highly loaded I wouldn't have thought.

My thoughts too James - having squinted at lots of those side-ons on the AB pics site, I'm going with the above as a reasonable expression.

On 7/5/2020 at 4:36 PM, corsaircorp said:

In a 5 years span, I get 3 times in Ireland

Spending in between 15 to 20 days up there each times...

And from these, let's say 40 to 50 days, I get one rain and one day of moisture...

We could bloody do with you back CC!

Late June and July so far have been ghastly - occasional blasts of sun but otherwise stratus and wind warnings.

 

It did get a bit dramatic at sunset last night though:

 

It's taken me a lot longer than I anticipated to get the main gear to a satisfactory state as there are some complicated things going on inside of there regarding non-symmetrical parts and angled assemblies. It took  a while to puzzle it all through but as always, interpretative drawing from multi-angle photos helped greatly in understanding the visual relationships:

Some basic detailing added to the well to form a baseline for the radius arm:

I'd also at this stage added that triangular cross section to the main shock absorber strut:

The really time-consuming part of this involved getting the various parts of the radius arm aligned and shaped, bridging as it does the well with the gear leg in two places:

Bearing in mind the required thickness for printing tolerances I've had to thicken one or two of the arm parts at this scale, though hopefully not by enough to detract from a pleasing expresssion of the region:

In addition, I've been having to rationalize not just print scale and orientation issues but also keeping in mind how to assemble the parts robustly enough afterwards, such as the square peg at the top of the leg above that matches an opening in the underside of the wing. Below I've added some male/female locating lugs to the interface between leg and radius arm as well:

 - along with a similar male/female junction at the radius arm pivot point inside the well:

A key constraint I referred to repeatedly during this stage was the frontal view:

You can see above that I've left the radius arm bearing open where it meets the gear leg, the intention being to use a brass pin to lock them into place for added bearing strength.

 

Tony

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[giemme]

The gear leg looks like a masterpiece in itself, I can't wait to see a test print of it

 

As regards the transparencies, I assumed you were going for vacforming My question was more aimed to know if you are going to produce the masters from printed resin or what else... 

 

TIA

 

Ciao

[TheBaron]

2 minutes ago, giemme said:

My question was more aimed to know if you are going to produce the masters from printed resin or what else... 

Sorry G, half asleep today  - yes I'm going to try exactly that, print canopy bucks for vacforming. I don't know how the resin will respond to hot transparency draping over it so might have to bung it in the freezer beforehand?

[giemme]

45 minutes ago, TheBaron said:

don't know how the resin will respond to hot transparency draping over it so might have to bung it in the freezer beforehand?

I'm interested to know what turns out from that - one thought, though: if the buck is too cold, it may prevent the clear plastic to stretch properly (this comes from my experience in skin packaging, I honestly don't know if it applies entirely to PET or acetate vacforming )

 

Probably worth a try or three...

 

Ciao

[perdu]

I'm not so sure about using a printed moulding buck.

 

Will it deform under extreme heat?

 

I wonder whether a beautifully moulded buck would make a good base to cast a Milliput former to vacform off?

 

If plan A fails of course.

[bigbadbadge]

Cracking work on the undercarriage legs Tony.  

All the best

Chris

[giemme]

1 hour ago, perdu said:

I wonder whether a beautifully moulded buck would make a good base to cast a Milliput former to vacform off?

How would you that Bill, please?

 

TIA

[perdu]

It is basically very simple G

The buck made from the printer can be assumed to be calculated to vacform a duplicate mould from acetate PETg or your favourite deformable clear plastic.

 

Use that actually right sized buck as an image to copy and use latex rubber to make a mould from it

 

Then fill the mould with wet milliput or a casting plaster which you then make vac form/pull mouldings from

 

I am sitting here thinking that the fine casting plaster we heard about here a few months ago would be ideal rather than attempt to have wet sloppy milliput dry out satisfactorily so forget Milliput, but still use the idea for casting plaster

 

(see when my ideas get challenged you buggers make me rethink on the hoof, I love this place)

 

?

 

Or do what Hendie does and print clear plastic?

[TheBaron]

On 7/6/2020 at 7:20 PM, giemme said:

I'm interested to know what turns out from that - one thought, though: if the buck is too cold, it may prevent the clear plastic to stretch properly (this comes from my experience in skin packaging, I honestly don't know if it applies entirely to PET or acetate vacforming )

 

Probably worth a try or three...

 

On 7/6/2020 at 7:43 PM, perdu said:

I'm not so sure about using a printed moulding buck.

 

Will it deform under extreme heat?

Life: the endless experiment, eh Bill & Giorgio! 😁

 

On 7/6/2020 at 8:12 PM, bigbadbadge said:

Cracking work on the undercarriage legs Tony.  

Ta Chris. I disappeared into that wheel well for a few days but have come back out if it again now into polite society!

 

Dear Gods, will summer never come? Yet another rainsoaked windblown groundhog day.

 

Finished detailing the brakes:

Presumably this is the five-point 'Maxaret' system that Buttler discusses. A lot of minutiae tucked away in the shadows of this region, which entailed some triage in deciding which bits would actually reproduce at this scale in the printer. As far as I can make out there's a large thin housing between the wheel hub and gear leg housing the braking mechanism(s) along with various protrusions. As a compromise I took the brake plate out from the hub by about 0.25mm, which should just print, and added any details that didn't slip below this height threshold. Also added in the shot below are mountings on the torque arms and lower shock absorber for the brake cabling, on the basis that it may just be possible to add some whiskers of fuse wire at this scale to reproduce them in due course:

Concave channel added to the interior of the outboard undercarriage door:

As the inboard one only opens during the gear cycling up/down I've forgone adding any of the interior contouring to it. In practical terms, nothing on the above gear structure is below the 0.3mm threshold necessary for reliable printing and if orientation becomes too complex, there's the option of splitting certain parts into halves for later reassembly, as per traditional kits.

 

Having detoured longer than I'd anticipated into the undercarriage,  I wanted to focus again on the wingfold for XN708 which means firstly, building all of those details common to both it and the unfolded XJ841, prior to splitting the wing of the former whilst leaving the other in a single piece. Having decided to split the wing and wingfold housing separately from each other (due to the asymmetric split of the latter), the first task was to establish the correct outline for the faring along the camber of the starboard  wing top and bottom:

As these are projected onto the wing surface from a separate set of drawings, this yields the luxury of being able to modify the master drawings later where necessary, and the fairing shapes produced downstream from them will update in realtime. Very handy!

 

An afternoon later and top and bottom fairings are in place:

 

The initial faring shapes seen above were too 'blunt' at the front so as mentioned, I was able to pull the master drawings around to reshape them fairly easily in response to their surroundings.

Much better now:

In the above screenshot the smaller fairing (accomodating part of the flap mechanism?) on the trailing edge immediately behind the wingfold one has been added, as well as the even smaller one (that looks most beak-like) inboard of the aileron housing. The pitot won't be staying however - I've made a 0.6mm hole in the leading edge of the wing to accept brass tube later for this and this temporary one is just to indicate final appearrances.

 

Time to mirror the work so far to view a mockup of the aircraft:

And the reverse angle: (even if it does look odd without a canopy!):

Not quite in launch posture with those Microcells down, but stick yer ear close to the screen and you'll hear the sea:

During the next session I'll duplicate the wing for '481, joining the wingfold fairing permanently to it before  tucking it away safe whilst I work on the wingfold mechanism for '708.

 

Not tomorrow though: a busy day looms pricing up a new front door and taking our youngest to get his ears pierced. This is turning into quite an expensive month as my trusty DSLR died too this afternoon - it's over eight years old so not worth shelling out for repairs at this juncture. Having shot with Canons for the last decade and a half I'll stick with them - the new EOS 250D looking a good compromise.

 

Thanks for looking in - some hot hinge action for you by the weekend hopefully.

TRake care 'til then.

Tony

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[71chally]

Incredible stuff Tony, even just looking at the artwork is a sumptuous indulgence.

Everything looks 'bang on'!

 

I always thought that without the canopy the Vixen looked like one of those bizarre pilotless schemes that were being dreamt up in the late 1950s.

[giemme]

22 minutes ago, TheBaron said:

And the reverse angle: (even if it does look odd without a canopy!):

Even without canopy, this is some view already!   

 

Ciao

[hendie]

2 hours ago, TheBaron said:

Presumably this is the five-point 'Maxaret' system that Buttler discusses.

 

Tony, as far as I can remember, the maxaret system was a very basic device. It was basically a small wheel that ran on the inside rim of the main wheel.  

Seen here - the small "wheel" looking thingy at the 9 o'clock position

 

 

I can't find a picture of the interior of a maxaret, but from memory, it was a very simple device working on momentum and inertia 

Inside the maxaret unit consisted of essentially a small weight on an arm which cycled back and forth between an open and closed position depending upon whether the main wheel was turning or not.

 

From Wikithingy...

When a skid developed, the (main) wheel would stop, stopping the (maxaret) drum along with it. The flywheel, driven by the one-way clutch, continued to spin. If the relative angle between the drum and flywheel reached 60 degrees, the drum would be driven forward to press on a valve. This released brake fluid into a reservoir, lowering hydraulic pressure, and releasing the brakes. As soon as the drum started spinning again and reached the (slowing) speed of the flywheel, the valve was released and the brakes re-applied. The system could cycle about ten times a second, and could hold the brakes off for up to four seconds in total before the reservoir filled.

 

I'm sure other more knowledgeable folks will be along to correct my poor description and inaccuracies.  I remember seeing one during training at Halton, but never actually encountered one in 9 years service.  Come to think of it, I never saw a bang seat either.

 

 

 

 

 

[71chally]

Wow, that's a nice garden ornament Hendie!

Your description is pretty spot on, the first ABS system in essence, developed by Dunlop.  On the Sea Vixen it was selectable, I'm guessing to aid deck manoeuvring.

[Fritag]

I’ve just caught up on two or three months worth of posts and am now feeling distinctly unworthy - I don’t think I’ve got anything to add that wouldn’t risk being being facile ; save perhaps to say that it’s a truly splendid display of scholarship (with notable group contributions) and entirely worth it in terms of the 3-D computer rendering itself, let alone the eventual model.  It certainly needs to be built more than once or twice to do justice to the preliminary research and computer rendering.  How about a BM group build entirely dedicated to a short production run of Baron Vixens?  Me please   (Darn it, gone from facile to facetious now…)

 

On 7/6/2020 at 6:30 PM, TheBaron said:

Sorry G, half asleep today  - yes I'm going to try exactly that, print canopy bucks for vacforming. I don't know how the resin will respond to hot transparency draping over it so might have to bung it in the freezer beforehand?

 

The normal casting resin doesn’t seem to deform under the heat of vacforming using a dental vac machine, leastways not if the buck is a pretty chunky affair, as it probably is with most canopy shapes.  But, vac forming over a resin buck can seem to discolour the canopy (on PETG anyway).  Possibly because of the oil in the resin?  I don't know if and to what extent your print resin differs from casting resin tho'.

Edited July 9, 2020 by Fritag

[giemme]

4 minutes ago, Fritag said:

How about a BM group build entirely dedicated to a short production run of Baron Vixens?  Me please   (Darn it, gone from facile to facetious now…)

That sounds like a great idea!    

However, you do realize a group build has a specific time-frame in which you need to stay, don't you?

 

Pot to kettle, over ...

 

 

Ciao

[Terry1954]

6 minutes ago, Fritag said:

How about a BM group build entirely dedicated to a short production run of Baron Vixens?  Me please  

I'd be up for that as well. I keep pulling my two unmade 1/72 Sea Vixen's from the stash (Xtrakit and High Planes offerings), opening them up and wondering how on earth I can ever get either to look as good as what's happening on this thread!

 

Terry

[perdu]

Did I just re-read something about mutilating children here?

 

Wow

 

Not that I disapprove, by the way.

 

Piercing his ear, not extreme at all.

 

🤔😲😵

 

The new group build, can we have long build times and flexible endings.

I've done Group Builds, the mental scars don't heal.

[wellsprop]

OOOoooohhh, this gets the engineer and modeller in me all excited

 

I've also just realised that the Sea Vixen design has it roots firmly with the Dh108 Swallow!

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

59 minutes ago, wellsprop said:

I've also just realised that the Sea Vixen design has it roots firmly with the Dh108 Swallow!

Very deeply, yes; when I was building my (1/48, non-Baronial) FAW1 I happened also to be reading “A Very British Sound Barrier”  - the DH108 & DH110 were close cousins, especially at the early stages of the 110 design.