Sea Vixen FAW.1x2

[Pete in Lincs]

20 hours ago, hendie said:

... Firkins! Has anybody mentioned firkins yet? 

Did someone call?

 

Lovely grey bits. (The legs and the wall). 

22 hours ago, TheBaron said:

soiling (from tyres/decks?)

And brake dust. The stuff gets baked on. And Hydraulic leaks. And oils various, lubrication for the use of. Military Aeroplanes are generally dirty all over.

[TheBaron]

On 29/12/2021 at 20:15, bigbadbadge said:

Thanks Tony for your incredibly kind comments there.  I am touched fella.

No doubts about it Chris - your brushwork is incredible!

On 29/12/2021 at 20:15, bigbadbadge said:

The engine bays look fantastic with your weathering effects as do the UC baysand legs  too.  Another awesome Seavixen is emerging. 

I reckon you could blindfold me at this stage and I could tell you what part of the actual aircraft I was at by touch... 🤪

On 29/12/2021 at 22:11, CJP said:

Really enjoying this build - that Avon looks great sitting in the engine bay!

 

😁 Thanks CJ, most kind.

Due to the way the front of the Avons protrude up into the intake ducts on this model I have to put the engines in first before fixing the exhaust tunnels on at the rear, so will need to devise a way or protecting both engines and bays during painting of the airframe. On the actual aircraft there's a removable firewall directly in front of the engine that allows it to be removed. That was just one step too far for me to contemplate on a first outing with 3d printing...

On 29/12/2021 at 22:18, hendie said:

Firkins! Has anybody mentioned firkins yet? 

As a firkin can also refer to a tub of lard I sincerely hope you're not casting aspersions on the number of tubes of Pringles that I've consumed over the last 7 days..

On 29/12/2021 at 22:18, hendie said:

Those details are just firkin amazing Tony. It just gets better with every post. It really does.

I just hope me nerves hold out with all this painting malarkey.

On 30/12/2021 at 06:53, Terry1954 said:

I can recall it very clearly on those huge legs of the Buccaneer, but as you say, challenging to actually replicate. It seems like you are right on the money with it here though Tony, nice one.

If I can convince you of the hue Terry that gives me confidence.

A buccaneer's legs you say?

On 30/12/2021 at 06:53, Terry1954 said:

Mrs T recently suggested our living room chimney breast needed some "statement" darker but complementary colour to offset the white of the other walls. Has to be EDSG really wouldn't you say?

Only if it's Anti Flash White on the other walls Terry. You don't want that Lawrence Llewelyn Blowin' round with a camera crew....

On 30/12/2021 at 09:52, perdu said:

I hope you publish the actual recipe for Lt Ad Gy in Tamigunze colours

My apologies Bill, I should have written that down in the last update.

 

I'm useless at proportions so always just mix by eye in daylight over by the window.

 

Ingredients for acrylic:

1. Flat white base ( I like the Vallejo Premium stuff these days but Tamiya's XF-2 otherwise)

2. Sky (Tamiya XF-21)

3. Flat Blue (Tamiya XF-8)

 

Add 2) gradually to 1), mixing until in 'light sage' territory, then carefully add 3) drop by drop, pausing frequently to agitate (paint as well as self) until that ambiguous pale cyan hue appears in the mixture. At 1/72 I found that after application a light misting of heavily diluted white helped to give some nice variation in places too.

 

Once happy with the colour, a figure of eight dance with the long axis pointing in the direction of the nearest FAA aircraft (wiggling of buttocks optional) like bees do with honey is optional. 😁

 

18 hours ago, Pete in Lincs said:

And brake dust. The stuff gets baked on. And Hydraulic leaks. And oils various, lubrication for the use of. Military Aeroplanes are generally dirty all over.

(I can now tell people that I drive 'a military car'.... 😁)

 

I need to get the nose on the aircraft next but before that I wanted to revisit the visual textures of the cockpit - primarily those hard-to-emulate ways that the various black angles react to light in showing detail. To help with this I'd recently bought a pack of the Aquarelle graphite pencils in the hope that this would let me introduce a more convincing degree of subtlety than previous with dry-brushing. As the graphite varies in tone from HB all the way to 8B, it additionally allows you to work tonally as well as in terms of creating an abraded sheen to corners &etc. I'd also added a dilute black wash to the IP panels prior to this treatment and that helped to integrate the details better as well:

 

 

Even the joystick hasn't been broken off yet!

 

The black metalwork of chairs too looked better with graphite effects:

 

The top and bottom grab handles were added from stainless steel wire: I know the yellow/black patterning on them is overscale but even with an 000 brush I couldn't get finer lines I'm afraid.

Graphite treatments continued around onto the AI18 units and the details there really started to pop nicely without feeling too exaggerated:

 

Both the pilot and observer seats will be added after the aircraft itself is painted but a quick dry fit to assess the overall look of various parts when combined together:

 

Oops! That's the wrong seat in the pilot's position above!

That's better.

 

Next time you see these parts you won't, as it were, as they'll be tucked away inside the fuselage....

 

Bloody hell. Friday already.

Tony

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[AdrianMF]

'kinamazing. Have a super new year Tony!

 

Regards,

Adrian

[hendie]

Just more firkins.

 

Have a great Hogmanay Tony.

[perdu]

Cool in black-ish, super working.

[Brandy]

Lovely pencil work.

Happy New Year to you and yours Tony.

 

Ian

[Terry1954]

Phenomenal cockpit work there Tony, just superb. Especially like this shot...........

 

4 hours ago, TheBaron said:

 

Firing me up to get back to the bench once family have departed after New Year, talking of which.............

 

.......................Happy New year to you and your family!

 

Catch up next year!

 

Terry

[Anthony in NZ]

Tony that is superb as always!  I love the graphite pencil look, I often use a silver prisma pencil too and use it with the graphite, gives a nice mix at different angles.  But that is top shelf buddy.  Especially love the AI18 unit!

 

Cheers and thanks for a thoroughly enjoyable thread in 2021!

[bbudde]

Hi Tony, just outstanding. Really hervorragend!. 2021 is leaving now slowly and I like to wish you and yours einen guten Rutsch ins neue Jahr. Hopefully a more relaxing one than this was.

Cheers in 2022.

Benedikt

[TheBaron]

After a night of howling wind:

Sun rises on a new year.

 

I wish all of you well in whatever comes our way next.

 

On 31/12/2021 at 14:35, AdrianMF said:

'kinamazing

 

On 31/12/2021 at 14:57, hendie said:

Just

 

On 31/12/2021 at 15:59, perdu said:

Cool

 

On 31/12/2021 at 16:48, Brandy said:

Lovely

 

23 hours ago, Terry1954 said:

Phenomenal

Adrian, Alan, Bill, Ian Terry.

That pretty much sums you guys up too. Hope you had a good night.

 

Glad you're enjoying progress: I must say it's quite pleasant to be in the kit building stage of this aircraft now - even if I can't blame the manufacturer...  😁

22 hours ago, Anthony in NZ said:

I often use a silver prisma pencil too and use it with the graphite, gives a nice mix at different angles.

That's a great tip Anthony - thank you. That goes on the acquisiton list now as well.

21 hours ago, bbudde said:

einen guten Rutsch ins neue Jahr. Hopefully a more relaxing one than this was.

Das selbe für dich und deine Familie Benedikt.

 

Not having any family obligations and Mrs. B at work meant another few hours of free time to start assembling the larger parts of the airframe.

 

Just in time before sticking anything together I remembered that I hadn't yet painted the interior of the radar bay, so after sticking that forward bulkhead/PAS section on, this section was duly LAG'd:

Another happy accident was discovering that diluted Vallejo jet exhaust makes a really lovely equipment bay grime when brushed on and rubbed back.

 

Once that had all dried the lower section of the nose was stuck in place:

Lest anyone remain under the illusion that 3d printing is all smug machine-like perfection, it frequently isn't and I took this photo to show one of issues that can occur on certain parts, namely the warping of curved surfaces. The lower nose section with Microcell insets is nice and thick (as well as being reinforced by cockpit structure on the other side of it) so remained resolute, whereas the upper nose section (being much thinner in cross section and unreinforced by any such internal structures) has curled inward to a minor but nonetheless significant degree.

 

To correct this was a time consuming but easy enough job, accomplished by marking off with Washi tape the boundary where the bulge of the airbrake section meet the curve of the nose and building up the deficit with resin as a filler:

After filing, sanding and a polish, things were back as they should have been again:

Another near miss was almost forgetting to stick the rear of the cockpit into place before attaching the nose to the rear section of the fuselage. It's amazing what you can overlook, especially if - as I seem to be at the moment - the dim light levels just make you want to hibernate. Anyway, I did thankfully remember:

 

Also remembered to check levels and angles were correct by dry fitting the seats for the last time this side of permanent installation:

 

 

 

 

With that all installed, there's still a side drum for the AI18 unit to go in through the stbd access opening and the door to go over it but I'll attend to that later on:

Finally having run out of things to forget to do, nose got stuck to rear section:

 

 

The interface between those two section seems a lot neater that XJ481 for some reason, but as there was with that aircraft, there's a bit of tidying up to do along the underside seam by the airbrake again due to curling/shrinkage during curing:

As with the nose, reprofiling with resin plus sand and polish will reinstate the difference. I'll do that tomorrow and tidy up the rest of that seam before <gulp> sticking the engines in and bolting on the exhaust fairings at the rear...

 

Steak pie for tea. 🤤

'Pray for us diners now....'

Tony

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Anthony in NZ]

  Boootaful

 

Enjoy the pie, dont forget the Tomato sauce!

Edited January 1, 2022 by Anthony in NZ

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

This remains in deepest firkin territory; that nose-on view of those echt-60s instrument / radar boxes is just sublime.  If there has ever been a better Vixen in ANY scale, it must be superb; in 1/72 this is just ridiculously… well, firkin.

[Learstang]

Brilliant work on the cockpit/nose section, Tony! Every time I see your work, I am both tempted to get out my Cyber-Hobby FAW.1 and work on it some more, and also to bin the whole lot! Happy New Year to all!

 

Best Regards,

 

Jason

[hendie]

I have to agree whole heartedly with my Naval compatriots statement above.

You surpass yourself with every post these days

[perdu]

I am at the point of 'liking' every darned post now even if it turned out to be a dud...

 

 

Which of course none of them would dare to be.

 

Fabbuloso signor

[Brandy]

I agree wholeheartedly with Crisp, that front on shot is gorgeous. The detail looks perfect after the pencil work.

 

Ian

[keefr22]

Yeh, well, it's a bit good I suppose......  

 

Keith

[k5054nz]

Magic - black magic, even! I'm stunned by what you've achieved here Tony.

[Fritag]

As a tyro several days into a concerted effort to master manage get a working knowledge of Fusion 360 my admiration for your achievement with the Vixens has (if possible) increased further Tony.

 

And a typically thoughtful (iconoclastic even )  approach to representing the black 'ole of a 50's British fighter cockpit.

 

Beyond impressive.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[TheBaron]

Blowing an absolute gale and temperature plummeting here tonight: the forecast says snow and with all the cats laagered around the stove already it looks like a night to stay in the snug.

 

 

Let's see who still gets through.

 

Oh....!

 

On 01/01/2022 at 18:57, Anthony in NZ said:

  Boootaful

 

Enjoy the pie, dont forget the Tomato sauce!

Ta very much Anthony but tomato sauce with meat pie?

Have you gone vegan on us?

On 01/01/2022 at 19:30, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

This remains in deepest firkin territory; that nose-on view of those echt-60s instrument / radar boxes is just sublime.  If there has ever been a better Vixen in ANY scale, it must be superb; in 1/72 this is just ridiculously… well, firkin.

I'll take that as a 'like' then so...

(Thank you)

On 01/01/2022 at 19:42, Learstang said:

I am both tempted to get out my Cyber-Hobby FAW.1

You're a man with so much to live for Jason: fight those unhealthy thoughts!🫂

On 01/01/2022 at 20:30, hendie said:

I have to agree whole heartedly with my Naval compatriots statement above.

You surpass yourself with every post these days

Well, that's it then I guess.

Having brought the air force and navy together as one my work here is complete....

On 02/01/2022 at 01:28, perdu said:

I am at the point of 'liking' every darned post now even if it turned out to be a dud...

 

 

Which of course none of them would dare to be.

I never could resist a dare Bill.

On 02/01/2022 at 07:30, Brandy said:

I agree wholeheartedly with Crisp, that front on shot is gorgeous. The detail looks perfect after the pencil work.

I wish it were possible to drill out some holes to add in the more prominent wiring around those drums Ian but having tried it on an AI18 mule, such attempts are more likely do damage the existing surface details. I'll just remain in a state of vague disquiet over the affair.

23 hours ago, keefr22 said:

Yeh, well, it's a bit good I suppose......

I'd love to have heard you doing the TV commentary for the moon landing Keith.

 

 

Armstrong: I'm going to step off the LM now. (Long pause.)

 

Studio: FFS; talk about milking it.

 

19 hours ago, k5054nz said:

Magic - black magic, even! I'm stunned by what you've achieved here Tony.

Kind of you Zac and my sincere thanks.

 

I wasn't sure initially about selling my soul to the devil, but it seems to be working out fine...

8 hours ago, Fritag said:

As a tyro several days into a concerted effort to master manage get a working knowledge of Fusion 360

Oh thank goodness - you'll be brilliant at it! I genuinely can't wait to see what marvels spring forth in your threads. 🫂

8 hours ago, Fritag said:

And a typically thoughtful (iconoclastic even )  approach to representing the black 'ole of a 50's British fighter cockpit.

If my visuals can pass muster from someone who's rubbed as many cockpits in their time as you have Steve, I can rest content.

 

I was as good as my word:

On 01/01/2022 at 18:39, TheBaron said:

As with the nose, reprofiling with resin plus sand and polish will reinstate the difference. I'll do that tomorrow

In terms of the areas needing attention, this section (scribbled in pencil) here on the belly of the engine bays:

 - was at its most extreme about 0.5mm proud of the interface with the nose due to warpage during curing, whilst that pencilled region just aft of the cockpit openings was simioarly about 0.3mm proud:

Some brief attention with a long tapering diamond birr in the Dremel rapidly evened out the difference, to the point that harmony was restored after W&D and a polish on the underside:

and above:

You can also see in that last shot that I've still to fill the join between the rear and front sections of the demisting duct: as with the main fuselage sections, UV resin + laser will handle the job without the need to wait for glue to dry.

 

My original plan was to stick the engines in and lock them into place permanently by installing the rear exhaust fairings, however as there is some further remedial work needed at the join of the tail booms with trailing edges of the wings, it actually seemed more sensible to add these prior to the exhaust fairings in order to leave more room for manoeuvering around between those booms with file and W&D:

I've left the printing support and base on still as it occurred to me some time back that this structure makes for a perfect sort of in situ jig to help with lining the booms up with the rest of the aircraft in three dimensions:

I mentioned the need to 'make good' around the boom joints, in actual fact I was surprised that the joins on XN708 are far better here than those on XJ481:

I suspect I may have tweaked something on later set of designs for '708 so if I did, it was so far back I'd forgotten about it, there's very little needing doing here this time around.

On the underside there's a minor 'step' between the two boom sections that some birr work should again easily reconcile as it did with the main fuselage.

 

Due to that join being a long kind of fulcrum point that can be easily snapped during handling (something I did twice with XJ481), not only did I redesign the male/female locating pins deeper this time around for strength:

 - but used epoxy resin for added strength on the locating pins/recesses with UV resin on the flat surfaces to hold the assemblies in place. She can sit securely like this now overnight whilst the glue is drying:

I'll remove those support structures once I've tidied up the boom joints and then the engines/exhaust fairing can go on. I'll also need to put on a print of some spare wingfold hinges to replace those I broke off, plus the set of engine bay pipes/trunnions that I clumsily snapped when snipping off the supports a while ago. Reckon a testy letter to the manufacturer is called for!

 

Haven't bothered with the charade of New Year resolutions since a teenager but I have taken a personal vow from now to hold the camera up over security fencing to see what's hiding on the vacant sites they conceal:

Ireland is full of these mini wildlife refuges.

 

That's enough tales from Boomtown for one day. More in dew coarse.

Tony

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Anthony in NZ]

2 hours ago, TheBaron said:

Ta very much Anthony but tomato sauce with meat pie?

Have you gone vegan on us?

Hahah, no I havent.  Seriously...you dont put tomato sauce on your meat pie???  Hmmm, very strange

 

What is not strange is your progress.  Loving it!!!  Really looking the part now with those booms on, my goodness that's going to look amazing...no pressure.

 

I told you not to snap those hinges off....some people dont listen

 

Anyway, wonderful update, one of my favorites  here

 

Cheers Anthony

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

17 hours ago, TheBaron said:

If my visuals can pass muster from someone who's rubbed as many cockpits in their time as you have Steve, I can rest content.

 

I’ve never really thought of our local legal mud-mover as a “cockpit rubber” before.  Is this some esoteric equivalent to brass rubbing - young Flying Officers despatched to Telford with pencils and huge pieces of RAF-issue tracing paper in order to rub the heck out of a Valiant?  New one on me, but whatever floats your boat, I guess.

[Dave Swindell]

18 minutes ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

and huge pieces of RAF-issue tracing paper

[Terry1954]

7 minutes ago, Dave Swindell said:

 

I think you'll find @Ex-FAAWAFUalluded to brass rubbing, not ar......

 

ehem,...... where were we...

 

I love it when the booms go on a Vixen, looking great Tony!

 

Terry

 

 

 

[Brandy]

Now I'm confused and not at all sure which is more weird:

1) RAF and Navy agreeing

2) ketchup on a meat pie

3) Government issue bog roll/tracing paper. (I do know that it is much more useful as tracing paper!)

4) Cockpit rubbing. (Although maybe that was just to stop them rubbing  things they shouldn't....)

 

I'm going for a pint and a ponder.

 

Ian