Sea Vixen FAW.1x2

[Pete in Lincs]

23 hours ago, TheBaron said:

but that clings on less determinedly when being removed?

I'm sure I read a week or so ago on here, someone recommended mixing blue & white tak. 

Lovely probe (cough!) and hook. The dorsal rib, superglue & stretched sprue? With paint I doubt it will not be needed though.

Another great update, the Vixen just gets better & betterer and a lovely sunset. 

We've been having alternate sunshine and snow all day, that would certainly confuse Uncle Fester!

[perdu]

The dorsal rib?

 

How about almost set 'spruegoo' manipulated by tweezers or flat pliers to give a raised line along the spine?

[TheBaron]

Sorry about the breath: absolutely addicted to olives at the moment...

 

On 31/03/2022 at 20:55, bigbadbadge said:

Exquisite details Tony,  glad the bays survived okay too.

Me too Chris! 😀

On 31/03/2022 at 21:54, Terry1954 said:

That arrester hook looks one of the finest I have ever seen in this scale (and others actually). Very nice, and those drop tank masks look neat.

Kind of you Terry: some paint on both yesterday (see below). 😄

On 31/03/2022 at 21:54, Terry1954 said:

I recently ordered something similar to AK Interactive Masking Putty (black). Have yet to use it in anger though, so will do some experiments.

Interesting: looking forward to seeing how you get on with it!

On 31/03/2022 at 22:48, philp said:

MiG/Ammo has some Panzer Putty which Ced has used for camo. It sounded a bit gooier.

I'd forgotten about that Phil: thanks for the tip.

On 31/03/2022 at 23:14, mark.au said:

I find that *tack releases very well the first time it’s used, but as it ages and gains contaminants (paint) it becomes more tacky and sorta stringy,

That explains a lot Mark: thanks.

The stuff I've been using probably qualifies as a historical artifact at this point, so time to bin it I reckon.

On 31/03/2022 at 23:26, Fritag said:

I vaguely remember deploying the Jag hook as a last resort on occasion, but that was a feeble structure compared with the Vixen’s mighty retarder.

Wow! Not saying much in terms of my ignorance of the subject Steve but I had absolutely no idea that the Jaguar even had a hook.

Was this standard, or some form of 'navalized mod?

On 31/03/2022 at 23:35, Navy Bird said:

My gob's been smacked so many times in this build I feel like Chris Rock.

Oh Lord. I'm going to have to resign from the Academy as well aren't I?

On 01/04/2022 at 08:09, giemme said:

The parallel pliers are a very handy tool, aren't they?

Not entirely sure how I ever functioned without them in the past Giorgio. For brass they're a mandatory tool imho.

On 01/04/2022 at 19:03, Pete in Lincs said:

The dorsal rib, superglue & stretched sprue? With paint I doubt it will not be needed though.

On 02/04/2022 at 13:45, perdu said:

How about almost set 'spruegoo' manipulated by tweezers or flat pliers to give a raised line along the spine?

Thanks lads but I'd probably just cause damage at this point attempting any further detailing in that region, so am content to leave that feature out without it affecting the visuals unduly.

 

In Lidl earlier and they were selling this jigsaw for a tenner:

Hopefully that might make it easier to locate all of the carpet monster's prey in future...

 

I'd forgotten that when I'd painted them a few weeks back, the 150 gall. tanks had used primer: cruelly reminded of that salient fact by multiple paint lifts when removing the masking after airbrushing on the maintenance markings. Another silver lining experience as it turned out, since scrubbing back down to the bare resin and respraying the white let me redo the masking in three consolidated sections this time, this refinement being far simpler to apply:

Despite that, it's only since I started using a 0.2mm nozzle airbrush that I've dared to work with such a limited amount of masking in place:

Results though were worth the extra work involved:

I still have to add the 'Trestling Area' lettering above the red stripes on either side (I'll freehand brush these in next in the same way I'd done the small lettering on XJ481 previously) and later will get to work on panel lines/dirt etc. with a pencil as well:

Also cleaned up and painted are the sub-assemblies combining the central airfeed piping and arches that sit midway along the Avons when the inspection panels are removed:

That particular pipework never seems to look too shiny in photos, so I cut some Alclad Chrome with Steel to give a somewhat dulled lustre:

Again, that'll have a light lubricant sheen/stain added at a later stage.

 

I also broke out the Light Admiralty Grey again and painted any remaining small details that needed this colour:

Once the paint had dried, I assembled the various parts of the arrestor gear using epoxy adhesive for strength:

 

That vertical hydraulic arm is obviously over-length at present - in trying to be as faithful as possible to the actual aircraft I'd included the rest of the hydraulic structure up inside the gear bay as you can see here:

Although that structure it won't actually be visible, tit should give a good strong permanent mounting solution for this fragile bit of goods.

 

At some point I also removed all the foam from the cockpit areas in preparation for further detail work:

Still the LAB gear to add to the rear of the cockpit and paint that diagonal bulkhead black, but will wait until I've finished all the heavy handling that'll be needed to draw in the underside panel lines first. In connection with that task, I've done up a sketch map to help better understand what I'm looking at in terms of how relatively anonymous lines on the surface correspond to actual structural features of the aircraft:

Most of this obviously involves triangulating and drawing straight lines onto the airframe, but the wild card is that flap fairing where it sweeps beneath the boom near the trailing edge of the wing.

 

Having a spare Vixen always helps at such times as I was able to co-ordinate various photographic views of this region taken from various angles and draw a template directly onto the aircraft:

Old school but effective.

 

Having established this outline, unpeel the tape, scan into the computer and then copy the outline digitally to create a set of Oramask templates for drawing around:

I won't get round to doing any panel lines this weekend now, but wit that hurdle cleared I can get cracking next time.

 

One last thing today: a personal bugbear of mine is/was trying to find a 0000 paintbrush that would last the pace when working with acrylics and tempera.  I've been through God-knows how many of the so-called (and often expensive) modeller's/wargamer's brushes and found most pitifully short-lived in terms of keeping their head shape, even when shampooed after cleaning. For the last couple of months I've been using one of these and can report it's an absolute gem in terms of durability:

Not sure how widely available they are outside of Ireland but well worth tracking down.

 

Hope you Sundays are going well.

Thanks or looking in as always!

Tony

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Brandy]

Another lovely update, and more detail than most manage in a month!

I do like those drop tanks.

I may have to look into getting some different sized needles myself, although I think my main priority there is the overheating compressor!

 

Looking at those last pics it is very evident that she has a very white bottom, although it does look nice and smooth!

 

CED!!

 

Ian

[Gondor44]

2 hours ago, TheBaron said:

 

In Lidl earlier and they were selling this jigsaw for a tenner:

Hopefully that might make it easier to locate all of the carpet monster's prey in future...

Looks more like a stool than a jigsaw to me

 

Gondor

[giemme]

Tanks looking spot on, and so do all the other various details you've been working on.  

 

Smart old fashioned masking, too (although "old fashioned" shouldn't really apply here  given the use of a scanner and of a Silhouette cutter.... )

 

Ciao 

[perdu]

6 hours ago, Gondor44 said:

Looks more like a stool than a jigsaw to me

 

Jigsaw, I saw no jigsaw

[Fritag]

Superb painted markings on the tanks; incredibly neat.  All the details work is first class.

 

17 hours ago, TheBaron said:

I had absolutely no idea that the Jaguar even had a hook.

Was this standard, or some form of 'navalized mod?

 

Standard.  Kinda ironic i’nt it? Jag’s had a hook and Crisp’s mates in Naval FJ’s (Sea Harrier) didn’t 

 

In fairness the hook was nothing like a carrier aircraft hook; it was there for emergencies only (e.g hydraulic/brake failure/aborted take off/brake chute failure). It was a lot less strong than a carrier hook and the aircraft wasn’t stressed for carrier landings.  Also, once it was deployed it was down - and it was an engineers job stick it back up again.   There was no question of nonchalantly raising the hook and taxying back to the line as if nothing had happened....

 

I’m sure that the operating handle in the cockpit will have been painted yellow and black as a reminder not to play with it unless in emergency.  But tbh I can’t remember off the top of my head where in the cockpit it was and what it looked like….

 

Many if not most military FJ airfields had a cable arrestor system called the Rotary Hydraulic Arrestor Gear (RHAG) at both ends of the runway.   Many land based FJ’s including the Jag, Tornado and Typhoon had/have hooks to ‘take the RHAG’ in emergency.  But whereas a carrier FJ like a Phantom or Buccaneer could if need be take the ’fast’ (touchdown end) RHAG, a Jag could only use the ‘slow’ RHAG at the far end of the runway after having scrubbed off speed as much as possible with the brake chute/brakes/aerodynamic braking.

 

A Jag (and presumably Tornado/Typhoon too) taking the fast end RHAG would be on the fast track to the repair shop – possibly in two or more pieces 

 

The French of course trialled a carrier borne version of the Jag (Jaguar M) and there’s some U Tube footage of it being catapulted off and landing on the Clemenceau and taking the wire; but that was a substantially modified aircraft with beefed up airframe/hook combo.

 

End of drift….

 

 

Edited April 4, 2022 by Fritag

[TheBaron]

14 hours ago, giemme said:

smart old fashioned masking, too (although "old fashioned" shouldn't really apply here  given the use of a scanner and of a Silhouette cutter....

It's an evolution! 😁

 

15 hours ago, Gondor44 said:

Looks more like a stool than a jigsaw to me

 

9 hours ago, perdu said:

Jigsaw, I saw no jigsaw

The floor lads, the floor....viz.

18 hours ago, TheBaron said:

Hopefully that might make it easier to locate all of the carpet monster's prey in future...

 

2 hours ago, Fritag said:

Superb painted markings on the tanks; incredibly neat.  

You'll be needing a Silhouette cutter to go with that printer now then eh Steve?

 

Fascinating details on aircraft/aviation history as well; I'm most grateful to you for sharing that as I had no idea about the RHAG stuff on airfield either.

 

@Ex-FAAWAFU will no doubt be along in a minute to proffer a few wholly objective and non-partisan quips upon 'carrier-envy' in the RAF....

 

3 hours ago, Fritag said:

End of drift….

Drift away old thing: I'm sat here this morning slipping in and out of online meetings but my heart's really in the clouds...

(Note to self: that's probably enough coffee for a bit.)

[Fritag]

4 hours ago, TheBaron said:

The floor lads, the floor....viz.

 

I knew what he meant and that’s the story I’m sticking to…….

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

You rang?

 

No carrier-envy here; I am definitely of the "safer to stop and then land than land and then stop" persuasion.  And though I knew what an RHAG was/is, I didn't know there was a fast & slow end.  

 

Given the fact that the Sea Vixen is a seriously large aircraft (easy to forget until you stand next to one) designed to operate from not-very-large carriers such as Centaur, Hermes & Victorious (as well as the larger Eagle & Ark 4), the thought of deck landing one fills me with awe at those guys.  Especially at night.  No wonder the hook was so massive!

 

I am, however, intrigued (and yet somehow not entirely surprised) to see that you have a dedicated "brass drawer".  I am now picturing a wing of Schloß Baron which is opened only on special brass days.  Guarded by Marty Feldman the rest of the time - that sort of thing.

 

Back (-ish) to your Vixen, I keep on having to remind myself that this is 1/72.  Bloody marvel.

[Spookytooth]

As above, lovely masking on the tanks dear sir.

 

As for paint brushes, I know the feeling.

 

Simon.

[Terry1954]

7 minutes ago, Fritag said:

 

I knew what he meant and that’s the story I’m sticking to…….

 

Well I'm blowed if I knew what he was talking about other than I thought I was looking at some giant interlocking reptile heating mat .................... ooops, I think I may have my threads mixed up, but they are all gelling into one in my old brain, with all this 3D stuff!

 

Spectacular fuel tank markings Tony, and very neat central air feed piping and arches for those Avons.

[perdu]

I knew

 

 

But to be fair I am so otherwise impressed with everything about this page of the internet I just had to play...

 

 

Disrepressible I think it's called

 

Or daftasabrushery

 

 

Or something like that

 

 

To be honest I did wonder about the extent of the floor you had covered Tony, the new recruit to the carpet monster's army will hide bits within its crevices.

 

How do I know?

 

Why did I fit a hard surface to my own modelling eyrie?

 

Just so the floor monster would find new, novel places to munch model bits. 

 

Skirting edges are favourites

 

Under cabinetes du files

 

Vers computer towers

 

And the ever favourite BEHIND the refuse bin...

 

Anyway I didn't see any floor jigsaws there on Monday...

[Pete in Lincs]

Don't look at me. My Jigsaw said three to ten years on the box, but I did it in a couple of weeks....

Oh, Janet and John have Spot put down.

[bigbadbadge]

Nice job on the tanks and other bit Tony.

Chris

[Gondor44]

On 4/4/2022 at 10:06 AM, TheBaron said:

 

The floor lads, the floor....viz.

 

 

Oh, you cut some mat up with a Jig Saw. I thought from what you wrote that you got a Jig Saw and were showing a picture of a stoll.

 

 

Youngsters these days......

 

Gondor

[TheBaron]

 

Sorry.

Just wanted to see if anyone would....

 

Late start to the weekend as our youngest's 18th bash at home last night. Sometime around 1.30 this morning I found myself having to teach a bunch of cidered-up 18 year olds how to clip and smoke cigars properly: not sure what sin that falls under but nonetheless it makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside to know that you're passing on life-skills to the next generation.

 

It's lunchtime Saturday and the last of the revellers have just staggered off into the daylight after intravenous administration of bacon rolls and strong coffee. Pulling the drawbridge up after them to spend the rest of the day in restful isolation.

 

In keeping I suppose with:

On 04/04/2022 at 14:29, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

 I am now picturing a wing of Schloß Baron which is opened only on special brass days.  Guarded by Marty Feldman the rest of the time - that sort of thing.

The Monster : [off-camera]  Mmmmmm!

 

Before the post-party brain-fade kicks in though, a quick resume of recent work beginning to detail the undersides.

 

This rather splendid piece of photographic gleamery gives a nice summary of the surface qualities that any representation of a Vixen has to contend with. Aside from the varying lustres of the EDSG upper works, there's a lot going on in the white areas underneath with respect to tone and line:

Most noticeable in such reference photography is that plethora of panel markings existing in a range of tonal weights;  typically very pronounced in areas like airbrake and centre doors,  down almost to non-existence along the wings in places. The main problem to overcome here then is to give expression to the varying nature of these features, rather than create a diagram.

 

The other issues directly connected to structural detailing are of course the ubiquitous effects of weathering. Having spent so long now staring at contemporary reference photography for operational FAW.1s, there are a number of shots floating around the web that in in my view exaggerate contrasts on the underside (i.e. between the white ground and staining), due to either over/under-exposure of original photography (due to the extreme tonal difference between EDSG and white in terms of which features you want to reproduce), grading of the original photographic print in the darkroom, or digital contrast stretching during subsequent print or online reproduction. Makes for a nice dramatic image of course but misleading in terms of tonal weight.

 

You have to be careful not to be fooled in the opposite direction as well. Many contemporary shots of operational Vixens on deck do not have the nice neat ESDG upper works as seen above, but on occasion show significant, what you might term 'visual distress' in places. This well-known Andrew Patterson shot gives a good example of what I mean:

Pretty sure this image has had its contrast stretched at some point btw, so again the need to be careful with tonality.

 

As those expert in such matters as @Pete in Lincs have noted previously, such aircraft do/did of course get very messy in operational use, so in absence of detailed photography regarding the visual condition of the specific aircraft you're building at a given point in time, how can you juggle these variables in reasonable fashion? Well' unless the aircraft is intended to be factory fresh, my method is simply to identify where and how much staining/weathering is visible on the the aircraft type from multiple photographs, but to ignore many such images in terms of their tonal contrast. That way I think you can produce a 'reasonable' replica of the aircraft, whilst filtering out as much as possible any biases in the photographic process.

 

An interesting philosophical question though: am I building an aircraft at all, or photographs of an aircraft?

 

A bit sidetracked there but I do need to pause sometimes to examine the validity of my own thinking and expose it to others to check for flaws.

 

So yes indeed, I've made a start on resolving this process on the underside of XN708:

What you see above is the very first stage whereby I'm sketching out the main linear features and triangulating them across the airframe. As long as you've put down a couple of layers of varnish over the paint before starting this it's not at all scary as it's effectively a whiteboard that you can use an eraser on to adjust any inaccuracies as you go along. You want at this stage to avoid drawing individual features in in detail however and focus on their accurate disposition. I've also found that where a need for custom templates of the more complex features arises, Oramask is more effective than Washi tape at providing a rigid edge for the pencil to trace around:

I genuinely don't have a log of how long this initial set out outlines took me to complete as due the concentration involved I would do about an hour, then have to break for an hour or two and come back to it with fresh eyes:

This stage of the process is simply to get the relevant features drawn accurately across all those compound curves:

No weathering has been attempted yet but the reason I prefer the aesthetic effects of drawing in panel details with pencil is the way that it even at this early stage it ais sensitive enough incoporate those differences in tonality and line weight I spoke about earlier. Having drawing templates for the flaps where they belly down around the booms took a lot of anxiety out of having to freehand these in:

As you would expect with the Vixen there are some idiosyncratic conjunctions of features WHICH you have to watch out for, such as the interaction here between the airbrake, fuselage, and cooling intake fairing:

The wings also received their first pass:

The main features need here are the flaps, inspection panel lozenges, and the front spar line as the most prominent items in this region:

I also got around at some point to brush painting in the lettering on the drop tanks:

This was done with tempera and relatively straightforward. A coat of varnish followed by the main panel lines in pencil and these can wait for the net stage of weathering now too:

Happy with that pencil work I've sealed it all just now under a layer of Aqua Gloss to protect it for the nest stage:

 

Sheesh. I think last night is just starting to catch up with me so I'll stop now before embarrassing us both by saying yourrr my bessshht matez™....

 

Take good care of yourselves until next time.

Tony

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[giemme]

This idea of tracing panel lines with a pencil is incredibly effective on white, Tony! It just render a proper effect, including an initial weathering! Top job!   

 

Ciao 

[Brandy]

I love the look of where this is going. Looking forward to seeing how you do it in practice Tony.

 

Ian

[Terry1954]

Very effective method of penel line indication and weathering.

 

1 hour ago, TheBaron said:

An interesting philosophical question though: am I building an aircraft at all, or photographs of an aircraft?

 

That sums up what realistic modelling is IMHO. Many strive for the effect, few achieve it. Looks like you are nailing it Tony.

 

👏

 

Terry

[perdu]

Well this ain't bad, you know.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As do we all👍

 

 

[Jon020]

Wow. Only just found this topic. Will certainly follow with interest. Superb modelling👏

[Pete in Lincs]

Tony, Thanks for the mention. I've cleaned more than a few flying machines in my time, it's true.

The pencil lines look great, it's my preferred method too. I have to keep reminding myself of the size of this model!

Personally I think I would go the subtle route for weathering on the white. Some grubbyness on the flap, Airbrake & gear door hinge lines.

With, as you suggest, slight tonal differences between panels.

Get well soon!

[Anthony in NZ]

Tony, words fail me mate! This truly is next level modelling and quite frankly am in awe of your skills. Sometimes I scratch my head at using a pencil for panel lines but after seeing your execution I totally see your vision of end result…perfect 

 

ok I’ll give’QC’ stamp on this….carry on sir!