1:72 Gloster Javelin Jambalaya

[Antti_K]

Now that you mentioned that flaps: they are to be selected UP according to the Flight Reference Cards. However there was no locking mechanism so the flaps started to open (slowly) whenever hydraulic power was cut off. So for a correct model of Javelin on the ground, the flaps should be slightly open. Like this:

 

 

Note also that after Shut Down control lock was applied. That's why both ailerons are slightly up (above wing trailing edge). Just visible in the left in the photo.

 

Cheers,

Antti

[71chally]

8 minutes ago, Navy Bird said:

 

Bill

That's what I like in a kit, little to no flash!

 

Cracking work on those seat and 'pit.

[Antti_K]

That's just like my Novo Javelin: little or no flash and those weird yellow stains...😄

 

Antti

[Navy Bird]

Let's see if the photoetched airbrakes are going to work. Airwaves made them out of very pliable metal - The fret was actually curled slightly when I got it. But since I have two sets of T.3 fuselages, I can experiment. So let's take a chunk out of the lower wing - making sure to put the little "notches" where they'll line up with the PE airbrake. Of course, Airwaves botched this slightly, and the notches made by the panel lines on the kit do NOT align. Somebody warned me. Be careful, measure twice, cut once, and curse often.

 

 

The opening will be cleaned up further later on. But let's see how the airbrakes will look. There is a separate piece of photoetch that represents the bottom of the airbrake "bay" with details that are, most likely, entirely fictitious. I taped this to the bottom of the fuselage (it is just big enough to cover the opening) and posed the airbrake.

 

 

 

I kinda like it. Now I only have to do that three more times. Let's see, that means three more bandages from slippage of my #11 razor saw blade, and a couple of puncture wounds when the drill breaks through into your fingertip (where you positioned it in anticipation).

 

What do you guys think? I think it beats trying to scribe the airbrake detail later on...   

 

Cheers,

Bill

[giemme]

23 minutes ago, Navy Bird said:

What do you guys think?

Looks cool   But please stop hurting yourself.

 

With blades and drills, I mean - you can keep hurting yourself building these kits...  

 

Ciao

 

 

[71chally]

Looks really good, and worth all that hard work.

The only thing for me though is that I wouldn't set the airbrake roof so deep into the wing, that and the flap bay wasn't particularly deep.

 

These are handy for the flap bay, the air brake bay is similar depth, but with the cutouts protruding to skin level, https://www.net-maquettes.com/pictures/gloster-javelin-walk/

[Navy Bird]

23 minutes ago, giemme said:

Looks cool   But please stop hurting yourself.

 

It's only blood...I can make more.   

 

21 minutes ago, 71chally said:

The only thing for me though is that I wouldn't set the airbrake roof so deep into the wing, that and the flap bay wasn't particularly deep.

 

Absolutely - the intent is to sand from the inside and reduce the plastic thickness in those areas. This will reduce the depth of the well. The PE roof of the well is larger than the opening, and to try and trim that so I can position it closer to the surface of the wing sounds a little adventuresome. Let's see if I can fire up a sanding stick or two.

 

I don't plan on lowering the flaps - just open the airbrakes.

 

Cheers,

Bill

 

EDIT - I just found a nice photo of the open airbrakes, and the PE piece from Airwaves (that represents the roof of the well) must be binned. The roof will have to be scratched. The roof of the well has raised rectangles (which match up with the rectangular openings in the airbrake itself, and thereby form a smooth continuous surface when closed. Makes much more sense.  

[CedB]

Nice work Bill

Before you bin the 'roof of the well' PE couldn't it be used as some sort of template/mould?

[Antti_K]

Bill,

 

now that you started to talk about the air brakes: There is a note in Pilot's Notes that prompt the pilot to warn the navigator always before opening the brakes as they created a deceleration of slightly more than 1G. I guess quite a few navigators hit their faces on to the radar set before this amendment was added.

 

Here is a photo of the wing leading edge. The last fighter variants had a drooped leading edge.

 

 

Cheers,

Antti

[71chally]

..that's what I was referring to Bill, it's very similar to the Meteor air brake set up.  I have got shots of that aircraft (Coventrys' FAW.5) but need to find them.

It's a tricky thing to make up, another way would be to score the rectangle in to the wing and then shave that area down a bit, and then add the little strips back in - not easy either way!

Edited August 13, 2019 by 71chally

[Navy Bird]

1 hour ago, CedB said:

Before you bin the 'roof of the well' PE couldn't it be used as some sort of template/mould?

 

I was thinking of using the airbrake itself as the template. Believe it or not, the airbrake and the roof don't match perfectly. Somebody warned me.   

 

1 hour ago, 71chally said:

..that's what I was referring to Bill, it's very similar to the Meteor air brake set up.  I have got shots of that aircraft (Coventrys' FAW.5) but need to find them.

It's a tricky thing to make up, another way would be to score the rectangle in to the wing and then shave that area down a bit, and then add the little strips back in - not easy either way!

 

I just pulled some nice photos of the roof on the Airfix 1:48 sprues, and that should be pretty easy to make in 1:72. @Martian Hale will be happy, as it will involve the use of white plastic card.    

 

Cheers,

Bill

[Fritag]

18 hours ago, Navy Bird said:

Here is where I'm at with the faux ejection seats. Perfect? No. Usable? They're OK with me.

 

Typically attractive Navy Bird bang-seats.  Nice touch of colour contrast to the habitual 1950's British black pit. 

[Duncan B]

16 hours ago, Navy Bird said:

 

EDIT - I just found a nice photo of the open airbrakes, and the PE piece from Airwaves (that represents the roof of the well) must be binned. The roof will have to be scratched. The roof of the well has raised rectangles (which match up with the rectangular openings in the airbrake itself, and thereby form a smooth continuous surface when closed. Makes much more sense.  

It's those raised blocks that have always put me off using the Airwaves etched airbrakes. No doubt you'll make it look easy but I am a lazy modeller

 

Duncan B

[Brandy]

How about putting some thin putty in the air brake well, then pushing the pe part into it to make it come through the slots? At least then it's only tidy up and you have nicely spaced "lumps" to work with.

 

Ian

[AWFK10]

On 8/9/2019 at 6:53 PM, stever219 said:

I’m sorry if this has been dealt with earlier in this thread but the FROG Javelin F(AW). Mk. 9 nose is about ²/₂₅ inch too short.  Unfortunately I’m 4¹/₂ hours flying time from my copy of the Modeldecal sheet that details the error and shows how to turn it to advantage by converting the kit into an F(AW). Mk. 8.

I haven't got the Modeldecal sheet but there's an article on Javelins in Issue 1 of  Seventy-Second Scale Modeller that suggests sawing off and reattaching the nose to get it to the correct length for a FAW.8. The Frog and Plastyk kits really do need their emaciated fin and rudder sorting out, though. It would have been a fairly easy fix if they'd been moulded as left and right halves but unfortunately they're a single, far too thin part in both kits.

[Duncan B]

Just remembered another possible issue with the Heller/Airfix kits, the fin sweeps back at too much of an angle according to the scale drawings I have. Not something I am concerned about but some might be.

 

Duncan B

[Nikolay Polyakov]

When I was a little boy I assembled a lot of Javelins from the NOVO kits - they were cheap and can be found everywhere. So, it’s a very nostalgic kit and when I looked at your picture:

I realized that I knew this kit as my fingers!

 

Actually, all of them (Javelin kits) has the same amount of flash that I use for the scratch building.

 

Excellent progress so far, Bill! Keep up the good work! 😉

 

Edited August 14, 2019 by Nikolay Polyakov

[Navy Bird]

1 hour ago, Duncan B said:

Just remembered another possible issue with the Heller/Airfix kits, the fin sweeps back at too much of an angle according to the scale drawings I have. Not something I am concerned about but some might be.

 

For what it's worth, when compared to the Airfix 1:48 kit drawing, it's spot-on. I have a couple of other layout drawings of unknown provenance, and I don't see any appreciable error with those either. I then took the Frog/Novo fin and it seems fine, too - but you have to make sure you take into account the fact that the bottom aft portion of the Airfix fin is part of the top fuselage piece. That's not the case with Frog. Once you align accordingly, the two kits are very close. If you just compared the fin pieces, Airfix would look swept back too much, but it really isn't. Does that make any sense? I can post photos if you'd like to see them.

 

Cheers,

Bill

[Antti_K]

Bill,

 

are you using the Airfix (1/48 Javelin) stencil placement guide drawing? I think it is possibly the best and most accurate available. Some surface details are wrong but the shape and dimensions should be pretty accurate.

 

Cheers,

Antti

[Navy Bird]

Hi mates,

 

@Antti_K, yes I am using the Airfix 1:48 stencil placement drawing.

 

I promised some photos to explain my comments on the fin, so here they are. First, the three fuselage sections (Airfix in grey, Frog/Novo in white edged with some occasional yellow, and Plastyk in some kind of a dark swirling morass of a colour):

 

 

Note that Airfix is the only one who incorporates the bottom of the fin into the fuselage top. The separation line is the bottom of the rudder. Also note that the bottom fin section on the Airfix fuselage is thicker at the back. Now, placing the vertical fins onto the drawing (which has been scaled to 1:72 based on the published dimensions of the wingspan). First, Airfix (note how I aligned the base of the fin at the bottom of the rudder):

 

 

I think that looks pretty good. If there is an error in sweep-back angle, it's tiny. Next comes the Frog/Novo fin (again note how the bottom of the fin is aligned to the top of the fuselage):

 

 

The angle looks OK, but the width across the top of the fin looks a wee bit short, as can be seen at the aft end. I don't think this would be noticeable. Lastly, the fin from Plastyk - the placement is a bit arbitrary, as the bottom of the fin is not straight, but rather convex.

 

 

And you can see that it shares the undersized width at the top of the fin with Frog/Novo, plus it's a bit too short in height. Again, I'm not sure any of that would be all that noticeable. I also measured the thickness of all three fins at their thickest point using a digital caliper - Airfix 5.92 mm, Frog/Novo 4.2 mm, and Plastyk 4.0 mm. So, as mentioned, the Frog/Novo and Plastyk pieces are thinner probably due to being moulded as one piece. This type of error (if it's an error, I don't know the actual dimension) is most visible looking head-on at the fin and comparing the different models. Someone might see it, others may not. I'm not too concerned. Yet.

 

OK, so besides all this malarkey, what have I been doing? I found a picture of the airbrake roof parts from the Airfix 1:48 scale kit - this is what I need to replicate.

 

 

As promised to @Martian Hale, I cut out a piece of white card stock, placed the photoetched airbrake over the top, and used a fine point marker to trace out the openings.

 

 

This is done solely to give me a guide showing where to put additional pieces of plastic.

 

 

I cut out a whole pile of little pieces of styrene, approximately 1 mm wide by 4 mm tall, then selected the best ones to use. I taped a straight edge aligned to the guide markings, and then the tiny pieces were then glued in place.

 

 

Using this instead of the Airwaves PE part adds a lot of 3D to the roof the airbrake bay. I taped this into the fuselage and posed the airbrake.

 

 

This will work for me - I like it much better then the Airwaves PE. The 1 mm wide strips I used are a wee bit too wide, and I may try to slice some a little thinner. We'll see, it's probably good enough as it is. The only real problem is I now have to do this three more times!   

 

Movin' on...

 

Cheers,

Bill

[giemme]

12 minutes ago, Navy Bird said:

The only real problem is I now have to do this three more times!   

Silicon mould and resin duplicates, maybe? That scratch built airbrake roof sort of deserves it .... just saying ...  

Excellent job, BTW

 

Ciao 

[Brandy]

I would definitely trim a piece of that rod a little thinner. If you're going to do it.....

 

Ian

[Navy Bird]

2 hours ago, limeypilot said:

I would definitely trim a piece of that rod a little thinner. If you're going to do it.....

 

That's the plan. It's not rod, though, the tiny little buggers are made from flat sheet styrene. I have an idea that may make it a bit easier to make them...but I can't reveal it until after I've tried it. That way, if it doesn't work, I don't have to mention it.   

 

Cheers,

Bill

 

PS. I could take the Airfix 1:48 parts, and reduce them by a third. Where is Wayne Szalinski when I need him?

[Antti_K]

Nice work with the air brakes Bill! I just bought a selection of Evergreen strips; they would have worked very well on the air brake housing.

 

I can see my own handiwork on that Javelin drawing... now I'm embarrassed Was it you who asked for a three view drawing earlier this year...

 

Cheers,

Antti

[Navy Bird]

48 minutes ago, Antti_K said:

...Was it you who asked for a three view drawing earlier this year...

 

Methinks so.   

 

Cheers,

Bill