Bristol Berkeley - 1/72 scratchbuilt - Finished!

[Jonners]

6 hours ago, pheonix said:

The model...will really be transformed when you spray it with silver finish.

How true! I've been looking forward to that part for ages. I musn't try it too soon, though...

[Jonners]

4 hours ago, John Aero said:

the damn thing fired a staple a good 100 mm into my left thigh.

100mm! Ouch!! (That's a long way - too many 0s?) I've accidentally, in a moment of pure carelessness, put a standard 10mm staple to its full depth into the end of my thumb before when I was at work. I was surprised by how little it actually hurt - but not by how much banter I received from my caring, sympathetic colleagues. 

 

You think I would learn.

[Jonners]

In between seemingly endless fill-sand-prime-repeat cycles, especially on the upper wing, I've furnished the cockpit. Here's ge seat, with the coaming made from soft wire (which needs straightening behind the cockpit):

 

 

The instrument panel is pretty rough, mainly as it probably won't be visible, and it's ended up ever so slightly skew - though I hadn't noticed until I looked at the photo:

 

 

I'm currently pondering how to represent the Condor cylinder heads and tailskid, and the upper wing is pretty much ready for its ailerons.

Jon.

[Jonners]

The results of this evening's tinkering:

 

Firstly, the Berkeley had a secondary instrument panel forward of the gunner's position. I've made a representation of this using 10 thou plastic card (the filler hasn't yet been smoothed):

 

 

Next was the tailskid, which was made from scraps of plastic card and push-fitted into a slot drilled and cut into the fuselage underside:

 

 

Finally for today I had a bash at struts, which promises to be a very tedious job as I will need 12 of them! I first tried modifying and narrowing struts from the spares box, but this didn't really work - getting identical chord widths with straight edges was beyond me. Next I tried sanding cocktail sticks; I've often used this method before, but when narrow they don't easily accept wire 'pins' which are needed for neatness and security.

 

In particular, I gave this photo a good 'looking at':

 

 

Apart from noting the different chord widths and which struts are tapered and which are flush with the wings, including the lower wing from a different photo, it struck me that the wing struts actually appear to be in two parts. The darker forward part appears to be the strut itself, probably wooden, whereas the aft (silver?) section seems to be streamlining, with the two parts being secured by a dark mid-strut band.

 

I dug out my small supply of brass strut stock (thanks again, John.. ) and found I had enough 1mm wide pieces for the task. I then cut a strip of plain white paper with a width of 30.5mm to match the required 1/72 strut length.  This was cut into 20mm sections with a line drawn across the width and scored at the halfway point. I then trimmed the paper parallel to and about 1.5mm from the line.I superglued this to one side of a strut piece, folded the paper back on itself along the scored line, then again trimmed the unglued side to about 1.5mm from the fold. This 'loose' edge was then superglued to the other side of the strut. Blimey, that sounds complicated...

 

Anyway, the objective was to try to replicate the way in which the original struts appear to have been constructed, by using folded paper to represent the streamlining. This photo isn't great, but it shows two untapered pieces with primer applied and one tapered strut as yet unpainted:

 

 

Fiddly? Just a bit. The main airframe now looks like this, with the mainwheels slotted into place and strut placement holes drilled and shaped in the lower wings:

 

 

Jon

[pheonix]

Good idea with the struts Jon.Not as complicated as it reads - just follow the photos and it is actually straightforward.

 

P

[Murdo]

Absolutely incredible work here.

 

I really appreciate you sharing it. It give so many idea for using different materials to acheive the results you want.

[Jonners]

11 hours ago, Jonners said:

Blimey, that sounds complicated...

A picture paints a thousand words, and all that:

 

 

L-R: 1) Paper cut to size then lined, scored and folded. 2) One side of the line trimmed and superglued to the brass strut. 3) Other side of the line trimmed. 4) Paper folded and glued to other side of strut (2 struts here!).

 

Jon

[Jonners]

Okay, own up. Whose idea was it to build a 3-bay biplane? That's 12 homemade struts to get lined up, properly sized and fitted. Muppet.

 

Oh, wait...

 

 

There's a lot of strut-fettling to do yet before the upper wing fits; it's just rested in place for the photo and still needs its ailerons fitting. I managed to fill the window apertures with Formula 560, which I hadn't expected to 'stretch' across the gaps.  It's still drying in the pic but looks pretty clear. I have another work-related pause coming up, so that's it for a few days.

Jon

[AdrianMF]

Looks fab Jonners!

 

PS don't forget the 4 extra struts in the middle 

 

Regards,

Adrian

[Jonners]

2 minutes ago, AdrianMF said:

don't forget the 4 extra struts in the middle

I won't! From what I can tell from photos, they fit vertically between the fuselage top and the upper wing and should be fairly easily represented by stretched sprue slotted into holes drilled in the fuselage.

[Max Headroom]

21 minutes ago, AdrianMF said:

Looks fab Jonners!

 

PS don't forget the 4 extra struts in the middle 

 

Regards,

Adrian

....and the rigging 🤪

 

Seriously though, this is looking the business.

 

Trevor

[Jonners]

8 minutes ago, Max Headroom said:

...and the rigging

Perhaps bizarrely, I usually quite enjoy the rigging process. (Masochist.. ). I intend to use EZ Line for the Berkeley.

Jon

[AdrianMF]

Just curious as to your plans for the windows. Are you going to mask them or just pull them off and re-do after painting?

 

Regards,

Adrian

[Jonners]

1 hour ago, AdrianMF said:

Just curious as to your plans for the windows. Are you going to mask them or just pull them off and re-do after painting?

Good question, Adrian. Glazing at this stage was primarily an experiment to see if the Formula 560 could cope with such large apertures, on the basis that I could simply peel it away if it didn't work. I considered Maskol - not that I know where my Maskol is, or how it might react with Formula 560 - but, if it all goes wrong, I'll just reapply the 560 after painting. 

 

 

(Dammit! I've just noticed that the inboard rear strut hasn't been seated deeply enough. That Gorilla superglue gel is strong stuff, too...)

 

In the meantime I'm just pleased to have done something that doesn't involve struts or sanding!

Edited May 27, 2020 by Jonners

[pheonix]

That is looking super. Quite a feat to fix that top wing (which must be quite heavy given the span and the fact it is a modified 0/400 part. The struts look fine from here (except the inboard rear port side....) and all looks square and true. This is really taking shape and hopefully will be ready for paint before too long.

 

P

[Jonners]

10 hours ago, pheonix said:

This is really taking shape and hopefully will be ready for paint before too long.

Thanks, Phoenix. It ought to be - it’s taking ages!

[Brandy]

Looking very good! That Formula 560 seems to do a good job for the glazing.

 

Ian

[AdrianMF]

1 hour ago, limeypilot said:

Looking very good! That Formula 560 seems to do a good job for the glazing.

It does! Much better than Glue'n'Glaze anyway, but that might be the applicator (me...).

 

Regards,

Adrian

[Jonners]

Back at the workbench after a few days away and, to my astonishment (and great relief), all 12 wing struts turned out to be the correct lengths and pretty much clicked into place:

 

 

The four centre struts are just thin plastic rod cut to length and superglued.

 

I was given a pair of white metal cylinder banks in case I was able to use them to represent the exposed Condor engine cylinder heads, but unfortunately they weren't quite right so they have been put aside for a future project. Instead, I'm using umpteen bits of plastic rod to represent the cylinder heads and profusion of exhaust outlet pipes - these will be trimmed to equal length once the cement has cured. It will be a case of 'impression' rather than detailed accuracy, so fingers crossed.

 

The tail strut lengths were measured using dividers and cut from a length of plastic strut left over from my Contrail Vildebeest:

 

 

The upper wing ailerons were push-fitted to the wing using short lengths of brass rod before the wing was fitted to the struts, and plastic rod has been used to add the various pipes to the top of the fuel tanks:

 

 

Nearly ready for painting! I am inclined to try airbrushing Tamiya colours for the first time, as I've only read positive comments about doing this. If anyone has experience of spraying Tamiya Flat Aluminium (XF-16) then I'd be grateful for your thoughts.

 

Jon

[Marklo]

I love this so far. I spray Tamiya on a regular basis I tend to use a 1:1 mix of paint and water and generally it sprays fine. I have recently experimented with adding some Tamiya thinners and it does makes the paint flow better.

My latest build a Japanese Stuka, Gunze on the undersides Tamiya on top.

 

i haven’t airbrushed Tamiya silver but I have brush painted it and find it’s very translucent and lacking body, so I tend to make up a mix of about 3:1 silver to neutral grey, I think this also more accurately represents high speed silver.

 

My Gamecock brush painted with the silver mix.

Edited June 3, 2020 by Marklo

[Jonners]

21 minutes ago, Marklo said:

I tend to make up a mix of about 3:1 silver to neutral grey

Cheers Marklo, I have both colours so I'll give it a go.

[Andrew.S]

Perfect build! Very admirable, looking forward to the paint

Edited June 4, 2020 by Andrew.S

[Jonners]

Well, the main airframe paint is on:

 

 

As my trusty Humbrol Polished Aluminium aerosol had run out I used Tamiya paints through my old Badger 200 airbrush. The dark nose was a mix of Neutral Grey and Flat Black with a touch of Johnson's Klear added to the mix, then a single coat (so far) of Klear over the top. 

 

 

The silver was a mix of XF-16 Flat Aluminium with a small amount of Neutral Grey added. Initially it spattered a bit until I thinned it a bit more (more practice required). Overall it's a little more grainy than I expected, but that could be due in part to the matt primer coat and will hopefully be reduced when I give it a couple of coats of Klear. During spraying I also discovered a small amount of FOD that I had missed on the upper right wing. It has left a very small blemish that I'll have to decide whether to worry about or not.

 

 

The biggest annoyance is what has happened to all of the window apertures. I had glazed them with Formula 560 and left it in place to mask the apertures, with the intention of peeling the oversprayed Formula 560 away once the fuselage had been painted and reglazing with fresh 560.

 

Unfortunately all the windows 'blew through' to a degree, although I expect internal overspray to be almost invisible (like most of the interior...). Even more irritating is that it is extremely difficult to remove the tattered Formula 560, even using a new No11 blade. Whereas PVA glue normally peels off, this stuff sticks!

 

 

I think the next step will be a coat of Klear, if only to give the silver paint a bit of extra resilience when I attack the Formula 560! (It seemed like a good idea at the time.)

 

Jon

Edited June 4, 2020 by Jonners

[Jonners]

...And, just for a fun size comparison, here it is alongside my Contrail Vildebeest:

 

 

[pheonix]

They were both large aircraft Jon. Good luck getting the window masks off!

 

P