Heather's Workbench - The Netherlands, 1940

[AdrianMF]

The interior and wheel wells do look amazingly detailed, even though getting it all together is a pain in the posterior. Hope it all looks a bit more doable after a short break for decompression…

 

Regards,

Adrian

[Steve Coombs]

That's a neat little Faucheur.

Interior detailing may well be a manifestation of OCD, but YOU know it's there. On my planes, it also determines whether the canopy is open or not.

[Heather Kay]

Right, now, where was I?

 

Oh, hello everyone! The day job has been filling my time of late, and I’ve not felt much like styrene bothering after a full day slaving over a hot soldering iron. 
 

The moulding issue on the G-1 undercarriage leg has been exercising the brain box. I think I may have to rebuild the entire lower part of the main oleo structure in order to make a strong repair. More on that when I’m feeling strong enough. Meanwhile, back at the T.V…

 

 

I got a bit miffed at my bodgery, especially round the tail unit. More in a sec, because to sort the issue out I stretched some sprue which also came in handy for plugging the little gap at the front of the cockpit canopy. Here, I am waiting for the liquid cement to harden off before trimming back the whiskers.

 

Round the rear end, we have this shaped slot, design to accommodate the horizontal tailplane surfaces. Obviously, the slot isn’t quite the right shape, so a bit of careful filing and sanding needs to be done to make the best fit. The tailplane halves are of typical short run style, being very chunky round the trailing edges. I never seem to be able to scrape enough away to get a knife-edge finish, and ended up so disappointed in my efforts it all got put back in the box and dumped on the Shelf of Doom until today.

 

I set to with big files and sanding sticks to see if I could thin the trailing edge from the outside. It got better, but still nowhere near good enough. In the end I used the stretched sprue to fill the gap. Here it all is after some preliminary sanding. Still some work to do, I think, but at least it’s not a lumpen edge any more.

 

 

Here is how the tailplane is supposed to fit. You can see there will need to be quite a bit of filler and smoothing to do. All of this needs to be fitted before the glazed tail cone can be fitted. With the circular end to the fuselage, doesn’t it look like an early jet tailpipe!

 

More fettling and fitting to come before I’m happy with things, but I can’t think of a better way to pass a Sunday afternoon.

[Dave Slowbuild]

Neat work with the stretched sprue, a very useful and undervalued resource!
But them I’m partial to things that are basically free, I mean it only costs one match to light a candle!
 

Dave

[Markh-75]

On 20/04/2022 at 16:43, Heather Kay said:

I see what you mean! 
 

My paint box contains mostly Humbrol enamel and acrylic, a select few Revell Aqua, some Xtracrylix (covering RAF, FAA and Luftwaffe), and ColourCoats enamels (which is now my go-to standard for all air forces under consideration). While I could find Hu128 in the enamels list on the IPMS SE page, and cross-reference to Revell enamel 341, I don’t know enough about the Revell ranges to know if the enamel and Aqua ranges use the same number reference.

 

What would have been useful would be a colour chip of Hu128 so I could see if any of the various greys in my box are close. I think sticking to Hu01 with some dark wash weathering here and there will have to suffice.

 

I just pulled the D.XXI off the shelf and peered into the cockpit. I seem to have used a mid- to light-grey in there. Perhaps I should read back through this thread and see what colour I actually used!
 

EDIT: It seems I opted for RLM02, or Hu240, for the 21.

Doesnt make it any easier when different places call it different things! One place calls it US Gull grey and another calls it US Compass grey!

[HAMP man]

54 minutes ago, Heather Kay said:

after a full day slaving over a hot soldering iron. 

So would you consider giving a master class at the fluxin an solderin?

Apparently your reputation as a solderess  has reached Mars.

Nice plastic botherin

 

 

Box on

 

 

Strickers

 

[Heather Kay]

15 minutes ago, HAMP man said:

Apparently your reputation as a solderess  has reached Mars.

I know. Scary.

 

I don’t claim to be an expert, unless some years of practical experience count, and there are loads of people who are much, much better than me. I’ll have a think about the best way to share techniques, and where in the forum would be best to post it.

 

Don't, though, hold your breath!

[HAMP man]

Experience.....tick

Ability to describe experience, (I cite present and past build logs).....tick

Breath held.....😶

 

Box on

 

Strickers

[Heather Kay]

You may be lucky later in this thread, then. The G-1 undercarriage "repair" may well entail brass wrangling and a hot iron.

 

 

Happy with the tailplane fiddling, I committed to gluing it to the fuselage. I also attached the nose glazing using Kristal Klear. The reason for not permanently fixing it is because I haven’t fitted the Big Gun framework inside, but I don’t want it in place now because it’ll be broken during handling. A temporary nose job will let me get painting done, hopefully.

 

 

I hope that’s on square! Anyway, I’ll let that harden before I get stuck in with filler.

 

Not sure there’ll be much more progress today. I’m feeling very lazy, and I’ll be back at the day job tomorrow.

 

[Gondor44]

Gondor's Modelling Rule Number Three: Everything will fit perfectly untill you apply glue...

 

Gondor

[HAMP man]

3 hours ago, Heather Kay said:

You may be lucky later in this thread, then. The G-1 undercarriage "repair" may well entail brass wrangling and a hot iron.

Oh Deepest Joy

 

Box on 

 

Strickers

[heloman1]

Looking good Heather...

 

Colin

[Heather Kay]

Another week sails serenely by, and I finally found time for the bench.

 

 

With the tail cone firmly attached last week, I felt it was a good time to apply the glazing masks. The Peewit masks have served me well in the past, being generally accurate in shape and size. I did the graphite from a soft pencil rubbed over the sheet trick, so the edges of the parts were easy to see, and I also transferred the numbers using a fine felt pen. One panel was entirely missed, some numbers transposed compared to the kit parts, and one piece needed some scalpel adjustment, but otherwise it was all good, and a time saver.

 

 

I had already filled the gaps around the horizontal tail surfaces, so I fitted the vertical parts. Two pegs are moulded on the horizontal part ends, but they entirely failed to meet the dimples in the fins. I sanded them off. As you can see, I managed to work out how to use the EBMA jig gizmo to support the fuselage while fixing the vertical parts in place. I will leave that to harden, having been liberal with the liquid cement, as I really don’t trust butt joints.

 

My attention turned to a chore I never seem to get right, thinning the trailing edges. I decided to try and get this out of the way on the wings before I got into engine nacelles and undercarriage.

 

 

I tried a variation on a technique used by car restorers when prepping for respraying. This entails finding high and low spots on the panels by using a light spray of primer and passing over with abrasive sheets. Out with the dry marker pen. Using a large flat sanding stick, I used the leading edge as a kind of datum and gently passed over the trailing edge. Almost immediately, the high spots became visible, and how the extreme edge remained black. What followed was a messy session of sanding, more marker, more sanding and so on, in an effort to thin the mating surfaces of both wing parts so when joined they had a neat near-knife edge.

 

 

This was the situation after about 20 minutes. Getting there. The worst part is always the kink where the dihedral takes off. It took quite a while working at that area.

 

 

Not the best photo, but this is much better than I thought it might end up. I may still spend a few more minutes refining things, but until I commit to glue I won’t know how good or bad it actually is. While the wings are still in pieces, I checked how they fitted into the fuselage slot. There are alignment blocks moulded into the slot, and I found I needed to file a corresponding notch into the inner wing halves to let them nestle into the slot properly. It’s not exactly a positive alignment and fixing arrangement, but I’ve definitely seen worse, even from some of the bigger players in the kit game.

 

I shall now take a look at the nacelle assemblies. It might be nice to get close to a primer coat on this model.

[Dave Slowbuild]

Looking at those very shallow wing locating blocks I can’t help thinking your alignment jig thingy will be a useful aid once again!

[Heather Kay]

Dave, I think the wing fitting will be strong enough. There’s a fair depth within the fuselage with a good area for glue to penetrate. As long as I can get the wings level, it will be fine.

 

Slow progress this afternoon.

 

 

Here is one nacelle. There’s an ejector pin right where you don’t need it, at the front of the gear well. I did check the opposite number and the instructions to check before removing it. As is typical for this kind of kit, the mating surfaces of this moulding are a bit rough and ready. Some careful sanding takes off the worst of the rough edges.

 

 

Because of the way the mould was set up, there’s also a meaty part line to tidy up. It’s along the front sides, at the bottom of this inverted nacelle. A few minutes with scraper and sanding stick, plus a little panel engraving reinstatement, and all is good.

 

Inside each nacelle goes a front and rear bulkhead. It was apparent from the poor fit of the front part that the nacelles needed some gentle persuasion to meet the bulkhead sides, as the large moulding was a little flatter than it should be. Copious glue and pegs hold things until the glue sets.

 

 

A resin part is provided for the inside of the gear bay. It more or less fits over the hole in the lower wing. I was almost persuaded it wasn’t worth gluing in, as it probably won’t be seen with the model on the shelf. Happily, it fitted the wing nicely, and didn’t need any sanding to allow the other wing half to fit.

 

 

Time to join the wing halves to each other. Despite all the sanding and thinning, there was still a thick trailing edge - not massive, but annoying after all the graft earlier today. I carefully sanded the outside surfaces on the top and bottom of the wings to try and ameliorate the thickness, which did help, but I still needed to deploy some stretched sprue to help. Overall, fairly happy. You can see the resin gear well roof.

 

The final act of the day was to assemble the undercarriage. It consists of three parts, the main oleo legs and a pair of Y-shaped struts. Quite a bit of mould part line needed cleaning up on the oleos, and some very careful slicing, scraping and sanding on the struts to remove the feed gates. I have marked one nacelle with an R for the right side, following the instructions which imply this is important. To all intents and purposes, though, both nacelles and undercarriage assemblies are identical. I shall leave this lot to set properly. If I’m in the mood tomorrow evening, I shall fit the nacelles to the wings and fill any inevitable gaps.

 

 

[Ptmvarsityfan]

Very fine work on a type I'm not familiar with.

Great stuff, Cheers, Paul

[CedB]

Nice work Heather  

 

EBMA jig gizmo? Must look at those… can't resist good tools.

 

Later - ordered, of course  

[heloman1]

Neat work on the wing t/e's Heather. I prefer the method of assembling the wings allowing then to set up for a day or two then scrape/sand away the upper surface until I get to where I need. Then re-scribe the panel line flying surface detail. Though, each to their won...

 

Colin

[Heather Kay]

2 minutes ago, heloman1 said:

Neat work on the wing t/e's Heather. I prefer the method of assembling the wings allowing then to set up for a day or two then scrape/sand away the upper surface until I get to where I need. Then re-scribe the panel line flying surface detail. Though, each to their won...

This is a method that would actually work on this model - and I’ve done a bit with the sanding sticks as far as I can - because there’s no surface detail to speak of, just the panel lines. It gets more problematic if there’s surface detail, like actuators or fabric effects. Still, as you say, each to their own.
 

At some point I have a vac form kit to attempt. That will exercise my scraping and sanding skills, and the very thought of breaking into the plastic gives me cold shivers.

[Heather Kay]

There are many famous gaps in the world. Heavitree in Australia, Manawatu in New Zealand, Kali Gandaki in the Himalayas, Cumberland in the United States, Birling and Watford a bit nearer to home. Perhaps, one day, scholars will wax lyrical about the Great Valom Nacelle Gaps.

 

 

I knew the fit would be, let’s be charitable, a bit difficult. I knew there would be some filler required. I didn’t expect to be able to virtually drive a coach and horses through them! Rather than spend ages carefully reprofiling the nacelles to fit the wing shape - obviously the best answer - I ended up with brute force, strong pegs and lots of liquid cement where the things touched the wings. It’s going to take a while to make joints good, so perhaps revising the shape might have been the better option after all. One set of undercarriage had to be extracted, though this wasn’t anything to do with the gaps. It was because some eejit had glued it in at the wrong angle.

 

After the fairly good run over the weekend, then, perhaps it’s time to put it all back on the Shelf of Doom for a while.

[Heather Kay]

 

As a measure of some of the gap filling, here’s a miserable closeup of the starboard nacelle after liberal application of Squadron white putty and elbow grease. I can see there’s still some minor gappage to deal with at the trailing end, which will be the domain of Perfect Plastic Putty. Quite a bit of sanding was required at the front end of the nacelles, too. Panel reinstatement went adequately. In fact, for the first time ever I managed to make the Dymo tape scribing guide technique work.

 

The box contains casualties. With hindsight, fitting the undercarriage to the nacelles before attaching the whole assemblies to the wings was a mistake. I was, though, simply following orders instructions. I think it might be wise to get some paint around the wheel wells before reassembly commences.

[AdrianMF]

Nice recovery on the nacelles. They look very neat now...

 

Regards,

Adrian

[Heather Kay]

With nacelles firmly glued and filled, the displaced undercarriage parts went back in. This time, I made sure it was the correct angle. I also installed a couple of intakes. Valom provides a dimple for placement: I prefer a proper hole. I cut the parts from the runner, conveniently moulded so the peg was on the feed gate, leaving the peg a little longer than it need be. I measured the peg diameter, and then drilled the dimple out to match. A much more secure fixing is the result.

 

 

With that done, it was time to attached the wings to the fuselage. I fixed the port wing first, finding the receiving hole in the fuselage needed a little careful cleaning out with a sharp implement to allow the wing to seat properly. A fair amount of Revell Contacta was run round the end of the wing assembly to give a little wiggle room. Clamping the thing in my vice helped keep the wing vertical, and I aligned it by eye against the tailplane, then ran a thick brush-full of MEK liquid cement along the joint. I left that alone for an hour or so, then repeated the effort on the starboard wing, as you can see.

 

While the fuselage was left to harden properly, I started work on smaller sub-assemblies. The main wheels were glued together and tidied up. Note the moulded flat section to give some appearance of weight. The tailplane fork parts were tidied while remaining attached to the runner, as that’s easier for handling smaller parts. A cursory check shows, for a change, the resin motors fit the cowlings needing only little sanding. The propellers, sadly, need to be assembled. The hub is resin, the blades styrene. I feel there will be tears before bedtime, so I elected to not go any further at that point. Buried in the box there, you will see some clear parts. They are resin covers for the landing lights in the wings. An odd choice, I think, and I’m not sure I’m happy. I may adopt @AdrianMF 's clear sticky tape method.

 

 

So, at close of play, to borrow a cricketing metaphor, this is the state of things. Incidentally, the first day of the long weekend here in Blighty was the first day of the first England versus New Zealand test. A worthy distraction from all the royal nonsense breaking out. I am not a fan of monarchy, but if you are and you’re enjoying the festivities you have my blessing. Just include me out.

 

 

Lots of bare runners is always a good sign. Just don’t look too closely at the PE fret at the moment… 

 

[CedB]

Well, you're certainly getting this into shape - Valom kits are always a challenge eh?

 

Nice work Heather  

[Heather Kay]

4 minutes ago, CedB said:

Valom kits are always a challenge eh?

Cheers Ced! I do like them. They’re a decent challenge, but not too intimidating. A good model builder's kit, and a range that has some unusual aircraft.