Bristol Scout 1/32 first scratch build attempt

[hendie]

I have to say that I am very impressed with your scratchbuilding skills displayed so far. Very impressive

[RichieW]

 Thanks so much Hendie, I'm totally winging it and hoping I don't come a cropper later on. Wish me luck!

[Marklo]

3 hours ago, RichieW said:

I'm totally winging it and

I find that’s half the fun especially when things work out  

[RichieW]

10 minutes ago, Marklo said:

I find that’s half the fun especially when things work out  

Haha, totally agreed, it's all a bit of an adventure. I can now see why you love scratch building so much. It's a heck of a lot of fun and if you cock it up you can just have another go. 😀

[RichieW]

Evening all,
Just a small step forward, but again a lot of time was spent head scratching and chin rubbing.

The blister below the cockpit houses the rock tube and has a cut out for the control horns attached to the stick, not a great description so here is a photograph;


I intended to vac form this and made a plug out of a bamboo kebab skewer but my first attempt was appalling ,you can see the resulting shrapnel in the next photo. In my desperation to conserve my styrene supplies I annealed a thin sheet of aluminium and slowly molded it over the blank. A lot of filing later it looked pretty good and I was even able to make the cut out with a scalpel. It will need trimming and buffing and I may use my rivet wheel to simulate the rivets.

_V5A6866 by Richard Williams, on Flickr

 

Scout bits an' bobs by Richard Williams, on Flickr

The wicker seat is from Barracuda, I made a seat cushion from Milliput and used fishing line to make the piping around the edges. The paint is still wet here but I was feeling quite chuffed so took a picture.

Good night all, thanks for reading, it's time for bed here.

Richie

[RichieW]

Another little step forward, I trimmed and buffed the aluminium fairing as much as possible, a couple of small splits were filled with talc mixed with superglue. I added added some punched 0.5mm rivets, they're a tad too big but will do, Klear was used to hold them in place.

 

The footboards have a raised lip, I was so worried about how to make them until I found that Evergreen make a 3.2mm wide styrene channel which is the perfect size. Bit of Tamiya flat aluminium laquer and some more gargantuan punched rivets and they're done. 

 

My whittled rudder bar was whittled a little further and 'painted' with and artists felt pen. Control lines are Daiwa fishing line (allegedly silver) and turnbuckles are just brass tube. 

 

Fairing riveted, foot boards done, rudder bar painted and rigged. by Richard Williams, on Flickr

 

I hope to finish and add the interior details this weekend but the wings are an ongoing saga of endless filling, sanding and priming. 

 

Thanks for looking in, all tips/criticisms/smart Alec quips are most welcome.

 

Richie

[bigbadbadge]

Oh wow Richie that Rock tube looks fantastic fella as does the other items the rudder pedal bar and foot channels. Brilliant.   Great work 

Chris

[RichieW]

Cheers Chris, many thanks for your kind words of encouragement. I'm having fun with this project but there are horrors ahead in the form of some very warty wings that need a beauty makeover before the task of mounting then can begin!

[RichieW]

My rivets were just too big, 0.5mm works out as 16mm diameter on the real thing. More suitable for a tank than a delicate biplane. They had to go!

 

I suddenly remembered I had bought a tool for making tiny rivets and open hex nuts before I went on a break from modelling. The 0.25mm rivets are the perfect size but are difficult to distinguish from dust particles.
 

Small Shop Nutter and riveter by Richard Williams, on Flickr

 

It works well but I don't think it is worth the money, a short length of 0.3mm brass rod in a pin vice, a piece of foil from a wine bottle and bicycle inner tube to put the foil on while you punch away would probably work just as well.
20210430_204533 by Richard Williams, on Flickr

 

I did my best to line things up but these little rivets are hard to see! I am much more pleased with the results. I pick them up with a cocktail stick and dot them onto a blob of Klear, it didn't take as long as I thought it would.

Cockpit details were added:

 

20210501_150434 by Richard Williams, on Flickr

 

There I had to stop to make seat belts. I decided to depart from the aircraft I am modelling which has modern belts to comply with safety regulations and make old fashioned lap belts.

I tried to scratch one from wine bottle foil, stretched sprue for the lip round the leather and some holes stabbed with a pin and sprayed with primer. The result was kind of OK but crude. I then had a bit of brain wave. The wine bottle foil takes embossing really well, I raided my stash for a WNW RFC lap belt and used it to emboss the foil. This was then cut glued to the lead foil from the Small Shop Nutter tool and cut out. I've never said this about my endeavours before but...TOTAL SUCCESS!

 

20210501_145242 by Richard Williams, on Flickr

 

I used E6000 glue to glue the foils together as it is flexible a trick i learned from Hendie's Vampire battle) hopefully this well allow me to bend the belts easily into shape once dry.

Muddling along still, thanks for watching
Richie
 

[bigbadbadge]

Crikey you must have eyes like a Hawk to see all those tiny rivets.   Great work Richie and the belt looks great too.

Chris

[hendie]

Lovely work Richie.  It's a real pleasure to see someone take the dive into scratchbuilding.  It's really not as hard as it looks and the rewards are erhmm... Very rewarding.

 

 

[RichieW]

17 minutes ago, hendie said:

Lovely work Richie.  It's a real pleasure to see someone take the dive into scratchbuilding.  It's really not as hard as it looks and the rewards are erhmm... Very rewarding.

 

 

LOL Hendie, yes very erhmm rewarding!

 

I cribbed a few ideas from you, that E6000 glue is new to me. It's going to invaluable, also got some aluminium tape. I reckon it'd be perfect for making hatches. I'm enjoying scratchbuilding so much I'm even considering selling most of my stash.

 

Chris, my eyes are truly awful but I have a great optivisor with 4x magnification lenses. It has revolutionised my modelling although sometimes I don't want to see the results quite so well! 😂

[RichieW]

A bit of progress since my last update, the lap belts were primed, painted and added. I'm quite pleased with my improvised method of scratch building them, the lead foil bends really easily into shape too.

 

20210502_151953 by Richard Williams, on Flickr

 

The cowling has 7 little fasteners, each has a row of 3 rivets, the 3rd has a washer under it and then there is a bolt. I opted to just add a 4th rivet. The fastener bodies are made from a piece of photo etch fret that I had in the spares box.

 

Scout Cowling fasteners by Richard Williams, on Flickr

 

Do you see the problem? Yes, there are only seven and a couple of them pinged off into all the junk I have in my work room. I made a fresh batch and stuck them on the cowling but forgot to take a picture.

 

At the top of the fuselage just behind where the cowling will go is an oil tank. I made this from lead foil and embossed the rivets with a rivet wheel. Bit rough but it'll do.

 

The side panels were shaped from thin aluminium sheet after heating it over the oven.

 

20210504_213524 by Richard Williams, on Flickr

 

The side panels have hatches, it looks as though they are made by cutting a section out of the panel and reinforcing by riveting a lip round the boundaries.

20191116_104554 by Richard Williams, on Flickr

I decided the easiest way to do this was to use my cutter and make them out of masking film. Sadly it means I will have to paint over the aluminium panels but my attempts to make the hatches out of aluminium tape failed miserably.

 

20210508_164949 by Richard Williams, on Flickr

Lots of little individually added rivets later;

 

20210508_193001 by Richard Williams, on Flickr


The little toothy template was used as a guide for rivet spacing but in the end I just did it by eye. I'm pretty pleased with the results, I have to add the hinges and catches but that can wait for another day.



Many thanks for reading
Richie

[bigbadbadge]

Wow Ritchie the belt look great but the access door with added rivets looks absolutely splendid,  that really is a cracking job.

Great work fella. 

Chris

[hendie]

Ditto on the panel and access hatch. Outstanding work.

What did you use for the rivets?

[RichieW]

6 hours ago, hendie said:

Ditto on the panel and access hatch. Outstanding work.

What did you use for the rivets?

Thanks Hendie, I use a tool from The Small Shop called Nutter and riveter. There's a photo and details a couple of updates back. Essentially it's a series of punches and lead foil. Works well but total waste of money. I think you'd get the same results by using brass rod in a pin vice and wine bottle foil. A bicycle inner tube would be a perfect punching mat. There you go, I just saved you a hundred quid!

 

Richie

[RichieW]

7 hours ago, bigbadbadge said:

Wow Ritchie the belt look great but the access door with added rivets looks absolutely splendid,  that really is a cracking job.

Great work fella. 

Chris

Cheers Chris, I'm having great fun with this. It's making me a bit squinty eyed at times though!

[RichieW]

Another little step forward, today I added the little brass hinges from photoetch fret and 0.2mm nickel rod. The latches were made from tiny slivers of brass from Albion Alloys connecto bits. I tried to replicate the different tones on the cowling by mottling it with black and white before spraying lightly with very dilute flat aluminium but that didn't work out at all. I shall try later with washes and oils. It seems a life time ago that I started this build with just a hot pepper sauce bottle top that would become the cowling, I never imagined I would be counting rivets (sadly I really did!) and bothering with fussy little details I can barely see. I used to view small kit parts as optional extras and often just binned them. 

 

Latches and hinges added to hatches. Cowling finished. by Richard Williams, on Flickr

 

Thanks for reading

Richie

 

[hendie]

1 hour ago, RichieW said:

It seems a life time ago that I started this build with just a hot pepper sauce bottle top that would become the cowling, I never imagined I would be counting rivets (sadly I really did!) and bothering with fussy little details I can barely see.

 

See!  Now you've caught the disease.   

Life will never be the same again

[bigbadbadge]

Wow, the project started with a hot Pepper Sauce bottle lid. Like it.  I keep telling my family that hot peppers are good for you.  I won't tell them it makes you count rivets though!!!

This is a great project.

Chris

[RichieW]

6 minutes ago, bigbadbadge said:

Wow, the project started with a hot Pepper Sauce bottle lid. Like it.  I keep telling my family that hot peppers are good for you.  I won't tell them it makes you count rivets though!!!

This is a great project.

Chris

Thanks Chris, yes it all started after Mrs W complained that her dinner was too spicy, I think she wishes she kept quiet now because I keep inviting her to count the rivets with me!

 

This is where it all started, if only I'd known......😂

 

Bristol Scout C by Richard Williams, on Flickr

 

Richie

 

[RichieW]

I had to ditch my wings as they were beyond rescue, I will have another go over the weekend. In the meantime the cockpit coaming was a worry, it needed to be made in two pieces because there is a big drop from front to back in the aperture. In the end it proved to be no big problem after bending the styrene sheet round a pen top with boiling water. The leather padding was made with miiliput, I may need to sand it down when dry. Since taking the photo I masked round it with tape trying to leave a uniform gap and am in the process of adding layers of primer to try to create the effect of the layer of leather surround that is stitched to the structure. I don't plan on trying to simulate the stitching.

Cockpit coaming and milliput leather padding added. by Richard Williams, on Flickr

There's not much more I can do to the fuselage until the wings are made, I haven't thought about how I am going to make the undercarriage legs yet. The delay will give me breathing space to come up with a plan.

 

Thanks for watching

Richie

[bigbadbadge]

Hi Richie, the cockpit coming looks good along with the leather surround, great idea to use the paint to simulate the edge.  Shame about the wings though fella.

Great work. 

Chris

[RichieW]

Thanks Chris, no problem about the wings really. It's much cheaper to cock up a few bits of balsa and styrene than a Wingnut Wings kit. I have a few supplies on the way to have another attempt. Enough for several more attempts in fact!

 

Richie

[RichieW]

I haven't updated this for a while but I have been working so hard to get so half decent wings made. Attempt No. 1 was last year and ended in abject failure, attempt 2 was with balsa cores a la Harry Woodman. More abject failure! Attempt 3, also balsa cores started out quite promisingly;

 

Wings by Richard Williams, on Flickr

 

These cores were only 2.5mm at the thickest point but after skinning with 0.13mm styrene sheet and double sided tape they were more Hawker Hurricane than Bristol Scout. 

 

Experiments followed which involved indenting the rib contours directly into the balsa and adding tape strips;

 

Experiments by Richard Williams, on Flickr

 

Yuk!!!!!! It seemed like a good and novel idea but the reality....abject failure!

 

Attempt No. 4, bass wood cores. I much preferred working with this and was able to get them much thinner without fear of splintering the trailing edges, The ribs were embossed into the top surfaces in the time honoured way. The sheet was then turned upside down and the ribs lightly embossed with a pencil. A slight departure from the usual way, I wanted to have a very subtle sag between the ribs like I saw on the actual aircraft.

 

wings at the 4th attempt by Richard Williams, on Flickr

 

Finally a bit of success, far from perfect but I am pleased after all the failed attempts. The wing tips are puttied and once sorted out I might start getting some painting done.

 

Before that I have a major clear up to do!

 

Bench clearing time. by Richard Williams, on Flickr

 

Thanks for watching.

 

Richie