The Summer Duck...finished (Merit Grumman J2F-5 in 1/48)

[Chief Cohiba]

Some few more details. I've tried to create an effect, that resembles the laminated wood tip of the float.

 

I thought maybe some dark umber oil over light brown would be appropriate.

 

 

It's the result of the evening session yesterday, hence the picture with flash - sorry for the poor quality. Only a detail, and rather a quick thing than an elaborated recreation, but I think it's ok. 🙂

[Chief Cohiba]

After past weekend's been buried in work, it took me a bit of time to get to the bench again.

 

I drilled some holes, to get all the wires in place, so that I can start with the rigging these days. Here's it's current state, lots of whiskers:

 

 

 

This time I plan to do this according straight to the book, means, I mounted the lower part of the lower wing (which I already did, and which worked fine), then drill the holes and mount the wires from the inside, glue the upper part of the lower wing in place, than drill the holes on the lower part of the upper wing, mount it, thread the wires through the holes and glue them from the inside, then cover all of this with the upper part of the upper wing. Got it? 😉

 

[Chief Cohiba]

As the struts mountings look quite stable and precise, I think this could work. My usual WW1 quarterscale biplanes don't have separated wings, so this won't work, but I always wanted to give this method a try.

 

For all of this mounting business and the expected clamping I got me some highly specialised precision tools. I guess these are, apart from modelling, only used in higher rocket engineering.

 

 

Well, you get it - aren't we all's a bit of tool nerds, us modellers?

 

But apart from its rather basic look, these pegs are really small and seem as if they will do the job.

 

 

(I wonder what else these could be used for?)

[Chief Cohiba]

And some wheels in the making...

 

 

An the Brownings from Gaspatch are ordered. And some other stuff...

[Chief Cohiba]

Guys, this picture just because I'd like to show the use of the tiny clamps:

 

 

This honestly is a little bit of a fake, as this went together so neat, you wouldn't need any clamps at all.  But you guess the idea of all the many jobs, where you are confrontet with the almost impossible task to find a balance to the perfect, yet subtle distribution of force and not destroying the brittle structure of a fragile build. These are perfect!

 

So I sing the song of easy pleasures and simple tools alike!

 

Yabba-dabba-doo! 🦕

[Chief Cohiba]

After the lower wings have been finished, I try to make a plan of how to order the next steps and getting into finalising the Duck. I got some ideas about that in theory.

• Next: finishing the canopy, which means to deal with the broken rear part, bend it into shape, do all the necessary cuts and sanding.
• Mount the Canopy
• Drill the holes on the lower part of the upper wings, except for the one wire, that runs between the double lines from body to the upper wing. 
• Mount the struts on the upper wing
• Do some dryfitting, and find the correct position for the hole of the mentioned wire, so it runs straight between the double wires
• Mount the upper wing lower part
• Close the upper wing halves

So far's the plan. After this almose unforeseeable horizon I hope for the Browning from Gaspatch to be arrived. Then: do all what's left then, like the sidefloats, engine, usual corrections, and stuff.

 

I don't know how you react to structured, well organised and rational plans as the above? I usually do something completely different, so I thought about how to mount the Bronwing, once it's here.

 

Here's a first attempt with stripes of Styrene, just stuck into a small gap leftover between the two body halves. 

 

Might work, once cut into correct length, shaped and metallised it.

It feels good to neglect the plans... 😉

 

[Martian]

The model looks great. Those tiny clothes pegs are worth their weight in gold.

 

Martian 👽

[Chief Cohiba]

And once again a time, where little progress and even fewer posts, combined with some minor catastrophes, hindered this build to get along.

 

But here we stand so far: I did manage to work further on the upper wings, where I drilled all (but one) holes for the wires, and mounted the struts. I don't know if the holes can be seen, but here's the inside view of the upper wing:

 

 

And here's some dryfitting of the upper wing.

 

 

Fit is not 100& perfect, as on can see - the struts sit about 5mm inside the holes - but are rather sturdy, so I think with the usual appliance of more or less brute force can be managed to fit.

[Chief Cohiba]

The other thing I tried to get along was the canopy, of course, but had not too much of a lucky hand.

 

You remember the situation, when I tried to bend the last piece of the canopy it broke:

 

 

Well, not only did it break once, but a second time, and when I tried to fix it and work from it, holding it with a tweezer, I somehow made one of this clumsy moves and the part flipped away, landing in the darkest corners of my modelling cave, adding to the countless number of other lost parts. 

 

I thought of ordering some clear styrene, bending it to pieces, but - to cut a longer decision making process short - when I was looking for a mule to test the heat-and-bend procedure, I used the leftover middle piece, it worked fine, it fits and decided to keep it: 

 

 

I might try to create the sealing cuff of the rear part with some thin styrene piece, or maybe not. For the lazy occasional modelling me it might work like that. We'll see. 

 

Hopefully can do a bit more the next days, so we'll haul this to the finish line. And, oh, the Gaspatch Brownings have arrived as well...

[Chief Cohiba]

And finally I've reached something worth sharing; I managed to mount the upper wings and the canopy - the latter at least in it's current state.

 

 

 

Both required quite some tinkering with CA - in case of the upper wing it was due to the forces necessary holding the struts in the required position. With the canopy I cant really say, my guess is there was to much of paint and wash on the glueing area, so it couldn't react with the PE underneath, and cleaning the area wasn't quite possible due to limited space there.

 

Anyway, it holds it's place now.

[Chief Cohiba]

And, the rear part of the canopy has appeared again (cat litter - don't ask).

 

 

Maybe I can separate the cuff and nail it to the canopy, but honestly aren't sure if this works out. Well give it a tray or maybe jus tleave it as it is. 😉

[Chief Cohiba]

The canopy piece looks like mayor surgery, i'll think about it later.

 

But for now: let's start the rigging:

 

[Chief Cohiba]

Rigging in progress...

 

[Chief Cohiba]

And: main rigging complete, and upper wing closed.

 

 

 

I was the first time to do this "open-wing-rigging", and if possible of course significantly eases the entire process. I even had to drill additional holes, one for parallel-issues, the other simply because I forgot one, and was possible as well.

 

I tried to work to refinish the canopy cuff, but today I see this as too much of heart surgery. I'll probably give it another try tomorrow, but if no miracle or big cloud of inspiration rains down on me, I'll guess I'll leave it like it is.

[Chief Cohiba]

Off the clamps - it holds it's weight. Mounted the floats and the engine, painted the propeller tips and sprayed some exhaust stains. I do feel exuberant pride this time I did this BEFORE I mounted the engine - yay!

 

A few pictures:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It turned out the weathering has turned out a bit on the heavy side, but fits to the role of the island-jumpin workhorse the duck is supposed to be, right?

 

So, only a few bits to add - the hook, wires for the aerial - I don't kno how i will exactly do this. Of course the Gaspatch Brownings - I already started to paint these, so I JUST need to assemble them (they look great, but are awfully tiny).

And probably a lecture in Zen-Meditation before I think again about the canopy piece. 

 

 

[Chief Cohiba]

Final steps: the Browning...

 

 

(So tiny, it's hard to take a picture with your phonecam)

[Chief Cohiba]

Guys, I need help in some last-mile decision.

 

I think I can restore the cuff-piece, still some grinding to be done, but it looks possile. (Not much to be seen here, but just to show the current state)

 

 

But I'm not sure about the result, so I'm asking for your kind remarks what you think would look better. Here's without the cuff:

 

 

And here, with the cuff, hold in position with a piece of blue-tac. 

 

 

What do you say?

[dnl42]

That's looks outstanding! 

 

As for the part, it's your model, do what you think is best. If you look at contemporaneous photos, it is always present and more noticeable when the canopy is open, as you have it. As it looks to be a thin part IRL, could you make a replacement from thin metal (like a wine cork foil wrap) or perhaps plastic that you've heated to form a permanent bend? My choice would be thin metal as I have an endless supply of 6 mil Al sheet used to vacuum seal coffee cans (raw material, finished parts)

 

FWIW, the USN & USAAC photos I have all show the part in the fuselage color while USCG photos show both fuselage color and a dark color.

[Chief Cohiba]

5 hours ago, dnl42 said:

That's looks outstanding! 

Well, many thanks! Honestly this was such an haunted build, I see only the many flaws it has.

 

5 hours ago, dnl42 said:

 

As for the part, it's your model, do what you think is best. If you look at contemporaneous photos, it is always present and more noticeable when the canopy is open, as you have it. As it looks to be a thin part IRL, could you make a replacement from thin metal (like a wine cork foil wrap) or perhaps plastic that you've heated to form a permanent bend? My choice would be thin metal as I have an endless supply of 6 mil Al sheet used to vacuum seal coffee cans (raw material, finished parts)

 

When I first saw the cuff piece dry fitted on the model, it just looked awful to my eyes. But the pictures help, and I get accustomed to it.

 

I tried to recreate that piece with thin styrene, but it has quite a complexe 3D surface, bend in more than one axis. I thought about building a mold for that, but then - heck, no. The thin metal could work, though - just another reasone to open a bottle of wine or sparkling. Sounds like a plan for the next weekend. Not that I need some reason... 😉

5 hours ago, dnl42 said:

FWIW, the USN & USAAC photos I have all show the part in the fuselage color while USCG photos show both fuselage color and a dark color.

Of course, this will get the intermediate blue finish. This is just the base colour to see the structure. I later give it the dark grey base, then do some silver drypainting for that raw metal look and give it some chipping fluid, before it gets its blue finish.

 

Thanks for your idea, I guess I will finish and mount the cuff...

[Chief Cohiba]

No more grinding today, I just mounted a Gaspatch turnbuckle for the aerial base. Might not be the 100% exact position, but my guess will do the part.

 

 

That's all for today, good night, folks...

[Chief Cohiba]

Another series of minor mishaps; the cuff did (almost) break again, so another appliance of gap-filling CA, praying for rigidity, sanding it down, painting, drybrushing, chipping fluid, and finally airbrushing the final coat of fuselage colour (with a little chipping).

 

But I've managed to mount it. It's not 100% perfect, but ok, if you don't go over it with some magnifiers. Which I certainly won't. 😉

 

 

 

It feels quite an achievement, after all this detours, to finally see it mounted. So, I've learned something - opening a canopy can be done, but I would have done it totally different, if I had these experience before starting it. But hey, there's always a first, and I didn't fail completely. 😊

[Chief Cohiba]

And working on the Browning. The Gaspatch Browning comes in 4 parts, body/chamber &, barrel separated (already mounted), lock, and belt, but no magazine box, but nothing that couldn't be made from a few basic styrene stocks (see the black lump at the bottom).

 

 

The Browning has two mounts, one at the rear, close to the gunner, and one at the barrel. There are inconsistent pictures if the front or the rear mount is used, but when this started with an inspiration of Hougaults "Angel Wings", it will end with one as well; it is depicted in the book mounted at the front, so the magazine box is inside the plane, not out side, as it would be when mounted at the rear.

 

 

(Means, when in action the empty cartridges fall straight into the lower cabin. They can't charge much for that level of comfort 😉 ).

[Chief Cohiba]

And going together...

 

 

It's as hard to photograf as it merely is to see, Despite all glasses, I reach the lower level  of my comfort zone in this.

[Chief Cohiba]

And it's mounted.

 

 

Yes, it sits quite far in the cabin, but I think it does look better than the other way round. 

 

And also, these Gaspatch pieces do add detail to the model. So, looking back it was worth the fuss to open the canopy. 😉

(Also you see the preparation of mounting the aerial, which will be the last mayor piece, apart from a few touches and coverups. Hope I can finish this today.)

[Chief Cohiba]

Working on the aerial mount. Base is a 1/48 Gaspatch turnbuckle, and funny enough the wire went through the pinhole without trouble.

 

 

The second wire of course will not fit through, but my guess will mount from the bottom with a drop of CA.