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It's a 'Art wiv an 'Ook: 28 Sqn Audax


hendie

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14 hours ago, TheBaron said:

I love the foot inspection window btw:  was this for medical or disciplinary reasons?

 

Neither Tony.  Purely fetishistic I believe. 

 

8 hours ago, Brandy said:

Nice save on the step Alan, and the detail on the wing looks great. The pipes are obviously fuel tank breathers (I'm sure you already knew that), but I'm afraid I can be of no help with the hook thing. It looks good though! Maybe the same guys who kept repainting them also added spurious bits, then with a sly chuckle took a pic, and promptly removed the bits again as they served no purpose?

Ian

 

So my gin and tonic dispenser theory is invalid then Ian?  Damn.

I do love the spurious bits theory though 

 

4 hours ago, The Spadgent said:

Those extras are really making this build into something even more special than it was before. Alas I can’t help on what the pipe or hooks are but I can egg you on and say how cool they look. 😀 glad you got the lights sorted out in the end. Happy new year my good man.

Johnny.

 

and a Happy New Year to you Johnny

 

4 hours ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

We used to do exactly that (the spurious bits thing) when operating near Soviet spy “trawlers” - add some made-up and extravagantly-wired box to the aircraft, complete with warning placards and perhaps the odd small radioactive source warning sign.  It was usually a wooden spares box attached to a weapon carrier, suitably painted and be-greebled.

We liked to think that we could imagine the KGB wonks poring over a few grainy photographs trying to work out what it was for... whereas in fact they were no doubt thinking “bloody 820 clowns playing silly b’s yet again”.

 

As did the Soviet "trawlers" Crisp. While at Kinloss I remember seeing many photos of these trawlers with relevant details commented.  Some of those vessels were so obviously not trawlers, it made you wonder why they even bothered at times.

Ah those Cold War memories... anyone for Uckers? (though I'll be darned if I can remember how to play it now)

 

3 hours ago, ColinChipmunkfan said:

Loving this Masterclass Hendie- amazing metal working skills and thanks for the tip about painting wheel centres- will be trying that very soon.

Colin

 

Thanks Colin.  It's really very simple once you get the hang of it.  Just make sure you have a good fine point pair of tweezers handy, and buff things down with a cocktail stick just prior to paint.

 

3 hours ago, Terry1954 said:

This is ineed a masterclass Alan and a fine reference for anyone contemplating Silver doped and bare metal inter war machines. Superb results.

Terry

 

Thanks Terry. If people can learn from my mistakes then that's a good thing.

 

49 minutes ago, CedB said:

Another greeblies micro-engineering masterclass!

Great stuff hendie, amazing work :) 

 

Thanks Ced, glad you're enjoying the flight.

 

I doubt there will be another update before the year is out - so to you all... Happy Hogmanay and a Happy New Year!

 

 

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1 hour ago, CedB said:

Another greeblies micro-engineering masterclass!

 

Great stuff hendie, amazing work :) 

I couldn't agree more! :worthy: :clap: 

 

And I'm nicking the idea (what, another one? Yes, and shamelessly so :D ) of diluted PVA for the nav lights, Italeri didn't thin of including some in their Stuka kit....

 

Happy New Year!


Ciao

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  • 2 weeks later...

As I mentioned over in my Bristols thread (careful Ced!), finding modeling tasks while awaiting custom decals has been a bit tough at times.  One of those jobs which was getting pushed to the back of the list because it wasn't very exciting was the windscreen.

Since I was getting bored with almost nowt to do I opted to tackle it.  The AMG kit comes with a small PE frame, and a piece of clear sheet plastic with the outline of the glass printed on it.  I trimmed it as best I could, trying to remove any evidence of the black outline - at least any that would show in the final part.

 

P1030001.jpg

 

The 'glass' was stuck in the frame with diluted PVA.  Here it is resting in place.

Seems to have worked out fine - I'm opting not to glue it in place now as there's a bunch of work coming up where I just know I'm going to destroy a bit or two along the way, and that would have been a prime candidate.

 

P1100025.jpg

 

With that tedious task out of the way, I reckoned it was time to sort those exhausts out. One of the tasks was to somehow replicate the perforations at the end of the exhaust pipe.

After several abortive attempts I think I have arrived at something that works.  My original exhausts were made in steel, and I decided to try them in aluminum to see how they turned out.  The good news was that I could get a decent replication of the perforations by rolling a 2nd cut file over the aluminum rod (bottom of shot), the bad news was that it was very easy to muck it up and make it look like a spiral as opposed to perforations (middle of shot).

The deciding factor was that I could not get the aluminum rod to look anything like a convincing heat stained pipe, so - back to the steel rod.

Using the same method of rolling the steel back and forth while pressing as hard as I could with the file, as you can imagine, hardly made any impression on the steel tube, however, at this scale, I think it's acceptable.  There's just the impression of something going on at the end of the rod and from normal viewing distance you're never going to be able to tell anything other than there's a difference between the start and the end - good enough for me.  The exhausts were then cut to length, and the ends shaped as per the 1:1

 

P1050008.jpg

 

Next job was to tackle the mounting brackets and since I'm converting this from a Hart to an Audax, there's nothing in the kit... anyone feel a scratch coming up?

First up was to take some 0.5mm brass rod, a 4mm bolt and a hammer.  I filed the end of the 4mm bolt flat, and hammered it onto the middle of the brass rod, giving a nice flat'ish section.

Then I took the flattened rod, and bent it as best I could around some thin walled brass tube that just fitted over the steel exhaust - see the part on the right.  I kept the steel exhaust inside the tube while bending to give the tube some strength.

 

P1090016.jpg

 

Out with the soldering iron again, and a dod of blue-tac holds things in place nicely.  Now with just the lightest touch of the soldering iron, it all gets joined together.

I could then trim off the excess either side of the soldered part with a razor saw and a few swipes of the file

 

P1090017.jpg

 

Leaving me with one of these

 

P1090019.jpg

 

which makes up a nice little bracket for holding the exhaust.

 

P1090020.jpg

 

It was a little more complicated than I explained as there are three brackets each side and they are all slightly different, so I had to try and determine what the angles were for each bracket, but once that was figured out - and I'll admit to a bit of guesswork, and hope in equal measure, the bracket can be mounted to the fuselage, and support the exhaust like so...

 

P1090021.jpg

 

So, there was me, all smug with myself at thinking I've got this sorted out when I went to try and fit the exhaust to the starboard side.  Hawker, we have a problem.

Can you see what it is yet?

 

P1090023.jpg

 

What numpty decided to put cabane struts in that bloomin' location?

Luckily (I guess) I had gone and fitted one of the cabane struts as a starting point for getting myself in more trouble later. To be honest, it's just as well I did as I completely forgot about the struts and therefore had completely ignored the fact that there would be an interference.  Best laid plans...

This shot shows the problem better.  Somehow, I have to bend/fold/twist the exhausts to pass around those cabane struts without messing things up, and have it still looking somewhat "designed" and not just a complete mess.

 

P1090022.jpg

 

I used the original pair of exhausts to try and get things working, and sort of did - unfortunately, by the time I had bent everything into shape, the exhausts were a millimeter or two too short.  Out with the steel rod again.

Doing a job like that once is difficult enough, but to try and do it twice, and get the second pair the same dimensions/angles/lengths the same as the first is just plain diabolical.  This time I left the extraneous length on until I know the job is completely done.

The exhausts now bend in three distinct planes.

 

P1100026.jpg

 

They're not perfect by any means but I think I'm almost there.  I could have cut the exhaust header a bit short and that would have given me a lot more leeway with the exhausts, or had I known this when I glued the exhaust headers in place, I could have introduced a slight angle to help me out but we are where we are.  I wasn't going to try and cut the header shorter as the risk of damage to the airframe was just too great.

I'll just chalk this up to a) stupidity, and b) it's a bloody biplane.  (I bet jet engines were invented by a frustrated exhaust designer who just got fed up with cabane struts being in his way all the time!)

 

P1100028.jpg

 

The proof of the pudding is fitting both the exhaust and the cabane strut at the same time - along with the :angry: mounting brackets.

 

P1100030.jpg

 

The mounting brackets need to go in first because the lower legs of the brackets enter the fuselage at an angle.  The exhaust then has to be fed in from the front end - remember, the exhaust if going through three sections of tube - so those tube sections need to have their longitudinal axes aligned with the exhaust otherwise they jam up as the pipe is being inserted.

After some harsh words we can eventually get to this position.

 

P1100031.jpg

 

As you can see here, the 1:1 exhaust system is a bit squirrely itself.

 

P1100032.jpg

 

There's a little bit of tweaking left to do to get those exhausts just as they need to be, but that will happen when they finally get fitted - which will be after the transfers are stuck on, and before the upper wing goes on.

It will comes as no surprise that during all this manhandling, there was some collateral damage - I think I may have broke the lower wing joints, however they are still in place at the moment, and I think the rigging will fix things sufficiently - I don't want to add glue over that metallic finish unless I absolutely have to. Time will tell if I will be successful or not.

 

Stay safe and may your masks go with you

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Considering these are sticks and strings and entirely not me, I am damned well really enjoying this.

 

Squirrely exhausts, you really are embedded in-country man.  ;)

 

😀😀😀

 

I reckon the exhaust passing so close to the cabanes would really be distorted on opposite sides.

 

 

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I’m amazed at the amount of detail you’ve been able to add on top of an excellent kit. The Hart series sometimes feels like every single plane was made to measure for each pilot with bespoke fittings. I’m looking forward to the left-handed pipe ashtray that will doubtless crop up in a few pages...

 

Super work!

 

Regards,

Adrian

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Just done a catch up from pre Crimbo. Very nice stuff indeed. Lots of micromodelling and metal bashing with the odd boo boo discovered and fixed.

Now, Uckers. That will be RAF rules, obviously. We'll not mention the Nautical version which uses magnetic dice for when the sea is rough.

@AdrianMF I'm sure that Hendie has a Humidor left over from the Pullman build which could be fitted into one of these models.

Keep on keeping on with the Biplane bashing!

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Now listen, Pete.  Uckers was invented by the Royal Navy.  It’s lovely that the Army (AAC especially) & Crabs have adopted it (why wouldn’t they, it being such a fine game?) but I am not ‘aving it that any kind of “RAF Rules” even exist, let alone could be considered preferable.  WAFU rules are clearly the best, though Submariners and even Fish-heads are believed to play it (though mostly that’s just Ludo).

 

Since the pieces and even the dice are traditionally fettled from a Pusser’s wooden broom handle, magnetism takes no part.  Otherwise there could be no timber shifting and even “Up board to look for the rules!” might not work, which could well lead to an international incident.

 

Pah!  RAF Rules, indeed!

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3 hours ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

Now listen, Pete.  Uckers was invented by the Royal Navy.  It’s lovely that the Army (AAC especially) & Crabs have adopted it (why wouldn’t they, it being such a fine game?) but I am not ‘aving it that any kind of “RAF Rules” even exist, let alone could be considered preferable.  WAFU rules are clearly the best, though Submariners and even Fish-heads are believed to play it (though mostly that’s just Ludo).

 

Since the pieces and even the dice are traditionally fettled from a Pusser’s wooden broom handle, magnetism takes no part.  Otherwise there could be no timber shifting and even “Up board to look for the rules!” might not work, which could well lead to an international incident.

 

Pah!  RAF Rules, indeed!

Hi Crisp, I'm with you on that RAF rules, where are the crabs going to find an Uckers set in a five star hotel. Sorry that isn't going to happen. I need to point out hat it was a Fishhead game long before the Wafus got involved. Long, too long since I played the game but yes I was involved in an 'up board' decision.

That aside, we may well have lost a lot of the BM members in Jackspeak.

 

Colin

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3 hours ago, Pete in Lincs said:

Just done a catch up from pre Crimbo. Very nice stuff indeed. Lots of micromodelling and metal bashing with the odd boo boo discovered and fixed.

Now, Uckers. That will be RAF rules, obviously. We'll not mention the Nautical version which uses magnetic dice for when the sea is rough.

@AdrianMF I'm sure that Hendie has a Humidor left over from the Pullman build which could be fitted into one of these models.

Keep on keeping on with the Biplane bashing!

RAF rules, don't make me laugh! When did the crabs think they could write a set of rules for uckers and remember them? Sorry, that's like saying, 'Sarge, did you bring the high tea?'  Waffy at best...

 

Colin

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4 minutes ago, heloman1 said:

where are the crabs going to find an Uckers set in a five star hotel.

They came along on detachment as an underslung load, or with pylon adapters for fast jets.  Oh dear, what have I started?

I never did get anywhere near a five star hotel.  As for rules, We had an understanding based on alcohol consumption.

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Just now, Pete in Lincs said:

They came along on detachment as an underslung load, or with pylon adapters for fast jets.  Oh dear, what have I started?

I never did get anywhere near a five star hotel.  As for rules, We had an understanding based on alcohol consumption.

Don't know what you might have started However an understanding based on alcohol consumption would get you very far with a bunch of matelots. Get drunk (p****d) fist fight abut it next then sort t over breakfast. All good mate afterwards...

 

Great inter service banter.

 

Colin

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On 12/31/2020 at 8:32 AM, hendie said:

If people can learn from my mistakes then that's a good thing.

 

Ah, but can you?

 

This kit is on the top echelon of my very short "must have soon" (at least theoretically) list.  I'll definitely come back and study carefully when I undertake it, to see if I can learn from your mistakes (or your takes, for that matter).  Not to mention I'll pop in just to live vicariously, too!

 

bob

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On 1/11/2021 at 11:45 AM, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

And here, on this fine video which commemorates the bravery of the X craft crews, is evidence of WW2 Uckers! Have a look at around 1:35 mins.   

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cs0Qi9WBr_A&list=TLPQMTYwMTIwMjG_nwDGnwOSDg&index=1

 

And now, maybe, back to the build. Sorry for the interruption, @hendie

 

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 1/10/2021 at 3:30 PM, perdu said:

Considering these are sticks and strings and entirely not me, I am damned well really enjoying this.

Squirrely exhausts, you really are embedded in-country man.  ;)

😀😀😀

I reckon the exhaust passing so close to the cabanes would really be distorted on opposite sides.

 

Thanks Bill.  I have to say I am also enjoying this build.  It's nice to find a kit that is so wll engineered, and molded.

 

On 1/10/2021 at 3:44 PM, giemme said:

That was some job on the exhausts, Alan! :clap: :worthy:

Ciao 

 

thanks Giorgio

 

On 1/10/2021 at 5:41 PM, AdrianMF said:

I’m amazed at the amount of detail you’ve been able to add on top of an excellent kit. The Hart series sometimes feels like every single plane was made to measure for each pilot with bespoke fittings. I’m looking forward to the left-handed pipe ashtray that will doubtless crop up in a few pages...

Super work!

Regards,

Adrian

 

ashtray.... dammit!   :rage:

I knew I'd forget something

 

On 1/10/2021 at 6:04 PM, The Spadgent said:

Just wow!!! ❤️❤️❤️

 

Thanks Johnny

 

On 1/11/2021 at 6:10 AM, Pete in Lincs said:

Just done a catch up from pre Crimbo. Very nice stuff indeed. Lots of micromodelling and metal bashing with the odd boo boo discovered and fixed.

Now, Uckers. That will be RAF rules, obviously. We'll not mention the Nautical version which uses magnetic dice for when the sea is rough.

@AdrianMF I'm sure that Hendie has a Humidor left over from the Pullman build which could be fitted into one of these models.

Keep on keeping on with the Biplane bashing!

 

Bashing temporarily delayed - more like biplane sheep dipping this week

 

On 1/11/2021 at 6:45 AM, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

Now listen, Pete.  Uckers was invented by the Royal Navy.  It’s lovely that the Army (AAC especially) & Crabs have adopted it (why wouldn’t they, it being such a fine game?) but I am not ‘aving it that any kind of “RAF Rules” even exist, let alone could be considered preferable.  WAFU rules are clearly the best, though Submariners and even Fish-heads are believed to play it (though mostly that’s just Ludo).

 

Since the pieces and even the dice are traditionally fettled from a Pusser’s wooden broom handle, magnetism takes no part.  Otherwise there could be no timber shifting and even “Up board to look for the rules!” might not work, which could well lead to an international incident.

 

Pah!  RAF Rules, indeed!

 

I think we made ours from broom handles.  Don't know where we'd find a Pusser though.  We had a few Dhobi Ghat's and some other wallah's whose names escape me at the moment

 

On 1/11/2021 at 10:24 AM, heloman1 said:

Anyway Alan, what I wanted to say before being interrupted by the above, was. Great work with the metal finish and the matching exhausts. Congratulations.

Colin

 

Thanks Colin

 

On 1/11/2021 at 11:36 AM, CedB said:

Flippin' 'eck Alan, what a palaver with those exhausts!

Looks like you got there in the end though, amazing stuff :) 

 

at least the palaver is over for the moment Ced

 

On 1/11/2021 at 1:59 PM, gingerbob said:

Ah, but can you?

This kit is on the top echelon of my very short "must have soon" (at least theoretically) list.  I'll definitely come back and study carefully when I undertake it, to see if I can learn from your mistakes (or your takes, for that matter).  Not to mention I'll pop in just to live vicariously, too!

bob

 

thanks Bob, it really is a fine kit and I would heartily recommend it to anyone.

 

Well, what have I been up to over the last few weeks?  Not much to be honest.  The first load of decals I ordered got lost in the post - of course we had to wait to make sure they had actually got lost and not just delayed before my source could send out a new batch.

They arrived earlier this week!  Wahoo!

 

P1300008.jpg

 

Despite waiting so long for the decals to arrive I found that I couldn't get enough mojo to start the sticking on of transfers.  I had to wait a few days to build myself up.

The Demi-Pegasus looked to have come out well despite being a simplified version

 

P1300009.jpg

 

The decals were lovely to use. Just a few seconds in the water to release, the decals were nice and thin and softened up pretty quickly to conform to the surfaces.

I managed somehow to damage the F on this side, but since I had made sure I had some spares printed, it was easy enough to cut off a small section and do a repair overlay.

 

P1300018.jpg

 

This is the image I'm basing this aircraft on. You can see that the Code BF is clearly high on the fuselage side and wrapping either side of the gunner position. 

 

34176594_2148235305453756_17483740138826

 

As is always the case,  I could not find an image of the port side of the same aircraft, and other images I did find, appeared to be taken at a different time - so -  I assumed the position of the codes would be mirrored which meant that a portion of the B landed on the fuselage step.  Hmmnnn...

In mid transfer application I had to make a quick decision... move'em or keep'em.  As you can see I opted to keep them though in hindsight, I may have been better repositioning them further aft.

 

P1310021.jpg

 

Unless anyone can categorically prove me wrong, they're staying where they are.  Such are the life and death decisions we modelers are subject to on an almost daily basis.

Demi-Pegasus on and looking good - apart from the fact that it should have a background color.  It was impossible to tell from those old black and white photos and it was until I had already comitted to print that I discoved a phot that clearly showed a background color was used.  Oh well.

Still, I'm happy with the overall result.

 

P1310023.jpg

 

Works for me!

 

P1310024.jpg

 

and this is the result of this weekends transfer sticking on sessions. A Camel, an F2b, and an Audax.

 

P1310026.jpg

 

next up will be the gloss coat once the decals have all dried out.

 

 

 

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