HOUSTON Posted December 9, 2020 Share Posted December 9, 2020 Peter, PHENOMENAL workmanship. Even the tiniest detail is SUPERB. You are an Extraordinary modeller. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
airscale Posted December 27, 2020 Author Share Posted December 27, 2020 (edited) Seasons Greetings all Thank you for the tips and advice on replicating fabric covering - I will check them out On 12/8/2020 at 12:33 PM, rOEN911 said: Antonis here my friend ,you have done amazing work as always some times i think you are not human, about the cover have a look the Lightweight materials we using for super light indoor planes ,it might be something that works for you https://www.freeflightsupplies.co.uk/index.php/products/lightweight-covering-materials Hi Antonis great to see you here my friend - I will check this out - for anyone reading this thread - you must check out rOEN911's digital aviation artwork on Artstation - he is responsible for much of the superb artwork on my packaging and for other manufacturers like Copperstate, RS, Flypast and more- stuff like this... ..it is quite incredible and an other worldly talent.. so, been busy with a couple of things, first I have skinned the 'easy' constant chord parts of the wings - I ended up using very thin card, lined from the back with a ballpoint pen to define ribs and contact adhesive to stick it down (plastic cements seemed to distort the skin too easily... ..holes were made where the struts & rigging goes.. ..the wing tips are proving difficult and frustrating, simple scoring a skin doesn't work as the skin has compound curves as the skin gets both smaller at the tip, but also shrinks in chord - I am trying to vacform a base part and score that (not going so well), but I might just end up filling with P38 and shaping from a solid - though that means a bit of weight at the tips I don't want... ..with that not going smoothly, I decided to change tack and start the fuselage.. this will be vacformed over a basswood master - the first time I have tried this and I really want it to go well as it means I can scratchbuild any subject in 1/18 in the future ..the first thing to do was to create all the relevent sections and outlines as scale plans - the outlines to define the outer borders of the shape, and the sections to be used when shaping the wooded master to the shapes needed.. ..each section was created as a side profile and as a top and bottom profile and numbered to the station position.. ..the basswood core is four machined 4cm square bits that get painted black on the mating faces which defines the four datum lines that run through the fuselage.. ..you can see one half has been painted, then stuck together, then the side profile applied.. ..I bought a small bandsaw just for this job to get nice perpendicular cuts - here I am starting to cut out the side profile.. ..I had also drilled holes where the mainspar was, and the front and rearmost exhaust stack while I had theri positions to hand.. ..I didn't run the cut all the way to the end, so it kept the cut-off bit in place so I still had a square block to then cut the top profile.. ..once the cuts were finished, the front and rear cuts were made and a disc stuck to the front to denote the spinner size.. ..you can also see the datum lines showing through.. ..then it was lots of rasping, sanding , filing and generally making a terrible mess to get the Fury within to match the contour profiles... ..the two halves were only lightly stuck together, so these were broken apart after fully finishing - I had been too aggressive in places so used P38 to build it back up and/or primer which I also needed to get a better eye on the shapes (though this needed to be removed for vacforming..) ..then the halves needed a 1.5mm plinth and some fillers at the nose and tail so the plastic doesn't have such a drop off and to space the mould up from the vacforming plinth by the thickness of the material.. ..now for the vacforming itself... I couldn't hope to do this at home, I don't have the kit and as it's quite a big part even if I did I doubt I could do it. So I asked my good friend John Wilkes (Tigger) who offers large scale vacform kits like B29's Do217 etc to do them for me (and had advised me on making the mould). i sent John the mopuld and he very quickly turned around a few copies - they are nothing less than perfect! ..I have just started to cut them out and get the mating faces right - here you can see the fuselage sat with the wings (ignore the incidence..) ..so now I have the basic form, and am forever in debt to John.. ..next is planning how to proceed - I think to get all the skinning on the nose right, and to be able to integrate the delicate internal fuselage framework & cockpit, i will need to assemble the vac halves and then cut in two at the cockpit so I have one form for the nose for skinning, the tubular cockpit slides forward into that, and the rear fuselage & tail (with stringer detail added), will slide forward onto those.. ..thats the working theory, but as I am making all this up as I go it may change TTFN Peter Edited December 28, 2020 by airscale 25 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elanman Posted December 27, 2020 Share Posted December 27, 2020 Great update and good to see your continued progress. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete in Lincs Posted December 27, 2020 Share Posted December 27, 2020 2 hours ago, airscale said: but as I am making all this up as I go And doing a damned fine job of it, as always. 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
perdu Posted December 27, 2020 Share Posted December 27, 2020 It just keeps getting... "Airscale outstanding" as usual, with more beautiful work And the working out of how? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
perdu Posted December 27, 2020 Share Posted December 27, 2020 (edited) 21 hours ago, perdu said: It just keeps getting... "Airscale outstanding" as usual, with more beautiful work And the working out of how? aint the editability of this latest Invasion a nuisance... Edited December 28, 2020 by perdu fed up with the post 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Bradshaw Posted December 27, 2020 Share Posted December 27, 2020 Peter, I am so pleased that you have had a really restful Christmas (I hope that you will have a great new year as well). Fantastic progress with your Fury and I am so pleased that Tigger has been able to assist you with your project - he is a top guy! As for the wing tips, as you already have the ribs in place, perhaps filling the voids with dense blue foam type material and the then (after shaping) cover each individual rib position with strips of thin plastic sheet; hopefully, that will get you around the double curvature issue without adding additional weight to the wing tips? Alternatively, to keep it simple, you could fill the tip rib gaps with foam, shape it, then heat a thin sheet of plastic card and simply pull it over the wing tip - it can then be trimmed and glued to the tip (i use latex based contact adhesive for this purpose, as it does not affect the plastic - I use this to attach plastic sheet to balsa cores for wings or fuselage). For foam filler. I use 'Oasis' type flower arranging foam, which seems pretty impervious to any solvents. Good luck. Cheers Derek 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigbadbadge Posted December 28, 2020 Share Posted December 28, 2020 An excellent update and great progress, you have made preparations for vacforming look very easy, it is something that would strike fear into the likes of me. The wings are looking great too. Hope you and all BM'ers have a Happy, Healthy, Prosperous and Safe New Year and yiu get lots of opportunities to work on this beauty. Chris 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
airscale Posted January 6, 2021 Author Share Posted January 6, 2021 evening folks Happy New Year folks and thanks for all your kind comments ..thought I would drop in with a little update.. ..I started to work on the vacformed fuselage, with the first thing to do being to cut holes where the inner brass framework that supports the cabane struts and the inner fuselage structure & wing spars goes to see if it all fits inside - thankfully it does.. after that, I laid the halves onto plans to transfer the positions of panel lines and the definition between the metal and stringer areas and added the rear section as that was not part of the vacform structure out of plastic card.. ..I found it easier to prime the parts so I could see what I was doing - the areas where the gun troughs sit are marked on the upper forward fuselage.. ..the gun troughs were created first by making some handed masters and vacforming them, later fitting them into the troughs.. ..after filling and working in properly.. ..stringer positions were marked and you can also use the strips of litho I use to get parallel lines against the datum - here also are printed strips I make that define equal spacing between two points. In this case a strip of tape is used to measure the top of the turtledeck and that distance divided by 12 for the equally spaced stringers that sit in this area.. ..all the stringers are now marked out.. ..lastly, the internal brass framework can be seen enclosed - largely things are where they should be, certainly the spars and box section tubular structure, but I may need to work on the strut mount positions.. so next I need to work out how to represent the stringers as all the work really needs to be done whaile the halves are just that - halves. my ideal of sliding the internals into the nose wouldn't work as the structure is too wide so I need to make all the internals and enclose them as you would a kit. I really didn't want to do that as it means lots of fragile stuff inside the fuselage while lots of handling is needed in skinning where panels need to be almost beaten into shape.. still lots to do and having to think three processes ahead of where I am so I don't screw things up TTFN Peter 24 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
airscale Posted January 11, 2021 Author Share Posted January 11, 2021 ..little bit more done... ..I wanted to check the cabane strut alignment against the little spigots I included on the brass tube 'core' at the heart of the model. These are quite complicated in as much as they angle forwards and outwards, plus obviously define the position (and strength) of the upper wing.. ..I translated some specific drawings on the plans into some card templates and added dummy tube struts to see where I was at.. ..after some fettling and small bends on the spigots, I got it good enough for now.. ..next I wanted to start to get the interior of the fuselage readied for detailing, so I primed and painted some plastic stock stringers, marked out the inner areas and painted the red doped fabric (well orangy red..) seen on the inside.. ..the stringer positions were scored - their position being known by drilling two tiny holes either end of the datum line on the outside each side of the cockpit area so I could join the dots and get the datum on the inside.. ..getting a feel for what it would look like - I thought pre-painting would be easier.. ..then having fitted the visible structure - the upper fuselage and nose areas are all metal so the upper bit will be skinned on the inside with litho.. ..I cut the fuselage access door off, but even then very little can be seen which is a shame.. ..still, I know it's there (as do you ) and I have learned a lot about the airframe in making it so nothing lost... TTFN Peter 21 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spookytooth Posted January 11, 2021 Share Posted January 11, 2021 Spectacular Peter, just caught on this build and yet another master piece coming up. Simon. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigbadbadge Posted January 11, 2021 Share Posted January 11, 2021 Amazing absolutely amazing. Great work Chris 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LorenSharp Posted January 11, 2021 Share Posted January 11, 2021 Airscale, I know you got one of Wayne Szalinski's shrunking rays in the shop somewheres. Fess up now. You shrunk the real thing and are just leading us poor beggars on. Because if not, We're Not Worthy!! 1 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
airscale Posted January 23, 2021 Author Share Posted January 23, 2021 Howdy friends hope all are well & back with some more Fury stuff.. wanted to get some stuff done while I wait for the instrument decals so i can start building up the cockpit and ultimately close the fuselage.. ..there were a few bits that lend themselves well to 3D - things like the wheels... ..I nearly got caught out as the few drawings I have are for Danish Nimrods, well it turns out Nimrods have slightly bigger wheels - not sure what the one on K5674 in Duxford was, but the hub pattern is common to period Fury photo's I have seen, so I went for this.. ..fired up Rhino and got to work - wheels are really simple so get a free trial and some Youtube videos on creating shapes and they make a great first try - thats how i learned.. Tim Perry kindly printed them for me (thanks Tim!!) - they came out really well.. ..after one coat of mr surfacer to see what the stiration is like and they only need very minor fettling - I will add brass bolts as they will look cleaner.. ..also 3D printed the top of the leg which I will try and skin in litho - here are the parts on the axle - I will likely replace the strut to make it a nice fit into the upper leg.. ..another part I tried in 3D was the exhausts - you can see here they are regular long ovals, flat at each end, and staggered so the nose ones are shorter than the rear ones (the rear stick out more to go with the cowling contour.. ..I did wonder if my design would ask too much of the print process as they are so thin, but Tim did an ace job.. ..bit of primer and they were good to go.. ..painted with alclad steel and then blended with a mix of steel & copper.. ..the exhaust slots were enlarged on the fuselage as the cowl panel has larger ovals so it can be removed, added a shelf for them to sit on and painted everything matt black.. also cut out other holes in the front end that are visible for various bits and bobs.. ..those holes include these on the upper cowling I noticed from a pic I took at Duxford just before the last lockdown... ..some things can be seen sticking out.. ..I found those things are mounted to pipes by watching a Retrotec youtube video of their Kestrel first run so I made the pipes, fittings and bases for those units.. ..seen here with the exhausts fitted - the bases need painting.. ..coming along... TTFN Peter 22 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete in Lincs Posted January 23, 2021 Share Posted January 23, 2021 And now I'm suitably Wowed! after a catch up. Beautiful work as always, Peter. Meticulous is the word that just popped into my head. I think the 'things' sticking up at the front may well be air bleed valves for the cooling system. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigbadbadge Posted January 23, 2021 Share Posted January 23, 2021 Great update, you have a tremendous eye for detail too. Great spot on the bits protruding from the cowling on the top of the engine. Wheels and exhausts look fab. Chris 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsairfoxfouruncle Posted January 23, 2021 Share Posted January 23, 2021 (edited) 30 minutes ago, airscale said: coming along... TTFN Great work so far, this photo make me think classic race car ? Add four wheels and you’d have a vintage race car. Edited January 23, 2021 by Corsairfoxfouruncle 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lightpainter Posted January 24, 2021 Share Posted January 24, 2021 (edited) HI this is a fantastic build and completely out of my league. But I have a question, I am building the Lukgraph Hawker Nimrod MK.1 in 1/32 scale. Today I noticed that I made a mistake in painting the right side of the cockpit in wood/red as you did. My own walkaround photographs of the cockpit had misled me because the metal pannel on the right side was taken off. The Nimrod has wood on the left side and on the floor with green metal strips. The right side however was grey since there is a metal pannel on that side as I noticed from a couple of photographs I found online.. while the Nimrod is not the same as the Fury there are resemblances. In my research I came upon several cockpit shots of the fury that show the lower right side as metal too because there is a metal pannel to the side of the pilots seat, so not red and not the same structure as the left side but perhaps the restoration is different from the original? Here is an example : Edited January 24, 2021 by Lightpainter 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
airscale Posted January 26, 2021 Author Share Posted January 26, 2021 On 1/24/2021 at 12:29 PM, Lightpainter said: HI this is a fantastic build and completely out of my league. But I have a question, I am building the Lukgraph Hawker Nimrod MK.1 in 1/32 scale. Today I noticed that I made a mistake in painting the right side of the cockpit in wood/red as you did. My own walkaround photographs of the cockpit had misled me because the metal pannel on the right side was taken off. The Nimrod has wood on the left side and on the floor with green metal strips. The right side however was grey since there is a metal pannel on that side as I noticed from a couple of photographs I found online.. while the Nimrod is not the same as the Fury there are resemblances. In my research I came upon several cockpit shots of the fury that show the lower right side as metal too because there is a metal pannel to the side of the pilots seat, so not red and not the same structure as the left side but perhaps the restoration is different from the original? Here is an example : Hi there thats a great spot, oddly the Westburg drawings (popularly accepted as the best) completely ignore this metal panel - just goes to show to use photos not drawings here are the drawings i used ..and here is a clear shot of the metal panel on the R/H cockpit wall in question ..I need to make that correction and try and find the internal framework of the panel, but thanks for pointing it out now rather than I find out with the fuselage closed! Peter 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lightpainter Posted January 26, 2021 Share Posted January 26, 2021 Hello Peter glad I could help and that you can still make the necessary changes. Do you have a photograph or drawing of the fire extinguisher used on the Fury and Nimrod? i used a red one but apparently it is a modern version it should be a brass-bodied Pyrene fire extinguisher filled with Carbon Tetrachloride. I found photographs online but cannot directly make out if the ones in WWII on British planes were comparable with the thirties versions? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
airscale Posted January 30, 2021 Author Share Posted January 30, 2021 Hi lads & lasses the Fury is moving along at a glacial pace - the next bit to do was the upper U/C strut seen here in all it's aerodynamic glory, along with many details that need reproducing.. ..note the different fixings, the bracket mounting it to the fuselage lug and the big nut at the front.. ..I started with the 3D printed parts I did - it was beyond me to get the curved fairing at the top so I did a flat profile outline and set about sanding them to shape. First up some tape to define the boundary and allow a scribed reference line.. the one at the back has been shaped.. ..the lug mounts were made and the four nuts, plus the opening for the big nuts at the front were milled out.. ..I toyed with skinning the tops, but they would be very difficult so I decided to paint them and skin the rest in litho - I don't think they look too bad.. ..a ring of solder was added where the upper & lower sections meet to represent the turned edge.. ..the lower compression struts fit via pins to the axle.. ..as do the upper mounts where they meet the fuselage - here the geometry is all out, but checking they fit the mounts.. ..here I have removed the exhausts and am having them remade as I wasn't happy with how they stagger which I took from the Westburg plan vs how flush with the skin they are in photos.. ..another step forward after much experimentation is trying to get the same ribbed effect on the wing tips as is possible with the plastic card skin.. ..here I found annealed litho made for a more forgiving material to take the compound curves involved - here is a test piece, the real one will be better still.. ..also Britmodeller member 'Lightpainter' pointed out the R/H cockpit wall is metal on the Lukgraph Nimrod he is building & asked wasn't it the same on the Fury - well you can clearly see here the big metal removable access panel which is again missed on the Westburg plans.. ..as such that side of the cockpit needed to be re-done - he also sent me loads of good pics showing areas I was missing details on.. ..here the panel has been added and the ribbing.. ...while working on that sidewall, I started to make the complicated oxygen control panel - a bit of which can be seen here on the right.. ..I had made a few PE bits including the mounting panel as the outline is shown in the Danish Nimrod drawings, I started to make up the main component by using the bevelled top of a household screw and adding bits to it.. ..there is also a wooden disc mounting plate seen so this was made from punched thin plywood.. ..I didn't take any other pics until I had finished it, but it is a collection of a lot of brass parts and took a few days to make - the two dials have decals coming and are sized to take 2.5mm punched acetate discs.. ..and it sort of goes here.. On 1/26/2021 at 3:04 PM, Lightpainter said: Hello Peter glad I could help and that you can still make the necessary changes. Do you have a photograph or drawing of the fire extinguisher used on the Fury and Nimrod? i used a red one but apparently it is a modern version it should be a brass-bodied Pyrene fire extinguisher filled with Carbon Tetrachloride. I found photographs online but cannot directly make out if the ones in WWII on British planes were comparable with the thirties versions? ..thanks for your help there I don't actually, it doesn't even appear on the drawings I have - I did google it though and there are loads of pics of them - I might even make one for mine! .. thats it for now TTFN Peter 17 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete in Lincs Posted January 30, 2021 Share Posted January 30, 2021 Oxygen in a Biplane? What is the world coming to? When I were a lad...etc...etc.... All lovely looking work as always. 1 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sgt.Squarehead Posted January 31, 2021 Share Posted January 31, 2021 There are just no adequate words..... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elanman Posted January 31, 2021 Share Posted January 31, 2021 This continues to inspire and intimidate in equal measure. Superb workmanship and detailing, thanks for the updates. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigbadbadge Posted January 31, 2021 Share Posted January 31, 2021 More excellent progress and more Oh Wows from me, outstanding work as usual. Great job. Chris 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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