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Norman Fieldmaster (1/48 Scratchbuild)


ianwau

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Starting to make some headway on a scratchbuild of the Norman Fieldmaster in 1/48 scale. 

 

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Started off with the framing for the fuselage buck...

 

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Then the buck almost ready for vacforming.  Shown alongside the Valom 1/48 Britten Norman Island for a size comparison...

 

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Then after vacforming.  Split into front and rear sections for size practicalities.  Front fuse moulded left/right halves per convention. Rear fuse moulded top/bottom - which is going to assist with building the interior as we see later...

 

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Then here' s the tail in a jig  - with fuse under way in the background. Lego has the big advantage of being resiliently 'square' which comes in handy for modelling. 

 

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And here are he basic component parts dry-fitted. Interior is being installed in the lower half with clear section to go over the top. The big plus of separating front and rear fuse halves (apart from moulding limitations) is that I can basically build the cockpit 'pod' as a hermetically sealed unit - without having to worry about plastic swarf, sanding detritus etc making their way inside and ultimately clinging like limpets to the canopy interior.The wings have separate 'trailing' flaps and ailerons which will add a bit more depth. 

 

And here's the scheme I will do - G-NACL on evaluation in Australia 1988 https://www.airliners.net/photo/Untitled/Norman-NAC-6-Fieldmaster/2513794  (a Daniel Tanner copyright photo on Airliners.Net) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Brilliant! That's a great subject which is much larger than I expected - I'm pretty sure I remember seeing the Fieldmaster in an 'Observers' book when I was young. Very nice vacform work, Ian - what medium did you make the mould out of? P38 body filler?

Jon

Edited by Jonners
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2 hours ago, Jonners said:

... what medium did you make the mould out of? P38 body filler?

Jon

The skeleton frame is sheet styrene and the filler is standard 2-pack panel repair 'bog' from the auto spares shops  (ie a golf ball of filler with a pea of hardener).  This filler is 25% styrene and when hard is easily carved/sanded etc. Usually takes about 4 putty runs to get it to mouldable state - but it goes off in <30 mins so pretty quick...

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A bit more progress on the Fieldmaster. 'Canopy' has been fixed to the bottom half of the fuse and first coat of Milliput to blend. The tail assembly was fixed beforehand as I wanted to ensure the cockpit interior was fully sealed before wet sanding etc. 

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Have then moved onto wings. Have 'tabbed' each wing root to assist with fixing - and also manufactured a styrene spar with the correct dihedral. 

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Then a bit of a dry fit to make sure it goes together as the manufacturer intended.  Happy with that. The wings look like they have a really narrow chord - but the flaps and ailerons hang off the back of this as pretty much independent appendages?  Rear fuse at this point hadn't had it's first sand (the first photo above is post sanding, post first primer)

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And with dry fit passing the test - the wings have been transferred to the Lego land facility for gluing to the front fuse pod - with some Lego-LAM assistance.  Need to do some detail work at front end of cowling but thinking that'll be easier to do once I have some reference points to reference to (ie the wings). 

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Over the next week I expect I'll get to joining the front and rear sections.  It's a slightly unconventional approach but all driven by need to keep the cockpit interior free of muck...

 

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Some more progress - engraving of panel lines, cleaning up of front end, fitting/blending fillets for the tail. And sorting out a robust tab system to join the front fuse section to the rear fuse section - which you can see in the pic below.. 

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And then back to the lego jig yard for aligning and gluing the fore/aft sections. With some assist again from the Lego LAME's

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Have also scratchbuilt the flaps and ailerons which will be a late fitment after paint. Next steps are blending this new join, then onto undercarriage, vents, intakes etc.  This photo below of G-NRDC is shared from Chris England Flickr page (1986 Farnborough)

Norman NDN-6 Fieldmaster G-NRDC Farnborough 2-9-86

 

 

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First off - great subject, awesome modelling skills! I really love quirky aircraft like this, so it's right up my street. Can't wait to see how it progresses. I hope you won't mind me posting some (not very good images) from Farnborough. These show the (water scoop?) being demonstrated, and the Fieldmaster being flown two-up.

 

Farnborough (12)

 

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Apologies for the quality: I had a Zenit SLR, which took great photos on sunny days but not-very-good photos at any other time :)

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15 hours ago, Sabrejet said:

I hope you won't mind me posting some (not very good images) from Farnborough.

Excellent reference photos thank you!  The under side shots in particular.   Cheers.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Progress continues - blending in the wing/fuse join. Adding lumps and bumps.  The latest milestone has been fitting the main undercarriage - heavily spatted, heavily engineered in 1:1 .  And then the big test - will it be a tailsitter?? There's a LOT of plastic behind the pivot point.....

 

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Ha! Yes!  There's no shortage of space to put lead in the nose - so have not skimped. The flaps/Ailerons have been scratched - but are not shown here.

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Next step - getting to the point where I'm going to mask off the canopy - that'll be a significant step in making it look like the real thing. And plenty more detail to be added - struts, hopper detail, engine vents etc. 

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  • 1 month later...

Progress has been slow - but a bit of a milestone today - finally masked the cockpit and proceeded to undercoat.  Step one, given the absence of any canopy framing lines - was to create a 'positive' mask (vs negative?). ie apply masking lines where you KNOW you want canopy framing to go.  the advantage of this is that you can quickly check the symmetry of what you're doing and make minor adjustments without actually having to commit the mask.  I am using Tamiya tape - cut to the required dimensions of the canopy frame..

 

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Then (obviously) fill in the gaps with the ACTUAL mask.  A sharp scalpel. Thin strips initially. Then infill with chunkier bits. Easier than you might think ...

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Then remove the 'positive' mask leaving what remains ready for painting.   This bit dead easy!  Just run over all the masks remaining to make sure they're bedded in properly. And wing struts added just because they needed to be.  A bit of Contrail strut profile used to good effect

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And some Tamiya rattle cat fine grey primer (great stuff!). The (overlength) flaps and ailerons have been taped on just to show the characteristic wing chord of the Fieldmaster.  Next steps are hopper entry and exit details.  - and some photo-etch hangers for the flaps/ailerons/spray bars, and PE atomisers for the spray bars (thanks entirely to a friend who's "in the know" about custom photo-etching!). A little bit of a lead time for these - so don't expect it finished next week!

 

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  • 4 months later...

Due (overdue) for an update on the Fieldmaster. The main reason for a pause was waiting for some custom photoetch for the spraybar hanger, more on that later...

 

In the meantime I've been attending to various detail items - the hopper lid, engine venty things, a fair bit of clean up.  And of course some white undercoat (Tamiya fine white primer from a rattle can).  This undercoat will actually end up  the topcoat...

 

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Here's the underside. Have added hopper chute, tail bumper and some underwing bulges with unclear (to me) purpose. The nose undercarriage is still to be fabricated - just a bit of temporary brass tube in there at the moment to aid painting/detailing etc

 

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And here are the spraybar hangers. A friend who's handy with CAD prepared the masters (along with some of his own projects) - then had the sheet photoetched by a photoetching mob. 

 

There are 4 different size hangers, each consisting of six pieces of PE (some lamination required to achieve thickness). And the photo also gives a free plug to Loctite Powerflex CA glue. Which is 'rubber infused' and almost makes PE a pleasure (almost, I said), You end up with a bit of flex at joints vs normal CA which is pretty brittle.

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Next steps - get the hangers hung, mask up for the large diagonal red stripes, paint.  Then we'll be on the home stretch with a host of dangly bits to be added, main u/c etc

 

 

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