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Boulton Paul Defiant TT MK.I target tug


reini

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MPM 1:72 Boulton Paul Defiant TT MK.I 

 

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Defiant with turret removed and target towing equipment installed instead. MK.I's were converted planes, Mk.III were built brand new - almost 300 were built/converted all together.

 

 

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Couple of plastic sprues.

 

 

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Clear parts, including specific vacuform part for this version.

 

 

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Plenty of resin and PE to add a nice amount of details. Also most/all of the TT variant parts seem to be resin.

 

 

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The scheme I'll be doing.

 

 

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The fuselage required some minor surgery. I'm guessing the hole on the bottom is for putting out the target... well, whatever the targets are? Banners? From the top a portion is also sliced off. Instead of turret there seems to be a very tight place for the guy responsible of the target towing equipment.

 

 

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The cockpit parts have been done, still work to do on the rear compartment.

 

 

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The target towing winch is kinda nice, one resin block with some PE additions.

 

 

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The cockpit details are pretty nice as is - but I added some wiring and engine management levers. Might need to cut them down a bit shorter once dried.

 

 

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The rear fuselage is resin. And fits like a glove... NOT! I need to lenghten it a bit, not a big problem really...

 

 

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,,, but it also seems to be too narrow, which is a bigger issue. I need to see how the fuselage comes together, if I can pinch it in just a bit to make the fit better. But for now, it doesn't look very good.

 

 

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4 hours ago, reini said:

But for now, it doesn't look very good.

 

The art of understatement lives on! I am sure you will solve it one way or the other.

 

All the best on this one, Ray

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2 hours ago, JeroenS said:

Sometimes it makes you wonder if people who make these parts actually use them.

Makes me wonder whether our hobby is the only place where manufacturers turn out products that are clearly not fit for purpose and get away with it.

 

AW

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On 4/24/2021 at 9:02 AM, Brad said:

ooooo that's gunna need some bog.

 

This needs to be on a tee-shirt!

 

Other than squeezing the fuselage, could you heat and spread the resin piece, where it meets the plastic? Or cut the resin piece in half, fit the sides and worry about filling the gap afterward?

 

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9 hours ago, Thom216 said:

 

This needs to be on a tee-shirt!

 

Other than squeezing the fuselage, could you heat and spread the resin piece, where it meets the plastic? Or cut the resin piece in half, fit the sides and worry about filling the gap afterward?

 

 

If you spread the resin, it will still leave you with a step above the join to fill. I don't think there is any easy way around this.

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13 hours ago, reini said:

The resin piece is quite thin so it might be easy to spread it a little. I'll have to dry fit it when I'll glue in the winch mechanism and see how it goes. 

Morning Reini, how did that resin thingy work out? Cutting and filling with strip? 

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16 minutes ago, JeroenS said:

Morning Reini, how did that resin thingy work out? Cutting and filling with strip? 

 

Oh I got so many (too many!) projects going on that I haven't gotten back to the Defiant yet. But we will find out soon, during the weekend most likely.

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Still haven't progressed far enough to see how's the 'neck' gonna fit the plane - but I do have made some progress with the cockpit so I can start closing the fuselage soon.

 

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There were plenty of resin parts that needed cleaning, like this seat arrangement. It was already broken out of the box and was just flimsy all around.

 

 

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But with a fresh blade in my knife I managed to get it more or less cleaned up.

 

 

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And here's the rest of the rear interior parts.

 

 

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Layer of black followed by Hataka Red Line Interior Gray Green - and also picked up most of the details with brush. I will continue with some weathering and final highlights. How I am gonna put all this together inside the fuselage is still beyond me but we will see how it goes.

 

 

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@JeroenS Thanks. I did put on some more paint to the interior parts, some weathering with Tamiya Panel Liners and adding some slight drybrushing and picking up some details.

 

 

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Interior parts done.

 

 

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I also re-scribed all the fuselage panel lines, as they go bit soft on the undersides and some of them are not as tidy as others. So going thru them all I'd make sure that they look uniform. I most likely need to touch up some of them after sanding the fuselage, but the other parts were easier to go thru at this point. After re-scribing, I slightly brushed Tamiya Extra Thin Quick Setting over the lines to clean up all the dust and jagged edges from them.

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Cockpit going in, getting ready to close the fuselage. The rear section is put together with CA glue and it did require little bit shaving here and there but in general was not too bad of a fit.

 

 

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Everything tucked in, ready for the spine...

 

 

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... well, I'm not surprised. The part hasn't grown any bigger during this process 😐 It really is quite bad. I highlighted the ledge with black marker and there's the huge gap on the rear end where it meets the fuselage. It's all bit strange as the other resin parts seem fine.

 

 

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I think I will have to try to use the rear section of the plastic part and fit it to the resin part.  It would still require filling to get it sit right but considerably less I think. maybe cut them somewhere behind the top window and just try to make them fit with some plasticard and or lot of filler. The shape is bit different so it might be lot more work than it looks initially - but I will have to check it out if it would work.

 

 

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Also made progress with the wings - wheel wells fitted in.

 

 

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On the other side, they were bit thick so they required some sanding in order to get the top portion of the wing fit properly. Initial dry fit suggests that the wing-fuselage fit is really nice and snug so that's good.

 

 

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Are you going to cut the resin part's rear section straight down the middle and fill it with strip to get it wider? That would seem like a good solution. And use the tip of the plastic part to fill the rearward gap. I'm sure you'll make it work!

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1 hour ago, JeroenS said:

Are you going to cut the resin part's rear section straight down the middle and fill it with strip to get it wider? That would seem like a good solution. And use the tip of the plastic part to fill the rearward gap. I'm sure you'll make it work!

 

Well. yes - that would have been a fine solution - unless I had already cut up all the parts :D But it seems it will work nevertheless, here's my approach:

 

 

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I noticed that also the area right behind the canopy is also way too narrrow, and a sharp ledge underlines the problem even more.

 

 

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I sanded the ledge smooth and it somewhat helped with the problem but not quite.

 

 

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Glass part on the other hand was perfect fit. There are small windows on the fighter version there that are not present on the TT version - but I thought that easier solution would be to putty over the windows instead of trying to make the resin part fit.

 

 

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So let's take a part and replace it with three parts! That's an easy solution, right? :D 

 

 

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Initial fitting was promising (atleast way more better than the original part), but there was still the issue with the resin part being too narrow.

 

 

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So I wedged in a piece of plasticard to spread it out a bit on both ends...

 

 

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And we have a quite nice fit! :) Sure, there are some shaping and sanding to be done on the top to make the resin part meet the plastic but that shouldn't be too hard. I just need to add some material inside as I need to remove quite a bit of plastic. I'm fairly happy with the solution, even if it's not done yet but I think it will turn out ok. You will find out soon enough...

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On 08/05/2021 at 14:58, PattheCat said:

Well done! I must confess I was somewhat anxious to see how you'd tackle it.

Sorry to have had doubts.

 

No worries, I was anxious and had doubts too :D 

 

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Canopy side glass sealed up, still needs sanding.

 

 

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I sanded the hump into shape. The white on top is the plasticard I put inside, good thing I did!

 

 

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Then some Tamiya putty.

 

 

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And this is where we are :) Looks ok I think. Still need to bring back few of the details and then I can glue it down. 

 

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  • 2 months later...

After a bit of break, next in line is the Defiant. It's been way too hot upstairs where my modelling bench is so I've relocated to downstairs on a makeshift bench.

 

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All kinds of lumps and bumbs are to be glued onto the Defiant.

 

 

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Well. they definitely won't make it any prettier, eh? :P 

 

Next up will be all kinds of small bits here and there, preparing them and the aiframe itself for the paint.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Vacuform rear canopy - comes with two in case you mess it up the first time. Which I did :D

 

 

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Landing gear, with some PE details added.

 

 

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Do it yourself propeller...

 

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It felt like a good idea to pin it to make the assembly easier. Also the landing gear, the fit is quite vague so I felt some strenghtening was in order.

 

 

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We are ready for some primer.

 

 

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Tamiya Fine Surface primer, that's good stuff.

 

 

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This fit did not pass my inspection, the top rear part is bulging out a little bit, need to sand it in order to make it look like it fits the plane better.

 

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I think we are ready for primer, round two,

 

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