28 Sqn Whirlwind: A highly detailed, shake and bake kit

[perdu]

You know that aluminium tape you painstakingly cut to sit around the nose filter?

 

That you placed so very carefully in situ?

 

That really does look like an oversized panel?

 

Why not treat as what it can truly be?

 

You have put in place a magnificently contrived fitted scribing guide, so scribe round it (I favour just digging a number two Swann-Morton craft knife blade into the surface) deeply and remove it.

 

Normal every day modelling then instead of an 'incipient bogey-man fear of scribing'.

 

(I have a black scribing device I picked up at Huddersfield one long ago show, I still haven't learnt to use it like our hyperskilled friends herein)

[giemme]

9 hours ago, hendie said:

Thoughts? 

I'm for scribing it. Brilliant update  I'm with Steve @Fritag about the number and extent of appendices these flying machines have - hence why I'll never build one...   

 

Ciao

[TheBaron]

2 minutes ago, perdu said:

Why not treat as what it can truly be?

 

You have put in place a magnificently contrived fitted scribing guide, so scribe round it (I favour just digging a number two Swann-Morton craft knife blade into the surface) deeply and remove it.

Zen and the Art of Modelling. 

I wish my thought processes could cut through to the heart of a problem with such clarity and directness.

[SafetyDad]

2 minutes ago, TheBaron said:

Zen and the Art of Modelling. 

I wish my thought processes could cut through to the heart of a problem with such clarity and directness.

 

Me too. Great solution from @perdu

Worth trying a spray of primer first though as suggested by @Fritag to gauge the effect before taking action. 

 

SD

[RichieW]

Amazing attention to detail. 

 

Hendie v greebles = Hendie wins

 

Hendie v groundhogs = lost cause....probably.

 

Was wondering if it would be possible to create the band with paint by applying tapes with a 2mm gap and leaving the tape in place while the paint dried so a tiny step remains. Getting it all lined up would be a pain in the backside of groundhog removal levels but it would be possible to create a very subtle detail. 

 

Richie

[Terry1954]

Great update. If you do decide to remove the tape, could you not use the tape itself as the scribe guide? i.e. do it before you move it?

 

Terry

 

PS. You do realise that you are probably in a perpetual loop with that Groundhog ................. what do they call that now ? 😱

 

[2lefthands]

I also think scribing the band is a good solution (i detest rescribing as well)

the rivets maybe give you the impression that it is a band?

 

wonderful modelling, but you know that ;)

[Space Ranger]

On 7/14/2021 at 5:22 PM, hendie said:

Falling for the old literature trick again, I read that groundhogs are solitary and a bit territorial, so I figured I'd caught him and we were safe... until a few days ago when I spotted another. 

I shouldn't be surprised really - as SWMBO stated - we're sitting on some real prime groundhog real estate now - Previous owner removed, tunnels already dug, multiple entrance/exits - in move-in condition.  

Anyhoos, the trap was set again, and I caught this little sod within 24 hours. Cue another 25 mile drive. Now, being a bit cautious I thought I should set the trap again - just in case, y'know, and lo and behold, I caught another one just before lunchtime today.  Back in the car....   released him, drove back home, set the trap up again (just in case), then went to work for an hour, drove home and what was waiting fr me but yet another bloody groundhog.  Now either Bob had got a direct tunnel from where I released him straight back to my yard, or there's a  colony of the sods living under my shed. Trap has been set again - this is costing me a fortune in gas and cantaloupes  

It is not common knowledge on Earth, but "groundhogs" are actually natives of the planet Blthrx who long ago invented teleportation. That's actually the same Blthrxian you've been trapping all along; it just teleports from your release point back to his home in your backyard faster than you can return by car.

 

We of the Space Rangers have been monitoring these funny little creatures for some time, as the United Worlds of the Solar System once thought them an invasive Earth species. They are actually quite harmless as long as you keep feeding them melon. The Bureau of Extraterrestrial Technology has long attempted to discover the secret of their teleportation, but so far we have not been able to establish communications with them, as their language resists all attempts at deciphering.

[The Spadgent]

I know they were Gophers but to me you are now Bill Murray in Candy Shack. “Gonna cost me a fortune in Cantaloupes and Gas” what a quote! 😂

The greebles are looking amazing once again as is that band. I’m still not sure what witch craft you used as it’s quite early (I’ll read it again) but it look beautiful. I too hate scribing. I’ve taken to just doing it and hoping it works. 😬🤣 deffo give her a spot of primer before deciding what you do mind.

 

Good luck my good man. 
 

Johnny.

[Pete in Lincs]

On 7/15/2021 at 8:36 AM, Fritag said:

Why not spray some primer over the tape to blend it in and see how it looks under paint?  You’ll know then whether you like it/hate it/can live with it.  

I concur. 

[Biggles87]

You filthy swine!

[Martian]

23 hours ago, The Spadgent said:

The greebles are looking amazing once again as is that band. I’m still not sure what witch craft you used

I think he hired the witches from that Scottish play..........I think it was called Macbeth.

 

Martian 👽

[perdu]

I wonder if it is not actually time to apply the Law Of Draco?

 

Perky little, friendly looking visitor outstays welcome permanently,      

 

Did I leave my sonic screwdriver round here somewhere?

[The Spadgent]

1 hour ago, Martian said:

I think he hired the witches from that Scottish play..........I think it was called Macbeth.

 

Martian 👽

It’s far too HOT my little POTATO. 🤫Even the ORCHESTRA in their STALLS are PUCKering their lips. WILL they ever MAKE it through the play or must there be AMENDS made to make everything a little more hospitable ?  A few TWEAKS here and there. Who NOSE. 👃. 😚

 

X love and hugs.x

[Martian]

@giemme, Like the actors in Blackadder, @The Spadgent is very superstitious and every time someone "inadvertently" mentions the word Macbeth (Oops, sorry Johnny!), he, like the actors, has to go through the "Hot potato, orchestra stalls, puck will make amends" thing, ending up by tweaking his nose very hard. For that reason we all try very hard not to mention Macbeth too much. However, when he gifts us such wonderful ammunition, as he did here, it would be incredibly rude of us not to fire it and I was always brought up to be a polite little Martian so what can one do?

 

Martian 👽

[perdu]

Oh I did not realise that was what happened when you said Macbeth to Mr Spadgent, Martian.

 

So let me get this straight, when you, me or even other accomplished members of the cast mentions Macbeth to Johnny he goes into the theatrical standby.

 

Does he get the spasms with the misspelt McBeth version too one wonders?

[hendie]

thanks for all the replies and suggestions folks. Feeling a bit under the weather at the moment so the brain isn't working well enough to respond individually so you'll have to forgive me (or thank me) for not dealing with the pigeon post this eopisode.

 

Where were we?  Oh.  Greeble greeble greeble.  That's where we were weren't we. 

I had two more SACRU brackets to manufacture so another piece of PE fret was sourced.  First of all I drilled the holes - much easier to do this now than when I'm dealing with a ridiculously small bracket, and if I stuff up the hole positions, I have put a whole lot of effort into the bracket.  Once the holes were drilled, I scored the PE with a blade - the top horizontal score is the fold line (only 3 or 4 strokes) and the lower horizontal is the cut line (5 or 6 strokes).

 

 

The brackets were removed from the fret, radii filed, folded, and then fitted to the fuselage with the aid of some ss rivets, just as before.

 

 

I still have a fair amount of greebling to accomplish but thought I should attack some of the more difficult jobs.  There's nothing worse than coming to a point in a build where all you have is the jobs you've been avoiding, so interspersing them between greebles takes some of the pain away. In this instance, it's the turn of the grill at the back of the doghouse/beetleback/lumpy thing.

My first attempt involved using masking tape to cut a template then transfer that to some brass mesh.  I wasted the best part of an hour on that before giving up.

 

 

The main issue was that the brass mesh was so fine, id didn't want to hold its shape and deformed very easily.  A change of plan was required.  This time I added the vertical support to the fuselage, then cyano'd the brass mesh onto that.  Then strand by strand, I cut the mesh with a fresh blade.  This went a lot easier.

 

 

Once all the trimming was done I applied cyano around the edges to help hold things in place.

 

 

Next was the frame.  This is the thinnest styrene sheet I had, around .2mm and it still looks way overscale.  I took a file to the styrene and thinned it down as much as I could before it started breaking away.  A coat of paint should hide a lot of sins here.

 

 

You all were correct about the aluminum tape being overscale.  I primed the back end to see how things were doing and the tape I had added on the tail pylon looked nasty, so I used the tape as a scribing guide and went around the nose before removing the tape.

Did I mention my scribing skills are crap?   I used an old toothbrush (the wife has hidden hers now) to remove the crud from the scribe lines, then micromeshed over that to try and smooth things down.  That was reasonable successful but made things really difficult when I had removed the primer as it was very difficult to judge how deep the lines were on white resin, not to mention bloomin' awkward to see where you're actually scribing.

Under the delusion that I had done a decent job scribing, it was time to go for the very distinctive hinge that runs along the nose on both sides.  I deepened the top panel line as much as I dared - my plan being to cyano some plastic rod in the groove.  The smallest diameter rod I had was 0.4mm.  I had some smaller diameter wire, but metal and cyano are hopeless and I knew that the hinge would fall out at some point. At least the plastic rod had a chance of staying put once done.

Another challenge here was making sure that things looked symmetrical and the two hinges finished level at the front. Surprisingly, it looks like things worked out.

 

 

As a reward more greeblies were fired at the nose. Two vertical hinges, two horizontal hinges, and a reinforcement plate for the latching handle.

 

 

There is still a bunch of bits to be added, mainly grab handles, but I needed to see how things were looking so it was prime time.

As mentioned above, the aluminum tape on the pylon looks a bit industrial.  I removed this as my afternoon session and replaced it with BMF which is looking much better.

 

 

It's always good to see how the primer unifies everything and makes it start to look like an actual aircraft. Obviously, there's still a lot of tidying up to do.

 

 

Front end is looking decent at this stage.

 

 

Just prior to primer I decided to cut out the fire panels on the nose - with no idea how I'm going to work this through.  The fire access panels on the WW appear different from those on the Wessex.  The Wessex fire access is through two hinged panels, while the WW appears to be 3 angled slats.  Another bridge to cross later.

 

 

I was very happy with how the grill turned out despite some of the 'frame'  breaking away when I was smoothing things down.  Some Mr Dissolved Putty should take care of that in a jif.

 

 

Some of the aluminum tape panels looked a bit rough so I may have been too heavy with the burnishing.  I'll micromesh those and see how they turn out, and if necessary go ahead and replace them.

 

 

The underside is looking helicoptery busy.

 

 

Here you can see what I mean about it being very difficult to judge how deep the scribe lines were on white resin - some of them have all but disappeared under paint, and I thought I had gone quite deep on some of them.

 

 

Overall though I am quite happy with how things are progressing. It could have been a lot worse.

 

The next session promises to be very interesting and challenging.  I would like to finish priming and finish all the tidying up, but the windows have been holding me back as I had no real idea of how I was going to accomplish the distinctive rubber seals. 

I think I have a plan and feel quietly confident that it's going to work. Or not.  We'll see.

 

 

[Brandy]

She's looking great under primer Alan. Is the plan to reinstate the sanded off rivets on this one, or was one enough?

 

Ian

[Martian]

10 hours ago, perdu said:

Oh I did not realise that was what happened when you said Macbeth to Mr Spadgent, Martian.

 

So let me get this straight, when you, me or even other accomplished members of the cast mentions Macbeth to Johnny he goes into the theatrical standby.

 

Does he get the spasms with the misspelt McBeth version too one wonders?

You are spot on Bill, that's why we try and not to mention Macbeth very often. As to the McBeth version, I believe it has the same effect, only with a slightly delayed effect while Johnny does a double take at the spelling. He then reads it aloud to himself and then the effect kicks in.

 

Helpful of Mars 👽

[Biggles87]

Looks like another silk purse from a sow’s ear coming up.

 

John

[giemme]

This greebling thing is getting intense, Alan  Impressive job  

 

And thanks to @Martian for the Blackhadder reference,  I definitely need to refresh my memory and look for some episodes on YouTube for a good laugh or two  

 

Ciao 

[The Spadgent]

@Martian. @perdu . Oooh you pesky do and so’s. 

I’ll let the professionals do it for me. 😆

Sorry @hendie back to greeblies. That vent is the best but for me. Absolutely beautiful under a spot of primer. I’d be so eager to start painting right now. Nice job on the scribing too. All in all you can say I’m impressed. 😍

 

Johnny

[heloman1]

More excellent work Alan. Re the ali tape on the nose, yes scribed is much better. I've used Tamiya tape on a couple of models with good results. How it will stand the test of time remains to be seen.

Forgot to mention, whilst my mate was up top sawing the through the rotorblades. I was tightening a bottle jack lashing. When I looked up as it wasn't getting tighter. the fishplate ahead of the cabin door where the tie down ring is situated, was hanging off at a 30 degree angle!!!

 

Colin

[perdu]

Ah, now I think I've got it.

 

Refer only to The Scottish Play.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not Macbeth.

 

 

 

Got it

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[perdu]

4 minutes ago, heloman1 said:

More excellent work Alan. Re the ali tape on the nose, yes scribed is much better. I've used Tamiya tape on a couple of models with good results. How it will stand the test of time remains to be seen.

Forgot to mention, whilst my mate was up top sawing the through the rotorblades. I was tightening a bottle jack lashing. When I looked up as it wasn't getting tighter. the fishplate ahead of the cabin door where the tie down ring is situated, was hanging off at a 30 degree angle!!!

 

Colin

Colin, from reading Borneo  Boys it sounds as if some (less vital maintenance, my description) servicing may have been shortened to keep the Whirlys in action at forward bases.

Hence siezed blade hinge pins too.