Type 142, starting from FROG/Revell Blenheim I - back on track

[AdrianMF]

I got organised this morning:

 

I’ve spent a surprisingly long time today making very little visible progress. Nose profile sections slotted into the fuselage halves and cut away to allow for interior detailing:

 

Cockpit base shapes stuck on to lowered and flattened sills:

 

All filled in with scrap card ready for putty:

 

I’m going for a walk to let it all dry and then I will outline the edges with a sharpie and smother it all in Milliput or P38.

[Greg Law]

I can see a lot of work going into this one. It will be interesting. 👍

[AdrianMF]

8 hours ago, Greg Law said:

lot of work

Thanks Greg - the wing alignment turned out to be much less work than I expected, once I worked out what I was going to do, but the fuselage and cockpit mods seemed to eat up a day of modelling time!

 

Anyway, fuselage and cockpit frames sharpied up ready for a blob or two of Milliput next time I get a spare second:

[AdrianMF]

A dab of Milliput and a few dainty strokes of the file later:

[rob85]

This is shaping up beautifully adrian! Very nice additions as I’ve come to expect for you, careful you don’t Make a name for yourself.

 

Rob

[AdrianMF]

Well just once in a while things just go so right you have to share it. My first ever successful vac with 20 thou PETG:

 

Every previous time I tried to use it I got bubbles before it got soft enough to mould. This mould is quite a bit smaller than the fuselage so I needed a thicker plastic than my usual 10thou, so I heeded the advice, given by Bill @perdu and others, and gently warmed the plastic up slowly to dry it out first. And bingo!

 

I wonder if it starting off at 30C in storage helped a bit. And what was I thinking, using a heat gun on one of the hottest days of the year (so far)?

[perdu]

46 minutes ago, AdrianMF said:

And what was I thinking, using a heat gun on one of the hottest days of the year (so far)?

There!

 

I've been there with you too not too long ago.

 

The 142 is beginning to look finishable, always mentally a hard part of my planning.

 

It's lovely work.

[AdrianMF]

I have been putting the next job off, to the extent that I even built a sneaky Bf109 this weekend as a displacement activity. But the 142 needs windows. Luckily, they are 6mm square, so marking out with Tamiya 6mm tape spacers outlined by some thicker 3M 3mm tape is relatively straightforward:

 

Sides one and two:

 

according to the times on the pictures, it took way less than two hours start to finish. I will celebrate by putting some more paint on my 109!

[Pete in Lincs]

Impressive stuff, Adrian. I'll pop back from time to time to see how it's going.

[gingerbob]

Great to see this happening, but I was really surprised by the fuselage up against the drawing- they LOOK so different, I couldn't believe that the shapes are so similar!

 

bob

[Ray S]

When I saw what you were making, and what you were making it from, I thought 'no way' but I was wrong! That was an ingenious way of lowering the wings, even though I could not visualise the process in my mind, and I love the way you have got the glazing done. Great work!

 

Ray

[AdrianMF]

On 01/08/2021 at 11:50, gingerbob said:

I couldn't believe that the shapes are so similar!

I guess they didn’t want to re-tool it too much. The civil version does look much daintier.

On 02/08/2021 at 19:49, Ray S said:

ingenious way of lowering the wings

I still can’t quite believe it worked!

 

I’ve been neglecting this a bit, so tonight I cut off the rear of the nacelles under the wing to prepare to make the new deeper nacelle:

 

I will have to extend the wheel well sides a bit and break out the Milliput. It looks like the undercarriage mounting point was the same in both so I don’t have to move that. The rear of the nacelle will probably be a plunge mould over a balsa wood master unless the spares box turns up something.

[Greg Law]

Big job Adrian, but I'm sure it will be a walk in the park for you. 

[Rabbit Leader]

Wow... how good is this thing looking? 

As so typical of you Adrian, this is such excellent work and the finished model will be so rewarding and quite beautiful.  

Cheers.. Dave 

[AdrianMF]

I need to get cracking on this because I have a pile of “straight” Blenheims to do in this GB too.
 

So with that in mind I cracked on with the nacelle. I need to replace the whole of the lower nacelle to get the shape right.

 

I made a card insert to fill the underside of the wing with a hole for the actual wheel well. I liberally superglued it into place and also superglued it to the undercarriage support plates too. These are originally moulded as part of the lower nacelle.

 

With the plates fixed to the new wing surface, I could now cut the rest of the lower nacelle off, leaving the undercarriage location plates behind.
 

I can now make a pattern for the whole of the lower nacelle out of card and car filler, as seen in the three bits of plastic marked “yes”. I assure you there are quite a few pieces marked “no”.

 

Very wordy, quite long and tedious to work out and do. I’ll save a thousand words right here:

 

This I think is the last complicated bit of the conversion - famous last words!

[AdrianMF]

Making a bit more sense now. As soon as this dries it will be two-part filler time:

 

I'm struck at the smiliarity between building shapes up with card and all the CAD diagrams that the likes of Airfix and Tony @TheBaron produce. Same principles, different materials!

[TheBaron]

39 minutes ago, AdrianMF said:

'm struck at the smiliarity between building shapes up with card and all the CAD diagrams that the likes of Airfix and Tony @TheBaron produce. Same principles, different materials!

Exactemente Adrian! We're all still Euclid's children....

[AdrianMF]

Well, it dried so I broke out the filler. You can do quite a lot of useful excess removal while it’s at the cheesy stage:

[AdrianMF]

After a bit of wet filing and sanding you can see the quite complex undercarriage door shape emerging:

[Max Headroom]

I think the appropriate phrase is “cor!”

 

Trevor the impressed

[AdrianMF]

6 hours ago, Max Headroom said:

I think the appropriate phrase is “cor!”

It’s a real voyage of discovery working out the shapes here. I’m having fun with this, even though it’s going a lot slower than I’d hoped!

 

Regards,

Adrian

[rob85]

This is very cunning stuff Adrian, very cunning indeed!! Really enjoying seeing the process of how this comes together.

 

Rob

[AdrianMF]

After vacforming clear plastic for canopies, regular card is a relaxing change!

One down, three to go (including spares).

[AdrianMF]

Fronted adverbials seem to be all the rage nowadays. Here’s an example:

 

Sometimes, vacforming just works:

 

Eight for eight, 15 thou on the left, 30 thou on the right. Should be able to get two nacelles and two doors out of that lot!

[AdrianMF]

Happily, the nacelles are trimmed to fit and the undercarriage doors are under way:

 

Sadly, the vac for the door that I cut out was uneven in thickness (sideways movement when dropping plastic over former, I suspect) and crumpled on the thin side, so I’ve reinforced it with CA and talc, but I will probably end up making another one. Next one is marked up.

 

Coincidentally, I have to accompany Mrs MF to a fancy dress party this evening - Midsummer Night’s Dream theme. Consequently, I present “Bottom”, constructed from two A3 sheets of 0.5mm cardboard and painted with some old craft acrylics:

 

Personally, I think people over 30 should be banned from having fancy dress parties, so we can have more time for grown up activities like building model aeroplanes!