The great 1/72 Glider build - more Air Cadet flying machines

[bigbadbadge]

Excellent Terry great idea for the jig, and what a difference in alignment,  great job.

It's a good job you didn't do this after drinking the G&Ts !!!

Yes it was hot but pleased I did the garage, gradually whittling down the stuff in the garage o I will have space to work on the car over winter.

Glider looks fab.

Chris

[Back in the Saddle]

Nice jig!

[TheBaron]

Thirded on the jig solution Terry. 

[keefr22]

14 hours ago, Terry1954 said:

Maybe I could market these ........... 

 

If you make them, they will buy....!! But what is the supply situation of 'old paper binding plastic "tubes"' like in the current world situation....?!

 

11 hours ago, TheBaron said:

Thirded on the jig solution Terry.

 

Fourthded!

 

Keith

[Cookenbacher]

Fifthed on the wing jig, very cool idea.

[longshanks]

Hi Terry

Just caught up with this......

 

Some lovely work going on here

 

Stay safe

 

Kev

[abat]

Hi Terry, I’ve just caught up with your WIP too. It’s a great theme and your standard of work is outstanding and inspiring. I look forward to updates. 
Andrew

[Biggles87]

Sixthed on the jig, don’t think we’ve gone that far even with @CedB.

 

John

[Terry1954]

Thanks to @bigbadbadge, @Back in the Saddle, @TheBaron, @keefr22, @Cookenbacher and @Biggles87 for your overly kind comments on my home made jig! I just need to develop a business plan to move into mass production .

 

And thanks also to @abat, glad my work can at least inspire others!

 

And finally, welcome @longshanks, we don't often see you in the wingy section Kev, I hope you enjoy your stay!

 

It's been a few weeks since I did anything on the gliders. Other (plastic) projects are taking up some of my time, including this 1/72 P-51H, slowly getting itself ready for the paint shop...

 

 

... and also my first 1/48 model in close to 45 years! I'm building this one for a friend whose uncle served in 85 sqn with Meteor's. It is the Airfix kit. The jet pipe extensions are handling devices, not some sort of sophisticated  anti heat seeking devices.........

 

 

Apart from various plastic diversionary projects, there has been much work in the garden, including completion of these entirely home made composters from scrap wood...

 

 

..... and some concerted effort to find Mrs T, eventually discovered behind our massive sunflower crop ..........

 

 

And finally visitations from family members with grandchildren in tow. Pictures were taken of those, but will not be shown here, as some viewers may be of a nervous disposition........!

 

But I digress, you have come here to see gliders!

 

The Viking did eventually get some primer in the cockpit. An initial coat of Mig One Shot black, followed next day by some Mig One Shot grey. My logic here is for the black to add some depth with the grey oversprayed slightly more lightly.

 

 

 

I've a mind to add some white to the grey and dust an even lighter third coat of that, before picking out the detail with a brush.

 

Meanwhile the Astir interior detail has had similar treatment, first black........

 

 

.... then grey.....

 

 

 

The Brengun I/P for the Astir is a miniature masterpiece.

 

The Astir airframe is now as one, with a neat hole cut into the lower fuselage to take the very detailed brengun wheel assembly. I also had to fashion an internal "stop" to make sure the wheel assembly had something to rest against, at appropriate depth.

 

 

The Astir has also had the appropriately black primer applied to the interior of the cockpit:

 

 

And finally Grey primer inside, together with some grey primer across all wing and tail and fuselage joints, to show up any areas in need of further attention. That port wing root "crack" (only seen when I uploaded the photo), is in fact a lot less worse than it looks, and is simply a small indentation needing filling.

 

 

The interior of the Astir will be fitted and details picked out as per the Viking.

 

The plan for both these gliders is to have overall primer coat(s) of One Shot White, before a top coat of semi gloss white. The Astir is closer to that stage than is the Viking, as I still need to address the trimming and fitting of the vac form canopy on the Viking. The Astir has an injection moulded clear canopy, which has been test fitted and trimmed, and does fit very nicely. Both will have canopies fitted and masked before final top coats.

 

More soon

 

Terry

[bigbadbadge]

Nice progress on the gliders Terry,  the cockpits look great with some paint on, great job fella.  

 

Nice sunflowers too, wow they're massive  and great job on the compost bins.

 

Chris

[Martian]

Looking good Terry. Not sure why Mrs Terry feels the need to hide from you though. Is there something you are not telling us?

 

Curious of Mars 

[Biggles87]

KThey’re coming along nicely.

We don’t have any sunflowers this year but the local farmer is growing maize in two adjacent fields, which we pass between with the dogs about twice a week. It is growing at a tremendous rate ( like everything else thanks to the amount of rain we’ve had this summer ) and is now well above head height. The path between the fields is quite narrow and each time I half expect to come face to face with a lion or something similar like in the Robert Duval film.

 

John

[Cookenbacher]

Excellent progress on all fronts Terry - is the P-51H the RS kit?

The gliders are looking elegant.

[Terry1954]

23 hours ago, bigbadbadge said:

Nice progress on the gliders Terry,  the cockpits look great with some paint on, great job fella.  

 

Nice sunflowers too, wow they're massive  and great job on the compost bins.

 

Chris

 

Thanks Chris. Our sunflowers are so large this year, possibly because they are in with the veg. Last year they were in giant pots.

 

23 hours ago, Martian said:

Looking good Terry. Not sure why Mrs Terry feels the need to hide from you though. Is there something you are not telling us?

 

Curious of Mars 

 

Thanks Martin. Maybe she hides in the garden for some peace and solitude?

 

20 hours ago, Biggles87 said:

KThey’re coming along nicely.

 

Thanks John. It does seem sureal behind those enourmous blooms i must say!

 

52 minutes ago, Cookenbacher said:

Excellent progress on all fronts Terry - is the P-51H the RS kit?

The gliders are looking elegant.

 

Thanks Cookie. Yes the P-51H is the RS kit. A bit of a challenge but it looks like an H at least!

 

I'm brushing up on home made canopy bucks currently, as I feel I need to make a few for the Viking, having ruined one of the two they supply with the kit. The trick will be making perfectly conformal shapes that blend with the front fuselage.

 

Terry

[Procopius]

By god's body, you're doing a man's work here, Terry! I've always wanted to do some RAF gliders, but never had the guts to follow through.

[Martian]

10 hours ago, Procopius said:

By god's body, you're doing a man's work here, Terry! I've always wanted to do some RAF gliders, but never had the guts to follow through.

Do you mean follow through as in carry out the plan or follow through as in the skid mark on @general melchett's battle Y fronts? Oops! Melchie is staying with us this week. Hope he doesn't read this.

 

Confused of Mars 

[Fritag]

On 8/8/2021 at 5:57 PM, Terry1954 said:

and also my first 1/48 model in close to 45 years! I'm building this one for a friend whose uncle served in 85 sqn with Meteor's.

 

That’s a lovely looking Meteor Terry, are we going to see any more of her?

[Martian]

2 hours ago, Fritag said:

 

That’s a lovely looking Meteor Terry, are we going to see any more of her?

_{Clearly we need to.}

 

_Martian 

[Terry1954]

22 hours ago, Procopius said:

By god's body, you're doing a man's work here, Terry! I've always wanted to do some RAF gliders, but never had the guts to follow through.

 

You know what they say PC, a man's woman's work is never done ............ plenty of RAF (well Air Cadet) gliders on this thread, maybe you should go for one or two yourself? As for following through, this is going to be one very long follow through on my part!

 

11 hours ago, Martian said:

Do you mean follow through as in carry out the plan or follow through as in the skid mark on @general melchett's battle Y fronts? Oops! Melchie is staying with us this week. Hope he doesn't read this.

 

Confused of Mars 

 

I'll ignore that remark, this is a family show after all.

 

8 hours ago, Fritag said:

 

That’s a lovely looking Meteor Terry, are we going to see any more of her?

 

Thanks Steve. I have taken a few pictures along the way so maybe I should do a sort of retrospective latter-day WIP? I'll certainly do an RFI when she's done, so yes, you will see more in due course. And thanks to you reminding me in your Spitfire thread, about page 109 onwards in your splendid Hawk thread, I have this afternoon taken some drastic steps to address the Viking canopy dilema, as you will see...

 

Time to deal with the vac form canopy. You will recall, two are supplied, allowing two chances I assume. I managed to cut the first one a tad undersize, which was not smart. Last chance saloon meant the second one would have to be perfect, so rather than cut and possibly spoil that one as well, I decided to use it as a master, cast some bucks, and then have a go at "vac forming" my own, so I had a few more spares.  I use the term "vac forming" loosely, as despite encouraging @Courageous to go for a dental Vac forming machine a good while back (page 109 of said thread above) I actually hesitated to get one myself on the basis that when I needed one, I would buy one. Bad decision, they have become about 50% more expensive, in just over 2 years! So one will now be ordered, meanwhile I may adopt the @perdu method of plunge moulding, as he makes it look so very easy!

 

So, following the Friday vac form tutorial (yes I know it's Tuesday), I decided to drag out the casting materials, voila:-

 

 

I bought these two giant tins some years back when I was dabbling in making some replacement wheels and other bits, for a couple of 1/144 C-47's. Clearly I over ordered, but you can never be to sure. Both cans are still relatively full, but imagine my dread when I read the best before date of 2011.

Well I'm happy to report, both seem to have endured the passage of time and are still excellent products for resin casting.

 

Taking a cautious approach, I decided to test the resin directly onto some scrap clear material (is it PETg?).

 

 

It came away perfectly, no release agent and no damage to the clear sheet.

 

So next, I took the first, undersized canopy, and embedded it in some casting clay, and off we went with our proof of concept:

 

 

In that shot the resin is still curing. after about 30 minutes, I was able to remove the buck, and now we have this:

 

 

From left to right, test blob of resin, with no damage to the clear sheet, original undersized canopy, cleaned up with no sign of damage, the test buck, and finally the second canopy, untouched by human hands.

 

The test buck itself looks pretty good, but obviously needs to be deeper, although I might have a go at enlarging the canopy shape as there is plenty of surplus resin below and to the rear.

 

 

And a closer look at the second canopy as is, leads me to conclude I could mix up another batch of resin and use this as it is, as a mould to cast from. I'll just need to fix a blank across the end nearest the camera, to contain the pour and I reckon that will do it.

 

 

Thoughts welcome, as this is a tomorrow job now.

 

More soon

 

Terry

 

[Fritag]

If there’s no real danger of compromising the second canopy then it seems very sensible to make one or two resin bucks as a potential back up and/or to see if you can get an even better canopy than the supplied ones.  In any event I’ve found that a cut-to-size resin buck can act as a useful cutting/sanding guide.

 

And from the BM knowledge-base perspective it’d be interesting to see if you got any problems with discolouration thermoforming using the resin buck.  I’d forgotten how much discussion there was of the issue on that old hawk thread.

 

[Terry1954]

On 8/11/2021 at 9:51 AM, Fritag said:

If there’s no real danger of compromising the second canopy then it seems very sensible to make one or two resin bucks as a potential back up and/or to see if you can get an even better canopy than the supplied ones.  In any event I’ve found that a cut-to-size resin buck can act as a useful cutting/sanding guide.

 

And from the BM knowledge-base perspective it’d be interesting to see if you got any problems with discolouration thermoforming using the resin buck.  I’d forgotten how much discussion there was of the issue on that old hawk thread.

 

 Sound advice thanks Steve re the back up canopy, and yes that Hawk thread of yours is a veritable treasure trove of modelling memorabilia hints and tips . The thermoforming activities are slightly delayed, due to some issues with the kit explained a bit later.

 

Meanwhile, very little activity on the gliders I'm sorry to say, but conversely very happy to say that August has largely been a chance to catch up with family and grandchildren, some of whom I have not seen for over 18 months, largely due to Covid and other complexities. Some of the offending crew can be seen in this shot of me being kept away from the workbench. The missing crew are a 17 year old young lady (busy doing other stuff) and her 18 month old cousin, who was not up for a photo call. Although in this shot they are stopping any modelling, they are a demanding bunch and during their stay various models had to be made to order in the form of a 1/144 F-86, a 1/144 Mig-21bis, aa 1/100 F6 Lightning and a 1/32 Chevrolet 1959 Impala (that young lady on the right has taste). Suffice to say we didn't get much made, but we had a lot of fun,...........

 

 

But I did get some time of my own at the bench and I also bit the bullet and ordered a dental Vac form machine, which arrived last week but it seems may be damaged.....

 

That red handle should be able to be pushed right down (I assume) but it fouls on the body of the machine, and cant be moved past the base, to be fully operable.

 

 

Resorting to what I always do if something doesn't appear to work the way I think it should, I took it apart, and low and behold, the spigot on which the handle is mounted is bent forward. If that came out perfectly perpendicular to the body, it would work.

 

 

I could mount the handle 180 the other way and have it pointing up to be pulled towards me in operation, but none of the pics in the instructions show that mode and it would be in the way of the heater, so I've dropped a quick message to the seller, to see what we can do. I'm reluctant to try and bend the spigot back into shape, for fear of causing more damage.

 

Let's see what they say............

 

Meanwhile, a small update on the Viking itself. A partially painted cockpit no less.

 

 

Life should be back to normal this week, so hopefully more progress very soon.

 

Terry

[Navy Bird]

To begin with, my first car was a 1959 Impala. Convertible no less, with two (count 'em) two radio aerials on top of the rear fenders. This was what we called a "lot car" i.e. not registered or licensed and just driven around on the tractor roads between the fields. I had this car when I was 13. Dad figured I neede a long time to learn how to drive.   

 

Second, the handle on my "dental" vacuform machine has always pointed up, and the shaft is not bent. I think yours took a wallop or two in transit.

 

 

I bought his many moons ago but have yet to use it. Go figure - it just sits on my bench.

 

Glider cockpits are looking very cool. You ever "glide" in one of those things? Gotta be a blast.  

 

Cheers,

Bill

[Cookenbacher]

The glider cockpit looks great Terry, lovely blues.

Glad you finally had some time with the grandkids.

[bigbadbadge]

Great to see you enjoying some family time and seeing the Grandchildren.  We are in Devon at the mo and have been catching up with family.  Heading back to Kent tomorrow via the FAA museum at Yeovilton on the way. 

Great work on the glider cockpit and the moulds and good luck with the vacgorm machine and getting it sorted.

Chris

 

 

[Terry1954]

On 8/23/2021 at 11:15 PM, Navy Bird said:

Glider cockpits are looking very cool. You ever "glide" in one of those things? Gotta be a blast.  

 

Thanks Bill. I did indeed "glide" way back and at the age of 16 obtained my solo licence, courtesy of the UK Air Training Corps, to which I belonged for over 4 years. A character building way to navigate the teenage years IMHO.

 

On 8/24/2021 at 10:26 PM, Cookenbacher said:

The glider cockpit looks great Terry, lovely blues.

Glad you finally had some time with the grandkids.

 

Thanks Cookie. The time with the family was priceless, but its time for me to rest now!

 

On 8/24/2021 at 10:44 PM, bigbadbadge said:

Great to see you enjoying some family time and seeing the Grandchildren.  We are in Devon at the mo and have been catching up with family.  Heading back to Kent tomorrow via the FAA museum at Yeovilton on the way. 

Great work on the glider cockpit and the moulds and good luck with the vacgorm machine and getting it sorted.

Chris

 

 

 

Thanks Chris. Hope you enjoyed your time in Devon. It's a shame I hadn't picked up on your FAA museum visit earlier. It is less than an hours easy drive from my home, and I'm due another visit as soon as I can sort it. I could have met to say hi! Hope you enjoyed the visit.

 

As for the thermoforming machine. The ebay seller has been extremely helpful, with a small refund to cover any inconvenience, plus a commitment to send a replacement spindle within 10 -15 working days (from China I'm guessing). They have even sent me a video showing how to remove the spindle, sound track in Chinese however! Fortunately I had already figured out how to do that bit.

 

The extent of the bent spindle can be seen here:

 

 

 I have managed to rig up a temporary fix by removing the whole spindle and rotating it through 180, thus making the bend go "the other way". By doing this I can re-attach the handle and it now sticks out much further to the right, but clears the body by a good margin, so can be pulled down. Not ideal, but workable for now.

 

Work on the Viking and the Astir has happened in the form of some dark washes in the cockpit spaces to bring out the detail. No pictures yet, but they will follow in the next proper update. I think the Astir will be first past the post given the less complex tasks to finish it over the Viking. I plan to start the third glider once the first is finished, with the aim of having at least two on the go at any one time. Must make for more interesting reading. 

 

Casting resin canopy bucks continues, ready for the day I can start thermoforming!

 

More soon

 

Terry