Belcher Bits' Trident II D5 SLBM

[Angus Tura]

Good Morning.

 

It's the weekend of the great british birdwatch, as many of you will know. There is a cat, whom I particularly dislike, sitting under my bird feeders....so, I thought I'd post this.

 

I didn't really mean to start another build until I've progressed Scarborough 1914 AD a bit further. However, the other day I was working from home and the software supplied is so slow to load each event that, between events, I sort of accidentally started this:

 

 

I've built a couple of these Belcher Bits missiles previously in group builds, both of which got finished, but without decals. One is currently in KUTA 2021.

 

 

The two missiles on the left are the Belcher Bits Polaris A1 and Polaris A3, and the plan has been for a Trident II to fill the other half of the base. The Trident is a lot bigger than the Polaris.

 

These kits are pretty nice but they all seem to suffer from a problem in resin casting in getting the cylindrical bits of the missile to match up. So, they need a bit of sanding:

 

 

It's also a bit of a job to get them straight. I've tried to get a hole truly centred in the lowest part of the body of the missile with a compass cut disc which serves to mark the centre of the body parts.

 

 

I then really carefully drilled a hole with twist drills in a finger vice. This worked pretty well but only went up to 2mm diameter and a 2mm rod, for the base, is too wobbly. I've resorted to this:

 

 

being a 3mm bit in a mini-drill. Thankfully this followed the hole made with the twist drills pretty faithfully:

 

 

Then the sticking of the rod to the base:

 

 

Then taped to the set-square to let me flood the joint with glue from below.

 

 

The perspex rod it entirely impervious to Tamiya liquid glue, but this EMA stuff sticks the perspex rod to the polystyrene base really well.

 

So far:

 

 

I know, I know! It has an unfortunate appearance currently. This is causing considerable hilarity at Schloß Tura. The dread Mrs.Tura says, "you're not putting that on the mantlepiece....does it take AA or AAA batteries....&c. &c." I'm hoping that paint and decals might render it less alarming.

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Alan 

[Col.]

Good start there Alan. Glad to see you didn't waste your free time waiting for that computer to do its thing

 

Also have to say Mrs. Tura has beat us to the punch-lines and quips already

Edited January 30, 2022 by Col.

[CliffB]

2 hours ago, Angus Tura said:

It's the weekend of the great british birdwatch, as many of you will know. There is a cat, whom I particularly dislike, sitting under my bird feeders....so, I thought I'd post this.

 

I did that this morning too.  For the first half hour I saw more cats than birds (probably cause and effect)!

 

Cheers

[81-er]

There's definitely a bit of an "Ann Summers" vibe about its current appearance (pun absolutely intended), but it’s an interesting choice of subject.

 

As for the bird watching, our moggies are experts at it. As house cats, all three of them spend hours watching the flying things outside 🤣

 

James

[trickyrich]

I am soooo tempted to say something!!!!!!   Most of us have thought it, though I think Col has beaten us there! 

 

Great choice for a build though, looks great........ 

 

May fat cat basically looks at the birds and goes  I'm busy sleeping! It once caught a mouse, but I had to let the mouse go because it didn't know what to do with it! 

[Angus Tura]

What nasty, dirty minds you all have. 

 

The join between second inter-stage and second stage was very uneven and has been levelled out with epoxy putty and clingfim:

 

 

The worst thing so far has been hollowing out the rocket nozzle. This has been drilled, carved and eventually bashed:

 

 

I didn't want to do this with a power tool, especially because of heat effects, but I have used the mini-drill to smooth it out. Here it is with the other bits:

 

 

The second inter-sage and warhead/REV are a poor fit so I've re-etched that join and filled the joint of the parts which is the black line above the re-etched line. The black line on the first stage has also been filled. The filler has been thin cyanoacrylate with zip-kicker. Now it's ready for paint:

 

 

See you later,

 

Alan

Edited February 2, 2022 by Angus Tura
wrong photo, words, spelling &c.

[Stephen]

From Yes, Prime Minister episode one "The Grand Design"

 

" It is the nuclear missile that Harrods would sell you!" 

[Col.]

44 minutes ago, Angus Tura said:

What nasty, dirty minds you all have. 

Great minds think alike. As do dirty ones

Good work there Alan. Having to excavate that rocket nozzle looks like a lot of careful effort.

[Colin W]

Good to see another missile in the GB. I see you have the same 'non round ' issues I have. It might be worth investing in a lathe if you are plnning to do more of these..