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Half a Pegasus Albacore - finished


AdrianMF

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10 minutes ago, AdrianMF said:

Well a short break, a bout of COVID and my first working trip back to the USA for two years has slowed progress, but I’m back now and disturbed sleep patterns gave me a couple of hours at the bench before work. I remembered that the top wings have slats, so I trimmed off some ribs and applied Solartrim to make the slats themselves, and I’ve scribed the scratch half of the fuselage to match the other:

F1-E9-B2-D3-0-F98-4-A25-B016-54-E610-FBE
The fuselage scribing is over a splattered mix of Milliput, P38, regular filler, balsa, fingernail clippings and plastic and is consequently ropier than a box full of tangled sisal, but it will do after some paint and a bit of remedial filling.

 

Next step, off to look at @Dunny’s excellent build to copy some internal details!

 

Regards,

Adrian

 

 

Thanks for the kind words Adrian, but I'm not sure about the overall accuracy of SH's interior - I just flung it together!

 

Cheers,

 

Roger

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I just discovered this build Adrian, and just had to follow as I love the way you deal with these old limited run kits. Looks like you have made a great start too!

 

I was especially relieved to find I am not alone in "having a fondle through my stash", something I do far too often!

 

Terry

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I’m tagging along Adrian if that’s OK.  The Albacore is so full of character and I know this is going to be a build worth following!  
I’ve added Solartrim to my shopping list by the way
 

Dave

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3 hours ago, Dave Slowbuild said:

build worth following!  

Sadly I’m just dragging this build from unsalvageable to poor, but it’s good to practice some modelling along the way. I can’t believe I left the MPM in the stash!
 

Here’s hoping it entertains at least…

 

Regards,

Adrian

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I'm keen to see the next bit too Adrian, the top wing mounting promises some challenges. Without having gone into further, it seems to me to have quite a bit in common with the way a Lysander wing attaches to the fuselage.

Steve.

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1 hour ago, stevehnz said:

the top wing mounting promises some challenges

Thanks Steve. It might get a bit interesting  but, unlike a Lysander or Storch, the wing is solid across the top of the canopy, so I can hide a multitude of sins under there. Plus the kit canopy is pretty thick so I’ve got a good support. I must remember to paint the recess interior green before I stick the top wing on though

 

56 minutes ago, The Spadgent said:

Great progress on the wing

Thanks Johnny. I really like Solartrim for ribs but it needs a few coats of paint to tone the effect down. No problem there with brush painting!

 

Regards,

Adrian

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A day of fiddling with the fuselage shape, rescribing “my” side, lots of fill-sand-prime-repeat, adding and hollowing out intakes, adding the tailplanes, cutting out windows, adjusting the cowling, and (finally!) starting on the interior, using mainly Roger’s 1/48 SH build as a reference:

72-C30-FCB-7-CDA-44-A5-82-FF-77215-EA5-DYou can see from the coaming that there is quite a lot of asymmetry in the fuselage. Wonder how that happened? 🤔

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1 hour ago, Seahawk said:

Respect! 

Just insert the words “roughly” and “pretty much” into your post at the appropriate points and you will see it’s much less deserving! It’s like chopping veg, once you get into rhythm your slices are pretty much even(ish). And the eye assumes stuff is regular at a casual glance, even ploughed fields look regular!

 

Regards,

Adrian

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…and painted:

051-BDCEF-CFD3-48-AD-A0-C0-71-A97-B88-A1

AF992-DBC-18-BA-423-C-A634-0-C1389864311

 

…and it looks like we might see something through the canopy, just as long as it isn’t heavily framed:

1774-BD41-4-CC6-41-EC-B909-38-D56-E2-C6-
My perforated bulkhead is now lost to view forever I suspect.

 

I read somewhere on t’web this morning that the observer and gunner sat back to back, and that for torpedo runs the crew was only the gunner  and pilot. With the tiny side door and two seats up it looks awfully cramped in the back cabin!

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1 hour ago, Brandy said:

Now that DOES look impressive!

 

Ian

As a WWI aficionado, you will be pleased to know that the framing with the red dots is upcycled from the first set of struts I made for my Pfalz vac a while back!

 

Regards,
Adrian

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Adrian, That is a fandangtablous job! I have to ask, what type of wood did you use for the fuselage half? I have a similar issue of sort. I've got  Collect-Aire F-107 the front quarter missing(which is why I could afford it.) from one side. I was going to attempt a restore with MIlliput, but realized it wasn't practical, not mention very messy. Now wood just might make the project doable.

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16 hours ago, AdrianMF said:

My perforated bulkhead is now lost to view forever I suspect.

 

We all do it: agonise for hours over tiny details which completely disappear when the canopy is on.  Says the man who painted the pee tube on a Dora Wings 1/72 Kingcobra.

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Thanks all for the kind comments!

 

22 hours ago, LorenSharp said:

what type of wood did you use for the fuselage half?

Loren, I used balsa but basswood is arguably better for carving, and I wouldn’t necessarily recommend that route. I’ll write some notes later on today.

 

23 hours ago, Martian said:

re-cycling of the first order.

Once you start thinking about the sheer scale of waste and recycling problems, the mind starts to boggle: if everyone in the UK recycled one gramme of plastic on building a Pegasus Albacore, that would save 65 tonnes of plastic from going into landfill. So, where do we find 65 million Pegasus Albacore kits to start saving the planet? Oh, hang on…

 

11 hours ago, Seahawk said:

Says the man who painted the pee tube

I don’t even want to think about the weathering on that one!

 

Regards,

Adrian

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Mainly for @LorenSharp, although it might be interesting to others…

 

balsa is very soft and doesn’t hold detail well. Basswood, which is sold in hobby shops, is harder but carves well. For me, wood works pretty well for flying surfaces, because you are mainly taking a flat plate, maybe tapering it and then sanding to an aerofoil shape. However, when you get to a fuselage where there may be cockpit and wheel well openings, and all sorts of other details, I find wood starts to lose its charm. @Bandsaw Steve may not agree…

 

On the other hand, large amounts of filler are pretty unmanageable and you still have to carve, file or sand it to shape when it dries.

 

So the method I use gives me some form of structure and guidance and uses a variety of materials. Start with the picture (I’ve been doing documentation all day so this is some light relief):

961-C924-B-FC13-47-D2-A4-C9-D3-E02-C5-EE
 

(1) shows your good half and your bad half. If the bad half is salvageable, cut it back to a panel line or at least a straight line.

 

(2) trace the good half to get the profile of the replacement piece and trace the cross section of the join to get the end bulkhead. Plan where you need openings for cockpits, air intakes and wheel wells, then cut away these spaces too. Remember to trim the centre line of the bulkhead down by the thickness of the profile card! Glue them together and let them set against the existing parts to get a good fit.

 

(3) build boxes behind your openings. Make sure the plan view of the opening is correct because that isn’t going to change, but you should let the boxes stick out further than they need to so you can sand them down later.

 

(4) capture the cross section at various intervals with a piece of soft wire/solder and cut out a bulkhead for that location. Remember to remove the thickness of the profile card from the middle.

 

(5) Stick your bulkheads onto the profile. You may have to chop them up a bit if a box is in the way.

 

(6) mark the profile and bulkhead edges with a sharpie (so you will see them when sanding) then fill most of the space between the bulkheads with scraps - this is where I use balsa. Superglue sticks balsa to plastic. Make sure none of it will come to the surface.
 

You can fine tune the boxes at this point with bits of card to refine the shapes, and add more card to act as mating surface for other parts.

 

Now you can apply a thinnish coat of filler. I find Isopon P38 two part car filler very good and easy to work (and very smelly). I believe the US equivalent is Bondo but I’m sure other products are available. Milliput is much tougher to sand. When it’s dry you just sand it down to where you can see the edges of the bulkheads. If they turn white, you are there! Lots of filler primer and oblique lighting are your friends now!

 

If you really want a plastic part, you can make it 20-40 thou smaller all round and plunge or vac mould a plastic part from it.

 

I hope that helps. Without seeing the damage I can’t be more specific. And I won’t be offended if you just go out and buy a block of basswood. Or wait for Trumpeter to scale up the 1/72 version. Or buy a Mars 3 and start learning Fusion!

 

Regards,

Adrian

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