Mike N's Nimrod AEW3 - the ugly variant! *FINISHED*

[Mike N]

A small update, but featuring a technique new to me.

 

The Cammett nose was slightly too narrow where it forms the cockpit wall, specifically on the port side:

 

 

I have limited experience of working with resin of this size, so correcting this would be new ground for me. I had heard of a technique of placing the part in hot water to bend it into shape, so after watching a couple of videos on it, I gave it a go. I must admit I was a bit nervous about wrecking the part, with visions of the part melting into a deformed blob, but I needn't have worried. After a few attempts, I managed to end up with this:

 

 

A whole lot better, and when it's glued I reckon it will be as close as I could ever achieve.

 

So, not an exciting update pictorially, but this GB has at least given me the courage to try a new technique!

 

Mike 

[Mike N]

With the nose bent back into shape, why not complete the next step...?

 

First, a bunch of weight added:

 

 

...and voila!

 

 

 

Doesn't look like much blending is required, again testament to the Cammett parts. Just hoping the windscreen won't be a pain...!

 

Mike 

 

 

[BritJet]

Looking good so far, the hard part is done and the rest will be easy. I must get the decals on mine - the kit decals are horrible with lots of milky glue that needs to be washed off each decal.

 

Steve

[Mike N]

28 minutes ago, BritJet said:

Looking good so far, the hard part is done and the rest will be easy. I must get the decals on mine - the kit decals are horrible with lots of milky glue that needs to be washed off each decal.

 

Steve

Cheers Steve! Honestly not been too bad so far, but the rest does look straight forward.

 

I'll be using Model Alliance sheets for both main markings and stencils. I'd heard the Airfix sheet was absolutely rubbish so would be looking elsewhere no matter which variant I went for.

 

Mike

[Christer A]

Great nose job! I can totally understand the fear of having it go all blob shaped.

[Mike N]

Been working a bit on the canopy, as I want to get the cockpit closed off to prevent dust getting in there. I opened the kit box last night and was presented with this:

 

 

 

Not sure if something had been laid on top or it was just tired and fancied a lie down! Anyway, it is very flexible and was easy put back into shape. I then added the supplied masks. Well, you'd think that they would be a perfect match, being part of the set, right? For the most part they are, but the front outer panels were a different shape, notably at the top.

 

 

I decided to use them anyway, and just add some tape to the top edges.

 

I find it much easier when dealing with clear parts that aren't a perfect fit to paint them first. That way they are easier to align with the mating part, so a quick splash of interior grey should help matters. It has shown up that the central window masks look to be too short as well. Never mind.

 

 

I also splashed out on a new set of paint masks to replace those for the cabin windows. I departed from my favoured Eduard sets for the one by Dead Design. I've not used them before but their Nimrod set looked to offer a couple more masks. Having tried them they work well, and are a perfect match for size.

 

 

The domed window has a tape edge supplied, and I filled the centre with liquid mask. Here's a tip: don't forget you've just done that and stick your finger in it minutes later...

 

Mike

[Hewy]

Smashing work mike , you look to have the conversion well sorted

[Ptmvarsityfan]

Superb build, I've just received my first ever Airfix Nimrod and this thread will be a useful reference. Very clearly described and illustrated!

Cheers, Paul

[Mike N]

On 3/19/2022 at 7:53 AM, Hewy said:

Smashing work mike , you look to have the conversion well sorted

 

7 hours ago, Ptmvarsityfan said:

Superb build, I've just received my first ever Airfix Nimrod and this thread will be a useful reference. Very clearly described and illustrated!

Cheers, Paul

Thank you very much chaps, much appreciated. If nothing else, Paul, you'll see what not to do - an example coming up shortly...!

 

Mike

[Mike N]

I have decided not to attach the windscreen yet after all, its flimsiness has me worried I'll do more harm than good during all the handling still to come. In the meantime I've covered the cockpit opening with some masking tape.

 

Because of the excellent fit of the resin rear fuselage, I've decided to do the wings next. First of all, the air intakes have to be assembled as they get trapped inside the upper and lower wing parts. There are some annoying ejector pin marks inside the ducts that need attention first:

 

 

Once assembled, the joints also need some filler, and then a coat of white.

 

 

The compressor discs were painted and then masked while on the sprue. The folded edge formed by the tape should hopefully allow me to extract it using tweezers after overall painting.

 

 

Although they fit quite snugly into the back, I'm always paranoid that when removing the masking I'll accidentally dislodge them into the wing cavity, so I stuck some supports behind.

 

 

The kit instructions show the wings getting fully assembled prior to joining to the fuselage. I had two reservations about this: the assembly would be very flimsy, and the upper wings might end up with a gap at the root. In my infinite wisdom, I deviated and chose to attach the lower wing to the fuselage first, and then add each upper half. I did the port wing first, gluing around all the edges and finally along the root. This gave me a somewhat poor blend, no matter what I did to manipulate it.

 

 

For the starboard wing I tried the opposite way, gluing along the root, and then the rest after it dried.

 

 

This gave a slightly better fit, but as you can see the angle of upper and lower were very different... which led to this excessive dihedral:

 

 

I couldn't work out how to remedy it at this point, so decided to pull the lower edges of the open fuselage together, gluing a long piece of thick plastic card in there which did the trick. This was left overnight to cure, and hopefully it will stay that way!

 

 

 

I think next time I build a Nimrod, I'll follow the sequence in the instructions - now there's a radical idea! I'm half expecting a gap along the upper wing root that way though. Maybe it's my kit, or more likely this modeller  Anyway, perhaps I've shown what not to do!

 

Mike

 

[CliffB]

All your efforts are paying off Mike.  It's looking good 

[JosephLalor]

On 3/5/2022 at 9:27 AM, arfa1983 said:

I'm gonna speak my mind here. What a wonderful way to make a very beautiful aircraft extremely ugly! 😅

 

I will of course watch with interest but I will shed a tear 😢 when that frontal nob gets attached!

I recall someone being quoted as saying that it looked like an egg-bound chicken with mumps.

[Mike N]

With the wings and fuselage joints filled and sanded, time to move further back and tackle the tail. I decided to attach the tailplanes to the rear fuselage first, then add the assembly to the rest of the plane. As the joint is circular in cross section, this would allow me to rotate it to make sure the tail was level. The fin will be easier to get vertical once this is done too.

 

Just a little adjustment to the alignment stubs on the tailplanes and a bead of filler and they were on with what looked like the right amount of dihedral.

 

 

To ensure the main assembly was level, I dry-fitted the main undercarriage legs into the wings. Then it was a case of test fitting the tail unit, rotating it to level the tips of the tailplanes on a couple of Micro Sol bottles, and seeing how the panel lines matched across the two parts before removing it again.

 

The kit fuselage inner walls needed only a light sanding to get a nice flush surface across the joint, so out with the superglue and here we have it:

 

 

 

The delightfully ugly shape is forming!

 

It's also definitely 'big' now, I clanked the wings a couple of times as I was checking the aft joint. The fin looks like it will be a poor fit, but hopefully after that I'm on the home straight, assembly wise. I'm hoping to get a coat of primer on before the temperature drops again...

[JeroenS]

Some very decent work there Mike! It's really big indeed. But not exactly pleasing to the eye with those radomes fitted. Wow. The tech guys had the original designers running away screaming I guess.... 

[PeterB]

HiMike,

 

Whilst I was building my He-219 over in another GB I was browsing through Bill Gunston's 2003 book on Nightfighters, and although that build is now complete I am still reading the book. In the post war section he mentions AEW and expresses the view that the Nimrod AEW 3 should not have been cancelled as he thinks it was in some respects better than the Sentry! Perhaps if the programme had been handled better and the radar people had got their act together it might still be in service now!

 

Pete

[Mike N]

10 hours ago, PeterB said:

Bill Gunston's 2003 book on Nightfighters... he mentions AEW and expresses the view that the Nimrod AEW 3 should not have been cancelled as he thinks it was in some respects better than the Sentry!

Hi Pete,

 

Well, that's the first time I've heard of anyone defending it! At least he wasn't arguing in favour based on beauty 

 

Mike 

[arfa1983]

It should have been cancelled on looks alone! 

[Mike N]

I've pretty much finished with the assembly work now. The fin is on and as expected needed some filler but no great trouble. Then it was just a case of adding some of the peripheral stuff.

 

The photo below shows the intake scoop on the rear fuselage, which is from the Airfix sprues. It has the wrong part number identified in the instructions, but even the correct one looks a little on the short side. However, I didn't have a better option in my spares box so decided to live with it. Also shown is the tail bumper. The AEW had a different shape for this compared with regular Nimrods, so I reprofiled the kit version.

 

 

While studying photos, I noticed that there is a blade aerial mounted on each side of the forward fuselage. These look to have an aerofoil section, so I cut down and fettled a propeller from the spares box.

 

 

 

Again referring to photos, I filled in a lot of the holes meant for various flavour of aerial in the kit. I generally did this using plastic rod with the holes drilled to give a tight fit, before sanding flush. Plastic strip was also used to close off the slot for the refuelling probe, this not being fitted to the aircraft I am depicting.

 

 

 

And, yes, before I closed off the weapons bay with its emergency nose weight addition hole, I checked the balance with the elevators and rudder fitted and it seemed fine. Hopefully I don't end up eating those words!

 

So here is how it currently stands:

 

 

I now just need to find a Halfords which has their white primer in stock!

 

Cheers for looking.

 

Mike 

[PeterB]

4 hours ago, Mike N said:

 

I now just need to find a Halfords which has their white primer in stock!

 

I know the problem Mike - they closed the one that was half a mile away from me but said not to worry as the one 10 miles away would deliver free - but apparently only on orders over £25 and not including their spray paint cans! I wonder if they do anything similar to RAF Hemp? Can't recall seeing any cars in that particular colour except perhaps an old Lada which was fairly close!

 

Seriously though it is looking good.

 

Pete

Edited April 2, 2022 by PeterB

[Mike N]

22 hours ago, PeterB said:

I know the problem Mike - they closed the one that was half a mile away from me but said not to worry as the one 10 miles away would deliver free - but apparently only on orders over £25 and not including their spray paint cans! I wonder if they do anything similar to RAF Hemp? Can't recall seeing any cars in that particular colour except perhaps an old Lada which was fairly close!

 

Seriously though it is looking good.

 

Pete

Cheers Pete.

 

Tonight I went on the Halfords website and they say that they have the primer in stock at my local store. There was none on the generally depleted racks yesterday... Anyway, I've duly ordered 2 cans via click and collect. I'll await the message saying they haven't got it after all 

 

Mike

[PeterB]

1 hour ago, Mike N said:

Cheers Pete.

 

Tonight I went on the Halfords website and they say that they have the primer in stock at my local store. There was none on the generally depleted racks yesterday... Anyway, I've duly ordered 2 cans via click and collect. I'll await the message saying they haven't got it after all 

 

Mike

Probably lurking in the back room store but their much depleted staff have not got round to re-stocking the shelf - went into mine a week or so ago and there was just one person trying to cope with a queue and of course the chap in front of me had a very complicated complaint about an online order - after 10 minutes he managed to get the supervisor to come down and deal with him so I finally got served - no wonder they are getting poor reviews on their website about the total lack of staff! I will probably have to go through all that again in a week or so when I am visiting the local hospital and intend to try and get some white primer myself.

 

Good luck

 

Pete

[johnlambert]

1 hour ago, Mike N said:

Cheers Pete.

 

Tonight I went on the Halfords website and they say that they have the primer in stock at my local store. There was none on the generally depleted racks yesterday... Anyway, I've duly ordered 2 cans via click and collect. I'll await the message saying they haven't got it after all 

 

Mike

I've found Halfords Click and Collect to be quite good but (probably due to short staff) it pays to double check your order before you leave as they did once provide a smaller sized aerosol of paint than the one I'd paid for.  But it was changed immediately.

[Mike N]

On 4/3/2022 at 10:54 PM, johnlambert said:

I've found Halfords Click and Collect to be quite good but (probably due to short staff) it pays to double check your order before you leave as they did once provide a smaller sized aerosol of paint than the one I'd paid for.  But it was changed immediately.

Thanks for good advice, John. I successfully picked up the couple of cans I'd ordered, as @PeterB says it maybe they're short-staffed so they can't re-stock everything as quickly as it sells. However, they've changed the appearance of the can it's possible I didn't notice it on the shelves. I also double checked the size when I collected them 

[Mike N]

As the weather forecast is looking a bit dodgy in the coming days, I made an effort to get some primer on tonight, in between the gusts of wind.

 

Here's the Nimrod prepped for it's makeover:

 

 

I didn't have to bend the coat hanger, I just showed it the AEW and it curled itself back in revulsion 

 

Warming the can before spraying. I'd previously hit upon the idea of using an old pop bottle for this rather than a washing up bowl, much less hot water needed, especially in these expensive times.

 

 

First up were the control surfaces to check the paint was spraying OK. A whole load of pin holes revealed themselves...

 

 

Then the main event. As can be imagined it took several blasts to cover it all.

 

 

I'm not claiming it looks any prettier in white, but perhaps somewhat appropriate... 🐘

 

Mike 

[Planebuilder62]

Dear Mike

Now might be the time to fit the lights just outboard of the engine intakes in the wing leading edges. These did not fit very well on my Nimrods.

regards Toby