28 Sqn AVRO 504K double trouble

[Fritag]

Exquisite design, printing and painting Alan.  That last photo shows off the quality of the work beautifully.

 

9 hours ago, hendie said:

it turns out my phone takes better shots than my camera - don't expect this every time though as it's a real pita to get the shots from there up to here.

 

Why a pita?  Doesn’t your phone talk through the unfathomable magic of wi-fi or bluetooth to whatever machine you post from? One benefit of being an Apple-slave is that at least iPhone photo’s sync automatically with iPad and MacBook.

 

[perdu]

By the cringe Alan, how the flippin Eck do you do it?

 

I ask in a jocular manner because actually we know how you do it, simple sheer brilliance.

 

I do agree with you on photography, my own nice little cameras are not a patch on my elderly Samsung J3 for the purpose of modelling progress.

 

But why are you having trouble getting the images on screen?

 

I believe you use Postimg to bring us the glory of your works, if so can I advise installing it in your phone as well as the 'puter.

 

I have it in my phone and this tablet and it is ridiculously easy to use for the phone.

 

open the app in the phone, select upload and the app asks you to choose images and suggests choose an action, either Camera, camcorder or file.

 

I tell it camera and it takes the picture to place in the fileset you are using in place in postimages.org.

 

The biggest problem I get is waiting for my phone's bloated file system to do the job.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[mark.au]

10 hours ago, hendie said:

The end effect however is rather pleasing...

Candidate for “2022 Britmodeller Understatement of the Year”

[Brandy]

14 hours ago, hendie said:

what the collective noun for a bunch of wooses?

A feck of Weese?

 

Ian

[The Spadgent]

Hands down. That’s the best and possibly the most indulgent thing ever. “Interior rigging”? What even. 🙀And  Those painted interiors are sublime. The whole thing is soo well crafted. I think I need a lie down. 🤯

 

 Jont

[hendie]

On 7/8/2022 at 1:36 AM, Galligraphics said:

The best viewing angle for the majority of my models…

 

Unlike these beautiful creations which deserve to be seen in glorious close up just so we can appreciate the art and expertise of a master.

 

I think I've just downsized to singular. I'm going to steal the Blue Max decals for my home brewed one

 

On 7/8/2022 at 2:28 AM, giemme said:

 Those interiors are crazy beautiful, Alan!     I think the wood effect is spot on, and the top view of your last pic shows it all!

 

Ciao

 

thanks Giorgio. a dodgy camera can hide a lot of flaws 

 

On 7/8/2022 at 4:51 AM, Fritag said:

Exquisite design, printing and painting Alan.  That last photo shows off the quality of the work beautifully.

 

 

Why a pita?  Doesn’t your phone talk through the unfathomable magic of wi-fi or bluetooth to whatever machine you post from? One benefit of being an Apple-slave is that at least iPhone photo’s sync automatically with iPad and MacBook.

 

 

It can, it does and I should. Sync'ing would be easier if I hadn't filled up my onedrive. It's been more laziness on my side in that I never bothered to pair the devices - I post from any of three devices depending upon time of day and if I need a lie down

 

On 7/8/2022 at 5:38 AM, perdu said:

By the cringe Alan, how the flippin Eck do you do it?

 

by accident mostly Bill

 

On 7/8/2022 at 6:04 AM, mark.au said:

Candidate for “2022 Britmodeller Understatement of the Year”

 

too kind Mark, too kind

 

On 7/8/2022 at 10:17 AM, Brandy said:

A feck of Weese?

 

Ian

 

 

On 7/8/2022 at 2:55 PM, The Spadgent said:

Hands down. That’s the best and possibly the most indulgent thing ever. “Interior rigging”? What even. 🙀And  Those painted interiors are sublime. The whole thing is soo well crafted. I think I need a lie down. 🤯

 

 Jont

 

I hope you had a decent rest Johnny

 

A bit of a mixed bag this time around folks with some progress and some backtracking.  FIrst though, something positive to whet the appetite - the skid assemblies were printed and turned out fine.

Dimensions are perfect and the assembly fits nicely on the underside - until it's fully cured that is.  The front legs have a tendency to warp inwards slightly as they cure but some gentle coercion  with some meaty digits should see things aligning properly at the end of the day.

 

 

The underside panel was also printed off.  I had a slight bit of movement during the print resulting in a small step which was easily taken care of with a few swipes of a file. A ittle bit more clean up and it will be fine.

 

 

I also had a go at printing some seat belts - with mixed results. The first set I printed at 0.1mm thickness and half of them broke during the printing so I did another round thickening the belt up to 0.2mm and they printed fine.

I'm counting on the inherent flexibility of very, very thin printed things, particulalry before fully curing and the plan is to try and waggle them into some kind of seat belt looking shape before fixing them to the seats and then hitting them with the lightsaber for a full cure.

It may or may not work.

 

 

One of the many problems with biplanes, aside from having too many wings, too much rigging, and markings that aren't available as decals, is that they tend to have struts... lots of them.  If there's one thing I hate printing more than wings (musy have printed about 10 so far for this bird) it is struts. I've printed about two strut farms so far.  To be more precise, printing the struts isn't a problem - it's the afterwork that's painful.

If I just printed solid struts and left it at that it would be fine, but I've tried to print these as close to scale thickness as I can and that meant that even with a full cure they would still retain a degree of flexibility - which would almost certainly come back to bite me in the backside later when rigging.  In order to counter that, I print the struts with a hole through the center in the forlorn hope that I can fit a section of brass rod in there to provide some degree of strength.

In the first batch I had trouble with the hole clogging up on the wing struts and no amount of phenargling would get a brass rod in there so I resorted to printing the struts again and reducing the cure time to about 2.15 seconds - enough time for the overall strut shape to hold but hopefully leaving any internal gloop soft enough to push through/out.

It sort of worked.

I started by pushing a length of 0.4mm wire through very carefully. I managed to still destroy half of them but with the remaining struts I managed to push out a worm of semi cured gloop - that's it on the right hand side of the strut here.

 

 

Once I had managed to feed a length of 0.4mm wire through, I fed it back a forth a few times to remove as much of the gloop as I could before attempting to fit a 0.5mm brass rod through the hole.  Eventually I had enough for a set.  I still managed to rip a few along the way, but the great thing about this stuff is that I can simply paint some resin over the tear, cure it and shape as required.

It's not the easiest job in the world but more soul destroying than painful.

Lots of clean up to come on these.

 

 

 

 

 

This weekend I had hoped to make some advance on the fuselage. It was all primed and ready to go. Unfortunately when I went to find my stash of PC10, I found that I had ran out of the MRP variety and only had AK Interactive.  Okay I thought, I'll give it a go.

Horrible stuff. Really horrible stuff.  It was very susceptible to tip drying even with flow improver and in order to get it to spray I had to thin it so much it was like spraying slightly PC10 colored dishwater.

I ended up with a couple of runs so left it overnight to harden up. Today when I went to micromesh back the runs, the paint just didn't want to cooperate, almost peeling off at times.

Nothing for it then... back to resin we go.

 

This actually went a lot better than expected - I did a quick test first on a spare fuselage (I won't tell you how many I have lying around) with some neat Acetone.  I knew (from experience ) that acetone simply dissolves plastic - but how would it react on UV cured resin?  Turns out it works fine - though I tried to be as fast as possible just in case.

Some kitchen roll and a handful of cotton buds and we're off... as is the paint.

 

 

A few minutes later and we're back to a decent starting point again.  I've ordered some more MRP PC10 which will hopefully arrive in a few days so I can get on with this, though it's not as if I haven't got anything else to be doing in the meantime.

 

 

The fuselage has since been primed once again with SMS grey primer and looks as good as it did first time around.

 

Alleviating some boredom I took it upon myself to have a go at painting the seatbelts - aged concrete for the strap, and leather for the uhhrrr leather bit. Trying to do the brass rings was a tad challenging. I resorted to sharpening a cocktail stick, dipping it in brass paint and then pushing it into the strap holes letting some paint run off to color the brass ferrules. 

 

 

I have still to remove the straps from the supports, and twist and bend them to strap shape and cure 'em so I'm still not sure if this method is going to work quite yet. Stay tuned.

 

The engine got colored in too.  Strangely, it looks better in the flesh than it does in this photo. Usually it's the other way around for me.

 

 

Yes, I know one of the push rods is broken/bent - that cylinder is going to be completely hidden inside the cowling so I'm not about to go through this whole process again.  I know, I know... standards and all that eh?

 

All things going well I hope to be doing some more coloring in of the big bits for the next post, and maybe even some stickers.  

 

[corsaircorp]

Impressive job Alan !!

Let's say that valve clearance has been set by a newbie....

These 3D parts are.... errr.... I'm jealous....

Well done Sir !!

CC

[TheBaron]

24 minutes ago, hendie said:

I have still to remove the straps from the supports, and twist and bend them to strap shape and cure 'em so I'm still not sure if this method is going to work quite yet.

Hot water Alan?

I had a slight 'bow' to the rear of the Vixen fins and even in cured condition, immersion in the above softened the resin enough to allow reshaping the region. Given the thickness of your straps it might give you enough suppleness to create the required sags and drapes?

 

The last couple of updates really give a great sense of a work in progress and even with colours in their early stages, this is already shaping up to be an exemplar build of this particular aircraft. That last shot of the engine  - detailicious!

 

31 minutes ago, hendie said:

I had a slight bit of movement during the print

I get nervous at such moments as well....

 

 

 

[npb748r]

34 minutes ago, hendie said:

The engine got colored in too.  Strangely, it looks better in the flesh than it does in this photo. Usually it's the other way around for me.

Hendie, only just catching up with this post. Not sure how close to Essex you live but there's a real life 504 at Stow Maries museum that you can get very up close to, I think it belongs to the RAF museum and on loan to Stow. If that's an impossible location for you to get to and you want some photos of the real thing let me know and I'll take them for you.

 

neil 

 

[Brandy]

9 hours ago, npb748r said:

Not sure how close to Essex you live

Let's just say the 504 at Old Rhinebeck would be closer for him!

 

Ian

[npb748r]

1 hour ago, Brandy said:

Let's just say the 504 at Old Rhinebeck would be closer for him!

just looked up Old Rhinebeck, there's a drop of water and more between there and Essex !!  Offer still stands, it's around the corner for me so happy to take some photos if required. 

[giemme]

Impressive resin printing once again, Alan  The seat belts look impressive! And what a smart idea for painting the brass rings!

 

All looking the biz in general, including the paint stripping

 

Ciao

[Terry1954]

Having my (irregular) catch up here Alan after a few days in Bath (that's the city, not "the bath" I hasten to add).

 

That's a very neat solution to the strut challenge and it looks like you have pulled it off, although I can imagine how frustrating/fiddly that was!

 

Love that last pic of the engine. I know the 504K could mount a few different engines, and you may have told us before, but I'm assuming that's a Clerget given the twin push rods?

 

Wonderful work as always!

 

Terry

[hendie]

14 hours ago, corsaircorp said:

Impressive job Alan !!

Let's say that valve clearance has been set by a newbie....

These 3D parts are.... errr.... I'm jealous....

Well done Sir !!

CC

 

 

 

14 hours ago, TheBaron said:

Hot water Alan?

I had a slight 'bow' to the rear of the Vixen fins and even in cured condition, immersion in the above softened the resin enough to allow reshaping the region. Given the thickness of your straps it might give you enough suppleness to create the required sags and drapes?

 

oh nice idea Tony - thanks

 

14 hours ago, TheBaron said:

I get nervous at such moments as well...

 

 

14 hours ago, npb748r said:

Hendie, only just catching up with this post. Not sure how close to Essex you live but there's a real life 504 at Stow Maries museum that you can get very up close to, I think it belongs to the RAF museum and on loan to Stow. If that's an impossible location for you to get to and you want some photos of the real thing let me know and I'll take them for you.

 

neil 

 

 

thanks for the offer Neil but I have more than enough references on the 504, just not enough on any 28 504's.

Pritch very thoughtfully provided a great link which detailed everything I needed 

 

4 hours ago, Brandy said:

Let's just say the 504 at Old Rhinebeck would be closer for him!

 

Ian

 

 

2 hours ago, giemme said:

Impressive resin printing once again, Alan  The seat belts look impressive! And what a smart idea for painting the brass rings!

 

All looking the biz in general, including the paint stripping

 

Ciao

 

I realized how much you like paint Giorgio so I did it twice 

 

2 hours ago, Terry1954 said:

Having my (irregular) catch up here Alan after a few days in Bath (that's the city, not "the bath" I hasten to add).

 

That's a very neat solution to the strut challenge and it looks like you have pulled it off, although I can imagine how frustrating/fiddly that was!

 

Love that last pic of the engine. I know the 504K could mount a few different engines, and you may have told us before, but I'm assuming that's a Clerget given the twin push rods?

 

Wonderful work as always!

 

Terry

 

yup, It's the Clerget.  In the absence of any evidence to the contrary on which engine was fitted in H2278 I chose the more interesting looking, more challenging to model Clerget, which will be completely hidden bar one cylinder when fitted.  The life of a modeler...

 

 

 

 

 

 

[giemme]

2 hours ago, hendie said:

I realized how much you like paint Giorgio so I did it twice 

Yeah, I thought so....   

Ciao

[Bughunter]

Some serious nice work so far!

 

Cheers,

Frank

Edited July 11, 2022 by Bughunter

[hendie]

I trust everyone is having a joyous Friday and looking forward to the weekend with a song in their heart?

 

Lets get straight into things.  During the week I managed to start some detail painting while I was waiting for some new supplies of PC10 to arrive.   First on the production line was the underbelly bits, well, bit really.  I chose to brush paint flat aluminum for the main skin as the 1:1 shots I've seen show this as always beinga bit streaked and dirty.  Wood paint and oils followed, and finished off with some satin black highlights.

 

 

If all goes well, it should sit nicely on the underside as shown in this dry fit with a spare fuselage.

 

 

the propellor got the same wood treatment and some brass and aluminum highlights on the propellor boss.

 

 

The skid assemblies also got the wood and satin black treatment. Not much else to say really.

 

 

Though I did go a bit crazy on the wheels opting for blue on the outer hub and standard bleached linen on the inner hub.  I had to paint the tires twice as first time around I painted them tire black before remembering that tires of that era were not black and were in fact some shade of grey.  Pringing the inner and outer hubs separate from the tires made painting as simple as it gets, though aligning the inner hub in relation to the flattish bit on the tire bottom will be more challenging - if I had thought ahead I could have designed in a small alignment key. Now I'm just going to have to trust to shaky hands and wonky eyesight.

 

 

A strut forest - Hours of fun was had cleaning up the struts before priming, painting, oiling, waiting for drying, glossing, painting and there's still some more detail painting and glossing to go after this.  I think I have enough spare, but...

 

 

After much thought I think I have decided not to proceed any further with the Blue Max version but I am going to steal the transfers for my homespun attempt.

While checking out the stickers I found there was a slight oopsie.  It appears BLue Max did not make the tail transfer big enough to actually cover the tail - the Blue Max version is at top and my version at bottom.

 

 

However, when I thought more about it, it wasn't really a big deal as there was a complication... the serial, H2278 sits over the red white and blue of the tail flash and the black serial needs a white background. Of course I had nothing even close in my limited decal stash but then the thought ocurred to me that it would be a lot simpler just to print my own decal with the serial, white backing and red, white, and blue all as one.  It sure saves a lot of messing about that way.

I scanned in the original decal sheet and used those colors as reference.  Knowing how printers print and scanners scan, I knew there was bound to be some discrepancy in the colors, so I copied a bunch of tail fins and altered the color slightly on each one. I've listed the RGB values beside each one - when I print these off I can compare the printed color to the decal sheet and choose the closest match for the final version.  To make things easy for myself I just copied a 2 dimensional view of the rudder and will be using this for the decal knowing that it will leave a small border around the rudder when applied - I'll just touch that in with paint which I think is a lot easier than trying to wrap an overly large piece of uncooperating decal over and around some compound curves.

 

 

Now for a splash of color to keep Giorgio happy.  The engine cowling.

Happily the general opinion tended to agree with me in that the cowling should be red and white.  T'would have been a lot simpler if it was just one color but nothings ever easy.

Aizu tape to the rescue once more.

I used small segments of Aizu as spacers between bands of tape to help keep things aligned.  The front ring proved too much for the poor Aizu though as it fell on that front curve and I had to resort to cutting an arc from tamiya tape and hoping for the best.  I kow its a crap explanation and I forgot to take a photo so... sorry.

 

 

The paint rings on the 1:1 are a bit messy and not very straight, but I think that trying to achieve that look on a model always ends up looking just like a bad paint job by the modeler (at least by this modeler).  I did have a little go at making things look a little less uniform by pushing here and there on the tape with a toothpick to move it slightly. I also made the first ring wider than the other two rings as it appears that way on the 1:1

I was a tad concerned about paint bleed as the tape kept lifting despite my best efforts at burnishing it down so I sprayed many light coats and waited for each pass to dry before applying the next coat.

It got red.

 

 

 

but did it work?

removal of the first ring of Aizu looked promising

 

 

and removal of the remaining tape thankfully showed no surprises.  There was a tiny bit of paint bleed, but I'd probably cause more damage than good if I tried to fix it.  If I'm honest, the bands could have been a little wider and that front band should be placed more on that curve on the face of the cowling. Overall though I'm happy with the result.  There's just enough unevenness in the bands to make it look like the 1:1 without looking like a terrible paint job - and I'll keep telling myself that! 

 

 

and whiel all that was going on my new supplies of PC10 arrived so at lunchtime today I snuck down to the basement and masked up.  I had lready given the underside a coat of bleached linen a few days ago - I masked the underside to show a slight wraparound of the PC10.  I have no evidence either way but felt that it keeps some visual interest.

 

 

Then PC10 was sprayed here there and everywhere, and also on a couple of test pieces. That can fully cure over the next day or so.

 

 

as can these wings which are mounted on my patented cure-the-wings-while-keeping-them-straight jig.

 

 

We'll see if that works. Or not. I have hopes.  They're not high hopes but they are hopes.

 

Lastly though - and for me the best bit so far.  Seat belts.

In my last post I had talked about some devlish plan to print my  seat belts in the hope that keeping them as thin as a thin thing would help them stay flexible enough to fold into the seat and hopefully look sort of seat-beltish.

Well?  guess what...

 

 

It looks like my crazy plan worked.

Two belts down, two to go

 

 

and there we have it.  Surprisingly the belts are still pliable enough to form into shape and held down with a spot of cyano.  I did break one belt in the process but that was my own fault.

Sitting on a spare frame they look as if they'll do the job nicely.  I even made the small clip from 0.2mm wire but the thinnest thread I could find to use as a lanyard still looked like rope - so, not today I'm afraid.

 

 

I should of course check that they will actually fit into the fuselage from above before I go any further shouldn't I?

 

There could be tears later.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[AdrianMF]

Super work! Lovely seeing it come together.

 

Regards,

Adrian

[Dave Slowbuild]

Great update Alan, really enjoyed that.  Love the belts!  
 

Dave

[giemme]

Top job on the engine cowling,  Alan!

 

And those seat belts are just amazing!  

 

Ciao 

[mark.au]

It’s always hard to comment on your posts Allan, at least without repetition.  As @giemme said, the cowling is really good because you nailed the replication of the not-very-good 1:1 real life version without making it look like a bad mask job.  I must admit an ironic smile when after all the great progress in that post your favourite result is the seatbelts.

 

 

Edited July 16, 2022 by mark.au

[perdu]

I'm not known for pontificating so I'll just say the magnificent seat and belt combination are bound to fit.

 

Also, good paint Alan.

[Fritag]

3 hours ago, mark.au said:

It’s always hard to comment on your posts Allan, at least without repetition.

 

So I shan't.   Wot him above; and him above him; and them above them said - with an additional twist of appreciation.

[hendie]

On 7/15/2022 at 4:38 PM, AdrianMF said:

Super work! Lovely seeing it come together.

 

Regards,

Adrian

 

thanks Adrian. After all this time it's finally beginning to start moving along at a decent pace

 

On 7/15/2022 at 5:25 PM, Dave Slowbuild said:

Great update Alan, really enjoyed that.  Love the belts!  
 

Dave

 

me too Dave

 

On 7/16/2022 at 2:10 AM, giemme said:

Top job on the engine cowling,  Alan!

 

And those seat belts are just amazing!  

 

Ciao 

 

you're only saying that cos I colored them in Giorgio

 

On 7/16/2022 at 3:18 AM, mark.au said:

It’s always hard to comment on your posts Allan, at least without repetition.  As @giemme said, the cowling is really good because you nailed the replication of the not-very-good 1:1 real life version without making it look like a bad mask job.  I must admit an ironic smile when after all the great progress in that post your favourite result is the seatbelts.

 

 

 

It's funny how you can fixate on one small area even though it may not be the most prominent item in a build. That one small area sucks all your attention and you have to get it to a point you feel comfortable with otherwise the entire build is let down.

P.S.  I've now got a new fixation. 

 

On 7/16/2022 at 4:28 AM, perdu said:

I'm not known for pontificating so I'll just say the magnificent seat and belt combination are bound to fit.

 

Also, good paint Alan.

 

They do Bill - I checked last night with a spare seat.  There's still a lot of bashing and hammering to do so I don't want to fit them quite yet.

 

On 7/16/2022 at 6:36 AM, Fritag said:

 

So I shan't.   Wot him above; and him above him; and them above them said - with an additional twist of appreciation.

 

thanks Steve.  It's him, him, them, them, and you wot's keeping me going through the slogging times of this build.  Of which there are a few.

 

The theme of sloshing paint around continues so at least one of you lot should be happy. (or at least not complaining as much)

Despite mentioning earlier that I had intended (did I?) to paint the forward access panels blue, in the end I went for a run of the mill grey color as someone suggested (apologies as I can't remember who suggested that). It seemed a reasonable  choice given that other aircraft of the time were also splatted in grey paint.  The fuel/oil filler caps were given a coat of brass to add some bling up the front end.  Would you believe I actually masked for those filler caps?   I just didn't trust my shaking hands to do a decent job - and it took me ages to find a punch that was close enough in size.  I really must invest in a decent set though no doubt I'll put it off again as I always seem to do.

 

 

I maksed for these too.  There was lots of masking of fiddly little bits.

I wasn't sure if PC10 would have been painted over the windscreen woodwork or not, but eventually found a photo of a 504 with PC10 and the woodwork was showing so I went with that.  

 

 

The undercarriage got blacked up, and I added a splodge of light grey on the underside pretending to be the bungee cords that protrude from the bottom...  and if that isn't an invite for Ced...

 

 

Those tiny little pulley wheels also got blacked up

 

 

I spent most of the available time on Saturday coloring in.  Wood and oils for the windscreen supports, and some leather around the cockpit openings.

 

 

I even added little leather colored patches around the rigging ports.  They were far too small to mask so I had to chance it with a brush and long periods of holding my breath.  Once again, I'm not sure if these would just have been painted over with PC10 but I wanted to break up the monotony of the green and anyway, it's my 504.

 

 

I didn't do quite so well with hand painting the footwell surrounds. In retrospect I could perhaps have printed these separately as inserts and it would have made painting a lot easier.   Live and Learn.

I also chose to do the wing root panels in black.  I pondered the grey or black conundrum for a while since the nose panels were in grey but since the undercarriage was black and was bolted to this section of the airframe I convinced myself that black was better and would add more interest.

 

 

It always happens doesn't it.  You take the utmost care masking things up, wipe your grubby mitts on kitchen roll often, keep all the spillables out of the way yet somehow, always somehow, some nasty little blighter of a splodge manages to jump out of nowhere right onto your lovely just finished painting it model.

Yup.  That's flat aluminum enamel paint sitting there on the spine just grinning at me. And a bit on the starboard side as well. 

 

 

Thankfully the affected area(s) were fairly isolated from any other colored area so it was straightforward enough to mist another few light coats of MRP over the little silvery abominations.

There. All done.

 

 

That's better.

 

After going through all the trouble of painting the interior floor silver, I stripped it all back and went to some aluminum BMF since I had a bunch lying around

 

 

though I did keep the painted finish on the outer surfaces.  The floor was fixed into the fuselage using the resin as an adhesive - it gives a lot more control than using glue. Luckily (?) I had a small gap around the joint so I could use the capillary action of the resin to get into all the little nooks and crannies before nuking it with the lightsaber

 

 

Though my phtography skills don't catch it here, the BMF floor helps reflect some light in there allowing just that little bit more to be seen... until the seats are fitted that is.

 

 

I forgot to mention earlier that I tried to mask things such that where there was some of that ziggy-zaggy stiching (that gave me so much trouble earlier on) and it traversed onto another panel, the paint demarcation ran down the center of the ziggy-zag.

 

 

I've been experimenting with trying to highlight the stitching and have some limited success with some chalks but more experimentation is required.

 

I can't remember why I took this shot but it shows up the cockpit interiors so nicely I wasn't going to waste it.

 

 

and it was about time I added some essence of mojo to the build to keep the old spirits from flagging so I thought I'd check to see if the engine and cowling still fitted 

 

 

Now for that other bit of fixating that I alluded to earlier.  

See that text 'tween the serial and the roundel?   The text that says "A.V. ROE & C^o L^td, MANCHESTER"?

 

 

Well it's been annoying me.  It's right there in the middle and I can't ignore it.  Believe me I've tried.  Somehow I have to address that problem.

I scoured t'interweb and can not find any decal sheet anywhere that has "A.V. ROE & C^o L^td, MANCHESTER" in white.   PrintScale do a sheet in 1/72 that has the text, but in deepest darkest black. As far as I can tell, that sheet does not include a white version of the text. Had it done so I could probably have got away with a 1/72 sticker on a 1/48 build. At least then my fixation may have just become a passing mild annoyance and I could have lived with it. Twas not to be.

 

Instead, we have these. 

A spare fuselage part painted in the PC10 of choice.  We also have some dry rub transfers or Letraset for the oldies among us, of the smallest font I could find.  This is going to get painful. I can tell.

 

 

prior to the partaking of the pain I printed out a selection of AV ROE's in different font heights until I had one that appeared to match the letraset character height - I wanted this to give me some kind of guide to the character spacing

 

 

I tried applying the dry rub transfer directly to the fuselage, but the surface texture of the printed fuselage proved to be a bit of a challenge for the dry rub transfers.  It worked, but it was going to be chancy and if I messed up I'd probably have to respray the fuselage (again).

There's a better option...

 

Now I know I have a stock of clear decal sheet.  Somewhere.   I know I have.   Could I find it?   Nope.  Not a chance.  I think it's in the same safe place that I put that last box of nitrile gloves I got a few weeks ago.

Drats.

After some more fruitless searching I remembered I had some custom decals made for the Wapiti build and there was a lot of empty space left the decal sheet - and even better, the backing sheet was blue.  I might even be able to see those teensy tiny letters against a blue background.

 

See how they just jump out at you?    Yeah, I thought so too.    I have a small strip of masking tape to provide a straight base line for the characters. On top of that I've taped part of the printout to use as a guide for the horizontal spacing.  Directly above that is AV ROE & CO LTD in glorious bright white.

 

 

Repeat the process to add a MANCHESTER, then dip it in water anbd slap it on the spare fuselage to see what we ended up with...

 

 

Not too bad for a first attempt.  The typesetter did a pretty sloppy job though.

I know AV ROE & CO LTD should actually be A. V. ROE & C^O L^TD - with superscript and punctuation etc. and Manchester font should be a bit smaller but I'm limited to what is available on that Woodland Scenics sheet and that was the smallest type on there.   

Of course the other option is to go full custom decal as I did on the Wapiti, but I think spending around 50 bucks for some white text is going just a tad overboard - and that's assuming they can print text less than 1mm high successfully in white. Based on the custom decals I've had in the past I'm not completely convinced.

I think I might just stay with the Woodland Scenics letraset and live with the fact that it's not 100%

 

 

and now I have a bunch of wings to clean up and prime.

 

 

[Dave Slowbuild]

Yet more stunning progress Alan!
 

25 minutes ago, hendie said:

thanks Steve.  It's him, him, them, them, and you wot's keeping me going through the slogging times of this build.  Of which there are a few.

If it’s hard going for you at times be assured it’s awe inspiring and inspirational for the rest of us!