Airfix 1/24 Sea Harrier FRS1

[mark.au]

6 hours ago, sohoppy said:

That's all for now. Some actual modelling stuff next time!

It’s all actual [jaw dropping] model stuff!  
 

 

Edited March 31, 2022 by mark.au
Grammar

[sohoppy]

17 hours ago, mark.au said:

It’s all actual [jaw dropping] model stuff!  
 

 

Many thanks for that. I just wonder sometimes if what I've been doing here might seem a little odd to some viewers.  My thinking, I guess, is that I like models to tell something of a story about what the original, bigger, versions do, how they work. So my boats swim, submarines dive and tanks, well, you can probably guess... That's what my youtube channel is about.

 

Anyhow, in tonight's installment: fuzzy thinking and time-wasting.

 

One of the features I wanted was a rotating fan. I've seen one or two good ones on Youtube and it isn't a very difficult thing to arrange.  However, after hard-earned experience, I have this rule that every component likely to fail must be accessible. As soon as it isn't, it will - almost as an invariable rule - break.

 

So, I wanted access to the motor. However, because of the incredibly restricted pathways for controls, most of which travel up a ventral route, the access panel I had planned underneath became impractical. So I decided to place the motor on top of the turbine and connect it with an o-ring to the shaft thusly.

 

This was dumb. Firstly the band slips because the the grooves in the brass drive wheels that I lathed just aren't deep enough - and also because access via the top is just not a runner. The fit of the kit parts is just so poor that a removable hatch would be really obvious and basically ruin the model.

 

So I should have embedded a direct-drive motor in the turbine and just accept it wouldn't run for ever. Now I've got a turbine so unlikely to run I haven't dared use it yet, hoping to catch the few seconds it is likely to work on camera, when I film this for my channel.

 

Meantime, you can just about make out a brass rod exiting the back of the turbine. This was a rod that connects all the exhaust vents and I had hoped to link this to the flaps so you could lower flaps and nozzles at the same time. But I hadn't checked the available rotation in advance and since the flaps turn through about 60 degrees while the nozzles go through 90 - or even more on the real thing - this needed much more careful planning than I gave it.

 

So the idea was binned. However, you can still move them - and they still move together.

 

 

All quite a tight fit. Another p.i.t.a was that the engine doesn't sit quite true relative to the kit intakes (which I used as the model will be - mostly - be displayed 'in flight') so I had to adjust the exhaust nozzles so they protruded equally from both sides. I also feel that, as designed, they protrude slightly too much - so a lot of filing and fitting.

 

 

However, there are some things I can suggest to anyone dealling with this very difficult kit. One is the problems many have remarked on is about the poor fit of the dorsal panels above the engine. Most have faired this in with large amounts of filler - but there is another way.

 

 

I fitted a 'spacer' - for lack of a better description - made of styrene - at the panel's aft end to shallow its curvature and this produced a much better fit with the fuselage section that leads to the tail.

 

The downside is that the piece becomes wider so you have to shave a little off the upper wing surfaces where they meet the fuselage. I'm talking about a couple of mm which is not hard to shave with a dremel or somesuch. Also, you can use the panel (in the picture) as a template to mark out exactly how much needs to be removed with a blade or scriber. It's fairly straight forward.

 

The last issue I had - for which I have pictures, some have gone missing annoyingly - is the canopy. You cannot use the flightpath P.E. set to make an accurate canopy, 'as is'. A couple of reasons: firstly the windshield brass framing extends too far down the nose. It needs to be trimmed back and made steeper with a new profile. I did this with auto filler. Also the sliding canopy framing - at the front or 'leading edge' - is much too thick. It is about 2.5mm where it needs to be about 1mm. I ended up cutting the piece right down the middle and it was still too wide.

 

 

Then the windscreen wiper fairing was also a big nuisance. I had to anneal this a couple of times before it was soft enough to take the right shape. And even then fighting it into shape left plier marks around its edge that needed to be filled bfore it was fitted. You can see it in the picture above.

 

Also decided not to use 'Future' on the 'glass' this time. I think that works with 1/48 and below but not so much at this scale. Tried various polishes intead. Brasso is rubbish but the 'Tamiya 'finishing' grade seemed excellent.

 

I think that's about it. Out of pics. Next up, 'ready for inspection'. This will take few days as need to set up some photographs in decent light. See you then. Thanks for looking.

[bigbadbadge]

Hope the motor does spin the fan blades okay. Looking forward to seeing this complete and working. 

Great work 

Chris

[sohoppy]

On 01/04/2022 at 20:05, bigbadbadge said:

Hope the motor does spin the fan blades okay. Looking forward to seeing this complete and working. 

Great work 

Chris

Many thanks, fingers crossed... if the weather is good I will try to do some ready for inspection pics this week.

[kiseca]

EDIT: Oops meant to post this in the RFI thread!

 

OK, I've read this thread now and the work is amazing! Looking forward to seeing the end result. I haven't seen many projects like this on here.

Edited April 25, 2022 by kiseca

[Gaspode]

I'm not sure which impresses more, the ambition or the execution. A truly inspirational bit of work!

[Cklasse]

With these moving control surfaces, I think this harrier will fly. This is ultimate modeling.