453rd BG Museum Build - USAAF Boulton Paul Defiant TT Mk I (from the Airfix 1/48 Mk I) - FINISHED

[giemme]

1 hour ago, Fritag said:

Can I negotiate for the end of next week now?

Just this once, and just because it's you....

 

Nice cockpit,  BTW

 

Ciao 

[CedB]

I was going to make some comment on how all that lovely detail, especially the winch, won't be seen once you've closed up but then I realised…

 

Pot, kettle  

 

Still stunning.

[Fritag]

13 hours ago, giemme said:

Just this once, and just because it's you....

 

End of the week wasn’t a promise btw 

[Terry1954]

9 hours ago, Fritag said:

End of the week wasn’t a promise btw 

 

I note that we aren't specifying which week Giorgio!

 

🤭

 

T.

[giemme]

Wrong Terry, he did clearly state "end of next week"....

 

Ciao 

[RichieW]

I was sat at my bench attempting to scratch an engine today. Well actually more just cursing my clumsy fingers and my new found inability to accurately measure anything and wishing I had a 3d printer. Then I read this update. Hhhmmmmm, 3d printing. I like it a lot! Producing all those sublime details in 1/72 scale has my mind truly boggled. I'm looking forward to the end of next week to see the next installment!

 

Richie

[bigbadbadge]

Wow Steve, just had a catch up, I am in awe of what you are producing here, the interior detailsxare sublime and that winch mechanism,  wow.

Great work

Chris

[AndyL]

Astounding work, as usual. And apologies for not responding sooner - I am currently attempting to see if I can source some winch images for you. Will keep you in the loop, as they say!

 

[Fritag]

On 4/21/2023 at 11:24 PM, RichieW said:

cursing my clumsy fingers and my new found inability to accurately measure anything and wishing I had a 3d printer.

 

Sound like me a little over a year ago Richie - (which for the avoidance of doubt carries no implication of having scratch building skills in any way approaching yours )

 

On 4/22/2023 at 6:43 PM, AndyL said:

And apologies for not responding sooner - I am currently attempting to see if I can source some winch images for you

 

Dip in and out if ever and whenever suits you Andy; it's just a pleasure to have you along.

 

On 4/21/2023 at 5:57 PM, giemme said:

Wrong Terry, he did clearly state "end of next week"....

 

Oh the pressure...

 

Anyway.  I have stolen some bench time this week whilst supposedly working.

 

Well not so much bench time as desk time seeing as I've squirrelled a certain amount of modelling accoutrements away in my study cupboard to be whipped out and used when boredom with the law reaches the point that a diversion is required...

 

So the first diversionary activity was to create a couple of canvas bags for the operator's sidewalls.  This gave me an excuse to dip back into the Fusion 'forms' environment and play about with modelling T-Spline bodies.  Something that them as know what they're talking about in CAD such as Johnny @The Spadgent do effortlessly but which the muppets amongst us have yet to master have much of a clue about.

 

Anyways.  Start (and sometimes don't get beyond) simple being my motto - we managed the first bag (this screen shot was taken when it was transformed into a solid body back in the parametric modelling environment):

 

 

Followed by the second (photo taken whilst still tinkering in the Forms environment):

 

 

 

And those two will be printed and fit on the sidewalls here:

 

 

 

That done it was time to get stuff ready for painting.  So when struggling with law-boredom I did some priming.  Thus.

 

Airfix provided cockpit.  The front firewall has been cut down to fit together with my

printed nose.

 

The various bits needed no more than an acceptable amount of cleaning up and mould line/flash removal and ejector pin filling:

 

 

 

 

Rear fuselage insert version 1 - operators door designed and printed closed:

 

 

Rear fuselage insert version 2 - operators door designed and printed separately. Probably the version I'll go with:

 

 

 

The square hole in the front bulkhead is for the operators head pad to fit into.  I've printed that separately for ease of painting.

 

Winch (and spare) and winch deck:

 

 

Operators seat and cushion; again printed separately for ease of painting:

 

 

Target stowage area:

 

 

Fuselage sides.  Pilots cockpit has the Airfix structure added.  Operators cockpit has my printed structure (minus the bags) added.  I've chiseled off various moulded in details on the Airfix sidewalls as I've got some Eduard coloured etch to add:

 

 

Bags x 2.  Am I allowed to be modestly pleased with them?  

 

 

Daft to be pleased with such simple (and small) items but hey ho - I'm easily pleased.

 

Bags dry-fitted

 

 

 

They do at least fit...

 

And couldn't resist priming the printed Merlin XX nose - to see how the detail looked under paint:

 

 

 

Do you know what?  I'll take that.

 

Speaking of Etch.  I scanned it into Fusion thus:

 

 

Because it occurred to me that using Fusion and the printer may be a way of getting around the 2D problem with certain Etch bits.  I plan to use the scanned image (now an accurately sized Fusion canvas) to sketch around an extrude some backing parts.  What I mean is sort of visible on this screen print:

 

 

And finally for now the I've pre-shaded the cockpit bits ready for some Colourcoats interior green.

 

 

And that's were she sits as of now.

 

Managed a bit more painting done before the end of the week G.   Off the hook?

 

 

 

Edited April 27, 2023 by Fritag
Typo

[Brandy]

Very nice Steve! I really like those bags.

 

Ian

[81-er]

Great progress there, Steve, you're rightfully proud of those bags. Nice to see it all getting some paint as well

 

James

[Terry1954]

As Ian observes, lovely bag work and indeed a very full and tasty looking update all round.

 

I'm still being wowed by the way your new (ish) lightbox thingy has really lifted the whole visual presentation of these updates. Perhaps I'm easily wowed 🤔 ....... well I am down in the extremely far away bits of Cornwall, far from the metropolitan buzz of south Dorset!

 

And of course I can't move on without commenting on the ingenious idea of scanning in the etch in order to extrude bits and bobs as needed. Etch can be so superb in many ways, but so flat and 2D. That process should be good to watch too!

 

Great update.

 

Terry

 

 

[giemme]

4 hours ago, Fritag said:

Off the hook?

Barely.... but amply compensated by those little gems in form of bags, and the ingenious and intriguing PE scanning - 3D morphing process

 

I'll second Terry's comment about the quality of your pics, pro stuff!

 

Ciao 

[keefr22]

5 hours ago, Fritag said:

I'll take that.

 

So would I - got any spare.....?! 🤣  

 

And add me to the list of those that like your bags Steve, v.nice indeed!

 

Keith

[PeteH1969]

Oh so nice.

 

Pete

[CedB]

Marvellous.

Although I must admit I'm confused over what are real parts and what are Fusion screenshots.

It might be the wine…

[Dunny]

Steve,

 

Most timely as I have just started to tinker with Forms for my dinghy pod (the dinghy itself, in fact!). Despite being a long-time CAD monkey I have not yet played with this witchery...

 

Cheers,

 

Roger

[Serkan Sen]

14 hours ago, Fritag said:

Anyways.  Start (and sometimes don't get beyond) simple being my motto - we managed the first bag (this screen shot was taken when it was transformed into a solid body back in the parametric modelling environment):

 

 

Followed by the second (photo taken whilst still tinkering in the Forms environment):

 

Looks really good Steve. I need to gain some experience on that to finish ongoing Oxcart ejection seat modelling.

 

 

Serkan

 

[perdu]

Wait

 

 

Wait

 

You can scan the etch (Or other images) into Fusion and then use Morph in it?

 

If that works why am I scared of the actual image making process?

 

Could I make a drawing a Fusion canvas then lift a shape out of it?

 

Could I copy a plan then run it through the process, make a Widgeon fuselage by extruding a plan into a shape?

 

How?

 

I have a basically parallel fuselage section that could be extruded from the 'tapered rounded semi-rectangular cross section' if that is so. 

 

Then I could add a nose on the same basic odd tube section.

 

 

Time to play

[Serkan Sen]

44 minutes ago, perdu said:

Could I make a drawing a Fusion canvas then lift a shape out of it?

 

Could I copy a plan then run it through the process, make a Widgeon fuselage by extruding a plan into a shape?

Yes in principle in all CAD tools you can do it easly. Here is an example from AG-330 starter cart modelling for SR-71A:

 

Serkan

[Fritag]

18 hours ago, Brandy said:

Very nice Steve! I really like those bags.

 

We’re sort of moving in parallel in learning the ‘Forms’ environment aren’t we.

 

11 hours ago, Dunny said:

Most timely as I have just started to tinker with Forms for my dinghy pod (the dinghy itself, in fact!).

I’m only at the level of simple shapes; and adding and editing faces, edges and points; and extrudes and creases.  Tis fair to say that results of any action aren’t always as I expect or plan.  But it is a fun way of modeling.  I need more practice.

 

4 hours ago, Serkan Sen said:

I need to gain some experience on that to finish ongoing Oxcart ejection seat modelling.

 

Ha.  Somehow I feel that you’ll be a master at it Serkan; that’s if it’s not already just modesty leading you to self deprecation 

 

15 hours ago, Terry1954 said:

I'm still being wowed by the way your new (ish) lightbox thingy has really lifted the whole visual presentation of these updates

 

That were a good purchase, Terry.  So quick to set up and use and as it guarantees decent results it probably saves time.

 

2 hours ago, perdu said:

Wait

 

You can scan the etch (Or other images) into Fusion and then use Morph in it?

 

If that works why am I scared of the actual image making process?

 

Could I make a drawing a Fusion canvas then lift a shape out of it?

 

Could I copy a plan then run it through the process, make a Widgeon fuselage by extruding a plan into a shape?

 

How?

 

I have a basically parallel fuselage section that could be extruded from the 'tapered rounded semi-rectangular cross section' if that is so. 

 

Then I could add a nose on the same basic odd tube section.

 

Sorry, Bill but the scanned image stays as just an image.  All you can do is use the image as a template to trace around in a sketch.  Fusion doesn’t convert the image into a sketch for you or allow you to extrude direct from the image.

 

 

 

Edited April 28, 2023 by Fritag
typo

[perdu]

That's most of my problem Steve, how to actually trace round the curves without shooting off at random tangents.

 

Going to have another try today.

 

It would be ideal if I could make a block of a profile which I could then turn into a shell, swivel it round and begin chamfering a wide edge at the front.

 

Let's see if I can do it 😄

[hendie]

If you get fed up with Law I hear Gucci is looking for a new clutch bag designer. 

Nice bags, in the nicest possible sense of course. 

 

It's always a pleasure to read these updates and based on what I see, I think I can safely say that your 3 dimensional modeling skills are now up there with the best of them. Sometimes it's not easy to capture detail in that scale without over (or under) doing things but you have managed to match features to scale with remarkable ease.

 

lt the coloring in commence!

 

 

[John_W]

Wow.

It never ceases to amaze me what can be done with 3D Printing these days.

[RichieW]

21 hours ago, Fritag said:

Am I allowed to be modestly pleased with them?  

Most certainly, they're perfect. Much better than the solid blocks of styrene I would have produced! 

 

The nose surface details are beautiful and survived the primer in good shape. 

 

As @hendiesays, it's time for a bit of colouring in!

 

Have a great weekend

Richie