Another kit-bash Canberra PR7

[TeeELL]

27 minutes ago, TheyJammedKenny! said:

Nice!  They look absolutely the part!  Now, the only question is whether the FROG nose transparency will fit.  I also have a vac-form nose transparency, which, if I cut out a certain way, might have sufficient diameter to fit.  What cement do you recommend using?  I have Revell Contacta and Tamiya super-thin.  

Neither will work on resin.  You will need to use PVA for the transparencies.

[TeeELL]

Spent a little bit of time designing an alternative set of mudguards for the Canberra.  The kit supplied parts are decidedly ‘chunky’.

 

the comparison:

L to R Airfix B6, Airfix B8 and mine.  Behind some 1/48 versions - just to see.

[Fritag]

On 3/2/2023 at 4:16 PM, TeeELL said:

 I closed the ‘live’ throttle and had sufficient speed in hand to complete a glide approach.

 

Great story, Tony.  BTW could/did you practice PFLs in the Canberra? or was the loss of both engines too unlikely or a bang-out scenario?

 

Sorry for all the 'likes' - but there's so much to like  Excellent fusioneering.

 

 

[TeeELL]

11 hours ago, Fritag said:

 

Great story, Tony.  BTW could/did you practice PFLs in the Canberra? or was the loss of both engines too unlikely or a bang-out scenario?

 

Sorry for all the 'likes' - but there's so much to like  Excellent fusioneering.

 

 

Hi Fritag,

  no probs with the ‘likes’, how are your models progressing - I am so involved with my 3D modelling that I am forgetting to checkout the other excellent builds on here!

 

we didn’t practice PFLs, it would probably have been safer than single engine approaches!  My memory of Canberra flying is faded now (it was 40 years ago) and I am of a mind that a PFL would have been ‘challenging’ as I suspect the flaps would have needed pumping down by hand!  

[amos brierley]

Hello everyone.                                WH791 photos.

 

Today see’s me having to take a days hol’s to sort out some stuff. Whilst I’ve got a little time while to pass ………

 

With two weeks off work and achieving absolutely nothing I felt I needed to achieve something and so Monday saw me ‘trundling’ over to Newark Air Museum. My timing was done around the weather whilst dry and sunny in St Helens and dry at Newark everything in between potentially snowy. 
 

But, all is not well at Newark. I went on a sunny day but the winds were gusting at     50 mph and the outside aircraft were getting a real paisting. The grounds man had cause to have words with me for getting too close to the exhibits, and explained that not even he was allowed to cross the blue demarcation line. Not good for me as I was only interested in up close and personal photography, details, details, details and definitely not from afar - well that’s nice……..

 

This is one of the reasons that the exhibit is in a very dangerous position, the side skin of the nose has now all gone, the corrosion is terminal. In  this photo the static pitot and the panel that’s covering the nose glass attachment bolts are of interest.

 

This is the death knell of this aircraft, all of the exfoliating corrosion is terminal, the hole in the skin saw the innards moving around precariously. The A/C is privately owned and the owner has been asked to remove it, the only thing this is fit for are bean tins, any attempts to move it will see the nose section break off.  😬

 

A arty style photo.

 

 

 

This line shows the hight of the fwd aux fuel bay .

 

Close up details, of the flare bay.

 

This shows the hight differences of the fwd bay and rear flare bay.

 

 

This photo shows the details of the fixed structure in between the two bays.

 

This is the additional strengthening plate that is often referred to on B.M I may need to add another photo to show a better understanding this area……… Also of note is the ‘towel rail’ not seen on later 13 Sqn aircraft.

 

Lots of details in here.

 

For this modeller my Panasonic G7 camera and 300mm lens have done good work, but you still can’t cross that safety line and that’s the problem, off note is that I’ve not gotten any where near the underside of the L/H wing.

 

 

Thank for looking.   😉

 

[TeeELL]

Thanks Amos.  It rather looks as though I won’t be bothering going to Newark next week.  I may well go to the South Yorkshire museum as they have a forwars fuselage of ‘779 and I can probably get some measurements there.  The Green Satin might have to be a bit of a guess.

in the meantime I have designed and printed some  less skinny nose wheels, beefed-up the mudguard supports and adjusted the center ‘boss’ to make the mudguard sit over the center of the tyre.  Those items have just finished printing and been for their IPA wash.  Off to U/V blast them now.

[Killingholme]

Such a shame that 791 is pretty much gone. That corrosion looks even worse than when I last visited her only a few months ago. I have long thought that this country needs a statutory protection scheme for our historic aircraft, vehicles, ships, railway stock etc. Our historic Buildings, monuments, parks and gardens, shipwrecks, and even battlefields have been protected by statutory designation (either Listing or Scheduling) in some form or another since the late 19th century, and there are now extensive legal powers authorities can use to ensure the basic preservation of these historic assets. These range from repair enforcement notices right up to compulsory purchase. In contrast to the 'stick', modern heritage protections are also focussed on the carrot too- listed buildings or monuments designated at risk of damage and loss are eligible for significant grant funding from bodies such as Historic England, Heritage Alliance, SPAB, National Trust etc etc.

 

I simply don't understand why such protection schemes don't exist for our historic aircraft. Arguably, they are hugely important cultural artefacts, and many are now unique survivals with only months or years left until they inevitably become 'bean cans'.

 

Will

Edited March 16, 2023 by Killingholme

[TeeELL]

With the forward fuselage now completed and the interior in place it was time to see how much ‘church roof lead’ I could squeeze into the various spaces.  Using disks of lead (punched out of scrap roofing lead) and the remainder of the void filled with tiny disks of lead (used as speaker weights) I managed to achieve 35 grams.  The general consensus is that a 1/72 Canberra needs about 50 grams, so I added about 20 grams of curved lead to the roof of the ‘camera bay’.

A weight and balance check revealed that the model should end up as a ‘nose sitter’ with slightly more than 10 grams of excess weight.

 

Here is my very sophisticated test rig:

 

The point of balance being 2 cocktail sticks in the main U/C leg ‘holes’.

 

The result:

I can now, finally attach the forward fuselage.

[TheyJammedKenny!]

I love the test rig!  While it is possible to have "too much" nose weight, the Canberra's nose gear strut is so stubby that you're unlikely to throw it out of whack by slightly overdoing things.  50g is a good rule-of-thumb for this, so thanks!

[amos brierley]

Reference to the nose weight, firstly it’s a shame we don’t have AeroClub white metal ejection seats available on the market. Secondly I like to test the C of G of a model with the wheels on, I prefer my wheels to have flat spot tyres as  these can go some ways to ensuring that the model isn’t a tail sitter.

 

It’s coming along nicely-nicely.       😉

[TeeELL]

Amos,

  I will be using Aero Club white metal seats (or rather seat), tbh their weight amounts to ‘not a lot’, as for ‘flats’ on the tyres, they move the point of balance by no more than a millimetre or so.  Bottom line, if you don’t get it right you will have a tail sitter.  My S&M Canberra is neutrally stable - it sits on the nose wheel or, if the rear is pushed down it sits on its tail.

[TeeELL]

The model has had a coat of primer:

 

I am hoping that I can lay down some LAG later today, then I might be able to do some masking and get the upper grey sprayed tomorrow.

[TeeELL]

I have been asked for a forward fuselage to enable a PR7 to be created from the old Airfix 1/72 B(I)6.  As the modeller want to detail the cockpit I made him a ‘2 halves’ version with an added extension.

 

The above image also shows my improved nose wheels and finer mudguards

[TeeELL]

The under surface of the model has received a coat of Hu166 LAG, the colour difference to the Tamiya primer is all but indistinguishable so a photo isn’t worth publishing.  I am hoping to mask and apply the upper surface grey tomorrow afternoon.

[cpoud117]

This is extremely impressive! 3D Printing really is a game changer for the hobby.

 

On a side note, how can your spray booth still function? The filter seems to be absolutely caked with paint/primer 😮

[TeeELL]

59 minutes ago, cpoud117 said:

This is extremely impressive! 3D Printing really is a game changer for the hobby.

 

On a side note, how can your spray booth still function? The filter seems to be absolutely caked with paint/primer 😮

Yep, time to replace the filter.

[TeeELL]

Nearly a major set back today!  I masked the model ready for the upper application of DSG (Hu 164).  I felt that the colour was a shade too dark so planned to cut it with some MSG.  Not to be though ….. my DSG was dried out.  In the end I discovered I had some HATAKA ‘Orange line’ and their DSG was a few shades lighter.  That has been applied and I am leaving well alone for 24 hours.

 

oh! I also changed the paint booth filter.

[Robin-42]

In the spirit of “I would want to know.”, I see some seams on the intakes that you might want to tidy up.🙂

[TeeELL]

1 hour ago, Robin-42 said:

In the spirit of “I would want to know.”, I see some seams on the intakes that you might want to tidy up.🙂

Indeed, there are a couple of other areas that have opened up.   I confess that I have been agonising over them but your comment has pushed me in the right direction.  The ‘gaps’ are nothing like as significant as the photo suggests and so I have gone for the ‘Tippex’ fill, I will see if that does the trick.  I also need to reduce the rather obvious ‘join’ between the B-57 fuselage and ‘my’ forward fuselage.

[Robin-42]

13 minutes ago, TeeELL said:

Indeed, there are a couple of other areas that have opened up.   I confess that I have been agonising over them but your comment has pushed me in the right direction.  The ‘gaps’ are nothing like as significant as the photo suggests and so I have gone for the ‘Tippex’ fill, I will see if that does the trick.  I also need to reduce the rather obvious ‘join’ between the B-57 fuselage and ‘my’ forward fuselage.

Nothing like a photo, that when viewed on an iPad, can be zoomed in to electron microscope magnification to make the smallest imperfection look like the surface of Mars! My sin in that regard is I keep putting Reskits beautiful exhausts on models, that once they are in my cabinet nobody can see!

[Terry1954]

Just discovered this excellent thread. The Canberra is one of my all time favourite types, having had a brief encounter (mid to late 70's) with the old girl during my 6 years working in the MOD project office for the Canberra, Lightning and JP (with a brief spell in the Jaguar project office too). Many happy days up at Samlesbury (for PR7 and TT18 mods/refurbs) and Belfast (for PR9 work). After the progress meets, we'd convene to the hangers to get to see the birds and crawl inside. From memory one of the major upgrades was centre section spar replacements on those Canberra's that needed them. Massive forgings that had to be swapped out embedded in the heart of the fuselage. I recall working briefly with an ex-Canberra pilot who had been seconded to the project office. Can't recall his full name, but his nick name was Chicco. He was quite a character!

 

Really like what you have done with 3D tech on this, and will follow with a keen eye!

 

Terry

[TeeELL]

In endeavouring to correct the various issues raised by Robin-42 and my own observations on ‘quality control’ I have conspired to make a massive and, presently, irrecoverable muck up!  Having applied the necessary filler to various locations I put the model down but too close to the model room heater and, unbeknown to me, the canopy was sitting against it.  The canopy is irreversibly distorted!  Although difficult to identify a ‘silver lining’ in this very dark cloud, I have done a lot of additional work on the various seams and joins and I should, at least, be able to re-prime and re-spray some of the model.  I just need to resolve the canopy problem

[Robin-42]

Oops! If it makes you feel better, I have a shelf of doom resident in the form of a CL215 that lost an argument with a 100W lightbulb. The rear fuselage turned into a banana! It’s repaired with a new rear fuselage, just awaiting decals at this point. Hopefully, someone here has a spare, they can send to you. If not, can you restore the shape and vacuform a replacement?  

[TeeELL]

6 minutes ago, Robin-42 said:

Oops! If it makes you feel better, I have a shelf of doom resident in the form of a CL215 that lost an argument with a 100W lightbulb. The rear fuselage turned into a banana! It’s repaired with a new rear fuselage, just awaiting decals at this point. Hopefully, someone here has a spare, they can send to you. If not, can you restore the shape and vacuform a replacement?  

Robin,

  I need to do some vac-forming but a number of circumstances mean that I cannot do anything until the weekend after next.

[TeeELL]

For those of you following this build, I will be returning to complete the model, it will be about 10 days or so, as I have mentioned.  In the meantime, the various seams have now been worked on and a bit later today I will apply some primer to see how they look.  I might even post a photo.