August's Toybox

[K5083]

Yes, the trick is that most colors of Sharpie are transparent, so you can use them to tint white stripe decals and not worry too much about having to trim them perfectly as what is outside the white will barely show.

August

[K5083]

The toybox got a slight upgrade this week when I inherited these boxes which formerly containd some fine fashion products. They are a nice stout cardboard with velvet lining and silk ribbon ties. Now some of the tools I like to keep close at hand have more posh quarters; I'm using one box for cutty drilly things, one for pinchy clampy things and one for rubby sandy things. Wish I had one more for brushy things.



As far as projects, I've made it through step 1 on the instructions on the Bentley which would have been a good choice for the classic Airfix GB if I hadn't started it too early. Not really a very easy or enjoyable kit to build. Simple enough, but neither the instructions nor the kit parts provide more than the most ambiguous guidance on where to locate them.



August

[shangos70]

The Voodoo has come up really well given the issues you had with it, I shall have to keep a look out for one of those sharpies.

[K5083]

My Hawker Demon is a DNF from May's classic Airfix GB. Despite not meeting the deadline, it is coming along well. This weekend I completed the decaling and started the rigging. I did some minor surgery on the decals to change the serial from K4500 to K4501, just to be ever so slightly different. K4501 appears in formation with K4500 in a famous photo of the unit. This means leaving off the CO's pennant and going with plain yellow wheel covers, but otherwise it will look pretty much the same.



Rigging takes me a long time. I've given up, for now, on CA as an adhesive for rigging. It's too hard to see whether I've succeeded in laying a droplet down and it discolors the paint. White glue bonds fine and dries less conspicuously. But the drawback of course is the long drying time. I have to make a complicated apparatus out of my squeezy tweezers and whatever objects are around my desk to get a stable thing that holds the end of the thread where I want it, apply the glue, then leave the model undisturbed for at least half an hour. It works, but it takes quite a few evenings to complete the job.

[ShaunW]

That's a great looking Demon August. Rigging, I feel, would test the patience of a saint!

[K5083]

After a spell of little modeling because of work commitments, I got some time at the bench over the weekend and worked on five different models (most of them unfinished group build projects), including a good session with the airbrush.

The Demon (Classic Airfix GB, May) is finished; see thread here for more pics.



The PM Horten 229 (German Jets GB, February) got its underside color.



The Rare Planes Stinson Sentinel (Vac form GB, April-May) received its upper camouflage colors.



My Airfix Chipmunk, which I've decided to do as a yellow Canadian bird, got its white undercoat.



And not depicted, my Hobbycraft Canadair Tutor from last year's Bright and Cheery GB made a little progress.

Continuing with the Stinson, it is time to build the landing gear. I wanted resin wheels rather than mess with the kit's vac-formed wheel halves. It is easy to clone small vac-formed parts in resin. Here are the steps.

Without separating the parts, cut out the piece of sheet plastic with the parts on them. In this case, I also needed to make a tailwheel for the Stinson, so I decided to clone the tailwheel from the Chipmunk, mounting that on the plastic. Place the sheet face-up on the bottom of a disposable cup. A drop or two of superglue to fix the sheet to the bottom of the cup may help to prevent it floating off the bottom. Mix up the rubber and pour it over the sheet until the parts are covered. Leave it to set on a vibrating surface such as an air conditioner to shake the bubbles out.



You might think it would be easier to pour the rubber, then invert the sheet of parts and let it float on top, but the sheet will trap rising air bubbles and wreck the molds.

After a couple of hours, cut away the cup and then pick the sheet out from the bottom. If doing a part like the tailwheel, you may need to cut a slit across the part to spread the rubber mold enough to pour the resin in and remove the part later. Mix up the resin and pour enough in to fill up the cavities made by the parts. You can usually avoid spilling much outside of the parts, leaving very little excess to sand away. With simple parts like wheel halves, you can pluck the hardened resin out of the molds and glue them together with hardly any clean-up.



The mold is reusable, so I can make any number of sets of landing gears for light aircraft like this.

August

[ShaunW]

Some very interesting subjects August and the Demon really has turned out very well. Marvellous piece about moulding replacement wheels too.

[K5083]

The Sentinel inches toward completion with the canopy framing (painted decal strips), landing gear struts and decals now done. All decals including the elephant motifs are from an old Heller Hurricane. Wings and struts are next.



August

[airjim]

Looking good. Nice use of the Heller Hurri elephant.

Jim

[K5083]

Finally finished the L-5. There is plenty wrong with this model, not least being the camouflage scheme which probably never appeared on any L-5. But it is my first completed vacuform kit and it taught me a lot. Many (though not all) of the operations involved in building a vac are not as hard as I feared, so I'll tackle the next one with more confidence.





August

[K5083]

Another movement from the Hall of Shame to the shelf, my Horten from February's German Jets GB. More pics here.





August

[K5083]

Gradual but satisfactory progress this weekend on two Canadian trainers.



August

[AndrewR]

Very nice

[K5083]

Stopping by the toybox this week is this model, off-topic for this forum. It is a Horizon Hobby electric powered micro radio control PT-17, about 15 inches in wingspan, so around 1/25 scale. My son and I have been flying this company's Aeronca Champ in the park for a couple of years, and I have been reducing its micro Spitfire to pieces by degrees, so before I buy another fighter I decided to try this product, new this year, as a 4-channel aerobatic trainer. It is very nicely detailed but I have given it a slight cosmetic makeover, correcting the tail stripes from 9 red and 8 white to 8 and 7, painting the crankcase of the nice faux engine and rigging the plane with heavy gauge EZ-Line. Maiden flight will be in a week or two. It looks nice with the rigging but still needs a pilot head, not provided, for the rear cockpit.



August

[ShaunW]

Some really excellent builds August and the R/C PT-17 is great - although it could be argued that it is a little outside the remit of the forum, personally I like to see member's R/C builds and I hope it flies well for you.