Simon's Affichage En Papier **DNF**

[SJPONeill]

As can be seen in my last post, the outer face of the pilot's seat is a single piece...why, I am not too sure because it is clearly too long. I snipped it at the halfway point which does leave a minor seam at the top of the seat but at least means that the part fits properly...it probably doesn't matter in the big picture as most of the sides of the seat will be concealed by the cockpit sides...the Defiant doesn't have a cockpit side door like the Spitfire to show off internal detail...

I remade the mounts for the footrests, making each into three pieces instead of the designed folded single piece...here I have the base at the bottom as a spacer with each of the supports butted against it on either side...I assumed that the beginning of the upward angle would line up with the edge of the floor but (AGAIN!!) this made them too long for the available space. Even if I had aligned the rare of the mounts with the rear of the cockpit floor I think they still would have been too long.

Rather than do the footrest supports yet again, I just snipped a couple of mm off each support. When I do this model again - am I am very keen to do so - I will take this surplus off the back end of the support. I recycled the footrests from my first crack at this area as they will be largely concealed by the tight nature of the cockpit. Practically, I think that the forward bulkhead needs cut-outs like those under the instrument panel so that any 'legged' pilot can fit into the cockpit...

Sorry about the blurriness...I fitted the cockpit floor into place and then after determining the need for some spacers to hold it out from the forward bulkhead, fitted the instrument panel...

Hmmm...now starting to look a bit like something off an airplane...

[SJPONeill]

PS. I found that swapping out my scalpel blade for a new one last night, made a massive difference to the cleanliness of my cutting...another lesson relearned...

[SJPONeill]

Looking really good Simon. I'm really impressed with the level of detail, and your ability to neatly fold really small parts. I bet you're a whizz with photo-etch too...

Thanks but I'm a clutz with PE as well...I have limited feeling in my fingers due to cold injuries in the 90s and probably should invest in some of those folding tools that assist with sharp and consistent folds...the beauty of paper parts is that if you have a real whoopsy you can usually just print out some more bits...

[lancfan]

Looking good Simon, it may be a card model but it is really quite well detailed and only encourages me more for the Card Model GB later his year. I have card models in the stash but have not so far been tempted to make one.


David.

[SJPONeill]

A sharp blade and a steady hand are all you need...failing a steady hand, just a goodly supply of band-aids... ;)

[SJPONeill]

The horror, the horror of close-up photography...every smear, ever blemish emphasised tenfold...tip for young players: make sure you leave a 1mm lip along the rear side of the cockpit wall and do not fit the greeble boxes flush with the edge. You wouldn't know it from the instructions but if you do as I have done here there is no mating surface for the rear edge of the cockpit wall with the rear cockpit bulkhead. I managed to used thickened Uhu glue to secure the join but if you do the same make sure that the outer surface of the cockpit wall remains smooth as this is what the fuselage skin will attach to...

How the instrument panel is meant to fit is vague at best in the instructions: I have had to use 4-ply (4 x .5mm layers) spacers to keep it in place...

The joys of hand-drawn paper models...there is a quite a large gap at the top of the cockpit coaming where the two sidewalls should meet...not really a biggie though as the fuselage skin will cover this...Once the cockpit sidewall was firmly in place, I reached down with some glue on a toothpick and glued the edge of the lower side console into place against the cockpit sidewall...

Started to cut out and prepare the turret parts. You will see that I have offset the front and back parts of N1/N2 at the top so that there will be an overlapped joined when the two ended are connected; I forgot to do this with N6/N7 below and may have to do them again with an overlap if my first crack at them doesn't work...

This is the mount and control box for the turret guns...I have added a base and sidewalls from card so that there is a better mating surface for the joins and also to provide a more rigid surface for the folds to bend against...

The folded mount/control box...

[JohnRatzenberger]

Great stuff, actually, some real modeling going on !
Just hope you don't scare away all the guinea pigs members from the Paper GB !

[SJPONeill]

To apply the glue to smaller parts, I'm using a bit of scrap card as a palette and a tooth pick as an applicator...

Wrested with the turret ring last night...I suppose that it would be possible to roll the side into a perfect circle and there are those modellers that could do so in their sleep - but I'm not one of them. The trick is to join the narrow mating surface of the edge of the ring side to the ring itself...

With all modesty, I think that this may fall into the realm of what John has referred to as 'real modelling'...certainly I felt quite chuffed as it seemed to work...

The ring on the left is already glued in place and the one on the right has just been started. I used superglue for a stronger and more reliable join that I thought I could get with the water-based Uhu glue...the proof of the pudding will be when I remove the pins tonight...

[Molly-new]

Crikey this really is a complicated build. I like the idea of using pins to hold the parts in place. As daunting as it looks I am still keen to have a go at a paper model.

[JohnRatzenberger]

I usually try to find a dowel (something) of slightly smaller diameter and roll around that to get the paper curved enough to want to sit neatly between the pins ...

[SJPONeill]

That's a good idea, John...as bendy as paper may appear it can actually be quite difficult to get it to conform to the shape that you want...I did have a set of various sized rods etc around which to roll but it is "somewhere"...it also helps, especially with thinker paper to dampen it ever so slightly to loosen up the fibres on the inside of the roll...

[JohnRatzenberger]

You are right about thicker paper ...

[SJPONeill]

Tada!!

The pin and glue experiment seems to have worked, certainly as a proof of concept idea...I thought that I had taken a photograph of both rings after I unpinned them but if I did, it was lost when I cleared the card importing the other photos...
After much trial and error, cussin' and hair-wrenching, I worked out that the lower ring is meant to fit inside the upper ring - the whole assembly will be too tall otherwise...using the edge of a scalpel blade I was able to shoehorn the inner ring into the outer ring...If you look at the outside ring in my post from yesterday you will see that the inner surface only extends halfway down: the inner ring butts up against this small lip (you wouldn't know this from the instruction drawings just much experimentation).

This is the turret inverted with the inner ring sitting in place...if I had preapred the ring more by rolling it prior it would probably be rounder...

This is the gun mount. I printed and laminated another copy of the mount itself (the vertical semi-round plate) to green up the inner surface which otherwise would show a blank white surface inside the turret, It is quite annoying (although not difficult) to have to do this when so much design effort is expended on two sided parts in other areas that are not visible as the build progresses. As designed the parts only allow the guns to be fitted in a horizontal elevation. It would not be too hard to modify these parts to allow some elevation...

This is the turret base - the dark area is the gunners seat...

...with what I think are ammunition containers fitted in place, beside the turret right way up with the gun mount fitted. The apparatus on top of the gun mount is the sight mount.


An idea of how it all starts to come together...much later last night, I decided to cut out the fuselage skin. Once cut, it sat on the table staring at me, until I just had to see how it looked in place. One thing lead to another, and, nek minnit, it was attached above the instrument panel!

From the front

From the rear

[SJPONeill]

I have been searching for some clear OHP sheets so that I can start experimenting with the clear canopy and turret parts...and having absolutely no joy at finding anything - can't even remember the last time that I would have used an OHP: probably about twenty years ago...

Just saw a post on this topic on another board that suggested that the clear covers using on bound reports etc could be used instead...a couple of quick snips with the scissors and I have enough to get started...

[lancfan]

Briliant work Simon, truly inspiring.


David.