PT exorcises a Demon in Hindsight**FINISHED**

[Purplethistle]

Hopefully an apt title as rigging a bipe is not my strong suit.
Converting the venerable Airfix 1/72 Hawker Demon to a Hind

[DH-Drover]

I like the title

Dai

[Purplethistle]

And we're under way. I'll be doing this with the crew in and there is nothing to be seen of the 'pit interiors so not doing more than the basic colour and a coupe of drawn lines to represent framing.
Drilling holes for the dreaded rigging now.

[fredk]

'Dreaded' rigging?
Think of it as a quiet comteplative part of the build process

[TeeELL]

Go for it PT, I've the Demon to do as one of my trio. The Bulldog will be tackled as soon as the Siskin is complete. Biggest challenge is to see how much I can paint before fitting the rigging wires.

[Purplethistle]

Go for it PT, I've the Demon to do as one of my trio. The Bulldog will be tackled as soon as the Siskin is complete. Biggest challenge is to see how much I can paint before fitting the rigging wires.

I wouldn't recommend my build as a 'What to do...' more like a 'What NOT to do'! I sprayed the wings and fuselage with Poundland silver car spray paint as it had worked out well on a Spit I had done and had planned to do the front in Polished Aluminium. My pot of P.A had dried up so I used a spray can of chrome effect spray that was lying about......2 days later it still feels 'soft'.
The dreaded rigging also looks like going to Plan B, The jewellery wire I have started with is not quite flexible enough to thread through the holes and tighten convincingly. Looks like the rigging is going to have to be be lengths of stiff wire placed into position and glued there

[iggie]

Have you got any 'sewing-in' elastic? It works a treat for rigging at 1/72. Easy to thread through holes, you can run the whole length (if your rigging layout allows) before glueing, and (best of all) it doesn't break when you wallop it with a brush, your finger or anything else!
Once fitted, paint the elastic in the required colour.

Oh and it's dirt cheap for about 100 miles judging by the roll I got

[TeeELL]

I used Korbond Invisible thread for rigging the Tiger Moth practice model. It is available in clear and smoke, I plan to use the clear for the rigging and smoke for the radio aerials. It seems to respond well to super glue and it is not far short of being scale thickness - the thread is slightly over 0.01mm so, call it about 10mm 'full size', so not too bad at all.

[gnomemeansgnome]

Ask yourself, WWRBD (What would Ritchie Blackmore do?)? Me, I use straight lengths of bottom 'E' electric guitar string in at least 9 or 10 gauge cut by eye and/or trial and error. Many pricked fingers and bad words but they look the part and are a fraction of the hassle of stretched sprue or any of that fancy rigging stuff.

[TeeELL]

I guess you have probably seen these, but here are a couple of shots of the practice bi-plane:

[chrism]

I used Korbond Invisible thread for rigging the Tiger Moth practice model. It is available in clear and smoke, I plan to use the clear for the rigging and smoke for the radio aerials. It seems to respond well to super glue and it is not far short of being scale thickness - the thread is slightly over 0.01mm so, call it about 10mm 'full size', so not too bad at all.

Where in uk do you buy that pls?

[TeeELL]

Any sewing shop should have it.

[Purplethistle]

Cheers Chaps. I think I'll probably try a combination of the elastic and guitar string, especially as the faff of fitting the struts into the wings has resulted in some stray glue getting into the rigging holes I had drilled and filling some of them.

But that won't be this weekend, Tomorrow is the Open Weekend at the Glasgow Vintage Vehicle Trust and I've got a stall there selling prints of my old transport paintings....much mount cutting and framing to be done yet!

[TeeELL]

PT, my plan is to thread all the rigging before glueing. I've done the fuselage but the upper wing will have all the thread passed through and the ends held with pegs. I shall then stick the wing on and start tightening the rigging whilst the plastic cement dries, final fixing will be with super glue, mostly under the bottom wing. I've cut little slots in the top wing between the flying brace and the X brace as one thread is going to do both. Once in place i will fill the slot and then spray the Alclad.

[Purplethistle]

After a deal of colourful language, the wings are on with most of the main wires in place. Some jewellery wire for the wings rigging and some wire stripped out of an old set of Walkman earphone cord (bit more flexible) for the rigging on the tail. I've given myself a headache with the decals, having to handpaint the Squadron badge on the tail and cut 'n' shut the serials....now I just have to find a pair of largish '602''s in red.