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Erich Hartmann, Ace of Aces, Bf109G-14, Double Chevron


dodgem37

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'Master or madman?'

Good question. My approach to modelling is a carry-over from working over 25 years in the field of Graphic Design, when all work was done on a board, by hand and eye. Since the 'camera never lies', your work simply had to be perfect, or you could have thousands of printed pieces with errors. Which is not a good thing.

 

'I love the way you scratch something and it looks like the real thing shrunk down to 1/32.'

God is in the details.

 

Thank you very much for your compliments Vaughn.

 

For as difficult a problem as it was for me to solve the K-4 ETC rack, except for a few dings, that is how smoothly this rack went together. The only real problem I faced was the springing off into space of a couple of Jerry's provided bits when I was adding bases and bolts, and needing to make new bases for a couple of pieces.

 

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Here you can see the front port base is made from evergreen. The starboard front base is similar. I still need to trim the stand-offs to length and add them.

 

DSCN5365.jpg

The G-6s, -10s, and -14s, (and maybe K-4s, though I don't know) with Erla canopies that have the mast attached to the canopy have a wire connected to the canopy locking handle that runs from that location to the rear of the canopy, up, and into the mast, coming out of the back of the mast and attaching to the antenna wire. Inside the mast is a small pully onto which the wire moves back and forth as needed. My impression is that when the handle is back, opening the canopy, it affords the necessary slack to the attached antenna wire so the canopy and the mast can rotate to the open position. At least that's my story, and I'm sticking to it!

 

I drilled a hole from top to bottom then into the existing hole from the rear. I wrapped some invisible thread around a .25 drill bit, secured it with super glue, slipped on a piece of 1mm wire insulation as a clasp, secured that with super glue, trimmed it, then threaded it into the mast. I filled the top hole with primer paint pigment, that's why it appears grey, thinking pigment would not capillary action, which it did, waited for it to dry, then capped it with tamiya putty.

 

For as fast and furious as I seemed to have been able to make the the K-4 canopy, just the opposite has been happening for this canopy. I finally have it sanded/polished to a relatively acceptable condition, dipped in future and taped off to begin the framing exercise. But getting to this point has simply been an exercise of patience. More than twice I have wanted to chuck it and start anew, but instead I just dropped the thing into Windex, again. If it could happen to the canopy after I futured it, it did. Fuzz, drips, bubbles, tipping over, resident livestock, springing off of the tweezer, over and over and over. It seemed as if each time it were something new. But it's finally futured and taped and I can start working on it.

 

Thanks for looking.

Sincerely,

Mark

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My father-in-law, may he rest in peace, was a Dentist. I have all of his tools, cabinets, extra suuplies, and the compressor he used to run his drills. What I use to apply CA is a hand held reamer. Basically, it is a tapered to a point stainless steel shaft connected to a round 1/8inch (.3cm) diameter metal handle. It's a 2 inch (5cm) long handle with a 2 inch (5cm) tapered to a point shaft. It is very handy for CA.

 

Sincerely,

Mark

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Thank you, Matt.

 

I've spent some time this past week working on the canopy. I'm glad to say I'm almost finished. I still have to configure a turn-buckle to connect the wire to the canopy locking handle, but I don't know how much detail I'm going to put into it. I've already built two turn-buckles, which were not bad, but I need to think more about how to refine the build.

 

In the meantime, here is what I have to show. I'm also glad to be at this point, which, for now, pretty much completes the heavy lifting on this and the K-4 project and should allow me to start painting sometime in the future.

 

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This is the boring side of the build. The 'wire' is invisible nylon thread. It is used by tailors and seamstresses to sew hems and pant cuffs, that I know of. I've located brass rod as pins to see if I can make the canopy open or close. We'll see later just how that works out.

 

DSCN5370.jpg

When I sanded down the sides I did a fairly poor job of it and needed to add evergreen to both sides to even things out. Grey is Tamiya putty. I just located the mast in place and threaded the wire thru the conduit. I still need to finish off the mast locater pin. I forgot to sand off the CA filler on the back of the headrest. The head rest build is different from the K-4 build. Live and learn. On the K-4 build I had removed the rear two bolts and the 'pad' they set on. That was a mistake which necessitated me to build an angled shelf. Here I just removed the tri-angular part that sets into the kit canopy. I may need to shim it .010. It's not noticeable here, but the front of the mast is sanded semi-circular. This type of mast had a wooden body with metal base and cap.

 

DSCN5368.jpg

Something I did here and went back and did on the K-4 was to remove a small section of canopy at the rear hinge point. My references show that this area was non-existant and that the head of the locking tube is exposed. The rear pin is a bit too long. I'll fix that later. Blurry section shows headrest-to-canopy attachment.

 

DSCN5369.jpg

What a bummer. The detailed part is blurry. I'll shoot another pic and repost. But, in the meantime, the little piece up front is a small shelf/stop that the locking handle sets onto when the canopy is locked/handle is full forward. The handle has a micro hole drilled into it so I can thread/attach/do something with the 'wire'. The 'wire' conduit is intentionally too long. I'll trim it back later.

 

That's all folks!

Thanks for looking, and your continued interest.

Sincerely,

Mark

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Guest Peterpools

Mark

Just came aboard this week and discovered your thread. It's nearly impossible to add to what the others have said already. Your work and attention to detail is amazing. The thread in itself is a tutorial on how to think through a problem and proceed to execute your plan. Looking forward to following along and learning as you go.

Peter

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Thank you for all of your compliments, brother, and welcome aboard.

I'm glad that I can share and be of help to maybe make things easier for anyone who wants to try a little scratchbuilding.

 

Sincerely,

Mark

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I have decided to put aside the K-4 build for now and focus my attention on this build. The K-4 has fuselage fit problems and wing to fuselage fit problems and I just don't feel like messing with it right now. I've washed all of the parts one would mount to the fuselage and/or wings, dried them off and stuck them down on tape readying them for the primeing stage. Currently I'm finishing up whatever minor bits and pieces that need to be done prior to painting.

 

I had mentioned in an earlier post I would reshoot the image of the canopy front to better show the busy side of things.

 

DSCN5372.jpg

I think this looks better.

 

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I spent time today masking the canopy windscreen and putting in a few bits. The handholds are .015 rod, 5mm long. The end .5mm was sandwiched in a pair of pliers and flattened, then bent at a 45 degree angle with a tweezer before being adhered to the screen. Dark marks on the rod are the .5mm measurement.

 

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The pistol port was drilled, routed with a dental burr to minimize wall thickness, cut to 3mm, then diagonally cut and mounted to the screen.

 

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The canopy lights are a bit too tight to the screen wall. The blue represents a clip that I will glue to the framing. The other light lost it's clip. I'll replace it later.

 

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I threw this in to show the clear fuel line tubing made from stretched clear canopy sprue to replace the earlier one that the cookie monster ate.

 

Thanks for looking.

Sincerely,

Mark

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