thierry laurent Posted March 9, 2015 Author Share Posted March 9, 2015 However, don't believe this solved the problem as even with this far smaller part, the problem was not solved. As the Iconicair set was not yet available, I had to find a solution and the final one was the change the cross section of the upper fuselage... Another easy task of course... as this asked for retrieving the side sections of the nose I had removed to use the resin nose and re-glue them on the fuselage... This explains the vertical white line used to compensate the saw blade thickness! So again plastic sheet+CA glue+sanding... Repeat this mantra one hundred times to get this: And you see that now the cross section is corresponding better to the resin cowling. However, I will have to fill the major hole between both sections. Considering the rest of the activities, this is really a child's play... Should I say that at some step I even considered putting all the nose parts in the bin, sand the changes and restart with the other resin set??? Zero77, Girlscanplay2 and Harold 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thierry laurent Posted March 9, 2015 Author Share Posted March 9, 2015 However, I may be stubborn sometimes! In any case, do yourself a favor and get the Iconicair set if you want to correct the bumps with an aftermarket set! The Warbirds/Greymatter set IS useful but surely not for this section of the kit. In the end, if I had to do it again without the Iconicair set, I'd correct the bumps myself! I guess the guy who said aftermarket sets are always "helping" the modeller does not breath the smell of sawed resin in the morning... You have been warned... Harold and Girlscanplay2 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martinnfb Posted March 11, 2015 Share Posted March 11, 2015 Nice! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dragon Posted March 13, 2015 Share Posted March 13, 2015 Looking like a real test of patience and perseverance! Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thierry laurent Posted March 13, 2015 Author Share Posted March 13, 2015 Hi, Indeed, I have sometimes the feeling that building such a kit is a cheaper way to get the same result than staying some months in a cell of a Tibetan monastery... One other major problem of this kit is the lack of access panels. The Seafire and late Spitfire had many access panels, more particularly under the wing. This is a major problem as being right behind the front edge of the wing they are unfortunately quite visible. Fortunately, the FR47 mark was not the only one to have them. So, I also relied on plans of other marks and double checked on some pictures to get an acceptable result. The main challenge is to have the round panels correctly aligned. So, you need scale plans, pictures and again a lot of patience to measure anything. Lightly sand the surface and put pencil marks to check that everything is correctly aligned before starting. Note that even if I was very cautious, I had to fill two round panels I scribed in one wing and redo them because they were out of alignment. So, this is not an easy job and I recommend doing this in at least two time periods because this is a quite time-consuming work. Last, you will need to add the eight screw heads. Again, relying on pencil marks before making them with a beading tool is probably the best approach... Various other panels have to be added and I already mentioned that panel lines must be corrected. I tried to find my way through the conflicting information on plans to get a reasonably but possibly not fully accurate replica as no picture show correctly the rear access panels. blackbetty 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thierry laurent Posted March 13, 2015 Author Share Posted March 13, 2015 The ammo chute holes are also fantasy ones. Their dimensions, location and number is not appropriate, even for a Mk22... So, fill and sand everything and rebuild new ones. Note that the FAA planes had differences because of the wing folding mechanism. Some pictures show small air deflectors but this is not a general rule. I added one. I also added very thin plastic sheet and rivets because on some planes, the border seem to protrude slightly. The bean-shaped part protecting one gun breech was made from sanded thick plastic sheet. The main challenge is to get two identical ones. I prefer doing this that way even if this is time consuming as making a mold to create a single copy of a part is too frustrating and not a quick job either! The picture also shows an half-round panel and its hinge seems to slightly protrude on the plane. So, I created it with a small section of stretched sprue and made the separations with the tip of a new scalpel blade. Two other points to add: - I added some other very small details including the square and oblong parts made in plastic card. I'm still wondering what was their use on the plane! - you will see that I also filled the line (on the right side of the picture) to have a larger flap surface as the FR47 had deeper ones than the Mk.22/24. Last, you see that the landing gear well is not correct either. We will go back to this later! Zero77, Anthony in NZ, Harold and 2 others 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thierry laurent Posted March 13, 2015 Author Share Posted March 13, 2015 I did not mentioned it but the wing tip shape is incorrect either... more particularly its rear edge. Re-shape it as the shape of the late marks wing was really specific. A close look at the aileron length shows this had to be corrected as well...! Harold 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
322SqnNL Posted March 13, 2015 Share Posted March 13, 2015 I want to do this to my Revell kit so will be following your build in hopes that a conversion set can still be found at a reasonable price at some point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Girlscanplay2 Posted March 14, 2015 Share Posted March 14, 2015 The corrections you have done is big improvement! Keep it up! Watching with interest. Teresa Harold 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LSP_Paul Posted March 17, 2015 Share Posted March 17, 2015 Thierry, What a project, I am so glad you brought this one into the group build. Nothing we love ever seems easy does it, but man you're making it look so much better in all respects. Excellent attention to detail. Keep up the great work, Paul Harold and Girlscanplay2 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thierry laurent Posted March 23, 2015 Author Share Posted March 23, 2015 Hi, I've been out for a week. So, it is more than time to publish some pictures! The kit has so many parts that reducing the amount of sub-assemblies is a requirement.... Gluing together the lower wing section parts is a good way to ease the job later. However, take care and do many dry assemblies as any misalignment will create major assembly problems in the future. Close scrutiny of the pictures will show that many small surface details must be added. The other side shows the modification to do to the black plastic bulkheads to add the cockpit parts later. Adding the radiators ask for cutting part of them. I also added some small plastic tabs to reinforce the seam between the plastic part and the front section coming from the resin conversion set. The exercise is really time-consuming as the conversion noticeably complicates the assembly sequence of a kit that, as such, is already far from easy to build. Adding the resin radiators is not easy because of the gull wing shape. Indeed, the rear edge of each radiator part is straight whereas this part of the wing is progressively becoming round... So, it is very important to identify precisely where the rear edge is located to do the cut in each wing precisely. As the FR47 radiators were larger, the recesses for the Mk22/24 radiators are far too small to be used as a guide. I know that I'm stressing that a lot of things in this build are not easy but in this case the error margin is less than a quarter of a millimeter. So a warning seems appropriate! I also added the radiator edges with thin white plastic. Nonetheless, I still have to check that the screw pattern I made is correct as I got better information in the meanwhile... blackbetty, LSP_Paul and Out2gtcha 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thierry laurent Posted March 23, 2015 Author Share Posted March 23, 2015 And I will go on with better views of the details. This picture shows the panel and rivet lines to add as well as the multiple maintenance panels with their scratchbuilt hinges. The four half-disks in the belly part are intended to help in locate correctly the wing parts but they also complicate the job as such parts do not exist on the full scale plane. So being sure they disappear completely is mandatory. Before adding the surface details, is is important to allocate time to clean correctly the seams as they are noticeably bad. I used a lot of CA glue to fill them and had to do a long sanding job to get an acceptable result. The next picture shows a view of the rear section. I had to add the three IFF light holes. A panel line must be added near the edge of the rear edge of each wing. As usually, I relied on vinyl tape to do such a complicated scribing job. If you look closely at the plastic, you will see some small light color blemishes. In fact, I had a problem with the plastic quality. Very thin sections were going out from the surface when I sanded. I repaired the area but understood quickly that I would have to take care for the future assembly with the fuselage! And here is a global view of the work on the central area of the belly. The two blue triangles are reinforcement parts missing in the conversion. Next time, we will probably have a look at the landing gear wells. See you. Kagemusha, Anthony in NZ, LSP_Paul and 1 other 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thierry laurent Posted March 23, 2015 Author Share Posted March 23, 2015 I did not mention it clearly but the problem of plastic quality standard complicated the addition of panel lines and rivets as if the resin is normally softer than plastic, there were also differences between the different plastic sprues (some were harder than others...)! Hopefully, this problem is probably less noticeable in the Revell re-issue... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LSP_Kevin Posted March 23, 2015 Share Posted March 23, 2015 This is really excellent work Thierry! Kev Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LSP_Paul Posted March 24, 2015 Share Posted March 24, 2015 Fantastic Progress Mate! You can tell when somebody really loves and aircraft type by how much blood sweat tears plastic glue filler rescribing scratchbuilding and swearing goes into a project. Keep up the good fight! Paul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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