1/32 IMCTH Zero Type 21 Fine Structure - 20/07 - Finished!

[John F Smith]

Thanks, Loic

 

I'm about to post the next update right now!

 

John

[John F Smith]

Here we go again.....

I'm not going to re-hash techniques that I've already discussed in prior posts, so this one will seem a bit 'lean' by comparison, since I've already covered the installation of wing ribs in the last update.

So, here we are with all the wing ribs installed on both the right and left wing.  Also, the 20 mm cannon and fuel tanks are in place. as required at this point in the build.

Here are a couple of photos of the 'completed' wings:

  
  

Note that the wing tips, ailerons, flaps, and landing gear are yet to be done, and the top 'skin' on the wing will be one of the last things done in the build, so the wing is far from complete.

Here are a couple of photos of the 20mm cannon in the left and right wings.  This are white metal parts, as are the fuel tanks. The cannon were painted with Alclad gunmetal, and the Tamiya Aotake mixture was used on the fuel tanks.  AND, I found that the Tamiya paints and Alclad 2 did not require primer on the white metal, just as on the PE as I posted last time.

Just as a side note, I wish that these wings were as dramatic as the P-51 with the ammo belts and machine gun bays.  Instead, it's pretty simplistic since the Japanese mounted their ammunition inside closed metal drums (the round 'things' in the photos).  The cockpit will be much more interesting.

  

  

Those cannon barrels in the photos are NOT what is specified in the kit.  The kit uses simply a couple of pieces of tubing cut and glued in place for the barrels.  I substituted 20 mm Japanese cannon barrels made by Master for the kit items.  That requires drilling out the part of the cannon assembly to mount the Master barrels in place, a bit of a tricky operation, but the results are worth it, and a little Bondo can cure a multitude of problems.  

Also, rather than painting that beautiful brass on the barrels, I used Blacken-It to chemically change the color to a 'grimy' black color.  It's a pretty simple process; simply drop the barrels into the Blacken-It solution for about 1 to 1.5 minutes until the color looks right to you, and then remove them and place them in water to stop the reaction.  I did this with my P-51 build and was very happy with it.  Blacken-It is available from many sources including Micro-Mark and probably most railroad hobby shops and web sites.

I'll be doing the same thing with the 7.7 mm machine guns in the cockpit and nose of the aircraft.  Much prettier than the kit supplied stuff.  I'll show detailed comparison photos of those when we get there.

It will probably be a week or two before my next update, because a little bit of 'real life' is intruding.  We are getting a new puppy next Tuesday to fill the emptiness left by Maggie's passing.  Another Border Collie (our favorite breed); a male this time and his name will be "Shep".  He will require a lot of care and attention in his first weeks at home, so my build time will be affected.  I'm sure you will all understand.  I'll post a photo of him with my next update.  He's going to be my new modeling companion.

Until next time........

John

Edited February 27, 2014 by John F Smith

[Guest Peterpools]

John

Congrats on the new member of the family

Terrific work on the wing assembly ... just amazed at the detail and scale appearance of the PE. Thanks for the tip on using Blacken-It, as I used it quite a bit in my model railroading days.

Keep 'em coming

Peter

[gfiend]

Looking good John,

 

The paint looks great with the wing structure.

 

I'd like to start a thread for the dual 109F build but the big challenge is finding more hours in the day to make this possible. Sigh... If/when I do it may be the world's slowest build thread.

 

Enjoy your new family addition

 

Paul

[John F Smith]

Thanks, Peter

 

It's used a lot in ship modeling too for things like blackening cannon and anchors.

 

I can sure identify with your situation, Paul, finding time for the hobby can be tough with real life responsibilities.  What I do is to work on the 2 models each during it's own time and let the other lay and wait until I get bored or motivated to work on the other.  There is one time, though, when I DO work on both of them at the same time... That's when I'm airbrushing parts for both models that have the same colors at the same time.  It's a little bit difficult keeping it organized, but it's worth the time savings.

 

And, don't worry about how long it takes; I'm sure we would all love to see your work...... I know I would.

 

John

[Out2gtcha]

Great progress!  Like the wing look stand alone like that.  Looks killer!

 

Congrats on your new family member too!  I can empathize as I just lost a fuzzy family member of my own that saved me when I was in one of the darkest periods of my life.

 

Animals are the best best friends you can have.  My sister had a tri-colored Collie named Sheena............what a terrific dog.  Although not a dog, after the passing of my beloved Bobbie, (she was my baby but not my building buddy) I still have my building buddy Sam to help me through her passing.

 

Chillin on the workshop floor with me, observing and critiquing my work -

 

[John F Smith]

Thanks, Brian for the kind words about my project, and especially for your thoughts about my new family member.  I've always had black and white border collies with pretty traditional markings (although Maggie was a 'split face'), and I've admired the tri colored members of the breed.  This time, Shep is brown and white, almost a dark sable color and he really looks great.  I'll post pictures when he comes home.

 

Love the look of your modeling buddy.  It's nice to have some company in the workroom isn't it?

 

John

[Guest Peterpools]

John

Some mighty fine advice.

I never thought I could ever handle building two 32nd scale builds at the same time but it is actually working out very well, as: I'm building both the Sabre and the Sufa side by side and when one wears me down, the other is there to pick me up and keep the line moving. Now with approaching the Alcald stages on the Sabre, there will be at least two weeks of just letting the Sabre sit and dry and working on the Sufa will keep me at the bench.

Keep 'em coming

Peter

Edited February 28, 2014 by Peterpools

[John F Smith]

Thank you all for your patience while I've been getting a new puppy acclimated to living here.  He's a great pup, and I think he has the makings of a great dog.  Of course, a lot of that always rests on the owner's (trainer's) shoulders, so I'll do my best and not hold him responsible for my short comings.

As I mentioned in my last post, his name is Shep, we got him at 7 1/2 weeks and he is now 8 1/2 weeks old and over 10 pounds with huge feet.  The vet has pronounced him 100 % fit and healthy and is predicting that he may end up in the 65 lb range when he is an adult.  That's a pretty big Border Collie, but we shall see how it goes.  Here are a couple of photos of him at 7 1/2 weeks.

  

  

Ok, back to modeling.

I was planning on having the landing gear equipment and bays installed for this update but that didn't happen because when I carefully examined the wings, I discovered that I had made a pretty significant error.

You can see it pretty distinctly in this photo:

  

As you can see the both the leading and trailing edge spars on the right wing half are about 1/16 " forward of where they should be and don't align precisely with the spars on the left wing which are in the correct position.

This was a MAJOR problem because when the wing halves are ultimately joined together, the joining is accomplished through the use of "jig" like locking plates that require the spars to be precisely aligned.

After looking at both the right and left wing carefully, I could see that the spars on the left wing were, in fact, in the correct position.  However, on the right wing, the spars from the inboard edge to a point about 9 ribs out were curved to the point where the misalignment was greatest at the inboard edge.  This probably occurred because I wasn't careful enough when I installed those wing ribs and I pulled those spars out of position.  It's easy enough to do; this is PE, after all, and it's pretty springy stuff.

Note, in the following photograph where the spars get a curved look about 8 or 9 ribs out:

  

Well, there was good news.  It's just PE and CA glue, so it can be debonded and the position corrected.  And, that's precisely what I did this past week.  It uses a fair amount of debonder because you have to soak the joints in enough of it to make them let loose, and also you need to clean up any CA from the joint which is still there so that the ribs/spars look like new.

So, it's perfectly aligned now, and no permanent harm done, but it's a cautionary tale about how one of these types of kits can get away from you in a big way as a small error multiplies on itself.

So, I'll starting on the landing gear today and here is a photo of the parts for both the left and right gear, wheels, tires, associated ribs and walls of the landing gear bays.  I puzzled long and hard over these parts from the "J" bag because many of them are almost identical because (1) the right gear and bay are a mirror image of the left, (2) the aircraft can be assembled in either an "in-flight" configuration, or a landing configuration, and (3) the diagrams in the instructions are so poor, it was impossible to actually identify which of the parts to use for the correct side and correct configuration.

Those first two pages of the assembly manual saved the day yet again with careful diagrams and part numbers for those in question, and in a matter of 15 minutes, I had the stuff organized and ready to build, which is where it is now:  (Note, yet again, my written notes for the parts to help keep them organized)

  

OK, so I'll be slogging through the LG for the next little while, but progress will accelerate a bit since most of the cockpit parts are now painted, and there is still a lot of straightforward building work involving just PE, white metal, and no painting at all.

Take care, everyone, and thanks for reading!
 

[Guest Peterpools]

John

That sure was a close call with the left wing PE spars not lining up and glad you were able to correct the problem the past week. The landing gear sure looks like a puzzle of parts and being PE and white metal, seems to be a very delicate assembly. Looking forward to seeing the gear together and installed ion the wings.

Keep 'em coming

Peter

[Ripaman]

Can't agree more with what Peter said, does look very good  John.

 

Regards

Richard

[John F Smith]

Finally, I can get back to work on modeling!  I did a video on my work space for Phil Flory's site and you can see it in the work space videos on his site or in his weekly report on YouTube for 14 March 2014.  Hope you will give it a look if you haven't already and enjoy seeing my work spaces.

 

On the Fine Structure Zero, it was landing gear time this week.  The landing gear itself, installing the landing gear in the wings, and installing the landing gear bays… We are going to cover all of these in this report as well as talk a bit about how to do a cleanup process on these Fine Structure models, and review a couple of products which are new to me.

 

Building the landing gear was a bit sporting.  As I think Peter pointed out that it might be.  Whenever you are working on a joint between stainless steel PE and white metal, it can be difficult to make it do what you want it to do.  One major factor is the flat nature and “springiness†of stainless steel PE.   It's difficult to get a good mechanical join with the uneven surface and imprecise casting of the white metal parts.  In this part of the build we had 7 PE-white metal CA joints to do for each strut, one of them load bearing.

 

So, I've got some general advice for you when tackling this kind of build.

 

First of all, when gluing white metal flat surfaces to flat PE surfaces as in the case of the main landing gear mount, gel CA is your friend.  The same is true for white metal to white metal joins of which there are a number in the landing gear.  It's much better to use gel CA than to mess about with thin stuff trying to get a good join.

 

Second, take extra time to dry fit and file and sand as necessary to get the best possible ‘flat' joins that you can.  The more time you spend dry fitting and correcting here will pay major dividends in the strength of your joints.  In the case of the actual joint between the leading edge wing spar and the landing gear mount, you may have also have to use some CA debonder to clean up any excess glue that may be left in that area to get a truly flat joint.

 

This dry fitting and filing/sanding process is really a great practice to get used to doing as a matter of course on any model.  It's just one of those fundamental skills that we sometimes pass by in favor of putty!

 

So, after assembly, we had left and right main landing gears that looked like this:

 

  

 

  

 

 

And, note the scissors jack, strut cover, and wheel cover mounting pieces that are all PE to white metal joins in this view:

 

 

 

To begin the process on both left and right wings, we install the rear half of the strut and wheel well bays.  The following photo shows the parts laid out on the instruction sheet and I hope you can get some idea of how puzzling this step was.  The real message is to study the parts carefully, and THINK about how those parts fit together before you put CA to metal.  As is often the case in these Fine Structure kits you can find yourself wishing for a third and fourth hand while trying to wrangle too many parts that all want to move at the same time.

 

 

 

After that's in place, the landing gear assembly can be glued between the ribs and onto the leading edge spar as shown.  Once again, be sure that the joins are as flat and as clean as possible.  This is one of the few load bearing joins in the model and it needs to be strong.  Like this:

 

 

 

 

 

Next, we complete the assembly of the landing gear bay by gluing the front wall in the matching slots on the tops of the wing ribs.  This fits exceptionally well, and you shouldn't have any trouble at all getting it just right.

 

 

 

 

 

Oops, I've got to split this into two posts -- "too many photos"

 

[John F Smith]

On to part 2 of the post:

 

 

Finally, the top of the wheel well is glued in place; another very good fit.  But, also one where it's easy to leave behind a “CA fingerprintâ€.  You know, where you glue yourself to the model.  I'm sure you've already done it at some points in this build, so let's talk about how to get rid of them, because you're going to want to do final cleanups when you finish the wing halves, fuselage, etc.

 

It's easy.  All it takes is some debonder and micro brushes.  Please, don't consider doing this with anything that isn't disposable; you will completely ruin a regular brush, for example, by having it soaked in a mixture of debonder and dissolved CA

 

Here's a photo of one of my missteps on the wing bottom skin, in particular, a glue fingerprint on the surface of the PE.

 

  

 

Use a microbrush dipped in debonder and gently scrub the area keeping the brush pretty wet, and changing it if you need to.  As you notice less and less of the residue remaining, start making all of your strokes in one direction to keep from spreading the solution all over the place, and finally, blot it dry with a clean paper towel.  It's a very quick and easy way to end up with a beautiful stainless steel skin on your project:

 

 

  

 

I happened to be reading an article on another website about a different Fine Structure build using a kit from a different company.  The author there was very enthusiastic about a CA product called “KISS Maximum Speed Nail Glue†which claims a setup time of 3 seconds without using an accelerator.  Probably a great product for a manicurist.

 

  

 

I gave it a fair tryout on some of the joints in this part of the build and found that the setup time claim of about 3 seconds is, indeed, true.  Also, you don't seem to need accelerator.  BUT, in my humble opinion, I don't think that the joints are as strong.

 

And the cost difference is huge.  KISS comes in a 0.1 oz (3 g) container which costs about $3.31.  That works out to $1.10 per gram or (at the current exchange rate) about .66 quid per gram.  I like a “fast†CA which is used by a lot of RC modelers here called “Instant Jet†which I buy in a 1 oz (28.4 g) container for $6.19 or about .22 quid per gram; one third the cost.

 

 

And, I'll end today's report with a review of a CA tool that I'm really liking a lot.

 

It's called the Glue Looper, Version 2.  It comes on a card with 4 of each size loop included and you can clean the tip frequently just burning off the hardened CA with a match and fits in a standard hobby knife handle.

 

[Photo of Glue Looper, V2]  

 

Version 1 was only half as thick, and very fragile.  It was easy to bend the tip just by a gentle touch.  Version 2 is a lot tougher; tough enough to win me over as a convert to this brand for thin CA applicators. 

 

The only real drawback to the product is that I think it's outrageously expensive, but I like it well enough that I'll use it anyway.  It's available from Sprue Brothers for $13.49 or about 8 quid.

 

At the beginning of this build, I was recommending RB Productions liquid gluing tool, and I still like it a lot, but I think it works better at slightly thicker liquid viscosities.  There is a photo of it back in Part 1 of this build.  I'm sure that there are many out there who will prefer Radu's product over the Glue Looper.  RB Productions product is available from them (http://www.radubstore.com) with 5 on a card for about 5 euro.

That's all for this time.  Up next, I will be building and installing the flaps and ailerons, completing the cockpit painting and assembly as well as the mid-fuselage assembly, followed by the rear fuselage, horizontal stab and elevators, vertical tab and rudder.  A few final touches, and we will be done.

Take care everyone.

 

 

[LSP_Kevin]

Fantastic work John! Really appreciate you taking the time to document it so thoroughly. I saw your workspace video on Phil's news show (I'm not a member), and you are one very lucky guy! I wish I had all that much space and all those resources. I'm glad you're putting it to such good use!

 

You are indeed correct too regarding the curing time of CA glues. The quicker they cure, the weaker the bond. Accelerator has the same effect, in that you're trading a stronger bond for a quicker cure time.  They also tend to make the CA more brittle. I tend to avoid accelerators for that reason, but they do have their uses.

 

Kev

[John F Smith]

Thanks, Kev, especially for the compliments about my home setup.  I'm a very fortunate man to have it and I'm putting it to the best possible use I can.  And hope to document a lot more of it here on LSP.

 

Wow, I didn't know the strength of CA bonds was related to the time they take to cure.  I was aware that it was true for epoxies, e.g. 30 minute epoxy yields a stronger joint than 5 minute epoxy, but CAs, too, huh?  And, accelerator causes the same effect?  Does that mean that it's inherently stronger to use high viscosity CAs, like gels, if they are left to cure on their own?

 

I know that water is a CA accelerator also, and have used damp planks in ship modeling for faster joints.  Does water have the same effect as a chemical accelerant in that it will cause joints to be weaker and more brittle?

 

Sorry, I don't mean to pepper you with questions, but this is really important stuff!

 

Thanks,

John