Hans

And now for my favourite part - adding the Tamiya fine grey primer straight from the can. This stuff is gold and provides for a really nice surface to identify any defects which need to be rectified. Once that's done, I treat the primer coat to some 12,000 grit micromesh for a silky smooth finish upon which the paint can be applied :
 
 
Wing fences have been added but broke off soon after. They'll go on as the last part before final varnish is applied.
 
 
 

I am especially impressed by the corrugated surface of the wing. 

Another update - finished cockpit. I added fuel and oil tank because they are visible through engine and under IP. Fuel tank is this cylinder. I found some leftover instrument panel indicators so i glued them one by one to the back. (box is lacking these)


 



 


I moved cooler few millimeters up.


 


Bristol Jupiter engine is barely visible because of engine cover on front.





I placed pilot on seat becuse it is bit too large and have questionable holes.

Everything fits like a glove, Tolga! 

Thanks for the info.  Looking forward to it. 

That looks like a very nice kit. 3-D printing is really improving by leaps and bounds! By the way, is there any news on the IBG PZL P.24 in our scale?
 
Hans 

It looks like a real workhorse John, a beautiful model and very convincing weathering.  

AIMS 1/32 PR/Tac R Hawker Hurricane build update The rivets catch the light well under a coat of dark glossy blue. i am happy with the look but not looking forward to the problem of bedding down the wing roundels without creases everywhere. I will need to shepherd the decals all the way to drying time I think. If you are doing these rivets on your own build paint masks for the roundels would be better!   A few hours latter..........   Decals are on - not many of them - just the insignia and I put just the oil tank Revell stencil on - you can hardly see the black against the dark blue just like in the photos. I am not an authority on the real 'Bonson Blue' and please take what I have done with a pinch of salt but I simply opted to use the darkest blue I had available which happened to be an unopened tin of Xtracolor X121 FS15042 'Gloss sea Blue' with a few drops of a crimson colour - in this case - again just what I had - Humbrol Gloss 20. Mixed with 30% white spirit in an empty glass jar I got one of the shiniest finishes of my life but it has been so long that i used Xtracolor enamel for a whole model that it was strange leaving it for day before turning over to do the other side and then days after that hardening. As for the decals well the rivets are a real problem here - not as i feared due to creases as if you press own with a soft cloth immediately and get them bedded down the decal solution does not start to crease them - you can then spray a little more solution on later! Anyway the big problem is that it is just impossible to slide the upper and lower wing roundels into position and I had to remove everyone once more and more accurately apply following the photo of the machine. It was a hairy experience but I managed it. Paint masks would be less stressful. As for the upper roundel overlapping the aileron - this was against regulations as it then required the aileron to be re-balanced so I carefully removed the overlapping decal segment. It might well have been applied against reg's but we will never know. Hope you like so far

Lots of fiddly cockpit bits cleaned up and primed.  There's some delicate hand painting to be attempted here (so it can then be invisible once the fuselage is closed up ;-).  I taped up the main framing structure and cemented all of the cross members on one side to hopefully make final assembly easier later on.
 

 
It looks like the wings will be fairly easy to attach near the end of the build, so that will make painting easier.  You can see where I clumsily sheared off one mounting tab while cleaning up the wing-to-fuselage fit, and had to replace it with brass.

 
Next I'm going to drill some holes for brass rod to attach those ailerons with. 

Morning all (time-zones may vary...)
A few more test prints and fitting have emerged over the last week so some imagery of progress to follow after the mail.
Many thanks! It feels like the build has reached a turning point at last with the first definitive test parts beginning to materialise.
Kind of you as always Kev.
Much obliged to you for that Derek, saliva and all.... 
Ta Max. Definitive? Quite possibly, in an already crowded 1/24 field. 
I do believe you've had a not insubstantial hand in this coming into being Anthony. 
 
Last time out I'd been flashing one of my larger parts around which you'll be disturbed to learn I subsequently discovered to be malformed. More precisely, I hadn't supported the leading edge of the 'winglets' (that the rear undercarriage legs attach to) during printing sufficiently and with the large bulk of the airframe dragging up and down in the resin, their profile had curved downwards . The addition of a couple of heavy supports on each side was enough to counteract that drag for the corrected prints:

One issue I'd been sort of ignoring up until now was the sheer proliferation of parts that were being generated whereas in many respects the hardest part of the undertaking was always going to be how they all fit together, in what sequence, and with what level of understandability. If it's just yourself and you know the aircraft then you can problably muddle through but conscious of others wanting copies in various scales, you can't just present people with a forest of resin and PE and an instruction book the size of a Harold Robbins. For regions like the Nimbus engine and the gearboxes at either end of the engine deck I was able to combine a number of hitherto separate elements into printable wholes, without any debts to accuracy:

 

 

 

Using Voxedance's Tango software I was able to generate support networks enabling me to print much more complex integrated parts than I had been able to in Lychee and Chitubox previously. The following prints are all test samples  at 1/24 and 1/32 so haven't been cleaned up to any degree beyond removing the larger supports: please avert your gaze from any messy stubs and mini-support visible as a consequence:

One especially challenging part was the main rotor gear box, along with its array of support pylons:

Now via VDT I was able to print these as self-contained units, including the front servo and pitch control beam tucked away underneath:

Mounting these gearboxes accurately on the engine deck then becomes a much more striaghtforward undertaking at both scales:

 

 

The same economy of means applied here to the reduction gearbox and forest of smaller parts festooning its rear:

Avengines Assembled!

There are so may features having to align simulataneously with one another that I was (finally) able to let out a sigh of relief that the designs were working as a physical entity:

A lot of the time in photographs it's not always easy to tell the difference between 1/24th:

 - and 1/32nd:

Where the difference will kick in of course  is when it gets to detailing all the sundry pipework and electrical harnesses on the engine - in relation to which these things in one of the earlier photographs come into play:

I thought it prudent to crerate a jig to come supplied with the kits in order to enable painting and detailing work to be carried out on the engine in a manner minimizing damage caused through repeated handling:

That's it in summary for now - essentially with the above I needed to know that the designs could be translated into a viable construction sequence as physical parts and this mercifully seems to be the case. Next is a full-up test print of the undercarriage in both scales using eSun's Hard Tough resin. 
 
More in due course,
Tony
 
 
 
 
 

Hello everyone,
I've set my sights on Revell's 1/32 FW 190 F-8.
As it's unobtainable in France, I was obliged to buy it on the German eBay, in fact it's the online sales site of a model store. 
Price and postage are correct, the box is new and was delivered in good condition, except for one or two parts that were loose in the box.
Nothing to worry about.
Initially, I wanted to make an A-8 from this F-8, as the differences between the two aircraft are quite minimal.
I wanted to do a colorful camouflage like the JG 301 A-8s.
 

 
But in the end I opted for simplicity and simply did the box camouflage, the white 70, which is quite spectacular.
 


To make it even better, I'll be using Reskit wheels, Eduard Brassin landing gear, Eduard PE cockpit and harnesses, and MRP paint and varnish.
Following this very interesting conversation, the underside of the wings will be aluminum + RLM 76, the top of the wings RLM 81 + RLM 77, the fuselage RLM 76 + RLM 75 + RLM 81, rudder yellow (or not).
 
Wish me luck...
 
---------------------------------------
 
Here we go with the engine.
Revell's parts allow me to make something credible, especially as it won't be very visible because a fan/turbine/cooler will almost entirely hide it.
So I only added the spark plug wires for the front cylinder bank, and painted the whole engine, not forgetting the exhausts.
Here's how it looks :
 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
These were photos without the spark plug wires, here's how it looks now:
 

 

I have a sneaking suspicion (read: hope) that Hobby 2000 repops several of the 1/32 Hasegawa kits, most notably their P-40 series.
 
- Dennis S.
   Mount Juliet, TN USA

Thank you all for your replies and suggestions. Never had this happen before and after thinking about I've always used an enamel based coat as my final coat of paint when I'm finished but this time I used Tamiya Acrylics which obviously set of a chemical reaction.
 
So after trying a few things I decided I had nothing to loose so grabbed a load of the wife's make up sponges and then used Tamiya thinner to wipe over the surfaces quickly followed by a dry sponge. I did this over and over and this is what I have now
 

 

 

 
Seems to have worked and at that point I thought f@#k it and take the canopy masking of and see inside the cockpit again as was thinking this was heading to the bin. I'm not spraying anything mote on to those build but need to sort the now glossy exhaust stains. 
 
Regards. Andy 
 
 

today's changes..
 
control stick has trigger stowed on the ground..
 

 
new throttle, not the late G/K I did above..
 

 
new REVI 12D sight replacing the 16B I did before..
 

 

 
revised oxygen control..  remains to be seen if this prints / can be removed from supports.. test print running now..
 

 

 
more to come
 
Peter

https://www.flickr.com/photos/159342774@N07/albums/72177720310909688. 
All, 
       After waiting for what seemed to be an eternity, the kit was finally released. I’ve wanted to do an Erickson Air Crane for the longest time, in a large scale. At the start of my journey, I decided to roll the dice, and see if I could get any information directly from Erickson HQ in Oregon. Not only did they help me get started, but they answered questions that I had along the way. 
        One of the main areas that I needed  help with, was the Fire Tank itself. They provided me specific photos I needed to get started on scratch building it. The next hurdle, was the orange color of their aircraft. To my surprise, they sent me the actual paint code for me to match. 
         These are the following items that were scratch built. The entire Fire Tank, the tool box/cargo container in front of the Fire Tank, the landing gear struts, (The kit comes with single wheels on the rear struts. “Bubba”, the aircraft I modeled, has dual wheels and the rear struts). The steps that go up to the tail rotor gearbox. I used everything from plastic card stock, to brass tubing to get the job done. The decals came from a company in Germany. They are fantastic. 
         It took quite some time for the scratch building. I learned a lot along the way. Erickson was a huge help in making this project a reality.  
 
Christopher
          

Perhaps surprisingly for this thread  I have some actual physical objects to show for once. Must be one of those months that has three full moons and a comet or something...
This stuff is simple compared to folding the washing correctly when putting it away Kev. 
Craig, you're most kind.
Cheers Ben. Inspired by your surface work on that ES-3A I managed to get the underside surfaces of the rear section finished here too!
Thanks for that Derek.  You're dead right about the extent to which all this depends on drawing - I still find a pencil and paper the most effective method of working out ideas before committing them to pixels and resin.
 
I started by mentioning physical evidence appearring here for once so although it's still early in the proces of finalizing parts and printing procedures, there are a couple of areas of concern that needed committing to resin to work out if my designs were feasible in two critical respects - one of them to do with strength, the other the level of detail which could be reproduced at both 1/24 and 1/32 scales here.
 
 
Taking strength first: in modelling terms at least the characteristic insect-like undercarriage of the Wasp has two critial weak points - where it attaches to the airframe, and the yokes which hold the wheels:

Standard resin was definitely not going to be strong enough to handle this particular job and unlike the blade forks (which I've already cast from aluminium/aluminum on grounds of strength), I didn't relish trying to similarly create these more extensive parts of the helicopter here from metal. This meant researching some of the stronger engineering resins as an alternative -  which can in many cases be eye-watering in price from a hobbyist's perspective. In such situations I  have to say that the bulk of  the resin-comparison sites out there are bloody useless - little more than clickbait repeating company specs minus evidence from the writer(s) about actually using them. I suspect many are simply written by AI for ad revenue rather than to actually help people. Thankfully there are quite a number of expereienced individuals taking the time to post their experiences online and on the basis of a thorough piece of work from Jeremy over at Figure Feedback I lashed some gelt on a bottle of:

Was it any good?
See this exposure test:

About a couple of millimetres or so in thickness and I simply could not break it with my hands; in fact I reckon you'd need to put it in the vice and whack with a hammer to get it to snap. Ignore the poor surface quality on that Xp test above btw - I'd used IPA for cleanup the first time out before reading that ethanol is better for this Hard Tough stuff and have had no problems since.
 
The only thing is that when you print an actual part with the quite translucent blue flavour of this stuff (no I don't know why I went for that colour either...) it intially comes out looking like it's all gone a bit Willy Wonka:

A squirt of acrylic however and normal opacity prevails:

Engineering resins aren't necessarily designed to yield the same level of detail as what might be called 'display' resins, however, everything here down to the individual bolts was well-expressed to the naked eye. Only with the magnifying visor on could you really see that corners and edges appeared not as pin-sharp as you might be used to which  - considering the trade-off for strength - is a balance I'm more than happy with.
 
Print times with it are about 30% longer and cure times under the UV much longer at 30 mins but otherwise there's nothing very complicated about using it.
 
In terms of surface detailing I needed some reassurance that my calculations were right about the size of the several thousand rivets adorning the completed rear section of the airframe:

I needed these to be subtle but present, which at 1/24th scale meant a guesstimate ofsomewhere around height from the surface of 0.15mm. Printing with the Saturn 2 I could have gotten away something slightly less but was taking a gamble on this figure being sufficient for the rivets to survive scaling down for the 1/32 kit:

Tests were therefore run over the last week:

I did two versions of the 1/24th rear section here because I wanted to do a direct comparison between Lychee and Chitubox in terms of the balance between smoothness of curving parts and sharpness of small details. Despite changes in the anti-aliasing functions in Lychee, I still find Chitubox produces a better print. Lychee however still wins hands down when it comes to designing support structures in my view. Or did, until last night I discovered Tango from Voxeldance and was blown away by its support capability. Am curently testing it so will report results in due course.
 
Anyway, back to the actual objects:

Even the snall rivets along the boom ribbing are distinct enough for my tastes without being overdone:

 - whilst features like the fairing around the winglet harmonize quite nicely with the level of detail in the surrounding region:

 

 

Question was, how much of that would survive reduction down from 1/24 to 1/32?

The above image is a good example of one change I need to make to the support designs as you can see from the the curved outer corner of the winglet how I need to make the support structure much stronger in that location.
 
Genuinely, genuinely, surprised though to find that all those details remain visible at the smaller scale. Now that surprise is the product of inexperience on my part at never having to contend with such an issue before, but relieved that the gamble paid off. Some more 1/32 views:

 

The tail-cone also preserved all of the detail at 1/32:

 - however the fairing running along the top is so paper thin at the smaller scale  that I'll have to look at redesigning that aspect of it to make it less fragile:

Clamshell detailing also survived from 1/24 to 1/32:

That's the state of play at present then:

Overall I'm relieved with the how these tests have identified a series of problems which are all fixable.
 
Thanks for looking in,
Tony
 
 
 
 
 
 

The rivet is projected onto the surface again. This circle is then used as a dividing tool - so you divide the surface in question with the circle that is to become the rivet. The surface of the rivet can then be pushed or pulled outwards or inwards. This rivet can then be duplicated along a path. I'm very sorry, but my interface is in German, so I don't know all the exact English names for the Fusion functions. 
 
 
You need accurate side, top bottom and front views. Plus, if possible, fuselage formers and wing profiles. However, some of this can be constructed from the existing views. At our university, this was called descriptive geometry. From this, you construct a kind of virtual wireframe model, over which virtual surfaces are "pulled". This basis in combination with a lot of photos and a sense of proportion hopefully leads to a formally coherent model. I want to build models that no one else or as few other modellers as possible have in their collection. CAD and 3D printing are simply tools for me to achieve this goal. Finishing a self-constructed model is just as satisfying for me as a scratch-built model and is actually always much more rewarding than building a kit. Which of course is still huge fun! 

Excellent job, John. You must have the patience of a saint! Looking at the amount of work involved, I think I'll buy the Fly IIB that already has the rivets. 
 
Best, 
 
Hans 

Excellent job, John. You must have the patience of a saint! Looking at the amount of work involved, I think I'll buy the Fly IIB that already has the rivets. 
 
Best, 
 
Hans 

My work converting the prop into the "wide chord" version is wrapping up.
It has become quite a multi-media affair.  I've used Apoxie sculpt, Perfect Plastic Putty, Loctite superglue and Future.
Apoxie has proven hard enough to be up to the task and it sanded to shape well.  Great care had to be taken because although it is strong, there is a risk of breaking it loose from the styrene.  This will be true going forward.  If I ever drop the prop, it will break something off....
Another great tool for this, flexi-files, really helped with this rounded shape.
 
I used brushed-on Future to seal the perfect plastic putty which is also water based.  Future also gave some shine so I could check my work.
Note, Perfect plastic putty may always need some kind of primer due to it being a bit porous by nature.
 
It has taken some time and great care...but it is a labor of love and I'm quite satisfied with the result.
Perhaps I should make a rubber mold of one blade so I don't have to go through this again...
 
IMHO it does make a difference on the look from the front:
 

 
Here you can see the increase in width as the light comes through...

 

Good evening ,
to save time, part of furnishing and equipment will be Etienne's.(Renaissance)
Initially planned for the 1/72 Heller and Azur, and at 1/48 for that of Fonderie Miniature,
this equipment will need to be slightly modified to fitted into the Breguet 1/32.
 

 

I had started to create these elements, but to continue would be a waste of time because of duplication
useless and Etienne's work is precise and detailed, we might as well exploit it and integrate it if Etienne agree it
I can therefore look into other problems such as creating an oven for thermoforming
the canopies and airscoop of the engine cowlings.
Currently I am preparing the molds for the machine gunner's canopies, the bomb bay doors, the windows....
I also need to think about made the front of the Gnome Rhône 14M engine
to serve as support for the propellers (if there is a courageous person to draw this engine to create 3D stl file, I would provide it with the doc :kiss2: ) .
Some details to add in the nacelles such as the strut embedded in recesses provided on the surface
of fuel tanks . these two sides will reinforce the fixing and
the holding of the  landing gear on the wing.
 after that, the Breguet will head to Santa's caban for distribution to the cottages....
There is still work to be done before the first 15 cells are complete, but it's playable...
I am quite advanced in discovering the main activities of the design of this model,
of the tools used, the implementation of the materials used and the losses, to give you
within two weeks an idea of the cost of a copy.
The staggering is defined by the order of registration on the list (in the firts pages of this thread), withdrawals will benefit
to the following who will advance one place.
You can withdraw before your turn arrives...
thaks for your attention

AIMS 1/32 PR/Tac R Hawker Hurricane build update.
Hi all what madness have I been up to whilst trying to also start doing private orders again? Well thanks to Revell providing the world with a MK II Spitfire that had fuselage dimples instead of raised rivets I had the opportunity to express my detail compulsive modellers disorder (dcmd) by dropping in micro balls!!!! And now with their Hawker Hurricane Mk II it is a case of only providing a few raised rivets here and there - leaving the wings looking completely blank - might i dare to say - in comparison to the fantastic Amor Hobby Mk II C Hurricane - the Revell kit looks like a toy! It is obvious that one company cares about giving the modeller the right details - the other company wants to give the modeller 100s of hours of extra work and frustration!
I had got myself a sheet made of close together small rivets with a few larger ones that i would need for the tail fillets etc. I also got a few packs of the Quita Studio's single row (with wider spacing than mine - product QRV-022. And a few packs of Archer offset double row product AR88196. These are great but there are only a few rows with the correct spacing - the rest are tighter than should be. I hope to use the correct ones on the upper surfaces and the tighter ones on the lower and hope I have enough as the upper and lower outer wing sections are just covered in raised staggered double row rivets. I have never considered myself a 'Rivet counter' as we normally reserve this turn of phrase for those we consider good at modelling but rather nit picking of other's efforts whilst praising their own. That is not me - I have valid complaints about a company's lack of effort in such a noticeable scale but I have said not one bad thing about the finished kits I have seen without the needed details. No my friends I am a 'Rivetlayer' - like a bricklayer only with more expensive products - making the whole build cost me a fortune! Anyway I have finished basically the fuselage and centre section and I need now to cover this with Future or spray gloss and let dry before I can move on to the outer wing sections. I did not put on the fuselage rear any primer as the amount of handling would have badly damaged the paint surface by now so slowly slowly bit by bit - i will get there eventually! hope you enjoyed my sermon!

With the wings getting there it was time to try out the new Dart nacelles for the HS780 designed and printed for us by Ladislav Hančar:
 

 
HS780 on the left, HS748 on the right - quite a difference!
 

 
HS780 nacelle prints - port side upper and lower removed from supports - starboard side as supplied.
 
If you're not used to working with 3D Printed resin parts then all I can advise is take your time, use really sharp/fine side cutters, work methodically from one support to the next - and, whatever you do, don't drop them on a hard surface as they will probably shatter! Clean off any residual 'nubs' with a fresh scalpel blade and then true the surface with a good quality file.
 
Ladislav tweaked the fit of the original HS748 components to fit the One Man Model printed parts from photographs I took - and has got the fit incredibly close!
 

 
In these images the parts are just approximately placed in position on the wings - very pleased!
 

 

 

 

 
Some fettling will be needed, but nowhere near as much as I'd been expecting. 
 
Onwards and forwards...
 
Iain

Happy to see the Kate materialise 

Happy to see the Kate materialise