Christoffer Lindelav

That's all for tonight !
cheers
Fanch :-)

Excellent weathering!
 
Kev

from the box !

hello again folks
 
Having finished my 1/18 Spitfire XIV, I am hooked on the scale as it allows me to go nuts on detailing and get a scale effect through skinning with metal, so after a bit of deliberation I have settled on my next victim...
 
...you don't see many of these, in fact none in large scale (yet) and I like UK prop aircraft so I settled on the Fairey Firefly - they don't come in natural metal finishes which I like as it shows off the metalwork, so the nearest I could find is this bird a TT5 VX376 seen on 29th Feb 1956 - Pilot: S/Lt Mike Thorne, Observer: Lt Jones, Duty: Townsville to Cairns & target towing for the 1st Frigate Squadron...
 

 
..it is near enough NMF for me, this one, sister ship VX388 is in Steve Long's care in Oz and shows the sort of anodised looking finish - it is probably paint, but either way I still think I can work with it, and if worst come to worst I will just paint it . I may well do VX388 as you can't have better references than a real, and more importantly unrestored example..
 

 
..the first step in any project like this is good plans. I intend to scratchbuild it using traditional methods so a good outline & section plan is a must. I found some fantastic 3 views with sections by Jumpei Temma whom I trust as I used his work on my 1/24 F7F Tigercat...
 

 
..I had these scaled to 1/18 - here seen with my laptop - as you can see she is a big girl - 64cm span and about a third bigger than my Spit... I have two more sheets not shown that detail the undersurfaces & the fuselage & sections...
 

 
..the next step is getting repetitive strain injury by right click & saving every image on the internet I can find - some are real quality shots like this of VX388 - I can reproduce everything you see here, but cut some corners as will be seen..
 

 
..once references have been started I can start to work up a Photo-Etch sheet for the model - I did thsi for my Spit and F7F and it means many, many parts that would be difficult or time consuming to make can be 'drawn' in at about 5 - 10 minutes an item - some are obviously more complicated, but simple things like hatches, brackets, instruments, radiators all sorts of stuff can be made.
 
It just takes a bit of basic PC skills with a drawing program like CorelDraw (subscription @£22 a month, drop in & drop out whenever you need it) - I learned all I know with this and Rhino 3D modelling from Youtube videos - it really is straightforward.. making a PE fret has a couple of rules I may well do a quick tutorial on, but basically you just draw things in layers - things you want full thickness & things you want part etched - anywhere you can see through is just dissolved away. You also need to tag things to a frame so they don't just float away on theor own..
 
..so here is a bulkhead where I have started to trace it's outline and add detail to.. anything in blue is half etched - that is to say it disolves away half the thickness of the sheet, anything in yellow is full thickness - the metal is left untouched.. you can see I set the shapes to be transparent so I can see what is going on in the original pic - it is just like tracing...
 

 
..while this kick-off post doesn't have any actual building yet, I have spent about a week so far drawing up structures & components that will be used later on..
 
..for example the instrument panel - there are two as one is a backplate the detailed one fits onto, as they are copies of each other they always fit perfectly
 

 
..lots of assorted parts including throttle & prop controls, compass mount and loads of internal / external hatches & brackets..
 

 
..the Observers station - bulkheads & surrounding structure..
 

 
..the pilot's bulkhead is actually three layers of structure to get the best level of base detail before all the framework is added...
 

 
..another cheat for complicated or uniform parts when scratchbuilding or converting is 3D modelling - this is a wheel from my Spitfire done on Rhino -again a 3 month trial is available with the software which is enough to learn the basics, and get a few parts done - I will likely repurpose this for the Firefly as it has four cut-outs in the middle not 3 and has block tread not diamonds, but wheels & the prop spinner are pretty straightforward parts to design using a 'revolve' surface tool..
 

 
so that's it for day one - I think it's about a 2 year build and it is an aircraft I think will really have presence when completed. I am always looking for close up internal reference pics, or drawings so please, if you find anything drop it in here or PM me
 
I look forward to your company on the way, and while it is not as beautiful as a low back Griffon Spitfire, I hope it is engaging enough to keep us entertained
 
TTFN
Peter

Thanks guys
 
 
I tried to improve the plug. First I gave it a coat of Mr. Surfacer 1000 and sanded it smooth to get rid of some imperfections. Then it was dipped several times into "Future" to give the plug a shiny surface.
 
Unfortunately, the transparent vacuform part now sticked so much on the plug, that I couldn't remove it without damaging the clear part. To prevent damage to the original plug, I made a resin copy of the plug. Nevertheless, I couldn't pull the clear nose from the resin plug after vacuforming. After some try and error, I finally put the resin plug after vacuforming into the freezer, et voila: The plug could be easily removed   I can just assume that the resin plug shrinks more than the clear part when frozen.
 

 
 
I still have to make a nose with a thicker clear material, to geht a better junction between the nose and fuselage.
 
 

 
 
Question to the vacuform experts: I clear styrene suitable for vacuum forming? Until now, I use PET, but maybe styrene could be better glued, and puttied/sanded at the junction between the nose and fuselage?
 
Cheers
Alex

This is my first post in the LSP forum.
I will start by greeting all forum members.
Pleas find Below the very first models that I would like to present in the forum.
They are made without any additional elements straight out the box.

Set: Su-25 Frogfoot Trumpeter 1:32
Plane: Su-25M1 from Ukraine Air Force
Painting: Sikkens
Decal: Foxbot FBOT32001
Pitot Tubes: Master

Hello,
 
the finished chassis .... painted and ready for weathering
 

 

 

 

+1!/Stoffe

Hi guys,
 
some minor progress on the Viggen.
 
I installed the rudder actuator fairings. There is a large one on the left side and a smaller one on the right side of the vertical stab. Here are some pics:
 

 

 

 

 
Obviously there is some clean-up needed to remove glue residues, but I'm fairly happy with those fairings.
 
I also cut up the air intakes and prepared them for skinning with aluminium sheet:
 

 
Some more sanding and I can start the skinning.
 
Here is a view of the compressor face as it would appear when seen from the front of the intake. The inner surface of the intake is not in place yet.
 

 
Skinning those intakes will be a bear. I'm still not sure how I will tackle that. We'll see.
 
Thanks for looking.
 
Cheers
Rainer

Since finding foiling, I have found all you have to do is not clear them after burnishing. Especially if one grains the foil, it oxidizes and takes on a duller hue as time goes, just like the real thing. 

And now fully rigged with the exception of the control lines to the ailerons, and the one lines connecting upper with lower ailerons:

 
 
At this point, I have not fixed the broken aileron roundel on the lower wing that broke during application:
 
 

 

 
 
At this point i was thinking that I had about 90min of work remaining - attach final ailerons, rig those, and finish attaching the Lewis guns.  Until Cartograf karma struck.
Final aileron to glue on: the PC12 color didn't perfectly match, and the roundel didn't line up with the wing roundel. A bit of grumbling, but I determined the best fix was to repaint the aileron PC10 with a different roundel decal and make it look as a replacement component on the plane:
 

 
 
The Cartograf hassle at this point was that the low tack masking vinyl I used (vertically in the aileron channel) decided to come down and stick to a portion of the wing roundel decal. Lifted a large chunk of red and white decal that had been sealed under two clearcoats. I was lucky that my decals did not crumble in the water like another builder also working on the kit, but I did have them start breaking when applying them. These decals would not respond to Microsol and barely responded to Solvaset - very different from Cartograf decals that I'm used to.  I had ended up using a hair dryer to get the decals to snuggle down onto the wings.  Turns out they have barely adhered to the wings at all.
 
After a long string of very colorful language, I realized other roundels on the decal sheet were the same size and cut a patch to cover the removed chunk.  ...Only to find out how translucent the damn white is on the decals!  So here's how it looks right now, Iin a way worse before I patched the decal on the wing.  Need to get a new set of decals and strip this off completely... but even with this annoyance, I've thoroughly enjoyed this build!  
 

Tail surfaces have been painted instead of using kit decals. A mix of Drooling Bulldog and Mr Paint colors. Flexible gun mount details removed from underside of top wing, rib tape from a rejected tester of Aviattic rib tape applied. I ended up doing a double layer of rib tapes as they're barely visible under even a thin coat of paint (hence, rejected sample - product still in development) 

 
Alright, now it's looking like a plane!

 
PC-12 (Mr Paint) is on

 
First decals on as well. Struts painted in the same manner as the interior wood areas.

 
Double Gun Mount: Copying pictures of the mount from the restored aircraft in the Imperial War Museum, here's the gun setup using an extra Lewis from my DH.9 kit, note that the front mounting rods are still to be fabricated.  Taurus hex nuts used to cap off the rods on the outside of the guns. 

 

 
Cabane strut rigging: First time I've ever used the flat elastic (made by Prym) for rigging, and I'm immediately impressed. much better to work with than EZ Line. 

 
Rigging the evil little Acorn: I experimented a few times with the best way to rig this, and the approach I ended up using was to drill an X in the piece using a #77 drill bit. Thread first elastic line through, and then push the 2nd line through with a #80 drill bit. Still very fiddly, but less difficult than other methods I tried first.

 

OK, 
 
Proof of concept is complete. I have the patience and skill to build large scale planes from scratch. So without pause, I'm back at it with the Bearcat. It's not exactly starting today but it has now moved into #1 in the queue , so let's "Get it on". There is some history in other threads, some of which crashed due to the Photobucket hosting issues, but  I'm just going to start fresh here with this thread and take it from here.  To recap: I have done a considerable amount of work on the engine and landing gear using 3D designs I made  so much of that is already behind me. I'm actually going to build the fuselage conventionally and not using 3D printing.  So here's progress today getting that work underway. I really love doing this part quite a bit and have no regrets tossing the 3D work I did do in the bin. That's hobby birchwood (mostly used for R/C planes).  The paper bulkheads in the pic will soon be made from birch too and then glued to the fuselage per the plan. I have some hi density foam I got online using the method that Ben "Starfighter" used for his C2A Greyhound and I have hopes that will work out better than my old method (tons of Magic Sculpt that takes a lifetime to sand) .
 
Wish me luck.  Done by Xmas??? 
 
 
 

Hello,
 
the bulldozer is - I think - finished. All parts put together, lights added (etched parts), etched wipers added ... then some final pipework at the riper added.
 
The base made of carton, wood filler... then painted in black and brown.... then soil from the garden, some earth, sand, plants.... and some pigments to give it the final color .... 
 
The Caterpillar was soiled with pigments and a bit of filler .... then soot was added with black pigments, some bare iron with metal pigments on the tracks, shield, ripper, grips and steps as well as at the chassis ....
 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 
I think that's it .... maybe some additional details on the diorama ... maybe a cat or a bird... or a white/red painted pole ...... let's see.... 
 
Cheers
Micha

Hello,
 
and one more Soviet excavator ... some resin parts, some wire .... 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Cheers
 
Michael
 

Cheers martin. I am seeing your work and its super.....

Did not know that the trumpeter kit has so many boo boo....really skillfull n motivating work u got going....

As for me its just mainly obb as long it looks like a mig 29 will be happy

been busy with life and very minimal work done....the airframe is taking place.....i think i am quite close to painting this beast....dunno how i am going to do it do.....but next joint clean ups and finalize the airframe....

fitting is effey at parts and super in some areas....



More pics when significant changes are present

Cheers guys
Rgds

G'day Gents,
 
here is a small update on the Jaktviggen. Not much to show, but I had some success in forming the rudder actuator fairing from sheet aluminum. That worked really well.
 
I started with a makeshift female mould and a male former:
 

 
The male former looks quite awful, but that's because it's been used twice already when this pic was taken. The aluminium left some nasty black residue on the former.
 
I place a some sheet aluminium on the female mould and then stick that together with the male former in a vise. some brute force on my behalf then does the job:
 

 
And here is the result fresh from the press:
 

 
Fwd is to the right. There are some wrinkles at the bottom, but they are taken care of by some sanding, nothing to worry about.
 
Here is the fairing after some clean-up:
 

 
I'm quite happy with the result. Here it is on the vertical stabilizer:
 

 
The bottom doesn't conform to the airfoil of the stabilizer yet, but again, that's not a big deal. The fairing is still way too long. But it will be cut approximately at the dotted red line. The rear part then slides into the forward part, as is the case on the real deal. The fairing will then line up with the rudder trailing edge.
 
That's it for today.
 
Thanks for looking!
 
 
Cheers
Rainer

Second installment:
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGN5QeqNLBU
 
Paul

HI guys I have reworked my griffin conversions after reading the feedback and hope that they are more accurate and would like any more feedback . Jim

Hi Elgar I liked your article and your constructive critism of my MKXII conversion , you are correct the cowl is at least 5mm to short , hands up guilty as charged .... there are two reasons for the error the first was scaling up 1/72 drawings  ,as it turns out the were about a couple of mm short the other is that the resin I was using has also caused the shrinkage of the cowl by another couple of mm .
I have rebuilt the MKXIV cowl to the correct size and will rework the MKXII next week to the correct dimensions ,I have also reworked and reshaped the rocker covers so no overhang . I am now using a different resin which has no shrinkage problem . I assume that you have one of my cowls ,if you send me your address I will send you a replacement as soon as I have them available .
This offer also stands for other people who purchased my conversion kit . regards Jim .

You guys simply do not know all the facts. Revell's 1/32 Me109 is a highly accurate model of the Me-109 as produced for the Vulgarian Air Force. Revell had excellent plans of the Nazi plane but one of the Vulgarian agents snuck in and substituted the plans of the Vulgarian version and stole the real plans.
Why? It was a good way of getting the real plans of the Nazi 109. Also was a good training mission for our young agents and operatives. Worked pretty good, right?
Yrs trly,
Kleinschmitte von Shtinkfinger
Director, Vulgarian Secret Service.

A couple of close-up photo's...
 

 

 

 

 

A Paper Propeller

Back in 2009 when Wingnutwings released their first kits I was inspired to build their LVG C.VI kit. At the time I puzzled how to re-create the multi-colored laminated wood propeller. Keeping the lamination lines straight when viewed from the side makes painting them very difficult. Eventually I decided to laminate different colored sheets of wood together and carve my own prop. This worked at recreating the lamination pattern but I was never really satisfied with this method. When viewed up close the grain pattern of the wood looks out of scale and creating the very thin pieces of wood needed involves a lot of work with the planer. (a tool that a lot of modelers probably don't have). Eight years later I have decided to try again for my build of the Wingnutwings Roland D.VI.
Reasoning that a sheet of paper is like a very thin piece of veneer I decided to make my laminations out of colored paper.
I got some brown and tan colored paper at the craft store and cut it into 1†by 4†strips. The paper I used took three strips to build up the thickness of one of the seven layers. 21 strips stacked up makes the full thickness of the prop in 1/32nd scale.
Next I ran a bead of super glue down the center of each strip and quickly stacked them up on the pad of a wood clamp. I tightened the clamp until the layers were nicely squished together and let it cure overnight. (there is a small fire hazard with super glue and organic matter you might want to leave the clamp outside while the glue cures). 
I traced the kit propeller onto the top of the paper stack and drilled a hole for the propeller shaft. 
Next I cut along the outline with a scroll saw.http:
Next I carved the taper into the blank. The stack of paper will carve a lot like wood so cut from the hub toward the tip. Think about the pressure of the tool pushing the layers together as you cut.
After you have the taper established, carve the twist into the blades. If the paper starts to shred, switch blades or use a little thin super glue to solidify the area you are working on. The paper can be filed and sanded like wood but pay attention to the grain so that you don't pull the laminations apart or tear out chunks of paper between the glue lines.
I sealed the prop with Tamiya clear tinted with a little clear orange.
top: a basswood prop I made back in 2009                                             bottom: a new paper propeller    

Now I know that I've been away for a little while AND also know that I'm a great starter but not necessarily a finisher. Something to do with my OCD I suspect. Lost some confidence with metallics and using the airbrush.
So to rectify this and as a kit build rather than modelling that requires fabricating my own parts, I happened upon this gem of a kit. The newly released and somewhat pricey Honda Africa Twin from Tamiya in 1/6 scale.
 
As an avid motorcyclist and collector of this scale, I decided to purchase it. I then went to he local fellas at the local Honda dealer who thought I was off my rocker for wanting to have a look and take a few pics of a real one- just to get the colours right.
 
Anyway here goes.
The first assembly is complete. Engine block and gear box with associated bits attached.
Whilst the mixfor the 'gold' coloured metallic is correct for both sides of the engine, the metalic colour of the engine case is better represented by alclad as a dark aluminium.
 

 
 

 

 
As a side note: The instructions for oil capacity adjacent to the filler are in Japanese and clearly readable. Not correct for an Australian model but as I said it's a kit build.
 
The engine is exquisitely represented and when compared to the real one, Tamiya have done it justice.
Whether it will be one of their iconic model, time will tell however, it ain't bad at all.

Great subject! Please do a SAAB Draaken and Viggen!!
Cheers
Alan