Christoffer Lindelav

Good grief everyone - it's a plastic kit - no need for a bunch of adults that share the same interest in building replica miniatures to start throwing rocks at each other.
 
To those that are annoyed/cross/losing the will to live - take a step back from the keyboard and go build something...
 
I'm locking this down as it's heading nowhere - fast.
 
Iain

evening ladies...
 
been a while since I have had any time at the bench (as I have been working on a real beauty decal set for the new 1/24 Airfix Typhoon..) but today got a little bit done..
 
...can't believe it's a month since my last post - where does the time go?
 
...anyways..I had made some of the sidewall instrument panels and wanted to get the instruments kinda lined up now while they were still flat - so a scrap bit of card was used with the appropriate Luftwaffe 1/32 dials...
 

 
..then built it up into the console found in my references...
 

 
..also built up the sidewall and other areas...
 

 
..and a dry fit to get the depth right...
 

 
..I used some stiff brass as the basis for the upper panel above the pull-down seat...
 

 
..and again laid out the correct instruments to match my references..
 

 
..after carefully glazing the panels I had an assembly I was happy with...
 

 
..and another dry-fit - still got more glazing & work to do..
 

 

 

 
..next up the fold down seat...
 
until then TTFN
 
Peter

Great picture, Derek. That intake will be a sucker (pun intended).
 
 
If I remember correctly those underground shelters were the reason for the folding fin of the Viggen. The Draken would just about fit into those shelters with the fin unfolded.
 
I started "planking" the fuse structure. Here is a pic of the starbord side:
 

 
It's all a bit rough but after some(!) sanding it will look ok, or so I hope
 
Here is a look at the port side with all the planks in place and after the first two rounds of filling and sanding (with 180 grit wet sanding paper):
 

 
And a closer look at the cockpit section:
 

 
Still a lot of minor issues but the overall shape seems not too far off. Still a lot more filling and sanding to do, but as I said before, that's work I really enjoy (no kidding!).
 
Thanks for looking
 
Cheers
Rainer

Progression...
 

Commencement of blocking in kit nosewheel bay.
 

 

Forward fuselage outline template (Tracing paper copy pasted onto cardboard).
 

Plan forward fuselage shape template (Top view).
 

Lower view.
 

 

Above two pictures show how the forward fuselage looked against the template before any shaping commenced.
 

View of forward fuselage after reshaping. The upper nose, cockpit canopy sill and rear avionics hood all need reworking or building up in shape. 
 

As noted from the fuselage widening modification, the rear would be too wide. To correct this it was necessary to recut the fuselage down the centre line top and bottom and remove a wedge of material to restore the correct width. 
 

The lower side also required some slits to allow the fuselage to be physically manipulated to a better approximation of the template shape.

Adding a 'fiddly' bit!
 

 

 

The fuselage had to be approximately 2mm wider to match the plans; so, some new angled strips were prepared.
 

Strips glued into the first side.
 

It is now closer to the correct width. However; the rear end is now too wide, so I shall split this and correct it later (it actually need to be slightly narrower at the top than the bottom!).
 

The start of my outline templates for the forward cockpit section.
 

I have illustrated here roughly how much I have to widen and extend the cockpit windscreen area, which will be by approximately 1mm wider each side and forward by 7.5mm. Not only that, but I also have to increase the nose angle from the approximate area of the current nose radome joint back to the windscreen/canopy joint. I also have to raise the angle of the canopy frame from this same point aft to where it meets the hood (which itself also need to be adjusted in terms of width, length and angle). So, a lot of work needed in this area, but once completed it will be pretty close to the drawings.
 

I have indicated similar work needed on the nose leg bay. Remember, the fuselage has already been extended by 6.5mm and the wheel bay is still well short of the required length. Without correction, the kit wheel bay is 44.5mm in length (as well as 5mm too wide). Including the 6.5mm fuselage extension, it is 51mm long. According to my drawings, it should be exactly 60mm in length, so it is presently 14.5mm too short and is also needs moving aft bay 24mm - Good fun eh?
 
Derek

The butchery continues...
 

 

 

 

 
The nose will be extended by 6.5mm before I work on raising the cockpit and modifying the canopy frames and avionics cooling fairing.
 
I am calculating the centre fuselage extension pieces at present, which will be in the order of approximately 25.4mm (1" - 13.5mm at the front and 10.8mm at the back), not including the aft fuselage section which abuts the exhaust jet pipe.
 
Derek

Well that didn´t turn out the way I wanted it to.
 

Next hurdle was filling in the aperture left by the removal of the gun muzzle and fairing from the underside of the fuselage.
 

 

 

 

 
It now also gets a new nose job. I cut the nose radome cone vertically to match the fuselage. I had to file away the kit fuselage internal bulkhead as the nose will later be cut away at the correct fuselage mating point.
 

 

 

 

 
As can be seen, the nose section will require both extending aft and raising to match the plans...stay tuned.
 
Derek

Thanks, Kev. I used to be an aerospace engineer in my former life, so it seems that at least some of my abilities are still tugged away somewhere in my old brain...
 
I managed to do some work on the fuselage section. Here is what I have so far:
 

 

 

 
This is the port side of the fuselage center section (the engine compartment). If you think it's a bit rough then that's because, ah... it's a bit rough. I'm not putting much effort in the structure (in terms of beauty) as nothing will be seen anyway once the skin panels are in place... But it is sturdy!
 
Well, the best laid plans... yada yada yada. It turned out that some of the frames, to be honest, most actually, had to be modified to result in smooth transitions between them. You may or may not have noticed, that I have not yet taken care of the main u/c bay which will take up about three quarters of the lower part of this fuselage section. I first want to get the overall shape as correct as possible before I tackle the gear bay. However, that will require some serious surgery...
 
The base plate on which the frames are mounted, has been pre-cut so I can break out the center part (with the red letters on it) to make room for the engine. But that will have to wait until the skin panels are on and sanded into shape and the starboard side of this section is in the same state of construction.
 
Thanks for looking
Rainer

The Griffin stirs...
 
Started filling in the voids with plastic card at the nose section, which will require additinal extention and rework later. I have chosen plastic card of the same average thickness of the kit plastic (which varies from 0.73mm to 1.34mm thickness - the plastic card is 1.06mm thick). In order to add strength to the bond (I have intially used normal polystyrene glue for this as it provides a strong joint), I have bevelled all mating faces to scarf the plastic card into the kit mouldings - the photographs are pretty self explanatory.
 

First stage. The nose whell bay and cockpit glare shield have been cut away as these items will eventually require relocation and replacement at a later stage.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Looking good there Derek , I am following this one as well. I don´t have that much time to hang around on the forums lately, am doing a full size scratch build of a new kitchen in my house at the moment... These old houses need a lot of TLC...
/Stoffe

I love the amount of effort you are putting into this and I really hope you will reach the finish line with this. Did I tell you that I really like it when non-Swedes are into Swedish aircraft? I wish you all the best.
/Stoffe

I can only agree, it sure looks great. I have this kit in the stash with Eduard goodies to go with it. I´ve been cutting my own masks for some years now in vinyl and have never experienced problems with the adhesive leaving residue on the surface. There´s only one sheet left in my stash now so I guess i should be careful when getting new ones and try them on a scrap surface first. Or as you mentioned trying some Kabuki sheets instead?
/Stoffe

Thanks Matt. 
 
First of the building progress started today/tonight. Although I had to cut it short since I had no Aotake or IJN pit green mix yet.
 
However, I did get a nice start on chopping everything up for the MDC conversion. There are 3 main chops; the lower wing, the rear fuselage, and the spine.
The spine was the easiest cut (just 1) and the fit of the MDC parts was great and 2nd only to the outstanding fit of the Tamiya parts -
 

 
 
 
 
The rear MDC fuselage part is just resting in place to assess fit atm, but is still not too bad -
 

 

 
 
 
 
Next up, was the major cut(s) of the conversion, the lower wing. This involved cutting off the main center forward section of the OOB Tamiya wing. This went off with not as much pain as I had though it might.
 
First I used Dymo tape to mark the cuts, then used razor saw and my new English/Swann-Morton blade to cut out the section, I then used some plastic strip to line the backside of the demark and strengthen things.
Clamped things in place -
 

 
 
 
 
Followed by bracing the demark with strip, and saturating w/CA -
 

 
 
 
 
Overall things still fit very well -
 

 

 
 
 
 
In a "Russ-Ville" moment, I cut the major assemblies from the sprue-trees and taped things together for a look-see -
 

 

 
 
 
 
Lastly for the night I smoothed the joint a bit on the lower wing after masking things off w/Dymo tape. Then took some Mr. Surfacer 500 that I finally found at SB.com and coated the joint between the OOB Tamiya wing and the MDC part -
 

 
 More this coming week, as its my B-day week + Labor day so have quite a few days in a row starting on Wed to get some good bench time in on this thing.
 
Thanks for stoppin in on me!

More engine work...
 

Shock cone support vanes shaped and attached.
 

The vanes were adjusted to allow the cone to fit flush. This was mainly guess work to figure out the correct distance and angles to sand them, and a one of the vanes had a slight gap between it and the internal cone face.
 

This gap issue was addressed by coating the internal face of the cone with watered down PVA glue to act as a non-stick barrier. Once this was sufficiently dry, my usual gloup of CA and talcum powder was employed (in a thick consistency) to all three shock cone vanes where they met the internal face of the cone surface.
 

And this is how it looks once released. I will now have to restore the vanes back to their original shape and clean up the shock cone. The vanes should now be a nice snug fit into the cone assembly.
 

Engine intake centre body supports have been shaped to the correct radius curvature at the the ends.
 

Quick coat of Mr Surfacer to see what corrections may be required. After a little sanding here and there, I'll strip the paint off it and respray it before it is painted in its final colours.
 

The jetpipe has been thinned and tapered at the end to a more realistic thickness.
 

A start has been made by cutting out the jetpipe areas from the plan and keel profiles.
 

This image shows that things are pretty well lined up on the plan profile keel (its always nice when the plan and the action come together!).
 

similar view of the side profile keel. At this stage the jetpipe area has only been cut out roughly and needs sanding/filing to the finished size.
 
Derek

This is how I square up my tube ends:
 

I use a vee block and a sanding stick.
 

Both ends sanded square to the required length.
 

After some trial and error, I managed to determine the diameter and size needed to produce an acceptable cone-shaped tracing paper template for me to make my engine turbine exhaust shroud from.
 

Apologies for the poor picture quality. The tracing paper template was used as a guide for the size and shape of the cone which was transferred directly onto 0.5mm plastic card. There is a reason for it being completely circular in shape (even though I will be using approximately 1/4 of it for my cone) which will become evident later.
 

Comparison of template and plastic cone in developed from.
 

Using a variety of differing small diameter tools (scribers, paint brush handles, etc) I manually manipulated the plastic sheet into a cone shape. I sanded the joining edges to provide a generous bevelled edge which would provide a larger (and stronger) joint area.
 

The outside of the cone has been glued together and sanded smooth (the inside has not been sanded yet). The next stage is to form another cone (from the remaining segment on the plastic card) and attach it to the outside of the pictured cone - this will add thickness, strength and stability to the finished cone.
 

Whilst I was making the cone, the exhaust jetpipe tube was soaking in water with ammonia cleaning fluid added to it to remove all traces of pertrolium jelly (Vaseline) and PVA glue - it worked very effectively indeed! After a little sanding and polishing of the bore of the jetpipe, it looks like this (not perfect by any means, you can see where parts of the seam had split, but it will most likely pass muster when some paint is applied to it).
 
Derek

Small update on the "Bränsletank".
 
I glued the skin panels to the frames, filled the seams with auto body filler and then did some serious sanding. Here is the Bränsletank after a first, thick coat of Mr. Surfacer 500 and then some more sanding:
 

 
I hope, the knife is enough of a scale reference.
 
At the moment the tank weighs in at 41 grams. That may not sound a lot, but it gets me thinking. I will have to initiate a serious weight reduction program for the Viggen (heck, this happens in the development of each and every new airplane, but not in such an early stage...).
 
Anyway, some more sanding, especially at the rear end, and then it's time for primer and the weld seams (I'll try EricG's method of using Mr. Surfacer 500). The fins should be easy. But I need more information on the pylon. So far I have no pics or whatsoever. So any link,s, photos, drawings of the centerline pylon of the JA-37 would be very much appreciated.
 
Thanks for looking.
 
Rainer

A little more WIP. The cntre of the turbine disk has been drilled out and a disc of plastic fashioned to act as a mounting platform for the shock cone assembly.
 

The intake nose cone has also bee shaped at the front and a cooling hole made from a plastic lolly stick tube, kit sprue plug and another plastic tube insert - the whole superglued to the front of the cone and sanded to shape.
 

Another view.
 

So, I needed a suitable tube for the long jet pipe with an 8mm internal diameter. The only problem is that I could not find anything to hand that was suitable for the task. The solution, form my own from Milliput. This is an experiment, so at the start of this process I had absolutely no idea whether the plan would work or not...all part of the fun .
 
I found that my aluminium modelling knife handle was a fraction under 8mm in diameter, and more importantly, long enough for the task. I started by working out how long I needed it and marking this out a little oversize with two windings of masking tape on the handle. This served two purposes. the first was to made two neat ends. The second was to build up the masking tape windings to a sufficient amount that they became my depth guage for the eventual wall thickness of my Milliput tube.
 
I mixed some PVA wood workers glue with water and applied this as a non-stick layer to my handle. Once dry, I applied a layer of vaseline petrolium jelly to the surface as additional non-stick lubricant. I mixed a good sized ball of Milliput from my 5 year old pack of Milliput and squeezed it around my handle then rolled it loke a rolling pin to create an reasonably even layer then left it to harden overnight. If it works I will end up with a thin seamless tube or if it fails, I will gain a new illiput grip for my handle!
 

Here it is after I have filed and sanded it down to the masking tape and removed the masking tape from the handle. Now is the crunch time...Will it work or not?
 

I could not budge it by hand at all, so I had no recourse but to use the very risky technique of having to use brute force to shift it. I put one end of the handle in a vice and using a pair of pliers clamped around the Milliput tube cushioned by a thick sheet of rubber (and a few prayers) I applied a torque force to it to break it from its hold on the handle. A audible crack ensued and the tube moved. Once I had removed it from the handle I could see that the seam where the Milliput joined had come apart. I applied a layer of superglue to this seam on the outside of the tube and sanded it smooth. What you now see id the end result. I still have to clean the inside of the tube and shorten it to the correct length and sand the ends square, but at least I noe have the jetpipe that I need.
 

End view of the Milliput jetpipe tube showing how thin I ended up sanding it. The masking tape diameter was approximately 9.2mm, so I thought that it would be about 1mm wall thickness when finished, it actually came out about 0.6mm in the end.
 

I decided that I needed an engine casing around my compressor fan to mount my five nose cone support frames onto as well as reducing the fan diameter (I know that it is actually a turbo jet and not a by-pass fan engine, but forgive the errant description). To do this I found an old till receipt roll plastic inner which matched the outside diameter of my fan, so I recduced the diameter of the compessor disk to match the internal diameter of the till roll tube after first cutting a slice off it.
 

So, this is where we are at the moment with the engine cold and hot ends.
 
Did the jetpipe tube experiment work? My conclusion is yes and no. I did not achieve the seamless tube that I wanted, however, I now have a jet pipe that is the correct size and will be satisfactory once I have cleaned it up and made it the correct length. With some more thought and development, this method might work for my intakes as well. If I were to make another one tomorrow, what would I do differently?
 
I would:
 
a. Apply more masking tape (Make it 2mm larger than the ID size)
b. Apply at least two or three coats of watered down PVA glue to prvide more if a non-stick cushion between the Milliput and the handle and apply more petrolium jelly.
c. Once my Milliput is mixed, put a hole in it (like a donut), insert the hndle through the hole and squeeze the Milliput into place - this should avoid any seams being formed in the final tube.
 
When I said that this GB is all about pushing your own limits and developing skills and techniques that we can all learn from (myself included here), this is exactly the sort of challenges that I expected and wanted to share with you all.
 
Derek

Ive been working on this for just over a week now. Its been fun but also a little bit of a slog at times. Im not going to waffle on so heres some photos.
 








 
Now the reason im thinking of the Texas Raiders decals is because no B-17 in the war was called Texas Raiders , so in some sense it is fictitious , but it also commemorates both the Wartime crews and the crews that keep them flying today.

Yes there are many Swedish and German words that are similar and there are many Swedish and English words that are similar as well, believe it or not. Great work on bränsletanken by the way. And Rainer, I think your English is better than mine. Derek, you really should learn Swedish I think. Then you can communicate with 9 million people restricted to a very small spot on this planet...
/Stoffe

That seemed to work so here are some more piccies:
 

 

 

 

 
This is the structure of one of the booms:
 

 
These are all the pics I have at Photobucket at the moment, I am sitting at work right now so I don´t have access to my own computer.
Short story about the build: Started this in 2009 with the fuse and have been working on and off (mostly off) on it since then. I am planning to make a master of this and my first intention was to cast it in resin but that is quite expensive as i understand? An option would be to cast it in fibreglass reinforced epoxy which I have previous experience in. Well I have to get back to work but if anyone is interested I can tell you more later.
/Stoffe

Hello Derek
Regarding the J21 I am having a dream of making a model out of that one but to be honest it´s a huge task I think. The first step is to actually complete the master and then we´ll see if it´s gonna be a one-off just for me or if I have the courage and time to make a model of it.
Carry on with your Lilldrake
/Stoffe

That seemed to work so here are some more piccies:
 

 

 

 

 
This is the structure of one of the booms:
 

 
These are all the pics I have at Photobucket at the moment, I am sitting at work right now so I don´t have access to my own computer.
Short story about the build: Started this in 2009 with the fuse and have been working on and off (mostly off) on it since then. I am planning to make a master of this and my first intention was to cast it in resin but that is quite expensive as i understand? An option would be to cast it in fibreglass reinforced epoxy which I have previous experience in. Well I have to get back to work but if anyone is interested I can tell you more later.
/Stoffe

That seemed to work so here are some more piccies:
 

 

 

 

 
This is the structure of one of the booms:
 

 
These are all the pics I have at Photobucket at the moment, I am sitting at work right now so I don´t have access to my own computer.
Short story about the build: Started this in 2009 with the fuse and have been working on and off (mostly off) on it since then. I am planning to make a master of this and my first intention was to cast it in resin but that is quite expensive as i understand? An option would be to cast it in fibreglass reinforced epoxy which I have previous experience in. Well I have to get back to work but if anyone is interested I can tell you more later.
/Stoffe

No worries Tim. BTW I didn´t intend to be a smart*ss correcting you, I just wanted to be informative. "Vördnadsbjudande" is not a word I have ever used anyway, it´s not that common in Swedish vocabulary. And yes, when it comes to making all those decals for the stencilling you will have a crash course in Swedish!
/Stoffe