Jump to content

plane_mc

LSP_Members
  • Posts

    167
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    1

plane_mc last won the day on May 10 2017

plane_mc had the most liked content!

About plane_mc

  • Birthday 11/07/1963

Profile Information

  • Gender
    Male
  • Location
    USA, Florida

Recent Profile Visitors

1,196 profile views
  1. Thanks for the link to the video and congratulations on the plaques. I wish I would have known it was you who was filming the show. I was working the registration desk all day Saturday, I would have liked to have met you and talked to you. Mark
  2. That looks fantastic. That is inspiring me to get back to working on mine.
  3. Looking great. I am planning to finish mine in this scheme also.
  4. Thanks Brian. When I first started, I wasn't sure about leaving them open or closed, so I painted up everything inside. I then decided I was going to close them as I really like the clean lines of the aircraft without the panels open. I took it to an IPMS meeting and the car guys there told me to just hinge the panels, sounded easy at the time. That is what lead me to the path I have taken. Thanks Joel, I appreciate it.
  5. Finally!!!! I finally got the rear engine door support rods finished. I had several ideas on how to make them and of course none of those worked out. I ended up going with the same system I used for the front engine door support rods. I added magnets to the doors to hold the rods in place when the doors are closed. I also added magnets to the 2 bulkheads on either side of the engine. These hold the rods in the correct place when the doors are open. I drilled out the existing holes for the original plastic rods from the back side, being careful not to drill all the way through. This way I could insert and glue the magnets from the back side and just have a small hole in the front sides. And here is how it looks with the doors open and the support rods in place. Now that I have the engine doors all sorted out, I can finally finish painting the interior color and then get the parts glued on. Hopefully the progress will be quicker now that I have the major headaches sorted out. Thanks for looking.
  6. My newest addition is not a kit, but will definitely help me with my builds. I was shopping at my local BJ's Wholesale Club and found this light. I have been looking around for a while now but couldn't find one in my area for a decent price. This replaces an old fluorescent fixture that I had there previously. It puts out a lot of light. I am very happy with the purchase. Now I just need to get more bench time!
  7. Thanks Brian, I know the feeling, I have other kits that are begging me to build them. You will enjoy this one when you get to it. Thank you Jim. Thanks Joel. Thank you Jim. Thanks Kev, it is a nice kit of a unique bird.
  8. I knew I was going to need something to hold the doors closed. Because of the way the doors are shaped and where they are hinged, they want to hang open at the bottom. I decided to use magnets to hold them closed. I found some SMALL magnets on EBay and ordered them. There are 99 magnets in the stack and 1 single one on the right side. I used my Dremel and routed out openings for the magnets on the lower edges of the doors and glued them in being careful to make sure the polarity was correct. There is a slight overlap of the doors and the magnets seemed to work well. With the hinges figured out, I needed to figure out a way to hold the doors open when needed. I didn't want to just stick a rod in the opening while the doors were open, I wanted something that would stay attached. I decided to use the same music wire I used for the hinges and made the posts. I took a strand of wire and wrapped it around the music wire to make a loop. I then soldered that loop to the end of the music wire and cut it to length using the kit parts as a guide. I then took another strand of wire and looped it through the end of the rod and twisted it. I shaped a piece of 0.060†square rod and drilled out a hole in the end of it. This piece was glued to the door where the kit part was supposed to go. The twisted end of the wire was then glued in the hole, creating a hinge on the end of the rod. I routed out another place for a small magnet in the center of the door to hold the support rods in place while the doors are closed (I later glued a second magnet on top of the first to make the rods sit better). It wasn't until I actually put the doors on that I found out that the small magnets were not enough to hold the doors closed. I ended up using 2 bigger magnets I had in my stash. I wish they were a little smaller, but it is really hard to see them with the limited view when the doors are open. To hold the other end of the support rods, I glued another magnet in place where the kit support rod was supposed to go. I backed it with a small half-circle of styrene to stop the rod from going too far back. The rods sit on the magnets and hold the doors open solidly. I am now working on the door braces for the rear doors. They are a little different and I think I have them figured out, just need to find the time to sit down and do them. Thanks for looking.
  9. I'm back and have figured out the front engine doors. Because of the proximity of the engine to the doors, the same type of hinge I used on the rear doors would not work here. Besides, on the real Do 335, the front engine doors are hinged with piano type hinges. Here's what I came up with: The top edges of the doors were drilled so I could insert a piece of 0.020†music wire. I got a little sloppy with the drilling and busted out in a couple places, which required some patches. I will clean them up before painting. Next, I glued a small piece of styrene to the front piece (I don't know the official name of it) and drilled out an oversized hole/slot for the 0.020†wire to fit into. I also routed out a space on the firewall for the door to open up into and drilled a 0.023†hole for the other wire to go through. I found out that I also had to bevel the edge of the top center piece to make room for the doors to open. The engine door is then put in front pin first and then a piece of music wire is inserted through the firewall and into the back of the door. The doors now open and close easily. I also had to bevel the openings around the exhaust like I did on the rear doors to make them work smoothly. to be continued. . .
  10. This is the only one I could find with a "chick" in the cockpit. http://www.themodellingnews.com/2017/04/construction-guide-part-i-nico-builds.html
  11. I just got mine yesterday and I was thinking about that same scheme. I will be following this to get ideas for mine.
  12. I didn't get a picture of it, but at my local IPMS meeting last night one of the members of my club gave me a Guillow's F4U-4 3/4" = 1' Giant Scale kit for free. It appears to be complete. I haven't built a Guillow's kit since I was a kid. It looks to be challenging.
  13. Thanks Brian, I am sure you will enjoy the kit, it is really nice. Thanks Joel. Thank you Jim. Thank you Craig, I need to get back to the B-17. Thanks Kev. Thank you Troy, you will enjoy the kit. Thanks Fab. Thank you Alex.
  14. Now for the part that has been taking me a LONG time. I really like the clean lines of the aircraft without the doors open, but wanted to be able to see the engines from time to time. I debated about what to do to be able to have it both ways, but didn't just want to pop off the doors and have them sitting on the ground. For the rear engines doors, I took a trick from the car modelers and created some hinges out of 0.020†music wire held in place with some sheet styrene. It took a while to get the right bend in them to make them operate properly. Of course, after gluing them in place, I found out the top edge (hinged) of the door needed to be beveled on the inside to clear the fuselage when opening. It took a lot of scraping and cussing because of the hinge in the way, but I got them where they are working pretty smoothly. They will need to be tweaked just a little when I get the top piece glued to the fuselage. I have to paint the interior of the doors before I can glue the top piece to the fuselage. I am currently trying to figure out how to make the door braces workable so I can have them fold up against the door or in the fuselage when not in use. I am also working on the doors for the front engine, but they have to be done differently as the hinges like I used on the rear doors hit the engine when trying to close the doors. I have a design figured out, just not finished up yet. I will post pictures when I get it finished. I haven't looked at the bomb bay doors yet to see if I can hinge them too. I have company coming in for a visit, so it may be a few weeks before I get the next post up. Thanks for looking.
  15. Sorry it took so long to post again, I have been working slowly and steadily, I just haven't been able to get it posted. I got the wings put together with no issues. There are a couple of places that will need just a little putty. I decided to add some detail to the wing top gun camera. I drilled a hole where the “glass†area was and made up and inserted a camera from a piece of styrene rod drilled out and filled with Krystal Klear. I also added a lens made from some clear packaging material. (The glare is intentional on the 2nd picture to show the outer lens, it is clear.) Next I started working on the landing gear. I am using the kit landing gear with the Brassin resin wheels. There are quite a few ejector pin marks on the main gear door that needed to be filled. This was surprising as none of the other doors had ejector pin marks in them. I am also eliminating the brake line that is molded on the door, I am going to add a brake line later on. I noticed that the nose landing gear does not have a retraction strut. The hole is in the gear bay for it. I looked at the images/instructions for the A-1 version and it is included in that kit. I don't know why it was eliminated from the B-2 kit. I made a retraction strut assembly out of styrene tube, rod and sheet. It is not perfect, but close enough for me. I will be adding the hydraulic lines to all three landing gear retraction struts. I added the exhaust pipes and heat shields to the engines. Front: Rear: After taking the pictures, I noticed the seam lines I missed when cleaning up the exhaust. I can't believe I didn't see them until looking at the pictures. I got the lines cleaned up and now I just need to repaint them. to be continued. . .
×
×
  • Create New...