Hubert Boillot

Here’s a few scenes from my Tamiya Netz conversion in progress
 
Aires main well

 
Mini Craft Collection seat


Tamiya pit, Aires Glareshield, scratch IP, Quinta details.
The Aires pit is actually atrocious. The entire thing sits way too far aft.


Vertical fin modified with Hasegawa fin base and Quick Boost flare dispensers 


Aft deck A model details/Archer rivets






MCC canopy internals


Bandit Resin Factory captive AIM-9


Flight Line Resin ACMI pod

 
Scratch IP with TopAces configuration. Set on Aires pit..which I did not use. Craptastic.

 
Final result there…minus HUD obviously

 
cheers
Pigfighter

She certainly looks like a Mustang, in every aspect!
And I have achieved far less in far longer time  …
So, con gratulations are definitely the order of the day 👏🍾🎉
Hubert

Last evening and today is when I got to enjoy the fruits of my two-year labor.  Buckle up - I have many pictures to show.
 
First, before I proceeded to fuselage join, there was the exterior rear-view mirror, and the pitot mast.  These items were easy to Rhino design, and printing was straight forward.  Take a look:
 
 
 

 
I am pleased with the mirror, and it is not as wimpy as the mirrors I made for Miss Velma quite a while back.  Never-the-less it is just one more item that begs to be broken off.  This model is just "festooned" with fragile parts that are easily broken off.  Handling it presents the constant risk of breaking something.  It's nerve-racking.  When done, I will display it and leave it alone!  BTW, you are going to see in all these pictures that the Malcolm hood is in various positions.  I do that just to brag.  I am so proud that the hood can move, I just have to show it off. 🥰
 
And speaking of fragile parts that beg to be broken off - the pitot mast:
 
 
 
3D printed of course.  The early P-51's had a long mast like you see here.  The -D has a much shorter mast.  Why?  
 
And then - I just flat ran out of things to do before fuselage join.  So fuselage join:
 

 
What a huge Mustang!  Look how it dominates my messy modeling table.  It bumps up against everything - my foam wing tip protectors were vital!  My heart was racing.  I was careful as a heart surgeon doing this join, and my 3D printed round support tool was helpful maintaining a (fairly stable at best) upright stance.  It was just such a position where the landing gear post breakage catastrophe occurred a month or so ago.  Perilous moments for sure, but no problem this time.  
 
Once joined, I could bond on the main gear wheels/tires with flats properly oriented.  And then it was on to the MLG strut fairings, or strut gear doors, which I have been patiently waiting for for a very long time.   They are part of the signature look of the P-51.  This is what I wanted:
 
  
 
My Rhino MLG door layout, with deadly accurate kinematic geometry, taken directly from the engineering drawings.  Needed to assure the gear doors are hanging as they should.  Here are the parts (for the LH side), which have been waiting a long time:
 

 
Installation of the RH door was straight forward, although very delicate work.  But the LH door - I had long ago broken off one of the clevis lugs inside the wing which position the top of the door.  So I had to jury-rig a couple of crude locator tools to help.  And here are the results:
 
 
 

 
The above picture includes the uber-scary repair of the LH gear strut, broken off last month in the most calamitous mistake of the entire build - a build that had plenty of calamities.  I can make out the repair, but I hope nobody else can.
 

 
I am happy with the gear strut fairings.  And for new-comers, this Mustang has mismatched tires.  On purpose.  Also - that last picture shows the results of the big rake angle adventure, which took up lots of oxygen in this thread, and was a many-days-long hand-wringing affair.  I think we have a correct rake angle here; let's hope it stays that way....  
 
Once those doors were installed, this model was 99% complete.  Lacking only these:
 
 
 
Those bomb racks are from Model Monkey - I ordered them along with the rudder pedals and WM seat quite a while back.  These racks are beautiful, and appear quite dimensionally accurate - I think I am going to use them, and you will see them installed next post.  I am undecided whether or not to make 75 gallon tanks for this kite.  
 
But for now - let me flood the zone shamelessly with Cripes a' Mighty pictures:
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
That, ladies and gentlemen, is a 3D printed 1/18 scale P-51B - a two-year effort.  She is not perfect by any means, but by god she is dimensionally correct in all respects.  Hope you like what you see.
 
Next post will be about the bomb racks, and then I think it will be time for an RFI.  Thanks all of you for supporting my effort on Cripes A Mighty.  

Denis, don’t forget there are enough nice pubs and places to watch in Bedfordshire around Old Warden to justify more than one day there … As long as it does not justify spending more time in all those places rather than the Shuttleworth, of course.
 
(I have a painful such experience with Ex-Ms Hubert in Krakow, where I ended sprinting though the Air Museum in 1 1/2 hour … and even then she felt it was too long ☹️ - oh well … there are reasons why she is Ms Ex …)
 
Hubert
 
 

Well not wanting to commit or make promises but it is nudging along believe it or not. See the other thread on VAPOUR WARE projects, so I am taking it very steady on announcements until I know that I have everything all in hand and can give a projected release date. The good news is that my CAD skills have and are improving and with that this and future kits will be better than originally planned. 
Sorry I am not making a huge commitment statement, but it is a project that I have personally wanted for many years.

Last night I asked my wife what she was burning for dinner?
It turned out to be my personal belongings ....

Although more expensive, I like some of the smart features of the Uniformation printers, like the way the resin vat is clipped rather than screwed-on, the easy release of the printing plate, the resin warming (useful in winter if your  printer is in a colder room), etc.
As for the printing parameters, my learning is that a slightly longer exposure time (we’re talking fractions of seconds) will save you time in the long run, with less failures. 
Achieving the right printing angle is a art in itself. A few degrees variation can make a huge difference (see the thread about the 3D-printed AD-5, where 2 degrees meant a successful or a failed print)
And a few more supports, tweaking the contact depth and angle, and making sure they are positioned in an easy-to-clean position, is also a good insurance against failed prints. My issue with failed prints is not only the waste of time and resin, it’s also the higher risk of damaging the FEP film when removing the parts which stuck to the film rather than the plate …And changing a FEL film is a PITA, whatever the make of printer …So, the less frequently, the better …
 
Hubert
 
PS: IMHO, the difference between 8K, 12K, 14K, 16K is not so much the pixel resolution (admittedly slightly better on some 12K and higher printers, but honestly not to the point where it makes a perceptible visual difference in 95 % of the prints) as the size of the printing plate, which brings giant leaps in flexibility and number of parts printed in the same time.

Another comment regarding CAD-software exports to the slicer software. .stl is not the only printable format. 
 
A slicer like Chitubox will also work with .obj files, which have the huge benefit of being « lighter » than .stl files (some of the .stl files I printed recently were close to 12 Gb in size, and opening a few of those in Chitubox will make it have a fit).
 
But my CAD-software (Alibre Design) produces .obj files which appeared strangely faceted in Chitubox. I thought it was a display artefact of Chitubox, but the facets appeared on the printed parts. I learned that day that Chitubox will show exactly the part as it is going to be printed. And that Alibre’s .obj exported files introduced some shape artefacts that were not linked to the part design. Maybe other softwares will have different results.
 
Hubert

The obj file type is an old format used by polygonal modelers like Lightwave, Modo, Blender, 3DSMax, Maya, and a host of other programs like that. All of those programs have their own file format but obj can be used as a file exchange format. And unfortunately, the faceting is what you'll get if there aren't enough polygons. I use Modo for my modeling but I sub-divide the models which adds polygons, and then export an stl file which adds polygons to open in the slicer program.

It's not the settings, 'suction', or the orientation, it's not enough supports. When I get back in the office tomorrow morning, I'll post a couple images showing support suggestions. 

I print hollow fuel tanks vertically on a regular basis, and never have a problem with suction. While you may have more blemishes to clean up, adding more supports will more than likely solve your problem. Start with a large support with at least a .35 Upper Diameter. From there, add 8 supports slightly above center around the circumference of the part, then another 8 above those, offset. On these, you can probably go down to .30 Upper diameter, or even .25 depending on the size of your part. Then add 4 a bit higher, and another 4 even higher and offset. This will provide more stability to the part as the build plate raises and lowers.  
 
 
 

 

 

Jumping ahead a bit, here's the painting and decals.  Started by painting all-over gloss black.

 
Then aluminum.

 
And then masked off the parts to remain NMF to paint the white.  I decided to do the "early" scheme of the two offered by the kit, so the vertical stab needs to remain bare metal.

 
After the white...

I painted some red at the top of the vertical stab rather than try and get the decals to wrap over the top smoothly.
 
The decals that came with the kit worked nicely.  Thin, easy to apply, snugged down well with just a bit of MicroSol.



 
Overall this was a fine kit.  Decals and some of the details, like the the resin exhausts, were high points.  Some real short-run kind of fit issues were low points.  If you tackle this one, expect to do a fair amount of filling/sanding/shaping to get things to line up.  But it's great to have a kit available of this classic of the early jet age.  According to planespotters.net, this aircraft (HB-IDA) was delivered to Swissair in 1960, and was operated by them until 1967.  So it overlapped with my existence on earth, but only by a couple of years!  

Denis, don’t forget there are enough nice pubs and places to watch in Bedfordshire around Old Warden to justify more than one day there … As long as it does not justify spending more time in all those places rather than the Shuttleworth, of course.
 
(I have a painful such experience with Ex-Ms Hubert in Krakow, where I ended sprinting though the Air Museum in 1 1/2 hour … and even then she felt it was too long ☹️ - oh well … there are reasons why she is Ms Ex …)
 
Hubert
 
 

Denis, don’t forget there are enough nice pubs and places to watch in Bedfordshire around Old Warden to justify more than one day there … As long as it does not justify spending more time in all those places rather than the Shuttleworth, of course.
 
(I have a painful such experience with Ex-Ms Hubert in Krakow, where I ended sprinting though the Air Museum in 1 1/2 hour … and even then she felt it was too long ☹️ - oh well … there are reasons why she is Ms Ex …)
 
Hubert
 
 

After shaking what’s left of my brain cells, FPW, Lukgraph and Kep Models, via Quinta Studio all have a 1/32 Wright J-5 on their catalogue. 
A visual check with the Akatombo’s engine should confirm whether they are similar-looking. Japan was known for copying Western designs, and the J-5 was THE resounding success among 9-cylinders radials of the early 30s, before the P&W R-985 Wasp Jr came into play …
 
Hubert

Denis, don’t forget there are enough nice pubs and places to watch in Bedfordshire around Old Warden to justify more than one day there … As long as it does not justify spending more time in all those places rather than the Shuttleworth, of course.
 
(I have a painful such experience with Ex-Ms Hubert in Krakow, where I ended sprinting though the Air Museum in 1 1/2 hour … and even then she felt it was too long ☹️ - oh well … there are reasons why she is Ms Ex …)
 
Hubert
 
 

Denis, don’t forget there are enough nice pubs and places to watch in Bedfordshire around Old Warden to justify more than one day there … As long as it does not justify spending more time in all those places rather than the Shuttleworth, of course.
 
(I have a painful such experience with Ex-Ms Hubert in Krakow, where I ended sprinting though the Air Museum in 1 1/2 hour … and even then she felt it was too long ☹️ - oh well … there are reasons why she is Ms Ex …)
 
Hubert
 
 

Hello all
I've pretty much completed my Academy 1/32 F-4E.
Finished in RAAF '70-'73 livery when Australia leased them, awaiting the F-111.
This puppy took quite a while to get right. The Academy kit is a rehash of the Revell, so, yeah, not good but currently the only game in town for a F-4E. 
The kit was little more than a usable basic shell, which was fine because that's what we do.
I figure it took 3 weeks alone to manufacture correctly seamless engine intakes.
I cut and drooped the ailerons, opened the engine cooling doors and ordered all the usual suspects from Reskit and Aires.
Let me know what you think
Cheers