Hubert Boillot

Great kit
 

 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 
 
 

Got me this: the ultimate book on the mighty Mirage IV.
It is sold out since years and if you look for it on some famous auction sites, prices can go really high...
Hopefully I managed to get it for a reasonable price.
 

Uh Oh! It appears Wicket W. Warrick has been by here after a hearty dinner of some Endor berries and nuts.............................As the book says, everyone poops, even Ewoks! (I did place it in a more inconspicuous place so as not too offend TOO many people looking at it) 
 

 

 
 
 
 
 
Thats all for tonight gents and gent-ettes!  Its my B-Day, so Im taking a 1/2 day PTO at work and going home to continue working on the trooper.  Paint and decals for him up next!
 
Cheers,

thanks folks
 
a little more done..
 
I started to shape the rollover casting at the top of the 'A' frame behind the seat - just a chunk of brass shaped to a PE template I got from the drawing..
 

 
..and once it was finished it was added in place..
 

 
..also added some of the bigger bolts to the assembly - a few more to go..
 

 
..I used some 3.2mm 'U' shaped brass channel to form the fuselage longerons - the PE structures have been designed to fit into the channel. These were again bent from the scaled drawing with the kink in the lower one being done by slitting it. bending it, and soldering it back up..
 

 
..once I had the longerons made, I had to start thinking about a jig so I can assemble the sides - I used the drawings I made doing the PE and derived enough to set out some templates forwhere the longerons sit at front & rear. I also marked where the major fuselage stations are and will work this up into a proper jig..
 
it's just resting together for now..
 

 

 

 
..I think I need to do the sides as units so I can remove them and detail them otherwise it would be tricky to just work the whole coskpit up from this assembled state - I would be forever trying to reach inside & wll likely get frustrated
 
..it should serve useful to get everything lined up though..
 
TTFN
 
Peter

See what you are doing to us Peter ? We are starting discussing the accuracy of the rendition of a stencil on a 1/18 throttle quadrant
 
Hubert

Great work !
 
And yes, you need to solder this brass tubes frame
 
Hubert

See what you are doing to us Peter ? We are starting discussing the accuracy of the rendition of a stencil on a 1/18 throttle quadrant
 
Hubert

See what you are doing to us Peter ? We are starting discussing the accuracy of the rendition of a stencil on a 1/18 throttle quadrant
 
Hubert

That's truly an impressive array of colours there Brian! In the end I pretty much got what I needed through a combination of fishing weights in bleach and the egg shells. I certainly found that the heavy duty foil was much easier to work with when staining and gave more consistent results. I should probably have used the heavy foil on the large middle panel at  the rear, as the thinner foil was difficult to work over the contour.
 
Anyway, my first efforts at foiling have now been completed, except for the rear under fuselage strake / aerial panel. My effort to foil it went horribly wrong and I ended up stripping the Canadian grey panel on it as well, so it will have to wait until I break out the grey paint again, and re-foil it. For a first effort, I'm fairly pleased. There are still some bubbles to deal with, but nothing major. I found it to be much more satisfying than painting, which is probably the most important thing. Now I can clean all the foiling tools etc off my small patch of the table and get back to the cockpit end of the airframe. There's all the detail inside and around the canopies to do now, as well as painting the glare panel and the odd bits of Canadian grey which are required.
 
I have been pondering the stencils in particular which are to be scattered across the fuselage. I do not wish to clear coat the foil so I wonder how the foil practitioners out there (Brian in particular!) go about protecting the decals once they're on. I figure that I will have to trim as many of the decals as I can closely to the print to avoid any clear film, but this will be very difficult with the stencils. Which leads to a second question: how do you hide the film? I am contemplating putting clear on the panels containing stencils, but would rather not.
 
Anyway - a couple of photos of the fuselage as it is now. I think I will be putting some weathering on it, but I will not be polishing the foil. It's plenty shiny enough, except at the rear where it's not supposed to be. The patchwork effect and colours at the rear matches the several photos I have of the particular aircraft that I am doing. I did end up overspraying a small section of Alclad Jet Exhaust on the very rear as this shows as very dark grey on the photos. Apologies for the soft focus in the first shot - it was difficult to photograph in terrible lighting we have at the moment.
 

 

 

 
Thanks for looking.
 
Cheers,
 
Mike

The last few days, I've been busy with non-modeling-related things, but I received some usefull stuff:
 

 
In the meantime, the wings got some panel lines, and the nacelles got mounts for the engines (please ignore the strange color of the printing filament ). Into the mounts, I put some washers as wight. The mounts are highly inaccurate, but will be pretty invisible once the cowlings are put on.
 




 
Cheers
Alex

Hi Jay - thanks for stopping by - I have been following your 1/18 rebuilds attentively and they are in part behind the inspiration to 'go big'
 
Thanks very much for all the info and guidance - finding my way around the drawing library and all the vagaries of parts / model numbers and variability has been (and will be) a pretty daunting subject in itself. Aircorps actually posted a helpful 'how to read drawings' video which helped greatly in finding the parts up or down from the drawing you are in (so you can go from a bracket, to the bulkhead it sits on, to the structure the bulkhead is part of..) but even so unless it is labelled, finding the right one in most cases has come from friends on the forums - just like the U/C drawing you mention - likely I would not have found that one for this variant!
 
many thanks for your note on the wheels too - they seem to be a dark art, but now my Rhino 3D trial has run out, I won't be revisiting them for a while until I am ready to get all the 3D work completed - thankfully I am enjoying building too much to go back to the PC just yet
 
 
 
 
I had to check that Don as I thought I ballsed the artwork up, but as others have said it does say 'RPM' though the P has not fully come out - it's fair enough given that lettering is about 0.3mm tall!
 
 
 
ahhh thanks Mark - nice to have it recognised - took quite a while drawing that from scratch, but it is one of those details that is worth it:)
 
so, two posts in two days - it does feel like things are getting back to normal
 
I mentioned the 'A' frame behind the seat - this is the key structural part from which the rest of the cockpit will orient - thankfully with that superb CAD work posted, I had help in understanding how it goes together..
 
..this is it from the front..
 

 
..and detail of the top of the real one..
 

 
..I had made a jig as part of the etch PE fret that sets out this shape as it sits on a main truss section (also in the PE), so I taped that down over a scale drawing to have reference as to the angles & layout involved..
 

 
..I couldn't find any 2mm 'U' shape brass channel, so I made some out of litho - I had also made a detailed laminate for the fronts of the main posts as these have some fixtures & holes in them
 

 
..they were cut to size and the laminates added..
 

 

 
..they were then laid down over the jig - I very nearly assembled it all backwards - thankfully noticed just after this pic was taken..
 

 
..and assembled - I added some strengthening bits of plastic and followed up bay assembling laminates of the structural braces that are part of the overall structure..
 

 
..and the basic structure is complete - there is lots more to go on this, but I can use it as the 'keel' of the cockpit structure.. (so it had to be right )
 

 
..thats it for today - what with the long weekend in the UK, I might even be back tomorrow
 
TTFN
Peter
 
 
 

Hello world!
The summer is over (and the heat was not the toughest thing on my side) and it's time for an update. However small...
This project is not dead yet, you know.
Following things were produced few months ago - april/may, but I think it's ok to publish them now.
I hope some new progress will be visible on my bench soon.

Here's my attempt to shape the diaphragms, even the flanged holes. I must say that's a lot of work.
The at bottom left has the flanges sanded already.

I hope it will look just fine when put together.
Still I need to find out how to do the rivets on the sides...

And this is a test version of the instrument panel supporting frame. Tubes and superglue only:

I'll have to redo this as the shape is a bit crooked. And I'll need to practice the art of soldering  for this kind of work, I think.
 
Well, and now something virtual. I've managed to do the back of the pilot's seat in 3D, at last.
It's not complete, but I'll get to that someday too...


 
I've also started to prepare some PE stuff the airscale way. But I need to master that to have some reasonable results.

I'll be back soon. I promise... 
 
Juraj

Gosmacked ... just when one thinks you have excelled, you come topping this up with more outstanding work ...
 

 
Hubert

Wow - I am honoured to have you and Denzil along for the ride congrats on the win!
 
your CAD is going to be exceptionally useful in the coming weeks...
 
 
Hi Ray - I toyed with the 190 as it's one of my favourite aircraft, but I am hooked on metal skinning and I have not quite come to terms with painting over it - despite looking i don't think any were ever natural metal!
 
So, an actual update is needed as some actual modelling has occured...
 
As I said before, I was expecting the decals from Ray at Fantasy Printshop and a few days ago these arrived - as you can see I have quite a few... I laid it out with only one of each decal as any duplicates can be taken from another sheet..
 

 
..the quality is up to Ray's usual standard - ie exceptional... lets take a quick tour from right to left...
 

 

 

 
beautiful instruments
 

 

 
..there are a bunch of airframe stencils too - all studiously copied from the original drawings..
 
As far as selling / making in 1/32 or 1/24 I think that is unlikely before you ask
 
Now my bench is reassembled, the decal's arrival spurred me on to actually get started again after a long hot summer - I thought I would dress up the Throttle quadrant first..
 
..simply sprayed it black, added the decals and a quick shot of varnish to seal them in and it was done...
 

 

 

 

 
more...
 
 
 

Hi
Many thanks for the orders and the kind words
Before next pilot, we did another civilian lady, for a change in the green/tan world


A+
Norbert

One question that has been bugging me since I saw some pics taken by Karim at Moson.
 
I always thought the cargo door was specific to the C-47 version, not the DC-3, which had an "ordinary" passenger door . Time to take a dip in the documentation methink ...
 
I love the rendition of the surface, and the well thought-out PE band to hide the mid-fuselage joints, top and bottom ...
 
Hubert

Finally Lublin is finished 
Overall not my best build, but the kit as such is quite straightforward and easier to build than any other resin biplane I build so far.
I added all the rigging and some small parts
 
more pics in RFI section soon
thanks for looking
jan

 

 

 
 

More progress on the guppy.....
 

 
The sealing gasket on the radome is masked off with thin vinyl tape so it can be painted black.
 

 
Before painting, the rest of the radome was masked off with strips of frog tape.
 

 
After gluing in the cowl internal flaps I realized I had forgotten the paint the thin ring of silver Coroguard onto the front of the cowl.
Bummer! So, I cut some vinyl tape down to .062" so it would follow the curve and masked off the outsides...Then the rest with frog tape.
 

 
I dug around and found a pill bottle that was an exact fit for the inside of the cowl, sometimes you get lucky!
 

 
Success! I managed to get it done without having to remove the internal flaps.
 

 
The anti glare panel runs straight back at the top, this is important to get the look right once the windscreen is applied.
 

 
The antenna coverings on each wig tip were originally filled in with Bondo and sanded smooth.After the Coroguard was applied I used
squares of black decal to make them black as it's easier than masking and painting them.
 

 
I used the national insignia and step lines, etc;from the AD-5 decals since i don't have the actual kit decals yet. Kicksteps are again
cut from black decal paper to save masking.
 

 
Here you can see the radome with the black gasket painted in.It is a true black, and slightly gloss to make it look different from the
front of the radome.
 

 
Amazing how just a few decals will make the model begin to snap into focus.....Can't wait to get it finished!

Hello everybody,
 
added some additional equipment on the crane .... tools, tarp, wooden beams, chains, ... and started with a small base ... 
 






 

Hello everyone,
 
the worst job is done .... the rigging of the crane hook, the fixing of the hook with chains... but it is done ....
 






 

Thanks a lot mates! :) 
 
And a little bit more done ....
 
the sealings of the windows are painted and the masks removed. The crane is mounted and the struts painted, weathered and mounted. Some wiring added.
The cab of the crane received its internal painting and weathering, as well as the windows. 
Now some further details follow as well as the rope, chains and more stuff ....
 



 
Cheers

Micha

Hello everybody,
 
added the ropes and the hook .... and started with the base ... a road, a little bit of green .... still working on, not finished yet
 



 

Hello everybody,
 
some little progress after the painting .... 
 




 

Hello everyone,
 
Some progress with this one ... finished the paintjob and assembled the vehicle mostly. Some small things missing.
 
Weathering with dark brown, rust and beige washes .... 
 
Next step is adding some load, scratches, dirt with pigments, sheer metal and a small base.
 






 

A little bit of detail now.