HK B-17...C 5/4 sweating the metal

[richdlc]

nice! What about the stringers?

[dodgem37]

Good show.  Great tool.

 

Sincerely,

Mark

[ClumsyDude]

Great stuff! Is that roller something you built yourself?

 

Jim

[wunwinglow]

Real. Just little!!

[brahman104]

nice! What about the stringers?

 

Well I was going to just attach individual pieces in between the ribs, but since you've thrown down the challenge Rich, I may well have a look at some more "technical" option.......

 

Good show.  Great tool.

 

Sincerely,

Mark

 

Thanks Mark! The tool I still think needs refinement... I'd love to put a proper handle on the "gripper roller," in time we shall see my friend

 

Great stuff! Is that roller something you built yourself?

 

Jim

 

Hi Jim, yes it is. Granted it could easily be done in wood, but since I have a printer and can make accurate travel slots in shapes, I figured it might save me some work. I think it took about 2 hours to draw up and then about an hour to assemble. The print time is irrelevant, as I was asleep

 

Real. Just little!!

 

Hahahaha, the question is I suppose, how small could I go?

 

Cheers,

 

Craig

[brahman104]

nice! What about the stringers?

 

Ask Sir, and you shall receive. 

 

So the roof of the bay has about 9-10 ribs and three stringers. The question was how to make sure all the holes I was going to put in to the ribs were in the same place, so one piece stringers could run the length. I decided to make a jig using the styrene form as a master template and cut three notches with overall length markers on each end. That way, I could cut back each piece to the right size and have each notch (theoretically) in the same place....

 

 

Then it was a case of going through and notching each piece. Remember these are only 1mm wide, so the notches, and hence the stringers, could be no more than 0.5mm wide. I'll tell you about how much fun these were to make shortly.

 

 

Now I had significantly weakened each rib, so I had to be VERY careful not to knock or bend anything. I then inserted two end pieces as my start points to line everything up on.

 

 

I then installed two stringers, which would give me something to "hang" the other ribs off.

 

 

Now as these had to be installed from the top, facing away from me and in between the two stringers above and the control cables below, normal tweezers were not going to cut it since the ribs were angle shaped, so I glued a small block to one side...

 

 

Ever played that game "Operation?" the one where you had to remove various bits and pieces from a cartoon character with tweezers without hitting the sides? Well this was pretty much the exact opposite. The nerves were pretty fried after a few of these!!!!

 

 

Of interest, note how crappy the cables look right now. I spent no small amount of effort to ensure they were nice and tight, then lo and behold I come down one day and they're all loose and awful! What happened? I can tell you I said a few choice words, then got out the soldering iron and retightend them.... not easy considering where they were and what was now around them. Got it all looking okay again and then next day I came down and the same thing happened!!!!

 

I eventually realised that the cable I had been using (nylon) must absorb moisture and go slack. Because in North Australia right now we are bang in the middle of the summer, not only is it ridiculously hot, it also averages around 86% humidity (when it's not raining...). Once the humidity goes down a bit they return to normal highness and all is good again... Phew!

 

And so eventually after a lot of concentration and steady hand work, this is the result....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I must say I'm pretty chuffed at how well they actually have come out looking. The big gap in the centre is where the bomb rack support beams continue up, so I'm making these bits out of plastic (same as the green bits in there already).

 

The stringers themselves (not that I have any photos) were possibly the hardest pieces of a model I have ever made. I had to make a double, 0.5mm fold in each piece, then a back fold of 1mm, then rivet, then cut each one. Trying to get something to clamp onto and cleanly bend something that is only 0.5mm thick is pushing the friendship on every level. I even used the milling machine to machine some hand clamps to get a good surface, but each bit was still exceedingly hard to make and I binned 50% of my attempts.

 

Still, all in all, I feel the effort was worth it. I need to make a better bending clamp if I am to do this again, but as you can see, the effect it gives I feel is in scale and now that I know the process, "should" be easier to do next time around. I see the under cockpit area are benefiting from this process, and access will make it a lot easier to do.

 

How's do you like them apples Rich? ;p hahaha! Thanks for the challenge mate!

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Craig 

Edited February 19, 2017 by brahman104

[Hubert Boillot]

 

This is some fantastic modelling going here ! You can rightly be chuffed by the stringers. Absolutely top notch !

 

(Extremely) Craig

 

Hubert

[tomprobert]

Outstanding, Craig.

 

Probably, no definitely, the best bomb bay I've seen on a 1/32nd Fort.

 

Tom

[ClumsyDude]

Brilliant - in-bloody-genious!

 

Jim

[TorbenD]

Goodness Gracious! Inspirational stuff! Loving this build

 

Torben

[brahman104]

Thanks for your comments and encouragement guys, we all need it for long haul projects like this one!

 

This was always going to be interesting....

 

The top of the bay theoretically should have just been a single sheet of litho rolled in one axis and due to diligent measuring and calculation, easily glued on to all the ribs and stringers for a seamless result. Right?

 

Well, not so much. As much as it would have been a lot cleaner and potentially easier to go down the path that Peter is taking on his spitfire right now, I chose not to, for in hindsight, really no good reason other than I was worried about everything not lining up. It's hard to tell if that would have been a better solution, as given that the bomb bay has been built from scratch, there are many little dimensional errors which possibly would have precluded that from working.

 

Anyway, after a little annealing and rolling, I took a deep breath and glue the top piece on. If I did it again, I don't think I would have put glue on the backs of the rib/stringers, as this tended to spread to the "roof" and took a lot of clean up. But hey, you live and learn!

 

 

 

Not quite a neat and tidy as I would have liked, but it was a good exercise all the same and I won't be redoing it, considering how much you will actually see later

 

Also, I've been thinking about how best to attack the interior details of the nose. The early forts had soundproofing so I wanted to replicate that. The problem with this was that I'm still not sure of the final shape/size of the nose until I get both sides of the fuselage joined, this in turn creates issues for access, as the soundproofing was one big sheet from the floor on one side to the floor on the other (no join!!!). After thinking about it for a while, I decided to cut an access panel at the floor line to give me room to work later on. This (hopefully) will allow me to work inside the area for final details once both sides are joined. 

 

 

More to come soon

 

Craig

[TKB]

Craig,

 

The bomb bay roof looks like some pretty neat work to me, considering it is 100% scratchbuilt!

Have you by any chance been keeping track of just how many individual parts you have fabricated --- so far --- for the bomb bay?

 

Craig, you are one crazy modeler --- and I for one love every bit of your "craziness"! What may start out as "crazy idea" in your head, ends up as another work of art that is going into your B-17D masterbuild.

 

It's been awhile since we've seen the nose area --- where this all started.

Obviously that was just  tip of the iceberg!

 

Terry

[dodgem37]

Some fantastic modeling.  Great show.

 

Sincerely,

Mark

[ssculptor]

Agreed, this is what modeling is all about. 

This is called kitbashing.

If any of the other members of LSP want to try something like this but are hesitant about risking a very expensive kit, I suggest you try an inexpensive project first to lessen the financial risk. We learn as we do so try, for example,  converting the Williams Brothers 1/32 P-35 into the longer export version that was sold to other countries. You can find plans for it and can find a 1/72 scale kit of the export.

Thus when you learn what you should have done and have made your errors you will have developed your skills and have not risked much money.  

Have fun, kitbashing is an exciting aspect of modeling.

Stephen

[brahman104]

Craig,

 

The bomb bay roof looks like some pretty neat work to me, considering it is 100% scratchbuilt!

Have you by any chance been keeping track of just how many individual parts you have fabricated --- so far --- for the bomb bay?

 

Craig, you are one crazy modeler --- and I for one love every bit of your "craziness"! What may start out as "crazy idea" in your head, ends up as another work of art that is going into your B-17D masterbuild.

 

It's been awhile since we've seen the nose area --- where this all started.

Obviously that was just  tip of the iceberg!

 

Terry

 

Thank you Terry! As always your kind words and encouragement are pushing me along on this build, it probably wouldn't have gone to the extent that it has without people like you throwing down challenges for me along the way

 

Some fantastic modeling.  Great show.

 

Sincerely,

Mark

 

Thank you kindly Mark, as I said to Terry above, I love this forum in that we all seem to be encouraging and learning off each each other and it's pushing us to try things we've never done before. The pic above has only made me want to do more!

 

Agreed, this is what modeling is all about. 

This is called kitbashing.

If any of the other members of LSP want to try something like this but are hesitant about risking a very expensive kit, I suggest you try an inexpensive project first to lessen the financial risk. We learn as we do so try, for example,  converting the Williams Brothers 1/32 P-35 into the longer export version that was sold to other countries. You can find plans for it and can find a 1/72 scale kit of the export.

Thus when you learn what you should have done and have made your errors you will have developed your skills and have not risked much money.  

Have fun, kitbashing is an exciting aspect of modeling.

Stephen

 

I couldn't agree more Stephen! I am by no means a talented modeller, but I derive so much pleasure from the process of engineering and problem solving, so that is why I have no qualms about cutting up such an expensive kit. At the end of the day, even a small detail added to a model, whatever it is, is something personal that you have done to improve the kit, even if it's not perfect (like most of my build isn't!) and that is where things like this start from. To me that is the joy of modelling, to have it sitting on a shelf at the end is good, but it takes a very distant second place to the process of building!

 

Cheers,

 

Craig