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

[Fvdm]

Good luck.

[ChuckT]

Glad to see this build back from its vacation!

 

Chuck.

[Gazzas]

Good Luck!  Glad to see you back at it!

[Kagemusha]

18 hours ago, brahman104 said:

In the last 6 months I have:

 

Left the Australian Army after 20 years of service,

Done a stack of work to the house to get it ready to sell,

Uprooted our life and everything we own and moved to New Zealand,

Set up a new life,

Sold the house,

Joined the Air Force to do the same job!

Squeezed everything we own 3 bedroom and 1 large workshop's worth of stuff into a very small 2 bedroom single garage house.

 

It doesn't really seem like much to write it

 

 

A bit of an understatement! Good to see you back at the Fort, it's a great build.

[brahman104]

Thank you gentlemen! The right side is printing now, so should be able to do a direct comparison between what I currently have and what the new effort looks like pretty soon.

 

Cheers,

 

Craig

[TKB]

Craig,

 

Glad things settled down somewhat for you and have you back!

 

Yeah, I said the I didn't think the difference between your "C" #4 forward and the "E/F" warranted a redo. Did I think you would live with the difference? Not on your life! I looked at it from the prspective of all the time and effort you put into it., As usual, the time and effort paid off in a kind of "rehearsal" build. You pinpointed the areas that you weren't happy with, made corrections towards "getting it right" --- which was you set out to do on 12-22-14. If that ain't dedication I don't know what is! It's been a long haul, but your results are well worth it. Plus now you have "repeatablity" pretty much at your fingertips.

 

I don't mind repeating myself here --- your rework/rebuilds are just as interesting as the rest of the build. Anyone who wants to attempt getting the "face" right will be using your "C" build as inspiration as well as a guide. I might be wrong, but so far I haven't seen any takers on the task.

 

Congratulations and good luck on your new job in the RNZAF. Do we consider you an Ausswi instead of a Aussie now?

 

 

Terry

 

[brahman104]

Many thanks Gentlemen, it is indeed good to be able to start moving again with this build!

 

Here's where we stand with the new nose mockup....

 

 

 

 

 

It's hard to portray in the photos, but I think you can see the difference. The cockpit/roof relationship on my original is just too "boxy" compared to the new effort. I like the sharpness the brass gave, but at the end of the day if it's wrong it's wrong. I always put things like this down not as wasted time, but valuable R&D so I hopefully don't make the same mistake twice!

 

The next step is to produce each side in resin, then set about removing the existing fuselage. Funny, I was helping a mate renovate his house today and spent a few hours demolishing an old shower recess...... that's exactly what this feels like! Before anyone panics though, I will NOT be using a crowbar on my model .

 

See you in a bit.

 

Craig

 

 

 

 

[tomprobert]

Good to see you back on this one - and hope you are settling well into your new surroundings.

 

Now that you see the new nose offered up to the old, you can see the subtle differences and improvement on the original - which in itself was a significant improvement on the kit. However, in the pursuit of perfection, I can see your logic despite all the extra work involved. This is shaping up to be a one-of a kind build. 

 

So - will the interior details you have put in so far transfer over to the new nose ok? It'll be a shame to lose all that beautiful detail work you've put in so far...

 

All the best,

Tom

 

[dodgem37]

Nice capture.

 

Sincerely,

Mark

[AlexM]

Very interesting! There will be some heavy surgery, but I can understand that after all the work so far, you really want to get it right

 

Cheers

Alex

[Wolf Buddee]

Wow Craig,

 

I can’t believe the difference in the shape of the two noses! Without the side by side comparison you wouldn’t really see it but what a difference indeed. Truly spectacular work my friend and kudos to you for your efforts so far. Way beyond my skill set Sir.

 

Cheers,

Wolf

[airscale]

YEY!! welcome back Craig - we have missed you round here

 

I always look at restarts and think 'would I have done that?' simply as I am inherently lazy, but now I see the side by side I can see why you took the brave decision to take the nose to date as training and your inner drive to get it right takes over

 

Brilliant stuff - one of my favourite builds ever..

 

Peter

[brahman104]

On 3/21/2020 at 9:44 PM, tomprobert said:

Good to see you back on this one - and hope you are settling well into your new surroundings.

 

Now that you see the new nose offered up to the old, you can see the subtle differences and improvement on the original - which in itself was a significant improvement on the kit. However, in the pursuit of perfection, I can see your logic despite all the extra work involved. This is shaping up to be a one-of a kind build. 

 

So - will the interior details you have put in so far transfer over to the new nose ok? It'll be a shame to lose all that beautiful detail work you've put in so far...

 

All the best,

Tom

 

 

G'day Tom, thanks for stopping by! Yes exactly, the new nose was just so much better that I just had to do it. Happily I can report that the changeover hasn't been as drastic as I was originally thinking/dreading. More on that below....

 

On 3/21/2020 at 10:52 PM, dodgem37 said:

Nice capture.

 

Sincerely,

Mark

 

Cheers Mark!

 

On 3/22/2020 at 5:44 AM, AlexM said:

Very interesting! There will be some heavy surgery, but I can understand that after all the work so far, you really want to get it right

 

Cheers

Alex

 

Hi Alex, glad you approve!  It was a bit of heavy surgery, but after everything in this build so far I'm becoming accustomed to it going under the knife/dremel/axe in pursuit of the right shape.

 

On 3/22/2020 at 10:27 AM, Wolf Buddee said:

Wow Craig,

 

I can’t believe the difference in the shape of the two noses! Without the side by side comparison you wouldn’t really see it but what a difference indeed. Truly spectacular work my friend and kudos to you for your efforts so far. Way beyond my skill set Sir.

 

Cheers,

Wolf

 

Hi Wolf! Great to hear from you. Seems like a lifetime ago we were sitting on your back deck and me being in awe of your spitfire  . Thank you for your kind words; it's certainly inspiration from comments on here that drives me to do better each time.

 

7 hours ago, airscale said:

YEY!! welcome back Craig - we have missed you round here

 

I always look at restarts and think 'would I have done that?' simply as I am inherently lazy, but now I see the side by side I can see why you took the brave decision to take the nose to date as training and your inner drive to get it right takes over

 

Brilliant stuff - one of my favourite builds ever..

 

Peter

 

Thanks Peter! It's great to be back into it. Hahaha, you know the difference between you and me? You get it right the FIRST TIME! One day maybe I'll grow up to be like you 

 

Okay so I'm sure most of you are waiting keenly to see what the outcome of the "selective destruction" would be. I am very pleased (and somewhat surprised) to report that the only damage was an easily replaceable pull handle on the extreme right of the instrument panel..... everything else seemed to come away quite well, with the best part being that the new parts fitted very nicely into the original "steps" I made in the kit fuselage.

 

I also learned from last time when I printed the E/F nose to put all the support on the outside of the piece so it would be easier to clean up. The part was a very tight squeeze for the photon's build area but after a lot of playing around with orientation I got it done. I also hadn't used the resin and printer for about 6 months so was not holding high hopes for the finish, especially when some of it came out of the bottle a little chunky and seemingly half dried .

 

Anyway, the left side is done and roughly set up for you so see. Still a lot of clean up to do yet but I'm very happy with how it came out!

 

 

 

 

I still have to cut the access door in the lower side yet but just sitting there I feel the decision has definitely been validated. So far it looks as though I'll be able to keep the entire cockpit, #3 and IP backing, and I also should be able to carefully remove all the detail I just added on the right side of the nose (driftmeter etc) once I have the right side printed and glued in place.

 

The #3 bulkhead/new nose relationship will take a bit of playing around to get right now - the old nose was considerably fatter, so I'll either reduce the diameter of the #3 accordingly to fit or perhaps grind a locating channel into the new nose sidewall which might be cleaner, and make it stronger. 

 

Other than that, what seemed like a huge task has actually turned out to be relatively straightforward, but as I said before, I'm really no stranger now to pretty heavy surgery!

 

More pics to come soon pending the right side printing okay!

 

Craig

 

p.s. the finish of the resin looks pretty crappy, but this is easily sanded off. I think my bottle of resin must have gone off a bit in transit? In any case, the bit I needed is solid and the rest can be cleaned up. Happy days!

Edited March 23, 2020 by brahman104

[Captain Boogaloo]

An awesome thread ( perfect for soaking up a bit isolation time!)- 67 pages of inspirational modelling that has become an odessey of new kit, problem solving and pattern making. Just wow. And you moved to a new country, to boot. Although if I'd had a Wocca  and a B17 crash site, I'd have been very tempted to test the heavy lift reputation of that beautiful helicopter...! 

Now just when are you going to sell a few of your hard won resin B17 noses?? Be a good way of clawing back a bit of the cost of those new toys, er I mean essential workshop tools! Keep plugging away, looking forward to seeing the next instalment!

 

Blue Skies !!

Captain Boogaloo

[TKB]

Craig,

 

I can't add anything more to what everyone else has said about where you've brought this to!

 

It's sometning to look at the last two photos and see all that remains of the HK kit are the two Bulkhead #4 through #6 fuselage halves!

 

Terry