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HK B-17...C 11/2 progress resumes!


brahman104

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18 hours ago, KiwiZac said:

Ingenious work Craig!

Thanks mate! Didn't realise that Mustang flew over Whanganui the other day. Now that I think about it I did hear something distinctly "non-spitfire" over Ohakea around that time....... Guess it'll become a more regular sound in these skies over the next 12 months all going well ;) 

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5 hours ago, TKB said:

Craig,

 

Your operating bomb bay doors are really coming along nicely. The magnets blend in pretty good and aren't obtrusive. Just curious though, do they have square ones?. They'd look like part of the "truss-work" or a "electrical junction box"

You plan on painting the bomb bay door ribs and adding metal squares in the open spaces or just painting the interior?

You're running out of room to work in there --- but you've captured the look of it not being as "open" as it might appear.

 

Terry

 

 

 

 

Thanks Terry! I couldn't find square ones readily as I think these are mostly used for gaming miniatures, but they do the job and they're bloody strong! I'll be attempting to hide them under some kind of aluminium box structure to make them look less out of place.....

 

You may have just given me a good idea! I wasn't really confident I was going to be able to hide those pin marks very well, so perhaps working your plan might be the way to go. It'd certainly add visual interest like I did in the rest of the bay...... good idea! I think I'll run with it :)  Cheers mate!

 

Oh yeah, really regretting fixing the centre truss in place, but you know I like to give myself a challenge.......... ;) 

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great engineering work to scale!
:coolio:
 

regarding magnets, I get my supplies from this company:


https://www.supermagnete.it/blocchi-magneti-neodimio

 

despite having rectangular models in the catalog, I prefer the cylindrical ones:

 

https://www.supermagnete.it/dischi-magneti-neodimio

 

drilling the plastic with a drill bit of the right thickness and gluing them flush (or under a thin layer of plastic) with epoxy.
 

the advantage lies in the dimensions, which are smaller than the rectangular ones. I prefer to put a few more, but making them invisible.

 

here you can see-not see a couple hidden in the thickness of the plastic of the engine cowling of an Ar196. 

 

IMG_8075.JPEG
 

hope to be of some help about...

cheers, Paolo

 

PS 

To handle those little crazy objects I normally use plastic tweezers, or wooden sticks and blu tack!

Edited by mc65
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5 hours ago, mc65 said:

great engineering work to scale!
:coolio:
 

regarding magnets, I get my supplies from this company:


https://www.supermagnete.it/blocchi-magneti-neodimio

 

despite having rectangular models in the catalog, I prefer the cylindrical ones:

 

https://www.supermagnete.it/dischi-magneti-neodimio

 

drilling the plastic with a drill bit of the right thickness and gluing them flush (or under a thin layer of plastic) with epoxy.
 

the advantage lies in the dimensions, which are smaller than the rectangular ones. I prefer to put a few more, but making them invisible.

 

here you can see-not see a couple hidden in the thickness of the plastic of the engine cowling of an Ar196. 

 

IMG_8075.JPEG
 

hope to be of some help about...

cheers, Paolo

 

PS 

To handle those little crazy objects I normally use plastic tweezers, or wooden sticks and blu tack!

 

Thank you Sir!

 

Yeah I agree, the little round ones are probably easier to work with due to their size. I should definitely invest is some plastic tweezers though! :) 

 

Cheers,

 

Craig

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  • 1 month later...
On 6/22/2022 at 4:59 PM, Gazzas said:

Craig, you continue to impress!  I fear I keep typing the same words every time I look at this thread.

Thanks so much Gazza. I'm impressed you're still following along after all this time! :whistle::rofl:

 

Progress on the bomb bay seems to have gone painfully slow, probably mostly due to the complexity of the task at hand. The doors finally received some love in the form of paint. May not be accurate at all, but the green did break up the otherwise ocean of silver. It worked well on the bomb bay ribs, and I think looks pretty nice on the doors too. It was a very slow process, and painted without masking as I wanted to test my freehand skills.....

 

First of all, here's them ready for paint.

 

24/7-3

 

And painted. I used some black panel line wash to impart a grubby look to it...

 

24/7-3

 

The bomb bay was still lacking the hyd system and other details, so I got to work adding them. Here's the reservoir......

 

24/7-3

 

This is actually the second reservoir. The first one slipped when I was gluing it in the bay (working from upside down), fell through the #4 bulkhead door and disappeared somewhere inside the front end. Try as I might I simply couldn't find it, so wherever it is, it's in there for good! Mega frustrating, but at least you can't see it....:doh:

 

Here it is in place with some other details....

 

 

24/7-3

 

24/7-3

 

That done, I was back to the doors.... Got the outside covered too.

 

24/7

 

The fit was pretty good all things considered, just a bit of a lip at the front, which I can't explain where it came from. Especially as I can't see inside the bays where they're closed to figure out the source of the interference. 

 

24/7

 

Looks a bit rougher than IRL, but the important thing to note here is the magnets work! The doors hold shut nicely against gravity.... Very happy! :yahoo:

 

She now looks a lot more complete on the underside :) 

 

 

24/7

 

And not too shabby with them open either....

 

24/7

 

24/7

 

24/7

 

Starting to look a bit more business-like :) 

 

 

24/7

 

Next up, how do I hide this very ugly gap on both the inside and outside of the hinge area?

 

24/7-2

 

After a bit of thought, I decided that two opposing L shaped pieces should do the trick. The first one covers the massive hole on the outside, while leaving recesses for the hinges to move in, like the real thing....

 

24/7-2

 

When the door is opened, it goes a long way to covering the inside gap too...

 

24/7-2

 

I haven't made the second piece yet, but it'll actually be more of a "Z" shape, to join the L and cover the bottom of the truss. I think hope the metal should be thin enough to not cause any further clearance issues for the doors when closed, but we'll see once I've built it :). That's a tomorrow problem!

 

I'm definitely seeing an end to the work in the bomb bay area. It's been a hell of a lot of work (that I didn't anticipate), but I'm really glad I can open and close the doors to suit. I think I'll still build a ferry tank to go in there as well as some bombs, seeing as that was a pretty typical load during the early days. 

 

I may even get that tail on this year!!!! :whistle:

 

Cheers,

 

Craig

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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  • brahman104 changed the title to HK B-17...C 24/7 Slowly winning the battle of the bay :)

Holy Moly Craig - there is ALOT going on in that bomb bay!  It is beautiful, not to mention functioning doors.  I shake my head in amazement.  I tell you - both you and I have major "tigers by the tail".  We both risk getting out of our lanes so to speak, and going down in flames.  But I think you have (or will have) succeeded.  Me - jury is out.

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