Heavy Mod - 1/18 21st Century Toys P-47D Razorback

[Shawn M]

i've used clear lexan plastic for large lights before, easy to shape and polish and available in sheets from the hardware store

i've also seen many times the toothbrush trick but have never done it.

In this scale you could probably smash form the covers out of clear sheet for a "true" bulb and cover approach

[NukerDan]

I'd use a step drill bit for the landing light; I've used them successfully on styrene sheet without grabbing up to 7/8" diameter, and the holes are clean and circular. 

[JayW]

Hey Dan!   Step drill.  Heck yes!  Thank you thank you.  Now, cannot wait to show you guys the new landing light!  The tip lights on the other hand.....the material must be at least .3 x .3 inch section.  I have to go find a bigger toothbrush!  Or it end up being a lathe turning.    

[Out2gtcha]

GREAT work so far Jay!  Cant say enough great things about how this is going.....................

 

1 hour ago, JayW said:

 The tip lights on the other hand.....the material must be at least .3 x .3 inch section.  I have to go find a bigger toothbrush!  Or it end up being a lathe turning.    

 

 

I struggled with finding a suitably large clear section for the tip lights on my 32nd F7F. I ended up at Plastuct......................they have a SUPER wide range of clear acrylic rod, and I found that using some of their clear, square acrylic rod was the PERFECT solution for custom scratch built clear wing tip lights:

 

https://plastruct.com/product-category/strip-and-rod/acrylic-rod/page/2/

 

 

The rod is a tad pricey, and you have to buy a certain minimum of the clear rod packages, but I purchased multiple sizes of square clear rod, and it will likely last me the rest of my modeling career for clear lights, so IMHO worth it. 

 

For a project of this size/magnitude, Id say it might be perfect, and at this point you have already gone this far!  The rod to me has been immeasurably handy. 

[richdlc]

beautiful work going on here :-)

[JayW]

Brian - I actually think I got my acrylic round stock from the same outfit

 

Shawn suggested Lexan - maybe a bit softer stuff.  I'll look around at Lowe's, Hobby Lobby, or maybe my local hobby shop.

Edited November 3, 2018 by JayW

[Out2gtcha]

I bet I searched every drug store, home repair place, super store, dollar general and medical supply store in my town and never did end up finding a single clear toothbrush......or even colored ones that were big enough.

[Shawn M]

I can get clear and colored toothbrushes no problem

[Out2gtcha]

12 minutes ago, Shawn M said:

I can get clear and colored toothbrushes no problem

 

 

Where were you when I was doing my F7F tip lights!!!     

 

I looked everywhere in town honestly. I mean everywhere that had any remote possibility of having tooth brushes or the like.  I could get them on line NP, but figured if I was ordering on-line, I might as well get the perfectly square clear rod.

 

Heres looking forward to you working your magic on the tip lights too! 

[Shawn M]

LOL, Brian I offered!

[Out2gtcha]

54 minutes ago, Shawn M said:

LOL, Brian I offered!

 

 

I remember....................just no need to take up your precious time and effort if I had to have it mailed to my house from the net anyway. Plus I have a TON of extra now for most any project Id need.........................speakin of extra...............

 

You need any, I got plenty?

[Sgt Shultz II]

If it's not too late for the gear well, on the inboard panel where it is dished out to fit the tire when the gear is up. Might I suggest you laminate some plastic to the outer side and dremel the dished part on the inside similar to what you did for the tail wheel doors. Just a thought!

 

Amazing work by the way! Spent all morning reading from the beginning to date!

Edited November 15, 2018 by Sgt Shultz II

[JayW]

"If it's not too late for the gear well, on the inboard panel where it is dished out to fit the tire when the gear is up. Might I suggest you laminate some plastic to the outer side and dremel the dished part on the inside similar to what you did for the tail wheel doors. Just a thought!"

 

Hey thanks for looking in Sgt Shultz.  And thanks for the suggestion.  Well yeah it's too late.  The inboard canted ribs are solidly attached and to get them out of there would risk damage.  Your idea is probably beyond my skills, and I thought of it too, actually.  The laminating would be easy enough, and there is room to do so.  But the sculpturing of that convex  concave surface would be oh so tough.  The tail wheel doors are small enough where the imperfections are not real apparent unless you look for them.  The dish feature on the wing ribs is a good bit larger, and imperfections would show up like a sore thumb methinks.  My 1/18 P-51D fuselage mounted landing gear doors were done similarly, are large, and the imperfections show up way more than I wanted.   And I would not be frank with you guys if I did not say that I am suffering a bit from battle fatigue with this giant project.  I am still managing to keep up the level of detail I know it deserves, but I find myself having to talk myself into alot of stuff that would be great but not entirely necessary.  Like the aileron drive arms that you will see next post - didn't really have to do them, and didn't want to either.  But I did them.  

Edited November 18, 2018 by JayW

[Sgt Shultz II]

Well it was just a thought, just keep going with this fabulous build! It's way beyond my skill set but I do pick up a trick or two!

[JayW]

Note I edited my last post (concave versus convex).  Now, it's update time.

 

I am steadily if slowly checking off the list of many items to be done for the wings.  I live in fear of gluing them together only find I had to do something prior to.  Recall that -30 variants have a newly located landing light.  So here is the new landing light:
 

 

The step drill worked to perfection, giving me a perfect .5 inch diameter hole in which to put a lathe-machined acrylic piece done so to depict the hollow look of the light.  The "bulb" is a piece of .06 round plastic.  I wish I could have better smoothed out the machining marks....  Now all I have to do is putty in one of those access doors, which I will do after the wing halves are joined. 

 

Next up were the ID lights, which were done similarly with the step drill.  Nothing spectacular here, but here they are:

 

 

 

I just drilled out the existing (pitiful) circular indentations, put in .005 inch thick cover rings, some clear plastic "glass", and filled in with some clear epoxy.  Clear red, green, amber paint, and there you go.  Must mask really well once I paint.

 

Now the tip lights - some of you were waiting to see how I do this.  My first plan worked well enough, so no need for the toothbrush!  First, I turned to the trusty lathe and turned a large diameter thin piece like this:

 

  

 

Yeah, my machined tires are similar!  This part was just as big a PITA as the tires though; I don't want to do it again.  How is this like a tip light?  You cut out pieces:

 

 

 

My surgical saw (that's what I call it) cuts through acrylic nicely.  The secret to this method turned out to be one, creating a good representative cross section on the lathe.  Alot of contour study was involved in order to do that.  And two, making the right cuts on the lathe-turned 2-inch diameter piece.  You will see two chunks cut out in the picture above.  One is too small, the other more like it.   I will cut the part for the other wing, and then I must wait until after the wing halves are joined to finish it all up.  Challenges remain but I feel pretty good about it.

 

Meanwhile, I began the aileron work (when will I do the flaps?????).  The flaps will be last.  So I must have aileron supports in the outboard fixed trailing edge (FTE) that match up well with aileron attach points.  At the same time the ailerons must be made somewhat more realistic even though they will not be movable.  What I started with is no good:

 

 

 

Those two pics show before and after.  I sanded away the leading edge to give it an aero cross section.  It is more true to form, but these ailerons are much thicker than the real thing.  That's just the way it is.  Note I cut off the stupid tabs that attached the original part to the wing.

 

While I was at it, I corrected the trim tab on the RH aileron.  While the LH aileron has a controllable trim tab on P-47's, the RH aileron does not.  However it does have a fixed tab on its inboard end.  I had to correct this on the RH aileron:

 

 

 

The RH aileron is basically finished:

 

 

Yes!!  That is an aileron drive arm!  Part of it is actually seen with the aileron attached to the wing, so I wanted it there.  

 

Lastly - here are the aileron supports for the RH wing:

 

 

Just well-supported .04 thick horns that will fit into the slots on the aileron LE.  This will be a vast improvement over what was there.  I guarantee it.  

 

Now, to get the LH aileron and wing outbd TE into shape.  More later.  Can't wait for the flaps and flap linkage.  That's gonna be fun!  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 18, 2018 by JayW