The Phantom Posted March 10 Posted March 10 Derek. Anychance we can buy these shapeways bits?. I actually have the A20-10 Camo panel on my wall, ill send a pic when I take one DerekB 1
DerekB Posted March 12 Author Posted March 12 (edited) On 3/11/2025 at 10:35 AM, The Phantom said: Derek. Anychance we can buy these shapeways bits?. I actually have the A20-10 Camo panel on my wall, ill send a pic when I take one Phantom, sadly ShapeWays went out of business (edit: actually they're back, but not doing the same type of things). But if someone wants to offer 3D printing services, I could make the files available for downloading... Edited March 21 by DerekB
Kahunaminor Posted March 12 Posted March 12 (edited) Shapeways has been revived as per this press release: https://www.shapeways.com/presscorner/shapeways-comes-home-to-trusted-management-and-founding-visionaries There is still some work to do but apparently seeking to restart the shop. Edited March 12 by Kahunaminor MikeMaben and Landrotten Highlander 2
The Phantom Posted March 14 Posted March 14 Derek, That would be awesome I have both resin and FDM printers
DerekB Posted April 18 Author Posted April 18 Before I continue work re-shaping the nose, I need to close up the fuselage... so I'm starting on internal details. First step is to add a floor in the cockpit... just the top surface of the wing centre-section actually. I'm not planning to add much detail, as it will be hidden by all the internals. The photo below shows the floor in place, glued to the starboard fuselage side. And I also need to complete the fuselage framework... so I made up a jig to hold the two side-frames at the correct distance so I can glue in the cross-pieces. The photo below shows the jig with the side-frames clamped in place, ready to start adding the cross-pieces of the frame. More coming... mozart, Kais, Landrotten Highlander and 10 others 13
DerekB Posted April 19 Author Posted April 19 (edited) The landing gear bays on the Kitty Hawk Texan are a poor approximation of the real thing, and they should really be stripped out and corrected for an accurate model. Being an early member of the T-6 family, the Wirraway has some minor differences, so these need to be incorporated too. The first problem with the Kitty Hawk kit rendition of the undercarriage bays is that the aft edge of the opening for the landing-gear leg is at a slight angle relative to the forward spar, when on the real thing this edge is parallel to the spar. It is also too far aft. The forward edge of this opening is also wrong, but we'll get to that later. Correcting this problem will be don in two steps. First, I've filed the aft edge to be parallel to the spar (shown in the photo below). Next I'll add a strip to move the edge forwards, so it's only slightly aft of the aft edge of the wheel opening (not shown below). That might seem like a simple problem to fix, except that Kitty Hawk decided to include an incorrect rendition of the front face of the forward spar above this edge. So that had to be removed as well. The photo below shows that incorrect spar face removed, and a new full-length spar fitted, carrying all the way across the centre-section, just like on the actual aircraft. This is just sitting in place to test for fit and size, and it will now be detailed with stiffeners and rivets. You can see how different this is to the unaltered piece next to it... Here's another view from the rear. You can see I've also removed a section of false spar from the upper portion of the wing centre-section, the piece at the left of the photo. And the photo below shows where all this is heading, a view of the port undercarriage bay on Wirraway A20-687 at the RAAF Museum, Point Cook (painted to represent A20-561) The front face of the forward spar is very prominent, all the way across the two wheel wells. And for comparison, here's what a later Harvard IIa wheel well looks like... the front spar is still prominent. The Kitty Hawk kit doesn't come close to this, and even the photo-etch kit by Eduard doesn't correct the problems... Edited April 20 by DerekB update geedubelyer, LSP_Kevin, denders and 7 others 9 1
DerekB Posted April 20 Author Posted April 20 The basic fuselage framework has been completed on the jig. I've attached the kit firewall at the front of the frame, after sanding down the top edge of the firewall, which differs a little on the Wirraway. The red cross-piece is temporary and will be removed after the rear part of the framework has been attached. scvrobeson, geedubelyer, denders and 4 others 7
DerekB Posted April 20 Author Posted April 20 (edited) And what a relief... it fits! A test-fit of the basic fuselage framework (the forward section) inside the fuselage shows that it fits snugly. The photo below shows it sitting in the starboard fuselage half, mating correctly with the upper skin of the wing centre-section. Next I need to finish adding all the tubes along the "floor" of the framework, add some smaller tubes to the side-frames, add the roll-over truss, plus build the rear section of the framework. But it's great to confirm this is heading the right direction! Edited April 20 by DerekB patricksparks, Tolga ULGUR, Landrotten Highlander and 9 others 12
Hubert Boillot Posted April 20 Posted April 20 (edited) Excellent work, Derek. Of all the T-6 variants I have seen built in 1/32, you are one of the very few (if not the only one) who have corrected the bottom of the cockpit, and reproduced the upper wing curvature (KH got the wing airfoil wrong, btw … ) Well done 👍 ! Hubert Edited April 20 by Hubert Boillot mozart and DerekB 1 1
DerekB Posted April 26 Author Posted April 26 (edited) The side frames for the aft fuselage framework are a little simpler than those for the forward frame... once again a simple jig to make a matching pair... Then assemble the rear fuselage frame upside down... Yes, the temporary cross-piece (red) is still in there... that will be removed later still. The rear frame is tapered more than the real thing, to make sure it fits inside the molded fuselage sides, which are of course much thicker than the real thing. Next step is to make the floor for the rear fuselage... Edited April 26 by DerekB SwissFighters, Hubert Boillot, chukw and 12 others 15
jcweston351 Posted April 28 Posted April 28 Derek, are you going to or do you need to relocate the landing gear location for the Wirraway. I pretty much did the same as you with the spar on my T-6 kit, I also relocated the landing gear further outward & detailed all, I also added the sheet metal parts missing in the kit including the parts under the engine/firewall area seen in the T-6 bay photo. There's quite a bit missing in this area on the kit parts, was fun to fix & detail it all though.
DerekB Posted May 3 Author Posted May 3 On 4/28/2025 at 6:44 PM, jcweston351 said: Derek, are you going to or do you need to relocate the landing gear location for the Wirraway? Hi JC, yes, I'm looking at how to correct the landing gear also. As you mentioned, it needs to be repositioned slightly outboard of the kit location. Plus I might actually mount the gear with pivot pins through the spar as in the real thing... more to come on this... Kais 1
DerekB Posted May 5 Author Posted May 5 Hey @The Phantom (and anyone else interested), I've added some downloadable STL files to the following page - let me know if you're able to download them, and I'll add some more soon... https://dbdesignbureau.net/modelling-the-wirraway/ RadBaron and LSP_Kevin 1 1
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now