1/24 Hawker Fury Biplane

[Old Dog Flying]

This photo might help with your vac-forming.  Note the base table perforations...the more air being pulled through , the better the results.  The phenolic board is available at electronics shops.  Note also that the formed pieces are raised slightly in order to get a sharper  edge.  The black foam tape seals the wood frame to the box for better vacuum.

 

Hope this helps

Barney

 

[Guest Peterpools]

Jim

Terrific work on the prop nd the basswood did the trick in the material department.

Keep 'em coming

Peter

[Jim Barry]

Barney, Yes that confirms my newest thinking about how to improve that process, especially getting the plastic to form to the final edge. I've survived the poor fit with a successful gap fill but it's no lesson on vacu-forming I'm giving here.

 

Peter, Thanks for the compliment.  Basswood is my new best friend. I would build my fuselage with it like what we see in  109's Focke-Wulf D9 scratch project  were I to take this on again.

[Old Dog Flying]

Jim:  Here's another tip; to prevent creases and puckering at the edges of the pull, add a blob of Silly Putty as per the pic.  I pulled about a dozen canopies before one of our group hit me on the head with this fix.

 

Barney

 

[Jim Barry]

Thanks Barney. Neat trick. I have done something similar with canopies that I pull-formed on my little stuff.

 

So today was the final touch on the sight interation #2. I was crossing my fingers that the metal lengths I had cut and CA'd to the inner ring were good for a glueless "press fit"  for the outer ring and I was rewarded with exactly that. No glue! I used a brass tube for the outer ring and cut a ring off it using an exacto saw. I had plans on doing that for the inner ring but had to go with plastic as the hobby store did not have the brass diameter I wanted. It's not exactly the fidelity of the real thing, but it's going to do. Moving on. This took a lot of time, but I generally enjoyed it other than the time my knife had some electrical charge on it and would not let go after I had just used it to push a freshly glue support into place. 

 

So much better than #1

 

 

Perhaps not as truly exact as the real thing. A rather thin delicate object in full scale it appears. Some things are just left well enough alone. 

 

Edited March 10, 2017 by Jim Barry

[fozzy]

Perfect job Jim!

[Jim Barry]

Tonight was foil practice night. For this, I think I MUST first get my game on before really setting out.  Covered parts in blue masking tape and traced desired panel.  Cut tape on trace and removed it and  then laid it on the metal tape. Cut the metal tape to the template  and then pressed into position. Worked kinks out with pressure from q tip. Worked pretty well. Just need to do it some more. I got better with each panel I made. Will also give litho a trial too before making the call. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then I made a seat out of sheet styrene  and a section of a Red Bull can. I'm sure Martin is cheering that one on.

 

[fozzy]

Looking great Jim......did you anneal the red bull can first for shaping the seat?

[Hubert Boillot]

For foiling around compound curves, you need kitchenfoil as thick as possible, so that it can stretch when burnished and not tear up around potential wrinkles. Then for burnishing, you need something harder than Q-tips. The wooden tip of brush-handles works well, as do toothpicks cut at an angle for the smaller areas. Thick foil wrinkles can be sanded, as shown by Peter, and will disappear after cleaning-up with steel-wool.

 

Finally, my experience is the only good foil glue is Micro Metal Foil Adhesive. Thin it with alcohol so that it can be laid thinner, and flows better. And rather than put the adhesive on the foil, lay the glue on the surface you want foiled, for the panel you want (using masking tape to delimit the panel). Then lay an extra-large piece of foil, and cut the extra with a very sharp (and new) blade. For butt joining panels, it is better to lay the two adjoining panels before cutting them, just like you would do when laying pieces of carpet or vynil on the floor.

 

For vac-forming, I am a strong proponent of female vac-forming (sucking the heated plastic in the concave form), that gives better definition than male vac-forming, and has the surface detail (if shown on the master) where it counts, i.e. on the outside of the plastic skin.

 

It is a bit more labor-intensive, as you have to pour a mold around the master, but yields better results IMHO. The mold can be made in resin or plaster. You need to have holes in the cavity to suck the heated sheet in. The holes must be 1/2 the thickness of the plastic sheet in diameter to avoid dimples. 0.5 mm holes can be made by planting grease-coated rods or heavy fishing monofilament in the master before pouring the mold material, so that they protrude from the outside of the mold. By removing them, you have the right diameter holes without risky drilling in the mold with small diameter bits.

 

Hope that helps.

 

Hubert

Edited March 11, 2017 by MostlyRacers

[Jim Barry]

Martin and Hubert thanks for the comments.

 

Martin no annealing. It's a simple curve here. 

 

Hubert, Thanks for the tips. I did not know much about female vacuforming but now see its advantages. Nice tip about the monofilament. Brilliant! 

[Guyman1]

Looking very good Jim these techniques are some food for thought it really is interesting to see this come to life nothing quite like scratch building.

 

Guy

[Jim Barry]

Took on more foiling and a stab at the exhausts. I'm pleased. Fun too! 

 

One:

 

 

 

Two:

 

 

 

Three:

 

 

 

[Jim Barry]

Built the stick last night. A few versions of trial and error before this one. I really just had to stop and study the real thing and patiently think through all it would take. The stick is aluminum tube, the base is red bull can (again) bent to be the base and "house" the triggers. The handle is rolled magic sculpt and the triggers are made from  lead from a pellet gun pellet  that I hammered flat, and then cut and shaped. I had never worked with lead like that and thought it was great. The cables that run back to the Lewis .303s are steel wire. 

 

 

Rudder in progress. This is build #7. After more carefully studying  a picture of the real thing from behind, I realized (confessed to myself)  I was too thick in my approach so I dropped the idea of having any core at all and just used the two "skins" bonded together, though there is a small strip of styrene at the leading edge where it connects to the tail.  I sigh a little at the count it has taken but then I thought about Jay and his 18 cylinders he has to build for his Jug and then I did not feel so bad. Progress is progress learning/practicing is still my mode. I might even build another one as the other side is a bit flat and have now read where someone suggested keeping some thin styrene behind the faux spars to preserve their bulge. 

 

 

 

Then I got to some detailing of the cowl. I sat at my desk the other day thinking about how to detail small discs that surround the engine panel access screws. I thought what tool could do that? And then I looked in my hand...my pen (with the tip retracted). It worked! They are not polished aluminum so they they got painted a mix of silver and black. While I was at it, I worked on painting the exhausts, sort of a color trial.

 

Edited March 15, 2017 by Jim Barry

[Victor K2]

I think that the ring you describe is the locking plate that holds the panel in place. There is usually a slot either side of the screw that a special screwdriver is used to lock the panel in place then the center screw is tightened to pull the panel down.

 

Bob.

[Jim Barry]

Yes. Bob, thanks for extra detail. Here's a close up of the real locking plate.