CAC Boomerang A46-217 “Hep Cat” Finished.

[LSP_Kevin]

Terrific stuff, Eric! A great lesson in problem-solving for all of us.

 

Kev

[ericg]

Cheers gents.

 

Forgot to add the picture of the cannon barrel fitted into the brass tube in the leading edge. Makes it much easier to leave these off until the last minute knowing that they are going to fit really well.

 

 

I don’t really have a shelf of doom, as long as nobody mentions my Hph Concorde. Some of my projects come perilously close to going there though, probably due to the non shake and bake nature of the projects I choose and the resulting ease of making an error. Similar to someone who reads a book and has to go back and re-read a whole chapter in order to understand a particularly difficult part of a novel, I find myself having to go and revisit old work, to start again to make things better. I had started fitting the flaps to the wings and came across a bit of a problem with how the fuselage and wings had been joined. When I originally fitted the wings to the fuselage, I needed to push them together with a bit of force. As a result of this, the inner section of the wing had a slightly concave shape when it needed to be flat. This was causing some issue with how the flaps were able to be fitted. I ended up breaking the model up to fix the problem and refit the wings with minimal pressure.

 

 

I refitted the wings and felt much better about it although this caused a fair bit more work as some of the mating areas had been damaged during this extreme measure. This then led to another problem although to be honest this had been bugging me from the start and the following fix is well worth the effort for those building this model. The nicely done vac formed canopy is unfortunately very thin and does not lend well to handling and during the reassembling of the model, I put some pressure on it breaking it away from part of the fuselage. This was the second time it had happened and I didn’t want it to happen again, possibly at a far later stage of completion. The clear plastic does not adhere well to the super glue that I am using and joining it to resin parts does not give a good bond. The small elliptical fairings behind the pilot were also giving me some trouble so it was time for a comprehensive fix of their area.

 

First up, I made up some supports from plastic card that will stop the part from flexing and breaking away from the fuselage. 

 

 

I then traced the shape of the fairing onto some plastic card. A small flex of the vac formed part easily broke them away.

 

 

I cut the part out of the plastic card, angling my blade so that it was beveled on the inside of the curve. I re attached the fairing and scraped away the paint around it where the plastic card part was going to fit.

 

 

The re done part. The plastic parts that I added now lock the fairings down due to the previously mentioned bevel and also provide greater overall strength. It looks a little agricultural,  but it won’t be seen.

 

 

 

 Meanwhile, behind me my young fellow is working away at his own workbench well past his bed time. Being brought up on a diet of model glue and Swedish death metal, what can go wrong?

 

 

 

 

 

[Out2gtcha]

3 hours ago, ericg said:

 Meanwhile, behind me my young fellow is working away at his own workbench well past his bed time. Being brought up on a diet of model glue and Swedish death metal, what can go wrong?

 

 

 

 

Now that's the way to get em started. That could have been me at that age.

My father did the same thing for me at that age, and it kicked off a life long live of aviation and modeling.

Well done dad.

[Lee White]

1 hour ago, Out2gtcha said:

 

 

Now that's the way to get em started. That could have been me at that age.

My father did the same thing for me at that age, and it kicked off a life long live of aviation and modeling.

Well done dad.

At least it's not Norwegian or Finnish metal- that stuff is disturbing.

[Lee White]

4 hours ago, ericg said:

Cheers gents.

 

Forgot to add the picture of the cannon barrel fitted into the brass tube in the leading edge. Makes it much easier to leave these off until the last minute knowing that they are going to fit really well.

 

 

I don’t really have a shelf of doom, as long as nobody mentions my Hph Concorde. Some of my projects come perilously close to going there though, probably due to the non shake and bake nature of the projects I choose and the resulting ease of making an error. Similar to someone who reads a book and has to go back and re-read a whole chapter in order to understand a particularly difficult part of a novel, I find myself having to go and revisit old work, to start again to make things better. I had started fitting the flaps to the wings and came across a bit of a problem with how the fuselage and wings had been joined. When I originally fitted the wings to the fuselage, I needed to push them together with a bit of force. As a result of this, the inner section of the wing had a slightly concave shape when it needed to be flat. This was causing some issue with how the flaps were able to be fitted. I ended up breaking the model up to fix the problem and refit the wings with minimal pressure.

 

 

I refitted the wings and felt much better about it although this caused a fair bit more work as some of the mating areas had been damaged during this extreme measure. This then led to another problem although to be honest this had been bugging me from the start and the following fix is well worth the effort for those building this model. The nicely done vac formed canopy is unfortunately very thin and does not lend well to handling and during the reassembling of the model, I put some pressure on it breaking it away from part of the fuselage. This was the second time it had happened and I didn’t want it to happen again, possibly at a far later stage of completion. The clear plastic does not adhere well to the super glue that I am using and joining it to resin parts does not give a good bond. The small elliptical fairings behind the pilot were also giving me some trouble so it was time for a comprehensive fix of their area.

 

First up, I made up some supports from plastic card that will stop the part from flexing and breaking away from the fuselage. 

 

 

I then traced the shape of the fairing onto some plastic card. A small flex of the vac formed part easily broke them away.

 

 

I cut the part out of the plastic card, angling my blade so that it was beveled on the inside of the curve. I re attached the fairing and scraped away the paint around it where the plastic card part was going to fit.

 

 

The re done part. The plastic parts that I added now lock the fairings down due to the previously mentioned bevel and also provide greater overall strength. It looks a little agricultural,  but it won’t be seen.

 

 

 

 Meanwhile, behind me my young fellow is working away at his own workbench well past his bed time. Being brought up on a diet of model glue and Swedish death metal, what can go wrong?

 

 

 

 

 

Kid needs a Flying V and Marshall stack taller than he is.

[Troy Molitor]

I’m always amazed at your genre of subjects you choose Eric.  The boomerang is certainly no exception.   I don’t think I’ve ever seen one in progress until not.  A beefy little fellow for sure.  The Pacer was another one I really enjoyed see come to light.   

 

Thanks for sharing your builds and more importanly showing showing off the skill sets along the way.   I really enjoy your in progress work  on all your builds.  Many of which we would normally never see on LSP.  

 

Thanks again!

 

Troy.  

[MikeMaben]

10 hours ago, ericg said:

        Being brought up on a diet of model glue and Swedish death metal,

 

Oh look , it's little Yngwie  

 

 

[ericg]

Cheers guys.

 

last session in the workshop for 2018.

 

Now that the majority of the construction has been completed, I can hold the model in my hands and look at it from different angles, compare it to photos and get an appreciation as to how it looks to the real thing. I have noticed a couple of areas that could do with a bit of a tidy up. 

 

The top  of the nose cowl ring is a little softly defined.

 

 

I used a number 11 blade and a file followed by sandpaper to sharpen it up a bit according to my references. I also fixed up the top curve of it whilst I was there.

 

 

I always felt that the bottom chin area of the nose was too straight and looked a little off. 

 

 

Ther area is a little more bulbous and was something I was keen to fix. The problem was that there was a number of different curves to blend in and wasn’t as simple as tacking a piece of plastic card on. I came up with a solution. Starting from the fulselage join I glued on strips of plastic card to roughly cover the area. Each strip follows the curve under it nicely.

 

 

Filled with a super glue/talc mix, I sanded the area to shape using a coarse sanding stick and then smoothed it with with progressively finer grades of sandpaper. 

 

 

Primed to check progress

 

 

I then used my JLC razor saw to hand cut the new panel line. I did this to avoid dragging a scriber through the different layers of filler and plastic. I went without anything to guide the blade as there are a number of curves to deal with and sometimes nothing beats the MK1 eyeball. The razor saw is very handy for sorting out panel lines.

 

 

A small chip to deal with but very happy with the result.

 

 

The new nose. A small but I think important difference.

 

 

This pic is taken from roughly the same angle as the first one that I took of the unmodified nose.

 

 

 

 

 

[MikeMaben]

Quite cool Eric 

 

 

[Out2gtcha]

Great modeling

[LSP_Ray]

Nice work, Eric!

[ericg]

Thank guys.

 

I like my models like my music; obscure, complex and full of metal! I have a lack of trust in resin wings due to seeing a couple of my kits wings sag over the years, in one case, a newly released resin kit lasted less than a year before the horizontal stabilisers started to droop which is a shame given the work that went into it. For that reason, most of my builds will feature some type of reinforcement of landing gear, wings and other structures to prevent it happening. It is also fun when travelling to go through security and look at the X-ray operators screen as my models pass through.  Lots of thin metal metal rods passing through at odd angles, sometimes the outline of the model is visible, sometimes not. It looks like an X-ray of a bad accident fixed up and it is always interesting to see the operators face as they do a double-take at what is passing through, a change from the mundane iPads, headphones and rubber clad battery operated devices. 

 

I drilled a hole through the fuselage where the horizontal stabilisers join to fit a brass rod.

 

 

I removed the rod, and dry fitted a stab. This then allowed me to drill the corresponding hole at the exact location it needed to be from the opposite side to fit the rod into that part. I repeated the other side. 

 

 

The horizontal stabilisers now have a long piece of brass rod as spars.

 

 

The elevators were fitted with brass pins to allow for easier placement when it came time to glue them into place. Using superglue, you only really get one chance to get the angle right, so this avoids any mess ups. I have posed these slightly drooped as per my reference pics.

 

 

The rudder has also been pinned. Another benefit of doing it this way especially for control surfaces is that most of the strength of the join is in the pins rather than having to risk any glue being pushed out with a resulting visible bead, giving it a far more articulated look.

 

 

 

[airscale]

fab - i love proper build threads where ingenuity & skill are needed to get the basics right, layered with a dose of healthy research to make sure the end result is as accurate as it can be

 

you always bring that to the table Eric which is why every one of your models is an entertaining adventure

 

all the best

Peter

[ericg]

22 hours ago, airscale said:

fab - i love proper build threads where ingenuity & skill are needed to get the basics right, layered with a dose of healthy research to make sure the end result is as accurate as it can be

 

you always bring that to the table Eric which is why every one of your models is an entertaining adventure

 

all the best

Peter

 

Thanks mate. Pretty well every model of mine can owe some of its success to your excellent instruments.

 

Some more work.

 

The kit vac form windshield is well done but is very thin and very flexible. It doesn’t give a true feel of the solidly framed windshield with the thick bulletproof front panel.

 

Dry fitted at this stage with lots of work to do.

 

 

I chain drilled and cut out the front panel, staying well away from the edges.

 

 

Using a combination of diamond files, I tidied up the hole.

 

 

I cut out a section of .8mm PETG clear sheet and used the same files to size it so that it fit against the inside of the front panel frames. I left the bottom edge longer for ease of handling.

 

 

I then glued it in place using superglue. The PETG sheet is super clear, so it looks as if there is nothing there in this pic. 

 

 

The end result. Still need to do some of the side framing in the rest of the windshield, but at least now the thick bulletproof panel is quite visible.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Simmo.b]

Nice, reminds me of the kingfisher windshield!