thierry laurent Posted February 17, 2019 Share Posted February 17, 2019 5 hours ago, Darren Howie said: Having polished many centreline seams on modern fighter canopies realistically can it be any more difficult or critical than a huge line in the middle of a bubble canooy? Darren, Removing a seam on top of a canopy part is one thing whereas removing a seam BETWEEN two clear parts is another thing. You need to be a magician to do that with sandpaper and polish... Thierry nmayhew 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ericg Posted February 18, 2019 Share Posted February 18, 2019 (edited) On 2/16/2019 at 8:48 AM, Wackyracer said: From a build online otb I found earlier this year With a bit of polishing from my set of Micro Mesh clothes I was able to obtain a fairly clear finish. After a dip in some AK Interactive Gauzy Agent the finish is quite acceptable. It looks like the join is over the top most clear panels. Why not just make a copy of the top of the turret with silicone, cast it in resin and then make a part from the resin cast that can be vac formed over to replace only the top of the turret? Cut the top off the original turret and replace it with the newly vac formed clear part. You might have to invest some time learning a new skill if you haven't vac formed before, but lets face it, if you are attempting a kit of this size that you want to look half decent then a small diversion away from just chucking plastic together and painting will be time well spent. Edited February 18, 2019 by ericg Dave T Brown and Scale32 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Williams Posted February 18, 2019 Share Posted February 18, 2019 The seam between the turret halves is much less noticeable than the alignment pins. scvrobeson, adameliclem and chukw 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lee White Posted February 18, 2019 Share Posted February 18, 2019 OK, crazy idea here- We all know how hard it would be to cast a nice, thin hollow turret in clear resin, no argument there.... But, what if you made it solid? Take the kit turret, close off the openings, assemble and polish the thing within an inch of its life, and drop it in rubber? Then, carefully place the turret innards where they belong, and pour clear casting resin into the mold. You would have to add the barrels separately, but, unless you were looking very closely, most viewers would think it was hollow, because that is what they would expect it to be. The added weight, marginal as it would be, would help the balance issue somewhat too. Thoughts? adameliclem 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cees Broere Posted February 18, 2019 Share Posted February 18, 2019 I was watching some of Paul Budzik's video's the other day and noticed a mould for a 1/48 Liberator nose turret (or it looked like one). IIRC the general shape is quite simple being a cylinder with rounded top. If that can be simply (or not) made and the two front sections cut away and the kit's substituted then Bob is your uncle. Or is that too simplistic? Cees Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thierry laurent Posted February 18, 2019 Share Posted February 18, 2019 Hi Cees, Unfortunately, the full front turret is not a simple cylinder. Looking at the complete turret shape, I do not think it is possible to vacform one in one piece. As I already mentioned in a prior post, I also believe the solution that looks the best from a technical approach would limit the change to the replacement of the clear sections with the seam. However, joining that new vacform section to the rest of the turret is not going to be easy. It would be a little bit easier with a clear resin part. The two best solutions would be new styrene ones but I do not see who would invest in that or doing a full resin one but this is quite difficult to do as Cutting edge, HpH, Alleycat and Fisher were the only companies I know that released similar parts. However, CE disappeared years ago, Hph declined and Paul Fisher is currently out of the business. So, Alleycat...? but I am also remembering that Ali (Aerocraft) had major problems to obtain castings of his aftermarket resin P-51D canopy. So, I think we will have to be patient. I am still crossing my fingers! I'm also wondering how were the ID Models-Tigger models ones (multi-parts? Accurate?) in the vacformed B-24 kit and if they could not be used to help in solving the issue. Thierry Out2gtcha 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John1 Posted February 18, 2019 Share Posted February 18, 2019 With regard to a resin replacement, only thing I can add is that Hypersonic does some truly outstanding clear resin casting. I've got their 48th scale KA-3B Skywarrior canopy and it's flawless (if a bit pricey). The second issue that should be looked at is the turret interior, which is completely botched. It's nothing close to reality and if left as is, you would need a 72nd scale gunner to fit into it. Part of this is simply due to the thickness of the plastic turret, which doesn't leave as much room for an accurate interior, part of it is also because HB apparently just didn't care. In this regard, using a vacformed replacement turret would allow for much more room to scratchbuild an accurate interior. If you go with a resin replacement you will have less room to work with but still should be able to come up with something better than the stock interior. thierry laurent and Jan_G 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thierry laurent Posted February 18, 2019 Share Posted February 18, 2019 You got a point with the turret thickness issue. This is indeed one aspect for which a vacformed-based solution would be clearly better. Another possibility could be a resin skeleton with vacformed windows and resin interior parts. Jan_G, D.B. Andrus and alanash1963 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adameliclem Posted February 18, 2019 Share Posted February 18, 2019 17 hours ago, Lee White said: OK, crazy idea here- We all know how hard it would be to cast a nice, thin hollow turret in clear resin, no argument there.... But, what if you made it solid? Take the kit turret, close off the openings, assemble and polish the thing within an inch of its life, and drop it in rubber? Then, carefully place the turret innards where they belong, and pour clear casting resin into the mold. You would have to add the barrels separately, but, unless you were looking very closely, most viewers would think it was hollow, because that is what they would expect it to be. The added weight, marginal as it would be, would help the balance issue somewhat too. Thoughts? Worth thinking about. First challenge that popped into my head was the likelihood of air bubbles collecting on the interior details. Could vacuum extraction work? I don't know. There might be some freaky optical distortions, too. Out2gtcha, thierry laurent and Lee White 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nmayhew Posted February 21, 2019 Author Share Posted February 21, 2019 I have asked Roy Sutherland of Barracuda. he says he will take a look but clear resin is a) super difficult to get right b) not his thing, so I wouldn’t get your hopes up. again my only suggestion is that you all message him if you want him to make them...$$$ can be a powerful motivator Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thierry laurent Posted February 21, 2019 Share Posted February 21, 2019 I know that clear vacform is not in his normal scope either but why not proposing him a normal resin structure with small clear vacform parts to add? This solves the resin casting issue as well as the production of vacformed parts as they would be flatter and smaller. Obviously the assembly would be quite more complicated but this is probably the only realistic way to get an aftermarket in scale turret. adameliclem 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John1 Posted February 21, 2019 Share Posted February 21, 2019 6 hours ago, nmayhew said: I have asked Roy Sutherland of Barracuda. he says he will take a look but clear resin is a) super difficult to get right b) not his thing, so I wouldn’t get your hopes up. again my only suggestion is that you all message him if you want him to make them...$$$ can be a powerful motivator If $$$ is the motivator, I'm still not sure what the demand would be for this. How many people (keep in my that this site isn't an accurate sample size) are actually buying this monster and of them (given the fierce "everything in this kit looks acceptable" faction in the original B-24 thread) would actually spend a large amount of money for this set? Gotta believe that Roy's investment costs for this would be pretty steep. If I was a businessman, I'd argue that it'd be prudent to focus elsewhere. That being said, I like Theirry's approach best. Vacform should allow many more companies to take a crack at this and in addition, would provide realistically thin components so you could accurately replicate the interior. Casting in resin will leave you with 1' scale thickness plexiglass, pretty much eliminating any chance of a decent turret interior. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Propwash Posted February 21, 2019 Share Posted February 21, 2019 I suspect that any realistic fix to the turret problem won't be cheap, and will likely be limited to the dedicated few who are willing to part with the dough for an upgrade that will hardly be visible in the finished model. However, speaking for myself, a 1/32 B-24 has been on my wish list for decades, and I'm prepared to pay the price in order to get it right. Out2gtcha 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Out2gtcha Posted February 21, 2019 Share Posted February 21, 2019 1 hour ago, Propwash said: I suspect that any realistic fix to the turret problem won't be cheap, and will likely be limited to the dedicated few who are willing to part with the dough for an upgrade that will hardly be visible in the finished model. However, speaking for myself, a 1/32 B-24 has been on my wish list for decades, and I'm prepared to pay the price in order to get it right. To a point I can agree with that. However, IMHO, I do think that at least the nose turret will definitely be very visible in the end, as it is one of the signature features of the J model. To some its probably not as important as it is to others and as as you pointed out, I think in the end, to those who it is not as important, it will be difficult to spend what is inevitably likely going to be an expensive conversion (for what you get). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nmayhew Posted February 21, 2019 Author Share Posted February 21, 2019 (edited) I also think many people are buying it only to realise ‘oh boll0cks’ once they actually go through the parts and see the turret parts moulded the wrong way round! Edited February 21, 2019 by nmayhew Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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