markiii Posted April 25, 2021 Share Posted April 25, 2021 Another Chuck classic in the making. chuck540z3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
airscale Posted April 25, 2021 Share Posted April 25, 2021 sweet! wonderful to see airscale stuff in action and in your hands Chuck, I am sure I am in for a treat really looking forward to a step up in scale too - hopefully you get hooked Peter scvrobeson, chuck540z3, KiwiZac and 1 other 3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zaxos345 Posted April 26, 2021 Share Posted April 26, 2021 Awesome start as always Chuck!! John chuck540z3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tomg Posted April 26, 2021 Share Posted April 26, 2021 19 hours ago, airscale said: sweet! wonderful to see airscale stuff in action and in your hands Chuck, I am sure I am in for a treat really looking forward to a step up in scale too - hopefully you get hooked Peter Airscale in combo with all the other stuff (esp anyz) will be something to see. Will be following!! chuck540z3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alaninaustria Posted April 26, 2021 Share Posted April 26, 2021 Very nice start to a great subject, I am really looking forward to following this build! Cheers Alan chuck540z3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ax365 Posted April 26, 2021 Share Posted April 26, 2021 Okay. Game on! Like everyone else, I look forward to what you do with this build, Chuck. I'm sorry to hear about the ruptured appendix. I hope you weren't in too much pain for too long. For pain and discomfort as a result of your ailment, this doctor prescribes a couple of nice, long drives with the top down when weather permits. Take care Chuck and stay safe. Mike chuck540z3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chuck540z3 Posted April 26, 2021 Author Share Posted April 26, 2021 (edited) Thank you everyone for your kind words of encouragement. I'll try not to disappoint! April 26/21 A little progress today, which was a little bit confusing and also rewarding. The focus was on all the Adriatic resin I was sent from Italy and where the heck it all went in the cockpit. Giovanni has sent me several pics of the cockpit and where some of this stuff goes, but not all of it by a long shot, which is understandable since it isn’t readily on the market yet- and they don’t even have a website yet! I am very lucky to have this stuff at all and with taking it one step at a time, I think I made some major progress. The first thing I did was to cut the large rear wall off it’s casting block and as I found with all of the parts, this was best done with styrene snippers, followed by clean up with a #11 knife. I really like this resin which I’ve had a few times before with other products. It’s soft and flexible, but still hard enough to sand cleanly, which is a fine line. If it’s too soft, it won’t sand and if it’s too hard, it breaks easily. This resin behaved very well and I did not break on piece, which was a surprise with the very fine pieces like the throttle control. A big part of this success must also be with the placement of the attachments in the algorithm that goes into the 3D printer, which I know nothing about. All I know is, it all worked very well. The rear wall is a very large piece of resin and I had to sand it down on the outside edges here and there to make it fit the kit fuselage parts. This is not hard to do at all, but critical, because everything else attaches to it and it’s better to get this right now than later. Some of the depressions on the resin wall were too shallow, which gave me the perfect opportunity to try out my new David Union “Router” as they call it, which is basically a precision Dremel Tool. I bought mine from our own Troy Molitor some months ago, long after all the heavy lifting of my CF-104 resin cockpit and avionics bay was over, which would have been real handy if I had it earlier. Nevertheless, I have it now and by drilling small pilot holes in the resin where I wanted some depressions a bit deeper, I deepened them with this tool with a tiny bit supplied with the router. Unlike a Dremel tool, this router is a super fine precision instrument and control of what I was trying to accomplish was easy without it going all over the place and making a mess. Some of the kit and resin parts and where they fit in the new depressions. One nice resin addition is the Landing Gear Emergency Valve that fits on the end of the kit bottle behind the seat, "glued" together with liquid mask. Note that there is still lots of stuff missing, like replacement hydraulic lines and raised rivet detail, which I will add soon. The kit seat has huge pin marks on the front, which is really unfortunate because they could easily have been on the bottom where they wouldn’t show. These were filled with CA glue, along with the pin marks on the seat sides. I also added pins for the HGW seatbelts to attach to, by drilling holes in styrene rod and gluing into the hole where the kit seatbelts are attached. The Adriatic resin includes much more detailed seat tops that attach to the bulkhead behind, which are two of the depressions I widened above. I first cut off the kit part at the top, then added extensions to the seat rails with styrene rod. Note that none of the pin marks will be visible later, so I just left them as is. The Adriatic resin parts were then glued on which when combined with the extensions, creates a fairly good bond. Another styrene “towel bar” was then added for the seat belts. Since the resin braces are a bit longer than the kit parts, I had to trim the base of the seat rails slightly to get everything to fit. Dry fit, you can see quite a bit behind the seat, so a lot of the work on the parts behind it won’t be a waste of time. Note the styrene rods on the left side. These will be inserted into the elevator/rudder assembly in the next step. This is what the kit cockpit parts look like on the left/port side. Not bad, but not great either. Here is what it looks like with 3 key Adriatic resin enhancements, which also shows where those styrene rods go. Sidewall pin marks have already been filled or removed. Another angle. Note that nothing is glued yet for ease of painting and I still need to add some electrical and hydraulic lines. Combined with the Airscale panel at the top, this will look great when finished. The Starboard/right side kit parts. Again, not horrible, but they could be improved. Lots of new resin on this side, which I did glue, because the small parts needed to located perfectly and it would be harder to do after painting without making a mess. The Airscale panel is just dry fitted, because I need to add a lot of new switch detail which is easier done off the assembly. Note that a few of the instruments look different than the kit part above, especially the small one on the left. According to the reference pics I have, the Adriatic version is bang on while I can't find one that looks like the kit. All of the instruments have been pre-drilled with holes at the bottom, where I will be adding electrical lines later. Another angle. Just look at those fine toggle switches! I’ve got a few more Adriatic resin parts for the cockpit to install, but that will have to be after paint and final assembly of the side walls. Most of the other resin parts remaining are for the engine area when I get around to that in likely a month or two. I have to say, I am VERY impressed with the Adriatic resin. It really does kick this build up a notch in every way! Cheers, Chuck Edited April 27, 2021 by chuck540z3 F`s are my favs, Paul in Napier, levier and 39 others 41 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rocat Posted April 26, 2021 Share Posted April 26, 2021 Great start and progress! I’m in, of course. chuck540z3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TAG Posted April 26, 2021 Share Posted April 26, 2021 Just... WOW! Can't wait to see you add the Anyz stuff and sling some paint at this, Chuck chuck540z3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
easixpedro Posted April 27, 2021 Share Posted April 27, 2021 Looking good Chuck! All I can say is keep dry fitting. And then check it again...the tolerance is tight. It’s a well engineered kit. I ran into issues w/ parts 226 on step 17. Totally my own doing, but they dried at an angle and then interfered with trying to close up the fuselage sides. Looking forward to more! Peter chuck540z3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chuck540z3 Posted April 27, 2021 Author Share Posted April 27, 2021 1 hour ago, easixpedro said: Looking good Chuck! All I can say is keep dry fitting. And then check it again...the tolerance is tight. It’s a well engineered kit. I ran into issues w/ parts 226 on step 17. Totally my own doing, but they dried at an angle and then interfered with trying to close up the fuselage sides. Looking forward to more! Peter Thank you Peter for the tip. I also had trouble with that part, so shaved down the sides of the handle and it fits great now. I'm actually close to Step 42 where you close up the fuselage halves in terms of parts, having skipped the many steps that puts stuff behind the seat that will never be seen again*. Next will be wiring, paint, then detailing the cockpit, which I think will be fun. * Skipped Steps: 24, 25, 26, 27, 30, 31, 32, 40, and 41 so far..... Cheers, Chuck Maw1963, easixpedro and Alex 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dpgsbody55 Posted April 27, 2021 Share Posted April 27, 2021 That Adriatic resin detail looks great, and I'll be interested to see what improvement it makes to the engine, too. I'd be interested to know when or if the kit becomes available to purchase. Nice work so far. Cheers, Michael chuck540z3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spartacus2000 Posted April 27, 2021 Share Posted April 27, 2021 (edited) Great start, Adriatic resin seems very good stuff my works on engine is stopped due my job but I hope to restart soon ! Edited April 27, 2021 by spartacus2000 chuck540z3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cicchino Posted April 27, 2021 Share Posted April 27, 2021 Chuck, I really look forward to your builds and appreciate how well you both explain and illustrate your work. I’m sure you’re aware of Nigels Modeling Bench on YouTube and his Hellcat build. He cast some resin items to correct some shortcomings in the kit as well. May be worth a look. regards John Cicchino Paul in Napier and chuck540z3 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
petrov27 Posted April 27, 2021 Share Posted April 27, 2021 Looking great - top notch! Also very interested in that Adriatic set if they make it available to all chuck540z3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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