crazypoet

For my next trick - planning a *little* bit ahead this time 🤣🤦‍♂️ - I’m going to work on the hydraulic line that snakes down each of the main gear legs the challenge here is in properly locating the end points - where it connects both at the top end and down near the wheels photos of restored examples show a variety of routings in between, from which I can extrapolate how it’s routed along the struts pretty well. Unfortunately, they’re kinda missing the points of connection top and bottom The only photo I’ve found that shows the whole length is from a pair of gear struts that look to be salvages from a wreck, and it’s a bit fuzzy thus should be fun!

a bit more on this topic, as I had time to do a bit more research this weekend It took a bit of digging, since there were three different iterations of the Paddleblade prop for the P47 - two from Curtis Electric and one from Hamilton Standard. the best info I’ve been able to find is that is was the Curtis Electric C542S-A114 wide-blade symmetrical prop which was first distributed in the field and retrofitted to earlier versions of the Jug, starting in Spring of ‘43 the Hamilton Standard paddleblade was introduced later, and was also used as a field mod, but given the timing of things, I’m going with the Curtis Symmetrical prop for this build Curtis also did an asymmetric paddleblade even later, which was *also* retrofitted to some jugs this makes things more than a bit confusing when building to a specific point in time 😂

I’m looking forward to seeing you take this to the next level, as always 🙏

I just spent a very happy hour or so catching up with this build - it is beyond amazing. 🤩 Your scratch building and CAD/3D printing skillz are off the charts! I am so grateful for the chance to look over your shoulder while at the same time learning at your feet 🙏

Beautiful work on this! The cockpit is a work of art unto itself 🙏 looking forward to this coming together

This is brilliant work! I love your attention to detail and getting things *right* 🙏🙏 you’re teaching all of us useful tricks - I love that about this group

Ok, both sides done and a bit of cleanup accomplished. I need to do a light rub of Uschi’s iron powder to bring back the finish on the cylinder ends, and then dust things up to make it all look a bit lived-in its not quite as nice as it would have been had I done this before joining the wing halves - I simply didn’t think ahead (I was thinking more about the gun bays, truth be told) ah well, lesson learned for next time

It’s been probably 50 years since I did a car kit, but I have the ancient AMT 1/16 ‘57 Chevy Nomad kit waiting patiently in the stash your build is giving me some great ideas about ways to spruce up my kit i love watching over your shoulder! 🙏🙏

This is simply… gorgeous 🙏 and I love your approach to cleaning the metal parts - much *much* easier than my wire brush approach 😂 now I have to see if I can find one of those tumblers in Phnom Penh 🤣🤦‍♂️🤷‍♂️

So with much cursing, a couple of drinks, and managing to break *both* of the tiny actuator arms for the inner landing gear doors (these things survived two years of storage and handling, only to fall prey to my using a bit of extra force with a pair of needle-nose pliers while fitting these lines. Gawds 🤦‍♂️ Fortunately, I have the correct size wire stock and drill bits to replace them later) the first set of lines are in and the glue is drying (micro crystal clear, since I needed it to dry slowly). I have a bit of cleanup to do, but I’m happy with the results My version, followed by a photo of a restored original (they used the same materials as the original, excepting the bright blue cap on the fittings 😂) I stand ready for your ridicule

So. In today’s episode of “why the hell didn’t I think of this *before* glueing something in place…” Each of the two hydraulic cylinders that raise and lower the main gear needs two fiddly little holes drilled to attach the hydraulic lines. plus, I need to drill a hole in the side of each gear well to accept one of the lines (the other tucks neatly underneath and out of sight) this would have been *so* much easier if I’d considered it either before gluing the cylinder in place or before joining the wing halves 7-P process in full display here 😂 at any rate, I’ve figured out the shapes and curves of the lines, I know where I have to drill, and just need to put a finish on the lines themselves. After much head-scratching and testing of different materials, I decided to go with some brass wire I had laying about to form the lines. with a small bending brake, I can set the correct angle for the connection to the cylinder, and the way it creates the bend gives me the look of a proper hydraulic fitting at the point of the bend. For the lines past the fitting, I’ll dip the wire in some black primer to give the proper OD for the hoses, then add a bit of texture to make them look like braided lines (yah, I have two sizes of scale braided lines, but the .5mm is too small and the .8mm ended up being a bit large after stretching over the brass wire…) wheeee!

That’s the only 1/32 Betty I’ve seen mentioned anywhere i would love to do a build of the white-painted Betty being escorted to the surrender conference by a B25 strafer i have the decals and details for the B25 in question, and the kit is waiting in my bench thing is… I want the other half! anyone? beuller? haaaalp!

They do! Add in a bit of aftermarket and it gets even better. in this case I’m building a specific aircraft, which is why I had to “back-rev” the kit to a D-5 fortunately, it’s pretty straightforward to do this

I love your approach to all of this - and I’m filing the casting mark tips away for whenever I get around to building anything with large cast pieces 😎💯🙏

I also finished up the squared-off cowl flaps for the D-5, and I like the way they’re fitting. Still need to be re-primed and may do a touch-up on the rivets, but I’m happy so far

So, I’m finally sort of caught up with where I left off with this thing 🤣 when last we met, I was starting to g to work on the hydraulic lines in the landing gear bays. I have those half-finished (one large cylinder in each bay), and I’m working on the other cylinder now. i wasn’t *entirely* happy with the look of the first lines, but they’ll do. The second set will take a slightly different approach anyway, due to the way they fit both at the cylinder and the routing out of the bay. soooo…. I’m working with a couple different materials to see which will work best (brass wire, thin telecom wire unstripped, and thin telecom wire stripped out. ill let y’all know how it works out

Ahhh…. So it does still work. I think I was trying to upload too large of a pic earlier. at any rate, this is me with the new-edition Ms Poet - we did a “coming out as a couple” traditional photoshoot last month. Traditions and customs are a bit different here - you need approval from family and friends to date publicly, and it has to be “announced” within the community her name is Thea, she’s a doctor, and thoroughly amazing

…now I just have to figure out how to upload photos over my VPN connection 🤷‍♂️🤣🤦‍♂️

Sooooo…. After a long work-related break, followed by retirement and a move out of country (I’m now living the Expat life in Phnom Penh, Cambodia - very long story 😂), and *also* finally receiving all my stuff shipped from the US (it took four months, y’all!)… I'm finally baaaack i dusted things off, washed it all with hsome dish soap, figured out where I’d left things and this is back on the worktable

Loving this! It’s a joy to see a master at work 💯

I’ve been wanting a 1:32 A-20 for *years* to go alongside the B-25 strafer I have in the queue I am looking very very much forward to this!!!

Ok, so this doesn’t *entirely* fit here, but it *is* very large scale, and some of the bits came as a kit😂 This was a project I built in a friend’s shop, paying rent by helping him finish a rifle of his own so this is a Lehman-pattern half-stock percussion rifle in .50cal it took just over a year, working Sunday afternoons in his shop It’s fully functional, rifled for modern sabot shot rather than lead balls ready for the ‘23 season 😎

So not a whole lot of progress, as I took the weekend off (utterly worth it, though - Savannah is *awesome*) bits of filing and sanding, and starting to work on landing gear hydraulics (yes, I’m putting off working on the gun bays out of sheer laziness 😂) trying an experiment with .8mm braided line, wire, and some paint I’m not thrilled with the results yet, but it’s got potential. There’s only a few of these particular flexible lines that will be at all visible, which helps. I'm going to keep fiddling about until they look right

Haven’t gotten any new pics yet, but those will be forthcoming i spent some time doing a bit of gap-filling on the seams on the leading edge of both wings. There were a couple of spots where the edges gapped by .5mm, despite everything else lining up happily. Once that’s all dried and smooth I’ll redo a couple of rivets that I managed to screw up in the process. after that, I will turn my attention to the gun bays. I have the Eduard gun bay set, and so far I’m happy with it. I’m not entirely sure about their ammo feed chutes - I’m going back and forth between those and the ones from the kit. They both have minor issues, based on photos I’ve seen, so I’ll go with whichever looks best. I’ll also have to deal with the charging rods, which promise to be a right PITA, but that’s all part of the fun. I’ll next have to decide whether to go with the PE ammo belts or the rubber ones from the kit - again, both have issues, and I’ll go with whichever looks more “right” after getting them painted up. If I had the brains god gave a turnip, I’d just close up the gun bays and not worry about it. We’ll see how badly I screw things up stuffing all the bits inside, and go from there once those are settled, there’s some hoses and such to add to the landing gear bays while they’re still easy to reach wheee! It’s good to be back

I realized that I had to do a bit of trimming on the back of the engine - that’s where the problem came from. It sits a bit too far forward out of the box with that done, the rocker arms and engine mounts fit *perfectly* I’ll get some pics of that later today