HubertB

Nice additions to your range 👍 Ànd your J-58 is a work of art. Now, we just need a SR-71 to go around it. Hubert

Compressor stall … without firing any gun. I have to say that the combination of issues with the slats and the re-engraving of panel lines, plus the decision to add riveting proved to be somewhat of a mojo killer on the Cutlass. Or at least a driver of procrastination … Which means I have not spent a lot of time at the bench in the last two weeks, or not as much as I could have. I compensated by more reading, but it was Sci-Fi books like the 3-body problem trilogy or « Ball lightning », also from the same Cixin Liu … Still, I did some progress on finishing the surface preparation, which culminated with the gluing of the front windscreen, a necessary step to avoid any more sanding after priming, as it is not a drop fit that goes without any fitting and sanding … So, this morning was the time for priming. But, like the Cutlass initially, when the guns were fired, I experienced a compressor stall ! Or, more precisely, a burst pipe; only it’s a pneumatic one, not a hydraulic one, as it happened so often with the Cutlass … The pipe that connects the pressure gauge to the tank of my airbrush compressor had a cut at the level of one connection nut, and burst. So the compressor is now literally stalled, until I can install some new pipe, which I have already ordered. No pic to show, as there is not any interesting one to show, so more progress some time in the future … Btw, I had ordered and received the following book. Interesting reading, and some pictures I had not seen before. And it has somewhat changed my mind on the reasons of the failure of the Cutlass. Yes the J-46 was a poor engine, as Westinghouse tried to implement the ancestor of modern-jet engines FADEC, and it was just to innovative for the time’s technology (remember that FADEC development problems nearly killed the A-400 M program ?) , and had an insufficient military thrust, but the main issue was the lack of proper transition training for the pilots of the time, coupled with the specific problems of straight-deck aircraft carriers. Transition training led to the creation of NATOPS (and the Cutlass issues were a key driver behind this new approach) and the development of a twin-seat swept-wing fighter, i.e. the famous « Twogar ». And the accident rate of the Cutlass dropped dramatically, at levels lower than other contemporary Navy Fighters, with the introduction of angled-decks carriers. More when possible … Hubert

The other difference is that the PCB drill bits are of a different steel grade, richer in carbon … Hence their propensity to break like glass … Hubert

No interest in Luft 46, but the P.1101 was the very close inspiration of the Bell X-5 … Hubert

Yessssss ! Hubert PS : and you can dissolve ABS in MEK to produce a paste to weld and fill ABS assemblies

Ingenious solution for the doors, Rob. The fit is now better than on the original Hubert

Great for gluing ABS parts, or PMMA, or polycarbonate … Hubert

The "Spanish" Flu in 1918/1919 killed between 50 (low estimate) and 100 (high estimate) million people. Makes Covid look like a seasonal cold ... in France, about 1 500 to 1 700 people died of the flu in the first two weeks of January ... Hubert

Got vaccinated in October last year, and still got it at the end of last year, albeit in a very attenuated form, that got me tired for a few days, but nothing more really. Patricia, also vaccinated, gor a more severe form that got her in bed for a week. Still better than in 2020, when the flu degenerated in pneumonia with 10 days in ER, during COVID times ... So, even if the risk of new strains not totally covered by the vaccine, as pointed above, is present, it is still better to get vaccinated than not, in my experience at least. Hubert

One thing I discovered is that the digital calipers always run out of battery when you need them. « Old style » calipers at least don’t need any battery, and I use them all the time. This said, I have a digital one for measuring angles. So that is a 50/50 choice Hubert PS: I only recently got rid of my slide rule. The battery on calculators really lasts a long time …

AB-SO-LU-TE-LY fantastic work ! Hubert

Even more so as it is in 1/35 scale Hubert

It’s a hefty price tag, but it is also a very big model. HOWEVER, for the price tag, I hope that Lukgraph will ensure to provide a way for keeping the wings rigid and straight - besides the obvious need to have a rigging that effectively contributes to the rigidity of the wings’ bay - as well as strong struts and undercarriage. 3D-printed resin is not necessarily strong enough to last more than a few days if the weight escalates … i was a bit miffed by the solid - and therefore heavy - top wing of the Potez 25. I spent significant efforts to make sure the heavy finished kit would keep straight wings, and stand on its landing gear, not only for a few weeks, but for many years … Hubert

She’s looking good, Scott 👍 ! Funny, my only knowledge of the Aleutian Tigers P-40s was the box-art of the venerable 1/32 Revell kit. I had a memory of a fierce-looking tiger, when this one looks only half awake with its strange eyes 😂 ! Anyway, great-looking P-40 ! Hubert

Resuming operations ... in slow motion ... Now that I have finished my entry in the Sandbox GB, and my small interlude with the Rutan Quickie, back to finishing the Cutlass. I had left it on a frustration, i.e. the wing slats area... The way Fisher has chosn to represent them makes modellers' life a bit difficult. Part of the slats' "recess" on the wings is molded integrally with the wings, and then you have to glue an insert including the slats' arms in a slot in this area. It would be all good if the parts - the wings on one hand and the part-fairings with slats' arms on the other hand - were closely matched, with little adjustment, sanding and filling necessary. Alas, this is not the case (it may also be partly because I started the kit 10 years ago, and the resin has continued to evolve, and shrink in some places). So you end up with at best some nasty seams to fill and sand, and at worst with a step betwen the two parts, that needs to be filled, than sanded. and all of this with the slats' arms in the way 😡 ! In the end, I decided to go for a more radical solution, in three steps : 1) remove the slats' arms, sand and fill to have a smooth base 2) redo the slats openings in the smoothed leading edges. I had a bit of operator's error in their placement, so had to re-fill and re-do some ... 3) design and print some new slats, integral with their actuating arms ... Here is the result of this work. It does not look nice, but is in fact very smooth with only very minor blemishes still to fil and sand The small fairings on the top of the wing, that match IRL some slots in the slats, have been re-done with some plastic strip and smoothed with the wings' upper surface. The slats recesses were also accentuated to have a more visible separation with the wing's upper surface. It was a tedious job to scrape them whilst keeping a straight line ... And the newly-designed and printed slats, already primed and sanded to achieve a smoother finish than the raw printed appearance. Whilst I was in the surface treatment phase, I decided to do some extra work, which then pushed me in slow motion because I am definitely, with hindsight, not a fan of it : redo the structure lines which have been sanded away here and there, and then add some rivets ! I will go for a VA-83 NMF finish, and the rivets are sometimes faintly discernible. Fisher's resin is very hard (probably also because it has had 10+ years to cure some more) and riveting with a pounce wheel requires a significant amount of pressure to achieve even a small impression. I soon found out that holding a ruler with one hand, and applying pressure on the pounce wheel with the other hand was just too impractical : you need to move slowly to impress the resin, and the rule slips, or does not hold when taped in situ. So in the end, all the riveting was done free-hand. Some lines are totally straight, but then close examination of the pictures showed that it was also the case with the 1:1 aircrafts. There was no CNC machining back in the early 50's ! Anyway, some samples of the riveting work. It will be attenuated when I prepare the surface with steel wool for priming. Only time will tell - and show - if the hours spent were woth the aggravation ... When this was done, came the time to finally match the nose and main fuselage ! The fit of the Fisher kit is this area is challenging, and trials showed that some pressure would be needed to ensure that the fuselage parts matched both on the top - that was relatively easy - and the bottom, where there was a gap to eliminate with brute force But nothing that epoxy and a heavy duty clamp can't address : When the clamp was removed after a few hours for the epoxy to really set; the top had a small joint and minor step that was easily filed away (here with some Mr Surfacer 500 to better see what remains to be sanded and smoothed : On the bottom however, there was still a step between the front fuselage and the rear one (but no seam / chasm to fill) As the front fuselage has the front LG bay going to its end, the step has to be filled on the rear fuselage, rather than filed on the front fuselage. And as I will need to reinstate some panle lines and rivets, I wanted a hard surface. So, after afew minutes with CA glue and Colle 21 "magic dust", the main of the step has been filled, and the profile roughly re-established. Here as well, I have slathered some Mr Surfacer 500, so the pic is still ugly, but the bulk of the correction xork is done, and now it is just a question of sanding and finishing ... And that is all for now. I should be able to move forward with a brisker pace, now that the essential part of the tedious jobs is behind me. Hubert