HubertB

Nice Rob 👍 ! Personally, I’d add more grass, not just around the threaded rod, to justify that the drone is hovering in the middle a kind of edge, not just THE piece of grass in the neighborhood … Just my Hubert PS: and the plastic bottles should be « sand-blasted » as well, at least the ones exposed to the stream …

Sorry for the misleading moniker (memory and age don’t go together harmoniously ). It’s a machinist’s angle block. Here is the link : https://micromark.com/collections/mini-hand-tools/products/1-x-1-x-1-inch-angle-plate Hubert

Hi. Sorry I cannot really help you on the Hataka lacquers, but I’d try in a separate container before filling the airbrush cup. What I can tell you is that I I used some Hataka acrylics to airbrush the highlights of my Potez 25 - in the case I goofed the paint job, I could wipe it off on the MRP / Tamiya X-22 lacquer base - and thinned them with Tamiya X20 acrylic thinner. I could finish the paint job, but I found it left a gooey mess in my airbrush, which it almost clogged completely and which I spent an hour cleaning this morning. But then acrylics can react funnily with chemicals when water works just fine … I’d also try Tamiya Lacquer Thinner in case Mr Levelling Thinner dose not work. Hubert

Looking good Gus. It was a good-looking airframe, with neat, simple lines, just like the Hawker Seahawk. It’s a pity Supermarine missed the idea of a tricycle undercarriage… Hubert

Thank you Kevin. I retired on July 1st 2022, but still owned the company, although I nominated my right-hand as General Manager since October 22. He is now a full owner, and me a full retiree. As for the Potez, I am now on the home stretch. I should start the rigging on Tuesday, and hopefully finish it by next week-end. Hubert

MicroMark still sell these "engineering blocks" ... Hubert

Nice try, Scott, but I am not putting my finger into this pot of jam, no, no, no ... Hubert

A small hop for modelling, but a big leap for Potez ... she's grown wings Limited progress this week. I had to have a quick trip to France, which put modelling on the back burner. But I am now officially retired, including as a company owner . I signed the sale of the company, and to boot, I sold it to the man who seconded me throughout all the years, which makes me even happier to see the sale come to fruition, because he truly deserved it. Ok, back to the Potez. I did do the small touchups of the right fishhook / anchor on the top wing after the near disaster of laying the decal, then sealed all the decals with a coat of Tamiya X-22. When this was done, I proceeded to do some more highlighting / weathering / sand-dusting of the Potez, before sealing the whole again, this time under a coat of MRP semi-matte. I'm not 100 % sure about this one, as I feel the effects I had built up seemed to have vanished a bit under the last coat of varnish. To do the weathering / highlighting, I sprayed a slightly lighter shade of grey - that makes only 3, or 4 if you count the wheels, in total, not 50 - on the ribs of the top surfaces, as on the top fuselage. I then used blue-grey and light brown pastel chalks to further enhance the highlighting, rubbing the grey chalk on the upper surfaces (the ribs and the top fuselage), and the sand chalk on the lower surfaces, and then blending it in the surface with a stiff flat brush. I also added some sand chalk on the lower part of the rudder, who most likely was receiving the dust generated by the landings and take-offs on the sand "runways". Anyway, on to the pics : The fuselage, with the rudder and elevators : You may note the lower part of the "BZ65" number is slightly yellowed by the desert sand as well ... ... as is the belly and underside, where the effect is heavier, logically : The lower sesquiplane wing and undersurfaces of the elevators, before the application of the semi-mette varnish : The upper wing with the highlighted ribs : This one below is slightly out of focus nearer to the camera, but it also shows the starkness of the roundels and fishhooks has been toned down and blended into the general dusting effect (ditto for the lower wings, btw) And then came the time to glue the lower sesquiplane. The tube spars I had added worked as planned And I knew there was a reason I kept these Humbrol tins for 35 years 🤣 The top wing is just posed on the upper cabane struts jig : ... But it proves the landing gear is strong enough to withstand the weight of the Potez kit. The loaded weight of the Potez 25 TOE was about 2 500 Kg, which should result in a 1/32 scale weight of about 76 grams ... The kit is about 4.5 times heavier than that ... ... and the one above shows the modulation and highlighting I did much better. I have also worked on the windmilling generators. Lukgraph proposes some "propeller blades" on the PE sheet for those, but I am struggling to understand the fitting of these asymetric shapes, one blade being "fat" when the other is definitely "slim". So I put to a better use the PE "turnbuckles" supplied by Lukgraph converting them to emulate the windmilling wings. A bit of filing and twisting, et voilà ! I will now let the 5-minute epoxy of the lower sequiplane cure overnight before moving on to the upper wing. But before that, before the upper wing makes handling the Potez a perilous exercise, I will have to find the way of affixing the spare wheel on the left side of the aircraft ... TTFN Hubert

Another one to follow … FYI, « Le Train » is the title of a French film telling the story of the mass arrest of Jews in the « Rafle du Vel D’Hiv » in France in 1942, and their subsequent deportation to Auschwitz / Birkenau … Your thread title just jumped at me for that reason … Hubert

Great progress John ! You're not trying to replicate the Karman fairing at the rear of the wing root ? Hubert

John, glad my hunch provided a new input to the project. I have to say your assembly looks a lot more like the reference pic you submitted in your first post 👍 ! (Hey, Kevin, I keep trying hard to shake those few neurons I have left - without overheating them 🙄 ) Some more work to get there, but you can pull it off, John Hubert

I would not have thought about using this tool that brings me back close to 60 years… But I have preciously kept the Rotrings of my teenage years. If they have not any joint that may have dried (it’s a long time since I have opened one), I could put them to some use by using paint rather than ink, like for the trim lines on certain kits 🤔 Hubert

Cool looking scene, Rob. Unfortunately, it looks like the Neuspotter arrived a few years too late … Emergencies in the MK world look a lot worse than in our modern times, if that was ever possible … Hubert

Sorry to read this, John. Looking at the pics, but they give very little clue honestly, I’d venture the issue, and therefore the fix, is the wrong incidence of the wing. Not that it makes the fix any more workable, unfortunately. Hubert

You just need a good Optivisor, Carl, the one where you can change the lenses. As I have had a bad eye for the last 25 years, following a failed laser operation, I have lost some stereoscopic vision since then, which does not really help to judge the depth when presenting the monofilament to the tube opening. But, with the maximum magnification lens, and a steady hand - I don’t drink coffee, btw - anybody can do it. Of course, monofilament has the benefit of some rigidity. I just would not try with EZ-line. Hubert