HubertB

I have tried both, with a single hole or many holes. It works about the same, and that the air could be sucked through a tiny (less than 0.5 mm) hole amazed me the first time. (And made me wonder what it can be when this hole happens in the hull of a spacecraft, or a submarine). I’d say the number of holes is just commen sense judgement. If you have a big cavity, more than one hole will help suck air more quickly. And you want the process to be as fast as possible before the plastic cools down and cannot be formed. Hubert

If you use male molds (we keep in the same vein as krow, don’t we ? ) you will not have sharp corners, and your mold will in theory have to be smaller by the thickness of the plastic you are forming on top of it. If you want better definition, even panel lines, and mold a piece the same size as your original, then you need to use a female mold, i.e. 1) make your master, then 2) make a mold in a rigid matter (resin, plaster) around this master. You will need to have a suction hole in this female mold. Best is to insert a piece of monofilament - that will not adhere to the mold matter - or wire, « planted » in you master part. If its diameter is half the thickness of the plastic you are forming, or less, there will be no dimple where the suction hole is. Make sure your mold is large enough to cover the grid of your vacforming machine, so that air can only go through the small hole you have done. 3) heat and form your plastic sheet on ths female mold. If all vacs used the female mold method, then it would have a greater success than it sees nowadays : better formed parts, surface detail where it matters, i.e. on the surface of the molded part, easier to achieve conformity to the desired dimensions, and finally clear definition of where to cut the part from the backing sheet. Unfortunately, only a handful of British kit manufacturers ever used it... A final note. PETG (one common commercial brand in Europe is Vivak, by Bayer) is the only transparent material that does not yellow with age. It has one drawback however, in that it will trap ambient moisture, a bit - to a much lesser degree - like cotton. When you form it, controlling the temperature is critical. A bit too cold, and the sheet will not form. A bit too hot, and steam bubbles from trapped moisture will form inside the sheet. On typical chinese dental vac-forming machines that you find relatively cheap on ebay, the window between too cold and bubbles is something like 2 or 3 ... seconds. To get better results, it is recommended to do what plastic injecters do, i.e. dehydrate the PETG sheet. Two hours in your kitchen oven at low temerature (50 to 60 ° C) should do the trick. HTH Hubert

Sorry guys, the irony of announcing French subjects from WnW was too good to miss on this date Hubert

Damn, I have been unmasked by Kent Hubert

A Spad XII « canon », and a Caudron G3 ! And history will record it’s been announced first, here, on LSM, on April 1st 2019, by a Frenchman (the date it’s been announced being the most important piece of information) Hubert ( )

Cool project . I think, but I may be wrong, that it is the same Pegasus that were planning an IM 1/32 Ryan NYP « Spirit of St Louis ». They got entangled in a financial dispute with the Korean tool-maker, and the molds were held « hostage » by the tool-maker... To think there might be somewhere perfectly viable tools for a 1/32 IM Ryan NYP ... Hubert

I remember having had (private) discussions with Glenn about this one back in early 2012 ... I hope this could be a good omen for another of my pet projects, which we discussed at the same time Hubert

You keep besting yourself, Kent Hubert

For some reason, my heart missed one or two beats, when I misread "zeros" instead of "eights" in your post, Jeff ... O well, here is hoping Hubert

I did not leave any of my favorite Schwarzwalder Torte either Sorry, Jeff, maybe next time ... (to quote a French politician « Promises only commit those who believe in them » ) Hubert

Well, if you add the speed of the land, then the fastest I went with the 996 was approximately 1565 kph ... still faster than rubble methink . Hubert

This was my ride for some 4 years, until I sold it off to but some piece of land to build a house ... A 3.6 996 Targa with a Tiptronic gearbox .... Fairly rare on European roads, with the Savanna Beige interior ... Needless to say the new acquisition (the land) does not move as fast as the previous one In the background of the last pic is my wife's then and still current ride, a Mini Cabrio, red with black stripes and black-lacquered wheels ... Hubert

Properly thinned, the primer in bottle works just as well as in the rattle can ... and it’s cheaper as well Hubert

Wow.... A Breguet XIV and a Caudron G-3 (rather than another German or English aircraft) ! ... WnW sure know how to surprise the world ... Oops, sorry, looks like I got it all wrong again Hubert

Saw it on another place that shall not be named .... Happy birthday, mate (as they say down under) from your elder by just 7 years Hubert

What Harv said ..l Hubert

Gotta say this new wood grain looks much more scale-like than the firts attempt, Ryan. And you did not even to wait for a third time to get a charm ... Well done ! Hubert

Arrrrghhhh ! Ernie has been zombie-ed by the abomination scale ! Hubert

Very nice (and really worth it) work on improving the gear legs and framework sides for the nacelles. Hubert

Yellow-tinged headlights for vehicles were the norm in France until the late 90s, where EEC regulations introduced the possibilty of whiete headlights. Yellow gives a less luminous vision than white, but the human eye gets a better perception of relief with it ... I have no definite knowledge for the B-1, but clear memories of M-47s and AMX-30s in my father’s regiment with yellow headlights. Hubert

The Lodela vac-form cockpit canopy is basically molded around the kit’s part, but for a missing lateral horizontal frame. Hubert

Great demo, Nigel. Love the jig ! Hubert PS: now that the props are OK, I am afraid that these cowlings will need to be enlarged as well for the kit to look right

Then the answer is yes to the first one, and yes, to a degree, for the second one ... These machines are not exactly cheap, yet very good value for money when you think about it (about the investment of 2 1/32 kits - not Revell ones of course - ). And they provide an invaluable flexibility to you modeling needs. Just have a look at what people like Eric Galliers can do with them on LSP. For the kit-modeler, my recommendation would be the Cameo, and the Curio for scratchbuilders. Hubert

Hi Ryan, if by "plunge cut" you mean starting and ending the cut anywhere the answer is yes. If you mean scribing deep in a piece of card, the answer is still yes. Otherwise, can you please explain what you mean by "plunge cut" ? As for the wood grain template, the finest I could go to on the Cameo was about 0.2 mm wide strips (or concentric circles in this case). So cutting a wood grain mask (in thin mask paper like kabuki) is in theory possible. You'd still have to design the mask in the first place though. Have you thought about using RB Productions wood veneer PE templates ? Hubert

Super work, as usual, Martinn. I am however a bit puzzled. The fairing on the fuselage top is fairly evident on the pics, but what is this transverse strip supposed to represent ? Hubert