HubertB

It looks like Revell have announced a 1/32 Hawker Hunter T7 (you know, the one where the Brits demonstrated brilliantly their unmatchable knack to turn a beautiful airframe into an ugly errr… something 🤮) Good for those who had missed the Fisher conversion, though. Hubert

I had missed this one until now. Great result ! I have a very definite bias towards yellow wings, but the finished kit is a beauty ! Well done ! Hubert

Very nice, Rod 👍 ! Which kit is it ? HK ? Hubert

Have you tried glass-fiber pens to wear the surface ? Hubert

Looks more like s#&!!y design than shrinkage at this level 😱 ! Hubert

I love yellow wings. This one is a great addition. Well done Kriss 👍 Hubert

I remember very well your PZL painted with oils, Rob. i also lifted your idea of making a larger paint box using a plastic storage box. The led strip all around the box makes a HUGE difference when spraying my parts Hubert

I have, literally, dozens of paint tins / bottles / vials of various brands like Tamiya, Gunze, Hataka, Alclad, Citadel, Prince August, AK, Vallejo, even some 30 years-old tins of Humbrol and Revell enamels, plus some other brands I forget, but I find myself reluctant to use any of those in an airbrush, because of the thinning issues. The gooey mess that clogged my airbrush when I tried to use Vallejo’s black primer thinned with Mr Levelling Thinner has left me traumatised for some time … So I am always going back to MRP as soon as I have to fire the airbrush. On the other hand, acrylics are my goto solution when using a brush (but not Tamiya, which are awful with a brush). And, as I am trying more and more figure painting, I find myself keener and keener on using oils. I bought some tubes that I thought were oils, by AK or Vallejo, and found to my dismay they were acrylics. Gimme some old Windsor & Newton, Rembrandt or Abteilung anytime over these acrylics I do not know how to dilute. In spite of my initial reluctance on oils, because of their drying time, they are unbeatable for pigments’ fineness. And turpentine is OK for diluting oils. I even used oils for painting the radios of my Potez 25 in the Sandbox GB. Looking forward to watch your trials, PW. Hubert

You know you have an open table at home, Francisco ! Hubert

+ 2 ! What Chris and Mike said 👍 ! Hubert

I built my stock of Archer decals before Woody retired. One of them is to represent the stitches in rib tapes of WWI aircrafts. In fact, when checking the Lukgraph’s wings through my Optivisor, the rendering looks more like rivets than stitches. Not really accurate or representative of the real aircraft, which was very much « updated » WWI technology. But I will go, for consistency, with the kit’s depiction, for the sake of simplicity, even if it’s a compromise with scale accuracy. I am trying to educate myself in fighting my AMS, by putting myself in the shoes of the casual viewer … Not always easy 🙄 … In passing, I discovered some « interesting » issues with the slicing software (Chitubox) for 3D-printing. The historical file format for sending 3D-created parts to a slicer was .stl (for stereolitography). It produces a « map » of the 3D voxels of the part. Based the resolution you define for exporting your file, you can end up with VERY big files. For instance, the cockpit-coaming part with windscreens results in a close to 9 Gb file in the highest resolution … Which is why I chose to export the files in a .obj format, which is a kind of 3D-vectoring format, and produces far lighter files. BUT, I found out that some of my parts imported in Chitubox with a .obj format had a strangely-faceted appearance. I thought it was a display artefact of the software, but it is not. The facets are visible on the printed part, when they are not on the designed part. And they are not visible, either on the software display or the printed part, when in imported in .stl format. Another lesson learned : the display of Chitubox is not « simplified » but an accurate rendition of the future printed part. And It’s therefore better to go for .stl files. I need to fine tune the resolution of the export, though. High resolution is « heavy », and low resolution can result in round part appearing square - literally. Hubert

That’s a technique I would not use … Nothing makes me run faster away from the threat than Patricia using hairspray 😱 Hubert

Beautiful work Hubert

I'm not in Quinta do Anjo anymore (it was near Palmela on the Setubal Peninsula). I now live In Santo Estevao, 40 km south of Santarem, in an area called "Ribatejo". It's about 1 h 20 from your place. As you live near Tomar, bookmark the "Festa dos Tabuleiros" in 2027. Unique and absolutely a Must See. Hubert.

Out of curiosity, where have you settled in our nice hosting country ? Hubert

The forecast for the newt two weeks in Portugal is overall sunny, with a risk of rain just on November 1st, and temps ranging between highs of 23 Celsius, and night lows around 15 Celsius. And we have good beers, but frankly, wine is better and with a much wider choice . Enjoy your trip. Hubert

Most PU resins used for casting have shrinkage. The best ones are in the 3% (max) rangé but some can go to as much as 10 % shrinkage. Selecting the right resin, for casting easiness, pot life, pouring facility, and shrinkage is a challenge at least, or an art. And the silicone molds for casting have their own shrinkage to deal with … Hubert

Time to be cautious ... brave ... cautiously brave ... brave to be cautious ! Since I have started working on the Potez, my main source of worry has been this : The main wing is not only large (about 45 cm wingspan), it is also thick, and Lukgraph have molded it in three pieces (center section and two outer panels). So that means a lot of resin, and therefore some weight, as you can see - That's about 6 oz for our anglo-saxon cousins -. It is supported by 4 cabane struts and 4 interwing struts, which I have already re-printed to have not only the right angles, but also to be able to insert some rods into them. Lukgraph's resin is nice, easy to work with, and keeps good detail. But it is also quite flexible. Which means the lower sequiplane wing that will carry a chunk of the weight of the main wing will be under some load, and I am not trusting the resin to hold itself straight over the course of months. I had drilled some long (about 35 mm) holes ion the lower sesquiplanes, to insert some brass rods that will go through the fuselage (itself duly reinforced) to help support them). But there was still a bit of overhang (about 65 mm) between the end of the "spar" hole and the attachment point of the interwing struts. Enough to worry me about the long term flexion. So it was time to be brave and get heavy duty tools to butcher the kit again ! I milled some slots in the bottom of the lower sequiplanes, up to the attachment point for the interwing struts. I then CA glued some 2 mm dia brass tubes in the slots. The milling was a bit too enthusisatic, btw. I have then filled the slots with Milliput. I will have to restore the profile, and above all the rib tapes, but this is where Archer will come to the rescue. I have chosen to glue tubes, because I can then insert a 1 mm rod in the tube, that will go through both wings and the fuselage wing box, and make both sesquiplanes "bonded" together in the wing box. Hopefully, it will be strong enough now. And even more hopefully, the landing gear will hold under the 350 / 400 grams weight of the completed model Hubert

That's his (her ?) buddy in progress. When in Marrakech 6 weeks ago, I noticed the color variations of the dromedaries there. Some were greyer rather than sand, so this one will have a different hue, lighter and greyer. It's (realistically) a male, btw 🤣 Hubert

Nice ! I love yellow wings, and even in the « wrong » scale 😂 Hubert

She’s got skinny legs, a fat belly, a flat nose with big nostrils … …but beauty is in the eye of the beholder, right ….🥴 ? I have reached a significant milestone in this marathon conversion : the fuselage is now closed, and the major conversion parts added. But first, some pics of the new undercarriage, with its brass rods reinforcements. After my geometry blunder, I changed the approach, and split the undercarriage design in two halves, with a front and a rear half. I could thus add the brass reinforcements rods whilst respecting the planned geometry. Brass loves CA glue, so that makes the build both easy and sturdy. Some in-progress pics : It looks good on the pics, but in fact the rear diagonal struts link to the main axle proved a bit flimsy, especially split in two halves. They did not resist the assembly process, especially as, although the cavities in the undercarriage struts were dimensioned with a margin, the mating with the other half resulted in some gaps to fill and sand. I resorted to cheat a bit with scale accuracy, by making the mating point larger in scale than it was IRL. I added some Milliput lumps which allowed to ensure a strong joint when regluing the rear struts in position. I could close the two fuselage halves, trapping the cockpit structure in- between. After this operation, I found a slight design issue with my conversion parts : when measuring the (flimsy, after cutting chunks of it) fuselage halves, i designed my parts around a 27 mm width. When they were mated together, I found that the width was in fact 28:mm . But the good thing about designing and printing your own parts is that accurizing them is a fairly easy operation. I had to re-design the under cowling with an extra mm width, and then the radiator to fit the larger nose. The lower fuselage fairing was too narrow at the rear end, also by a mm, and that was also re-designed and re-printed. And that is how it looks tonight, when assembled. The undercarriage had to be inserted before mating the new lower nose. I can confirm it is strong. Hopefully, it will remain strong when the weight of the main wing is added 🤞. The radiator is only loosely placed, as is the cockpit coaming (more on that later) and the fin - which is dutifully offset a few degrees to starboard, a point overlooked by Lukgraph, but visible on the factory drawings. The supplementary belly fuel tank is a solid chunk of printed resin, and I found that it had warped somewhat after a few weeks. This seems a more common issue with thick 3D-printed parts than one would think initially, apparently. I did not bother re-printing one : some filler and agressive scraping and sanding cured the issue, os in old-style modelling 😂. And the sharp-eyed among you will have noticed that the very thin resin of one of the undercarriage struts got partly broken off during the gluing, or sanding, process. Oh well, it is easy to repair, either by cannibalising an other strut - I have printed a few - or adding some properly shaped Milliput Now about some experimentation. I mentioned in an earlier post that I still had to design the windscreen parts. They are a fairly involved design, especially where they meet the fuselage. I ended up designing them in situ on the cockpit coaming, and decided to try to print the whole part in transparent resin. When it is coming out of the printer, clear resin is cristal clear. But the washing and curing process results in a more cloudy appearance. This is due to the printing lines, which generate a small light diffraction. However, the transparency can be restored somewhat, by buffing the part, and coating it with clear varnish. After a few trials, which involved trying different clear resins, different thickness for the print layers - 20, 30 and 50 microns - and different varnishes, as well as some buffing, I found what I think is a satisfactory solution, especially as we are looking at a 1930’s aircraft on a long-haul flight though the - dusty when landing and taking off - Sahara. I believe I can improve even more the transparency by some gentle sanding and buffing and then adding a second layer of varnish, btw. Now the masking is going to be « interesting » 🤪. Hubert PS: on the pics above, only the windscreens have been varnished. The rest will be painted, so transparency is not a requisite.

Good to read. Thanks, Tim. Hubert

Looking great Gus. And the pic setting is totally adequate for the excavator. You really get an « in the works » feeling 😂 Hbert

I am with you guys. Great NMF and also the checkerboard 👍 ! Hubert

I remember standing under the wing of a Gannet in a museum visit. I was shocked by the thickness of the wing. Talk about the aerodynamism of a barn door 🤣😂😂 Hubert