HubertB

Wow ! Stop teasing and tempting us, Rob Hubert

Not a lot of apparent progress to report, but some I feel pretty smug about... A bit of background. Fisher seem to have completely forgotten one aspect of the Cutlass, that is the device that holds the arrestor hook in place (or if it was included, it is not in the parts I have, nor apparently in the instrcutions, but then some small details have been overlooked in the said instructions). This is what it looks like IRL. The photos are lifted from an IPMS NL walkaround, but beware that the F7U-3M displayed seems to have been cannibalised, or vandalised, over the years, and not every component is still present on this airframe. And this is my rendition of it, adding a few pieces that seem to make some mechanical sense, but are apparently not on the walkaround pics. The whole is less than 1 cm long, if you wonder ... I quite like my springs, made from 0.2 mm tungsten wire coiled around a 0.5 mm brass rod A few hours' work, not perfect, especially the alignment which is slightly off, but "good enough for govenment work" as the saying goes. In the meantime, I have started repairing the rear of one wing tip, which has been damaged in all the handling the Cutlass has endured so far. And the fins are now glued in place. Next should be mating the front and rear of the bird. TTFN Hubert.

Yes, the B-68 had underwing positions, and they were for « special weapons », which are represented by Monogram / Revell. You apparently created for yourself a set of problems by going for an in-flight display … but I am sure you will prevail in the end. For me, the B-58 looked like it was doing Mach-2 even on the ground on its spindly landing gear, so I always loved its highly complex landing gear. As for the scheme, it was never meant to drop anything else than « special weapons », so a SEA scheme seems incongruous. But then, it’s your build and you can do as you want. I have taken a seat to watch your progress Hubert

Absolutely gorgeous, Kris ! Hubert

I read your report, Officer, and against all my hopes, I realised this was a deliberate act of sabotage ! And against a war asset of His Majesty ?? !!!! You know what the outcome to this is, don’t you ? Hubert

Very well done, Peter 👍 ! But ... YOU LEFT THE FLAPS DOWN ??!!!! God help you, poor soul ... Hubert

Thank you guys. There is more, which I forgot. I have prepped all the antennas, pitot boom and fuel dumps to ensure they will hold by more than just a butt joint. So I drilled a 0.6 mm hole in each, to insert a steel pin. Just need to drill the same hole on the fuselage, and I will have stronger joints. Of course, the pins will be shortened before gluing, as for one fuel dump where it is already done. 😉 Hubert

I continue to work on the small improvements required, before ttrying to make both ends meet. When this mating is done, some of the work will be just clumsier because of the bulk of the new ensemble. So : 1) The fins are in the process of being improved, on two accounts. Firts the back of the fin at the base of the rudder was a bit short, probably as a result of mold wear. I cut off a small piece of resin, and glued some plastic to recreate the right profile, with the result below : There is still some tweaking to do on one of the fins, but the issue is now cleared. You can also see the second improvement I had to do. If you have followed Scott's own build, you will have seen that there is a significant mismatch between the end of the MLG bay and the fin that abutts to it, of about 1.7 mm - the fin being too skinny to match the profile of the end of the MLG bay. The extra thickness was built up with plastic card, then putty. I will do a primary smoothing with the fins still independant, before fine-tuning the fit after gluing them in place. 2) I mentioned earlier that I did not like the gluing area between the front fuselage and the main one, at the bottom of the front fuselage. The gluing zone is very small, and matching the frony end rear ends will require some pressure that will add more tension on the gluing area. So I decided to add a heavy duty "keel" a) to help the matching of the two halves, b) to increase the gluing area, and finally c) to have a way fo transferring the torsional load that will apply to the bottom gluing area when the Cutlass is on its legs, to the top fuselage. It will also make sure the rear end of the front landing gear bay stays put without any temptation to lift upwards. It's not pretty, but it should work as planned 3) The prominent exhausts on the top fuselage have a good, but not great, molded representation of the vanes. I decided to remove the molded vanes, and add new ones from thin plastic card. Fortunately, Fisher's resin is easy to work with, especially with a well-honed chisel. This is how it looks now. 4) Finally, I have masked and painted matt black both the inside and outside of the canopy components. Please note how Fisher has done his usually good homework by molding accurately the armoured windscreen, thicker than the sides 👍. It took me the masking job to notice it. And, btw, I ground off the front of the interior of the windscreen, as it was creating fit issues by conflicting with the IP coaming. That's all for now, folks. More when there is more Hubert

4 only, not 5 … FDM is Ok for large pieces, and allows to use filaments like HIPS (polystyrene). But the filaments’ layers are visible, so forget about fine resolution details. SLA allows much finer resolution and is what you need for detail work. And with 8K, and now 12 K, the size difference of parts with FDM is getting less and less relevant. Yes, you need to wash the parts, but that is what a wash and cure station is for. And some resins are now water-washable, which is a plus, but you need to verify the resolution obtained. Hubert Edit PS : You may think that I am a compulsive collector of technological gear. The truth is that I have kept the older machines when I upgraded to newer, more capable, ones, whether it is the SLA machine from 4K to 8 K, or the FDM machine from Felix to Prusa. And I have a professional interest in this technology with my company. As the technology evolves fast, there is a very small second-hand market for the "obsolete", or rather "superseded" machines, so trying to sell them is a low-success endeavour. I gave away in the Christmas raffle 2 years ago my first Anycubic SLA machine. It ended in the hands of Carl, after a stop in Calgary .

two Elegoo printers, a 4K one (Mars ?) and added recently an 8K one (Saturn ?), and two FDM printers, a Felix and a Prusa (for wgich I still have to set up the multi-filaments device . I also bought one year ago a powerful gaming PC (with the relevant grapic card to go woith it) to run the 3D-design software, Atom 3D, which has the outlook and features of Solidworks, but not the same licence cost. Hubert

I do not know Ixo. As for Pocher, they can be built - with a lot of TLC , and even more investment in AM, which is a bit steep, considering the initial cash outlay - into spectacular replicas, but they are very often … is « approximative » the most apt word ? Hubert

« Avant l’heure, c’est pas l’heure; après l’heure c’est plus l’heure » So now is time for a Happy B’day, Carl 🎂 🥂 🍾🥕 ! Hubert

Ok. I'm calling Ensign Doe done. I am still miles (read miles ...like in light-years) away from being a proficient figure painter, but this effort looks better than my previous "Sadi Lecointe", thanks, in a very very very - 99% - large part to the quality of the Reedoak base figure. Meet Ensign Doe : ... And in situ, after a successfull solo flight on his Ryan STM, patting his mount for bringing him back to Earth in one piece : Labouring on on the Fisher Cutlass in the meantime. Hubert

A lot to learn and take on on this . I personally liked the design with a bit of grass better, even though you were not satisfied with it (but I would have been happy to achieve something like aht myself) Hubert

When I think you were wondering whether there’d be an interest in your builds … The quality of your work and detailing is just AWESOME ! , Jeff … Hubert

Dang ! A pity we are not allowed multiple votes ! I voted for « Tallies », but could go for « Winning ! » or « Sandbox » (only I do not have THE kit in my stash to satisfy the latter - but would know which one to purchase 🙄) Hubert

+1 ! Hubert

Is it an hybrid ? I bought recently, to replace the company car (which I cannot keep when I sell the company), a BMW X1 PHEV. i just love the electric mode, which allows to do daily shopping without burning a single drop of gas. Of course it consumes electricity, but a reminder to all that an electric motor has an energy yield of 95 %, when a gas-burning one has at best 30/35 % yield, the rest being lost in heat … So basically, you use 1/3 of the energy of a gas-burning engine for the same mileage. Of course, it all depends on the way the electricity is produced, and how efficient the power grid is, to get the full picture … Great purchase, Peter. I’m sure you’re gonna love it. I would also not know nowadays how to do with all the electronic gimmicks that seem initially so futile 😏 Hubert

Right with you Ernie ! I tell you … those Canadians … sheeeshhh .. really … with their minds in their briefs … We, French, would not even know how to think this way 😂 ! Hubert 🙄

Go, Tom ! Go !😂 You have not come this far to be stopped by a goddammed cockpit ! Hubert (who knows a lot about procrastination 😂 )

A pity Archer are not any more in operation. I wonder what I’ll do when my stock is exhausted. This said, laying down their decals is tedious, but not necessarily more than stencils on a Phantom Hubert

It’s a really big gun for a really short turret. I wonder how they balance the overhang of the gun and yet keep some space for loading it in this small space … Keep it coming Hubert

Well, Scott, this is one is a special "drive me crazy" for you, my friend ... I am slowly progressing on the Cutlass, but it is some time two steps forward, and one step back, all of my doing by the way. I mentioned I wanted to reproduce the guide vanes for the boudary layer air between the front fuselage and the intakes. I mentioned earlier that they were S-shaped, to guide the air towars the top fuselage. THis was just too much to swallow for me: 1) There are 7 vanes at the "entrance" and only 4 on the top fuselage. This means that some guide vanes just merge into a single exit. So my rendition was only "figurative" any way ... 2) shaping the vanes to conform both to the intakes's sides and the front fuselage side proved a real too much of a challenge 3) I used thin Evergreen strips to simulate the vanes. The many trials to fit the front fuselage to the rear end, whilst shaping the guide vanes, proved too stressful for the thin plastic, which broke into shards. Moral : "Better is the enemy of good". I will simply show the 4 vanes on the top fuselage, and the 7 on the side of the intake, and will forget the S-shape in-between. Nothing is sufficiently visible anyway. Reality 1 : 0 Hubert's AMS. Having learned the lesson, I have decided not to detail the main landing gear wells. I just added a prominent pipe on the rear of each well, et voilà ! Hey, but the AMS is kicking back in ! Before mating the front and rear fuselage, I wanted to deal with some additional detailing of the rear end. When both the rear and front are mated together, the Cutlass will be too hefty and heavy to facilitate some works. The Cutlass rear end was festooned with raised rivets, when the rest of the airframe has countersunk rivets and sometimes glued panels. So, after a few hours and using most of an Archer rivets sheet, here is what the rear end of my Cutlass looks like: From the top : And from below : In the meantime I have added Airscale faces to the five dials which are in the front landing gear bay : ... and added some bits and stuff to the rear deck behind the cockpit's armoured plate ... There is a limit to how far you can push back my AMS, after all 🤣 😂 ! And, btw, using Scott's experience, I added a few grams of lead in the nose to be sure the Cutlass is not a tail sitter, here barely visible below the IP coaming ... I am now thinking about how the beef-up the liaison between the front and rear fuselage. The contact points on the lower fuselage look a bit too reduced, not to say flimsy, to my liking, when they will take all the bending loads applied to the front fuselage. TBC Hubert

More figures, with some interesting comparisons. I am trying to add a US pilot to my Fisher Ryan STM display. I have found some US Navy pilots, or re-found as I had forgotten I had a Reedoak US Navy pilot. The US Navy uniform may be a bit different from the US Army Air Corps one, but it has been difficult to find a period US AAC pilot figure. From left to right, a headless - for the time being - pilot which I think comes from the "Aces" ICM set, and is more likely 1/35, the Reedoak US Navy pilot, and a Red Dog US Navy pilot. Of first note is the difference in size. A male figure in 1/32 should be 54 mm high, that is roughly 1.70 meter tall, about average. The painted one is more likely 52 with its head, so that is 1.66 meter tall, the Reedoak is 55 mm with the head gear, so that is 1.76 meter tall, and the Red Dog one is 59 mm high, which puts in the higher end of the male population at 1.89 meter. Very possible variations in real life - I am myself as tall as the Red Dog pilot, but it is suprising to find 54mm/1:32 figures with such diffedrences. The difference in the level of detail is also very noticeable. Reedoak uses a unique technology of scanning real people in a real gear, and then Hi-res 3D-printing them. The finesse and realism of details is largely superior to the other two. The Red Dog pilot, as the ICM "Ace", have probably been 3D-designed, but ICM cut steel to produce an injection-molded kit, and Red Dog molded resin to produce their pilot. In this case, Reedoak wins hands down (provided I can do justice to the quality of the figure). The Reedoak pilot has been prepped by painting in black than spraying white in the direction of "sunlight" to enhance the relief. Altough a bit idiosyncratic in that it has a radio gear (when the STM had no radio) and is US Navy rather than US Army Air Corps, this is the one I will display next to my STM. Hubert

I’m not here to judge, but to commiserate: I know what it’s like Ernie. As we grow older, eye / hand coordination becomes a lot tougher, alas 🥴! Hubert, the stabbing-in-the-back friend 😇 !