HubertB

Well, it looks like it is confirmed. Good move, Eduard ! Hubert

Nice progress, Chris 👍 ! I am sure you spotted this small area of the under-cowling near the wing root where the yellow was not applied, probably thanks to some overmasking. Hubert

Well, I don’t know if you like painting figures, but you’ll be proficient at it by the end of this work I like the way this is turning out. Hubert

That feeling when you start chopping off an expensive kit … Ok, some progress to show after a week of health checks in France (all OK, whewww …) and another week of frustration trying to beat a slicing program (Chitubox) into submission … The kit, with its plain wings, plus my conversion parts, will be fairly heavy. I designed the one piece new undercarriage to be able to insert some metal rods to strengthen it. But, in the printing process, with a resin that is slightly too viscous and I am not totally happy with, the holes designed in the struts got clogged up. And there is no way I could re-drill them, simply because I do not have a set of drills long enough (between 30 and 50 mm needed) with the required diameter - 1 to 1.5 mm. So i had to redesign my landing gear to separate the struts, so that I could print them in a way that would not clog the holes. (Relatively) easy enough. But then my slicer refused stubbornly and steadfastly to slice and record the resulting file. After fours days of frustration, with multiple software freezes and forced interruptions, five or six un-installing and re-installing the slicing software, a frantic internet search for alternative slicing softwares - to no avail, as my printer, an Elegoo Saturn 2 will only take slice files generated by Chitubox - i decided that the smartest of the two - between me and Chitubox - had to give way 🤣 🤣 … I have changed again my design, and it seems I can now print it … Let’s wait for the print result, currently under way, with a new resin 🤞 This stalled my progress on the kit. I have nevertheless started assembling the kit, namely the cockpit structure and PE detailings … This PE is really small and requires steady nerves. Here is where I am as of tonight … The white bits are my additions, either to replace some I had broken when removing the printing supports, or the racks for machine guns drums in the rear cockpit. I also needed to add supports for the passenger seat. And then, whilst the printer is running, came the time to start chopping off the kit, to insert the conversion parts. Did you ever get this slight trepidation when you start sawing off bits of and expensive kit 😱 ? No coming back now. A pic after one half done : And of coursé after chopping off the second half, I had to try taping my conversion parts : Some issues to look at. My lower cowling is slightly too long (but conform to drawings) but more importantly I missed a 3 mm cut in the front end, with, as a consequence, a radiator that sits too high, when it is the same height as the original kit part. The cockpit fairing seems to sit too high at the front. I need to check whether it is a design issue to fix, or an adjustment o make to the cut in the fuselage. The main fuel tank extension has already been slightly redesigned, and is on the printer right now. The extra fuel and rear fuselage fairing look ok, although the extra conformal fuel tank has been tweaked to integrate the recess for the rear landing gear struts. The recess was clearly drawn on the factory drawing I had found, but I had not understood its function at the time, and simply overlooked it … More when there is more to show … Hubert

Dany mentions in the mail he sent to the people that had registered a "pre-order" that he had pushed the production of a first limited batch to be able to deliver some for the 35th birthday of Daco products which was on Sept. 7th) Which is why the lot is only 250 boxes, all white, and without decals sheets (which will be sent later). The full lot, with boxes with artwork and decals, will take a bit more time, I guess. Read this operation not as a "strange business decision" but rather as an enthusiastic drive to get the kit to a few lucky guys asap. The kit has been 10 years in the making, driven by a single enthusiastic guy. I suspect he was eager to get it out, finally I just received my box. I'll try to publish an in-box review later this week, but the summary is "WOW". For 125 €, you really get a lot for your money. It would be a shame that Dany does not reach his goal of selling at least 3000 (his break-even point), because, frankly, what you get is in the top league of kit releases in 1/32. I am sure the quality will drive sales, even for people who are more into WWII prop fighters. Hubert. PS: Sorry for the thread drift. Hopefully a dedicated thread will get things straight later.

Did you notice the Monogram ad with a « 1/32 B-52 Stratofortress » ? Talk of a typo …. Hubert

I still have a few old issues of Airfix Magazine, and Scale Models. One of the Scale Models issues (of 1974 , or 1976 ?) introduces a new « revolutionary » (which it was, at the time) model improvement technique : photo-etch. At that time, they were using clear varnish to assemble the PE parts, as CA glue did not exist yet, at least for the general public … That reminds me how old I am getting Hubert

Mine (the « white box edition », one of the first 250 produced) is on its way. Can’ t wait Hubert

Simply beautiful Hubert

It’s a Fuji KM-2, the Japanese version of the Beech T-34 Mentor, built under licence in Japan. Hubert

That’s because they are focused on their phone screen … Hubert

Good catch, Dennis. i am delighted with the tilting drawers’ module from Hobbyzone. https://www.hobbyzone.pl/en/modular-workshop-system/127-om02u-tilting-drawers-module-x-3.html It will take most paint pots or bottles, one way or another. Hubert

I’m using a SLA 8K resin printer, with 20 microns layers. The resolution you get is absolutely great. But I am moderately happy with the grey resin I am using. I find it has a tendency to blurr the finest details, at least as viewed with a 3x magnification in the Optivisor Hubert

Whilst I was 3D-printing some parts for the Potez 25 TOE in the "Sandbox" GB, I also added on the plate some acccessories for the Cutlass, namely a tow bar, two wheel chocks and a boarding ladder. I will probably revisit the design of the tow bar, that looks a bit skinny now that it is printed. The Cutlass is on the back burner whilst I focus on the Potez. I had a tough time smoothing out the wing slats, as Fisher's design is less than optimal in the area, IMHO. Now that I have revived my 3D-designing and printing skills, I may have a go at redesigning the slats and their struts as an integral part. I had to cut off the struts from the kit in order to smooth the slats recesses on the wings, and, although I have already done some new struts using plastic strips, I am not keen on smoothing the inside of the slats and am not 100 % sure I can obtain a solid link between the plastic struts, the wings and the slats … Hubert

So, the third printing trial of the supplementary fuel tank was successful . I used the printing opportunity to print a dozen fuel drums, that will be useful for the small vignette I intend to dispaly the Potez on. I will leave before dawn tomorrow morning for a 5-days trip to France. More when I come back, in 10-days time. Hubert.

The printing is going well, and started building Well, finished with virtual work, and on to the real one. I have done some printing of the designed parts. Gotta say I had to re-learn a few tricks with the exporting of the printable files, and the slicing software. My first printing trial on Friday did not end well, and it's 125 % operator’s error. When exporting the design file to .stl format, I missed specifying the resolution settings of the .stl files. Silly me, I thought the 3D software would automatically choose the highest resolution, but it didn't. When imported in the slicer program (Chitubox), I thought that the square wheel was just a dispaly artefact. But it was not ... So, after 10 hours of printing, I ended up with heavily pixelated parts, a square spare wheel, and some parts not printed 🤣 ! Trial #2 yesterday. In the meantime, I found that I could import .obj files in Chitubox, which worked for all parts but one, for some reason I cannot fathom. That part was exported in hi-res .stl, and I have to say the printing went mostly well ! I just missed adding enough supports for the supplementary conformal fuel tank, so it fell partly off during the printing process, resulting in a misshapen part. Here are the pics of my printed parts : I am pretty pleased overall. There are a few print lines however, in spite of the 20 micron layer resolution. It looks like I got some slight wobble of the printing platform, but nothing really major here. The supplementary tank, plus a few fuel drums and the parts I designed for the Cutlass, are in the printer now, so we'll see tonight how this turns out. In the meantime I started the build, by attacking the cockpit work. The 3D-printed part from Likgraph has been cleaned from the prining supports. I broke two parts in the process, easily reparable. Ànd I have started bending these teeny weeny PE parts ... Did I say they were tiny ? TTFN Hubert

I think Tamiya San should give you some free shares of his company for your outstanding contribution to their sales of Corsair kits in the last 10 years, John Hubert

This M-346 has already a very "racy" look. A kind of mini-fighter, the aircraft equivalent to fighters of Lotus cars (when they were still conceived by Colin Chapman, i.e. light ) to other sports cars. It is even better in the new "Frecce" colors 👍 Hubert

What Peter and Chris said Hubert

VIRTUAL, YET REAL, PROGRESS So, after my "study trip" in sunny, and dry, Morocco, I have completed this morning the round of designs for the conversion parts. Next steop will to print them, and starting cutting the kit ... Compared to the screen captures I posted above of some conversion parts designs, I have kept untouched 4 of them, namely the second seat, the spare wheel, the radiator, and the fairing above of the cylinder banks, with the water tanks extensions. I have modified the main tank enlergement part, following some better pics and a some (bad quality) drawings, and also because I decided that, rather than design the conversion parts around the inaccurate shape of the belly as represented by Lukgraph - a shallow V rather than a flat bottom in reality), I would remove the bottom altogether and add the conversion parts from a flat base. This has led also to more accurate measurements of the true profile of the kit fuselage, and changes to take them into account. For the main tank enlargement, I also took into account the fact that the whole tank was jettisonable in flight on the 1:1 aircraft, and had therefore to clear the undercarriage struts. Old (top pic) vs new (bottom pic) : I found a factory drawing for the supllementary CFT, which although heavily pixaleted to the point of being mostly illegible, had enough "good" information and numbers to allow a more accurate redesign. Old onb top vs new on the bottom : New shape (the difference is more subtle to see) for the new lower engine cowling, with slightly moire depth and revised angle for the carburetor intakes : Then there were the new parts needed for the conversion. The lower rear fuselage fairing : The new rear skid. The oleo-pneumatic Messier skid was a fairly complex contraption compared to the original simple one. The landing gear has been redesigned to represent the oleo-pneumatic Messier, and also to have a more accurate tread (thanks to some technical drwings from Potez I found on-line) : I next tackled the revised cockpit coaming for the rear passenger, with the gun ring deleted. I then noticed on pics that the pilot coaming had a small hump under the winscreen, when Lukgraph has it flat. So another part of the kit to cut off , and a complete coaming for the two seats to be designed : Next, and final - so far - is the radio equipment. I struggled to find proper references for the gear used by French aircrafts at the time, but, again, Potez "Notice Technique" about the changes to the Black Cruise aircrafts was of some great help. I just assumed the gear for the Pink Cruise Potez would be the same. The drawings showed an installation with three boxes, spread in the rear cockpit. TBH, the faces have some creative "gizmology" added, as I failed to find accurate references. So here are radio sets 1, 2 and 3. That's it for now. I now have to get all parts printed. Next week, I am off to France for a few health checks, so it may be a bit of time before the next update. Hubert.

Good to hear you are on the mend, Peter. As you point out, as we grow older, medical issues have a nasty tendency to creep on us, and this forum shows it (it also shows that the forum's average age is not that low 😂 ). I will not bother anyone with more of these health issues, but we have had our share of those in the last year. Things seem to get better now, but the alert was very very very serious and worrying - last Xmas the perspective was very somber at short term - for my elder son ... Hubert

Well, as I was labouring on the design of the conversion parts for my Potez 25, and looking at other’s submissions, I had an idea for a future group huild, maybe to park in the back of Martin’s mind ? « 3D-printed. Any kit that uses, in full or part, 3D-printed components in its build, whether the parts are home design or manufacturer’s design » I thought that could be an interesting way of taking stock of the arrival of this new technology. And then, in 20 years’ time, we could have a « any kit that still uses injection-molded parts » Hubert

Sorry to read this, Scott. My wife Patricia went through this (in the cervical vertebrae area) in early 2017. With numbness gaining the arms and hands, it was a matter of urgency. The neurosurgeon, a brilliant lady, did the procedure you describe for two discs and decided to leave the third one untouched, not wanting to push luck too far. It went very well in two operations (from the front then the back) 3 weeks apart. The second op, cutting though the cervical muscles, which are some of the strongest - and most solicited - muscles of the body, left her in pain for a few weeks. Don’t miss on the rehab / physiology training. When you have a number of vertebrae welded together, there are movements you took for granted you cannot do anymore, and you have to learn other ways of achieving the same result, and re-train the brain for those. Anyway, good luck with this. What is important is that you have a (very) good neurosurgeon for the procedure, and that you trust him/her. Even if you have a long period to grind after that, you’ll be happy to recover a more mobile life for the following years. Hubert

My better half sewed me one such apron, and I wear it permanently when modelling. It has saved me crawling under the desk an invaluable number of times. Besides finding the stray part, the toughest issue is getting up after having crawled. Surprisingly, the older I get, the harder it is 🤣 (who is the wise philosopher who said that the problem of becoming an old man is that stiffness moves from where you want it to where you don’t want it 😇 ?) This is called a jewellers’ apron. Jewellers have one in leather, where they collect all dust particles of a day’s work, besides small parts. Gold dust is worth its weight in gold, literally. Hubert

Great work on those loops. I feel the pain of this micro-work. I often wonder why we inflict this to ourselves… Now producing these loops was the easy part. The tough one is going to be threading the elastic thread, which seems to have a life of its own more exciting than a snake’s one, through those 0.3 mm tubes Hubert