HubertB

Lindissimo, Ricardo 👍 Hubert

I am sure you know the famous saying about « the two happiest days in the life of a boat owner » 😉 Hubert, who lived his second happiest day as a boat owner some 25 yers ago.

Good mork John 👍 ! The scratchbuilt one is slightly more pointy, but that’s barely noticeable. Hubert

Attention au stylo rouge pour les fautes 😱 ! Hubert

Il n’y a aucun problème avec ma langue maternelle … juste mes deux centimes … Hubert, né du bon côté du Channel

Bonne idée PW ! Comme je viens de faire ailleurs (dans le fil »Potez 25 ») une remarque sur site Master 194 où le français est régulièrement massacré à la tronçonneuse, quelques remarques de syntaxe : « Tracks » se traduit par « chenille » (caterpillar), pas « pistes » ni « traces ». A part ça , je vais suivre, et commenter ça Hubert

M Jigs, masks, figures, the trilogy of progress … Well, time for the Sunday evening update. A few hours of work this week, whilst I was struggling with a back-ache which was making sitting in front of the bench for hours in a row a bit difficult. First, I am happy to report that my jig to glue in position the cabane struts worked ! To quote Hannibal Smith, « I love it when a plan comes together » As I am nearing the time when I will have to splash some paint for good, it was also the time to glue the cabane struts, an essential step before gluing the lower sesquiplane wings, and then the upper wing. Last time I showed the jig I had devised for gluing the said cabane struts at the proper angle. Installing the four cabane struts, the two side jigs, and the upper jig required four hands at some time, with a bit of stress as I had used 5-minute epoxy for the struts, but everything went fine in the end : Even though the glue is 5-minute epoxy, I let it harden for 24 hours before removing the side jigs. I will leave the upper jig in place until comes the time to glue the upper wing. The struts are solidly fixed, but I’d rather avoid risking knocking them off in all the coming manipulations. Then I started applying masks to prepare he painting stages. The fin pennant, and the « BZ 65 » code mask are in place, as are the lower sesquiplane roundels. No pic of the lower sesquiplane. I have in fact started to spray them, as the underside of the main wing, and I will show them when I have progressed a bit further on this. The rudder is also masked for the tricolor stripes. Whilst we mention the roundels and rudder masks, I have also mixed the colors for the underwing « light blue-grey », the fuselage and upper wings « dark blue gray », and the elusive « French roundel blue ». These colors do not really exist as ready-made references from major paint brands, unfortunately (TBH, there is a good match of the French roundel blue in the Humbrol range, TBH, but I have given up using enamels with an airbrush). I am not really a specialist of French interwar colors, so I lifted the tips for color mixing from the specialists operating on the (dreaded by me, because of the bullying and French language massacre taking place constantly) French modelling forum « Master 194 » I am also almost finished painting the figures and « fuel bowsers ». Some small touching up needed still, but almost there Meet Countess De Laborde : Her husband Admiral de Laborde in typical French pilots’ gear (the blue background makes his coverall seem a lot more orange than IRL by the way) : … the two « fuel bowsers », with their protective covers in place, and a harness : The covers are thin packing paper rectangles with stripes painted with various Posca pens, then made to conform to the hump by wetting them with a large brush dipped into diluted white PVA glue. There are two layers of covers, if you look closely, as per original practice. And finally their « drivers » : (Muhamad has lost a finger, apparently ) And a beduin to steer them in the Sahara : TTFN Hubert PS : the figures are close-ups in artificial light, and not very sharp. I’ll try better ones tomorrow.

Looking god from here. Some small issues visible, but nothing that putty and sanding can’t solve Hubert

If the front window was opened before the sand blasting took place, wouldn’t the inside wear effects of this (possibly on the opposite side to take into account the aerodynamic effect )? Mean looking drone. Reminds me of the drones in « The Empire strikes back » Hubert

+1 with Rob ! Hubert

Well, you could still get it moving by getting your feet through the floor and make it move … (if you are like me, you’ll notice the pic below is probably a good candidate for « Photoshop blunders » )

Nice catch, Rob. I think an open bonnet, with a repair shop background, would be a totally appropriate environment for an Alfa-Romeo Hubert

In spite of its … unique ? … look, I always had a crush for the Frightening. Yours are great, PW 👍 ! I have fond memories of my finished ID Models vac-formed 1/48 F3, that I finished some 30+ years ago, in the same Trebble One markings as yours. It met a sad end, not because it ran short of fuel, but because it was intercepted by a Gee Bee racer, both in the hands of my boys 😂 Hubert

Happy birthday Peter 🍾🥂 ! I hope you and Diane continue to be OK, with no significant health issue creeping up. Hubert

Van’t help you with this one, John, otherwise the part would be on its way ! Can you scratchbuild one from a leftover bomb or extra tank ? The other option, if you have the dimensions and profile, is for me to design and print a part. But, by the time you get it, you will have finished three more Corsairs 🤣 ! Hubert

Dang ! You’re absolutely right Martin ! Kudos (again) for your unmatchable pic-finding skills And this confirms (again) that most WWII fighters and ops are out of my scope-of-knowledga Hubert

Looking good Dennis 👍 Hubert

Whilst the pic submitted by Martin seemed to have a blue surround on « 49 », a closer look confirmed there was no surround. It would seem an easy enough mod, by just cutting the white star out of the blue surround. Hubert

Getting progressively there, Rob. For the transparency, I would try either good’ol CA fog, or alternatively, stippling the blasted side with a hard brush dipped either in lacquer thinner or extra thin glue. I assume it is polystyrene ? Hubert

Thank you guys, you are too kind with me ☺️ (only Kevin seems to have had an honest assessment ) You know you have beautiful eye(let)s, honey ? Well some more progress today. I had prepared some time ago eyelets for the rigging, using shamelessly the late Les Delatorre's technique for mass production. So I had a bunch of those : They are made with 0.3 mm copper wire stolen from an old electric motor. I have a lifetime (and more) of copper wire supply with this one. Now was time to insert them in all the anchor points for the rigging (and a proof that the holes had been drilled ): When all the holes were duly fitted with some eyelets, I was left with this, of my original 56 ones . And I did not loose one in the process ! (But there is one - the short one - which fell off the fin but i could find easily, thanks to a T-word - this one is for Martin - bench. Which is why you can count 5 in the tray, when, of course, the number used is even, 52) If you wonder, the hook is the tool used to wind the eyelet, after it is inserted in a pin vise. Des Delatore's website is still up and his tips for WWI rigging are invaluable. By the way, the long double eyelets will have a fairing built around their base, to reflect the Potez 25's original system. Once all eyelets were inserted, I fixed them in place with a drop of CA, using my very high-tech glue dispenser : It is a sewing needle, of which I ground the tip to keep the eye open, and inserted in a pin vise. When it becomes clogged by CA, a dip in acteone will clean it, and in the last resort, three seconds in the flame of a lighter and the CA is gone. One last bit of work this afternoon. When printing the new parts, I managed to get very thin walls, for instance for the carburetor intakes. The walls were 0.25 mm thick. Unfortunately, this also means they are fragile, and, of course, one of the carburetor intakes did not like all the handling : I decided to replace it with a part made in brass sheet: even if it was knocked, it would bend rather than break and that would be easily fixable. My soldering skills still suck, but I managed to solder a replacement inlet in the proper cone shape : And in position : You may have noticed that the left inlet is bigger than the right one. The Lorraine engine was a W12, and the left and upper cylinder banks were fed by a single carburetor, bigger than the one for the right bank of cylinders. hence the larger inlet. Btw, this is another detail that Lukgraph missed, with two identical inlets supplied. Et voilà ! Hubert

How easily you can be fooled 😂🤣😂 ! Hubert

Great idea and worth a try. Thank you for the tip, Carl. Hubert

Great progress. A question though : is it just an optical illusion, or does the front end seem misaligned with the main fuselage, judging by the cockpit opening which looks « staggered » or offset to the right ? Hubert PS edit : looked again at the last pic, and it is an illusion created by the canopy rail. Sorry about it.

Magnificent ! Are the turnbuckles for the elevator and rudder cables Gaspatch ones ? Hubert

Well an update. Nothing really spectacular to show, but an update nevertheless, and some progress towards the goal of finishing this one. First, I was mentioning in a previous post that the .obj files resulted in slightly faceted look of the printed parts, when the .stl files did not. An illustration with a side-by-side pic of the radiator, left a .obj one and right a .stl one. The difference is marginal on the pic, but more visible on the real part. Now for the progress : When I was researching the weight elements to be printed on the rudder, in typical French fashion, I stumbled upon a piece of information that I I had already read, but which failed to make an imprint on my mind. The Potez 25 TOE was heavier than the A2, and therefore the wheels grew to accomodate the higher weights. The A2 wheeks were 800x175 (that is diameter and thickness in mm), when the TOE were 900x200. Lukgraph has correctly represented the A2 wheels, and when designing the extra spare wheel, I slavishy copied the kit wheel. But now, of course, I had to redesign the wheel to match the correct dimensions. Easily done. I just had a few trials to attempt to represent at best the slight protrusion of the wires under the fabric of the wheel cover. Then there was the preparation for fitting the wings. I already mentioned that I had printed new cabane and interwing struts to be able to insert reinforcement rods through them, and have the correct angles. These are the cabane struts. I have inserted in them a 1 mm dia steel rod. They are taped - to avoid mixing them - to the a jig I have prepared, that will allow to have the correct spacing, both laterally and longitudinally between the cabane struts. Then the interwing struts. I inserted a 1.5 mm dia brass tube, and a 1 mm dia brass rod in them. Should be strong as well. The elevators and rudder have been prepped with metal rods to fix them easily. As the rudder post will support the rear of the tail skid, and therefore a part of the kit's weight; I had to make sure the weight would be properly transferred to the kit's main body and not just rely on a glue joint. Ditto for the ailerons on the mainwing. I have also drilled the holes for the struts in the proper positions, and although it is not really visible on the pic, all the holes for the rigging have been drilled, at approximately the right angle. I managed to break only one bit in the proces, yay ! The underwing profile of the lwer sesquiplane has been restored, followng the heavy surgery to insert brass tubes spars... ... and the upper surface of the lower sesquiplane has been drilled with holes for the struts and the rigging. I have also drilled the holes for the rigging in the fuselage : And glued the fin in place with the proper offset to right : And I have built a jig to ensure the cabane struts are glued at the proper angle, both laterally and longitudinally, even though I have already bent the steel rod at what should be the « right » angle. Finally, I have also designed and cut the masks for the markings : The pennant on the fin with the admiral's four stars was just demanding too much of the Silhouette cutting accuracy. I have just prepared a mask of the outline for a white background, on which I will put the decals I have prepared and printed. Ditto for the markings on the rudder. In the background, I am also continuing the paint work on the camels and the figures that will go on the small scene. And I have designed, printed and already painted a surprise element, that I will reveal only with the finished pics. I am pretty happy with the effect I have achieved TTFN Hubert