"Very nice sandy beach ... but the sea is really far !". French Aeronavale (Navy) Potez 25 TOE. 1934 "Pink Cruise"

[BlrwestSiR]

Some really exceptional work there Hubert. 

I don't know any of you thread those turnbuckles. Just the thought of it makes my eyes hurt. 

I guess we'll have to add zoologist to your many titles. 

Carl 

[HubertB]

49 minutes ago, BlrwestSiR said:

Some really exceptional work there Hubert. 

I don't know any of you thread those turnbuckles. Just the thought of it makes my eyes hurt. 

I guess we'll have to add zoologist to your many titles. 

Carl 

You just need a good Optivisor, Carl, the one where you can change the lenses. As I have had a bad eye for the last 25 years, following a failed laser operation, I have lost some stereoscopic vision since then, which does not really help to judge the depth when presenting the monofilament to the tube opening.

But, with the maximum magnification lens, and a steady hand - I don’t drink coffee, btw - anybody can do it. Of course, monofilament has the benefit of some rigidity. I just would not try with EZ-line.

Hubert

[KevinM]

It's a male Martin just had to do some camel porn blow up the pic ..it's a boooy!

[BlrwestSiR]

I've been wearing corrective eyewear since I was 3 1/2.  On top of myopia, I have a bad astigmatism so my prescription is -13 Power for my right eye and -14 for my left.  I had ICL surgery about 6 years ago and that was amazing. 

I should really looking into something like an Optivisor. Readers have worked for me at the bench but I don't tend to get detailed with the painting like some members do. 

[DocRob]

I rig my WW1 planes the same way like Hubert. EZ-Line is too wobbly for that method, but monofilament works relatively trouble free, due to it´s rigidity. Some areas which were harder to reach during my AEG G.IV build (between nacelles and fuselage) were rigged with elastic thread from Infini (0,135mm), which is also threadable. 
If you make your own turnbuckles from brass or aluminum tube (I prefer aluminum, as there is no need for painting), cut the tube with a sharp blade, while rolling it onto a cutting mat and you minimize the burr. I additionally clean the holes of the cut tubes with a drill bit, which makes threading easier.

Cheers Rob

[HubertB]

A small hop for modelling, but a big leap for Potez ... she's grown wings

 

Limited progress this week. I had to have a quick trip to France, which put modelling on the back burner. But I am now officially retired, including as a company owner . I signed the sale of the company, and to boot, I sold it to the man who seconded me throughout all the years, which makes me even happier to see the sale come to fruition, because he truly deserved it.

Ok, back to the Potez. I did do the small touchups of the right fishhook / anchor on the top wing after the near disaster of laying the decal, then sealed all the decals with a coat of Tamiya X-22. When this was done, I proceeded to do some more highlighting / weathering / sand-dusting of the Potez, before sealing the whole again, this time under a coat of MRP semi-matte. I'm not 100 % sure about this one, as I feel the effects I had built up seemed to have vanished a bit under the last coat of varnish.

To do the weathering / highlighting, I sprayed a slightly lighter shade of grey - that makes only 3, or 4 if you count the wheels, in total, not 50 - on the ribs of the top surfaces, as on the top fuselage.

I then used blue-grey and light brown pastel chalks to further enhance the highlighting, rubbing the grey chalk on the upper surfaces (the ribs and the top fuselage), and the sand chalk on the lower surfaces, and then blending it in the surface with a stiff flat brush. I also added some sand chalk on the lower part of the rudder, who most likely was receiving the dust generated by the landings and take-offs on the sand "runways".

Anyway, on to the pics :

The fuselage, with the rudder and elevators :

You may note the lower part of the "BZ65" number is slightly yellowed by the desert sand as well ...

... as is the belly and underside, where the effect is heavier, logically :

The lower sesquiplane wing and undersurfaces of the elevators, before the application of the semi-mette varnish :

The upper wing with the highlighted ribs :

This one below is slightly out of focus nearer to the camera, but it also shows the starkness of the roundels and fishhooks has been toned down and blended into the general dusting effect (ditto for the lower wings, btw)

And then came the time to glue the lower sesquiplane. The tube spars I had added worked as planned

And I knew there was a reason I kept these Humbrol tins for 35 years 🤣

The top wing is just posed on the upper cabane struts jig :

... But it proves the landing gear is strong enough to withstand the weight of the Potez kit. The loaded weight of the Potez 25 TOE was about 2 500 Kg, which should result in a 1/32 scale weight of about 76 grams ... The kit is about 4.5 times heavier than that ...

... and the one above shows the modulation and highlighting I did much better.

I have also worked on the windmilling generators. Lukgraph proposes some "propeller blades" on the PE sheet for those, but I am struggling to understand the fitting of these asymetric shapes, one blade being "fat" when the other is definitely "slim". So I put to a better use the PE "turnbuckles" supplied by Lukgraph converting them to emulate the windmilling wings. A bit of filing and twisting, et voilà !

 

I will now let the 5-minute epoxy of the lower sequiplane cure overnight before moving on to the upper wing. But before that, before the upper wing makes handling the Potez a perilous exercise, I will have to find the way of affixing the spare wheel on the left side of the aircraft ...

TTFN

Hubert

[KevinM]

First of congratulations upon retirement Hubert!Second the effect of weathering and attention to details is paying off Sir looks really Nice!The dio should really cool.

[HubertB]

18 minutes ago, KevinM said:

First of congratulations upon retirement Hubert!Second the effect of weathering and attention to details is paying off Sir looks really Nice!The dio should really cool.

Thank you Kevin. I retired on July 1st 2022, but still owned the company, although I nominated my right-hand as General Manager since October 22. 
He is now a full owner, and me a full retiree.

As for the Potez, I am now on the home stretch. I should start the rigging on Tuesday, and hopefully finish it by next week-end.

Hubert

[GusMac]

Congrats on the sale of your company Hubert. Even better that it's gone to your protégé who's obviously attached to the business.

[CANicoll]

Congrats on the full retirement and the successful handoff of your company into good hands. That's quite an accomplishment!

Beautiful work on the shading, modulation and chalk work.  I've seen the same - especially with chalk - it seems to disappear under a coat of anything.

[DocRob]

Welcome to the full modeling go without excuses anymore, Hubert . Congratulations that it was such a seemingly smooth transition. I kind of retired very early and never regretted it and enjoy live full throttle.
The Potez is coming together nicely. I like the subtle but noticeable weathering, which blends everything together. Chalk effects are always a bit of guessing, with clear coats applied on top. For these effect, I use weathering pencils more and more, which fade less under clear coat.

Cheers Rob

[BlrwestSiR]

Congrats on full retirement Hubert. It's also great to hear your business went to someone deserving and who will respect it. 

Your work on the Potez is superlative. Great to see it coming together as planned. 

[Landlubber Mike]

Beautiful work Hubert!!  Even better, congrats on now being fully retired!  I'm jealous!

[HubertB]

Return to El Golea ...

If the "Black Cruise" was a major logistics undertaking, Admiral Laborde's "Pink Cruise" one year later was a lot simpler. Yet it was a surprisingly glitch-free trip, considering the technological advances of the time and the countries and areas it took place in.

It experienced only one small setback : after taking off from El Golea, in the Sahara, one aircraft developed some engine troubles, and the flight of three aircrafts had to return to El Golea to proceed with repairs on the faulty engine. Admiral Laborde was not a very patient man. In 1926, when CO of the brand new aircraft carrier Béarn, he got upset as the tugs supposed to haul the Béarn out of the port of La Seyne - where Béarn had been built - for its maiden cruise were late. He decided to order the manoeuvers to get the Béarn leaving the port on its own, without the assistance of the tugs. The manoeuver was successfull, if risky, and earned him a strong reputatioon of excellent seamanship. So, needless to say, he was a bit pissed off by the two-days setback to the trip the returnto El Golea meant. There is a photograph where he is ostensibly showing his back to the photographer, to express his displeasure.

Well, I experienced my own "return to El Golea" on this build. When doing the fitting trials for the interwing struts, I found out my jig was completely out-of whack with the struts I had designed, placing the upper wing too high, and the angle of the struts was all wrong as well ...

Trying to understand the issue, I found that I had done a double mistake . First, in spite of writing down the distance between the struts and the lower sesquiplane wing root, I had managed to report it one centimeter too far to the outside of the sesquiplane ! And then, I had also added 15 mm too much in the design of the struts, making them definitely too long ! Kevin was right : that day, the bad half brain was in command !

Anyhow, this meant I had to redrill new position holes for the struts more inboard, and pull out the eyelets to replace everyting in the right position. Some eyelets just did not give way, and had to be snipped at their root on the wing ... This meant I had to putty and resand the old holes

Well anyway, I had to rework the wing root area. The fit there was less than stellar, and that meant more puttying to close the visible chasms, and subsequent sanding ...

New struts were designed and printed. The pic below shows the difference in length between the old struts (lower) and the new ones (upper)

 

... and then Mr Clumsy struck !

So, this morning, I was ready for a repaint of the areas where the paint had been sanded away. I took the opportunity to also repaint the leading edges of both wings. Since the beginning, I was not too sure about the demarcation between the light blue grey of the underwings and the dark blue grey of the upper wing. When poring over the photos again, I finally realised that the dark blue grey was overlapping slightly the underwing. So some more masking to repaint everything ...

MRP paints are fantastic in that no thinning is necessary. But this also means that they contain a high percentage of lacquer thinner, which is not an issue in itself when you spray the paint, as the thinner evaporates quickly. However, be careful not to spill any on a painted area, as the drop will immediately eat up the paint underneath.

And of course, this is exactly what I did when repainting some areas on the wings and fuselage this morning. I forgot to put the cover of the paint cup on the airbrush, and a a clumsy movement resulted in most of the content of the cup spilling on the poor Potez .

The NMF nose got an unvoluntary new paint job ...

 

 

OK. That can be repaired. The ridges of the paint have been sanded with a fiberglass pen, and I should be able to respray some aluminium tomorrow. But, it means new masking, and everytime I remask the Potez, I run the risk of lifting some of the Archer rivets I have applied on the nose and wing ribs (ask me how I know ). Which means some more touching-up and repainting ... And, as both the light  blue grey and the dark blue grey are special mixes, I am now running short of them. I have about 3 or 4 ml left of each. 1 ml of MRP will go a long way, but I cannot afford anymore mishaps without redoing some ad-hoc mixes, which I'd rather avoid ...

Needless to say, Admiral Laborde is pissed with me tonight, and he shows it

Better

Hubert

 

 

 

[DocRob]

Puh, that´s a high amount of trouble you stepped in, Hubert, but it seems everything is manageable, if only the paint lasts. Good luck with the repairs.

Cheers Rob

[KevinM]

Boy when it rains it pours Hubert.I am building the MiniArt P-47 right now and started to blunder about 7PM said time to quit.

[HubertB]

And the Potez is finished (well, 99.8 % ) !

 

Another milestone crossed tonight !

The assembly of the Potez is finished. I just need to do one or two touch-ups of dark blue grey and semi-matt, and I will call it done. Now to organise everything on the base, to put the Potez in the "pink cruise" perspective ...

Some shots for tonight. More beauty shots when I have daylight, and most likely when everything is set up.

I hope you like it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hubert

 

[GusMac]

Looks great Hubert. Can't wait to see it on the base.

[CANicoll]

Beautiful Hubert!

[belugawhaleman]

Looking great Hubert! 

[BlrwestSiR]

Lovely build and great recovery too. 

[KevinM]

looks great Hubert and waiting to see it on the Dio.

[CANicoll]

By the way, I actually think that is a pretty cool effect the accidental spilling of the MRP paint on the cowling.  Hmmm.. Have to remember that!

[HubertB]

9 hours ago, CANicoll said:

By the way, I actually think that is a pretty cool effect the accidental spilling of the MRP paint on the cowling.  Hmmm.. Have to remember that!

What I did was to lightly mop up (but not wipe) the excess paint with a paper handkerchief. Wiping it would have resulted in a greater disaster as the base paint was stripped in the same time. When all was dry, I then buffed the  spill areas with a fiberglass pen, before respraying the whole in aluminium.

There is still a slightly grainy feel under some of the repainted areas of the cowling, but it does add an interesting texture to the aluminium, IMHO.

Hubert

[DocRob]

A fantastic looking Potez, Hubert. Is that really a spare wheel on the fuselage side, cool.

Cheers Rob