A Quickie Project Before the Year Ends. Yes, "Terry" is going to make the Miami Year end fireworks !

[HubertB]

My "Sandbox" GB entry is now finished, and I should resume work on other projects, and deal with a few  SOD queens waiting for me.

The priority is of course to finish the Fisher 1/32 Cutlass.

However, I thought I could show a little time-filling project I started when I was waiting for the putty on the wing-slats of the Cutlass to dry.

When I saw, this one, I just fetched it in a split-second. It is typically in my area of predilection  : off-beat subject, civilian, and resin, to boot.

So, Brengun has released kits of the Rutan Quickie in 1/72, 1/48 and 1/32 scale. The Quickie is one of the many amazing brain-children of the creative Burt Rutan, conceived in the mid 70's.

It features many of the pet-ideas of Burt Rutan : light weight, canard or staggered wing configuration, amateur construction, inexpensive to build, power, and run. In typical Rutan fashion, the Quickie is powered by a stock Onan engine, probably well known to US owners of houses, as my understanding is this engine was primarily conceived to power small lawn-mowing tractors, delivering between 18 and 22 hp acoording to the versions; On this engine, the Quickie can cruise at some 125+ mph, a testament to the fine aerodynamics and light weight of Rutan products.

The Brengun kit is a typical resin kit, in a diminutive box - at least for a 1/32 builder-

Inside the box, a few resin parts, a vac-formed canopy, a small PE fret, an acetate film for the IP instruments, and a small decal sheet. About 30 parts overall, so it should be fairly quick, as befits its name ...

Unfortunately, the bottom of the fuselage is marred by dozens of those pesky pinholes you find on resin kits which have not been pressure-cast. And you know what the issue is: when you fill and sand some pinholes, you reveal new ones

 

Any way, this is where I stood last Saturday :

 

 

You can notice on the pics that I have scratched a new back for the instrument panel. Brengun's kit is based on the Quickie built by a gentleman colled Terry Crouch, from Indiana, who received an award by the EAA at Oskosh in 1995 for the quality of his Quickie build. One characteristic of Terry Crouch's Quickie is the overall neat construction, and it shows also on the back of the IP. Check this videao at about 40' to see what I mean

Brengun's resin part for the back of the Ip was just not neat enough to emulate Mr Crouch's work so I did a new one.

After a first layer of primer, still some pinholes to fill on the bottom fuselage ...

But this is where I am at tonight. The seat has been reclad with some Evergreen strips, and painted. An additional layer of blue is needed to blend the colors of the seat. The detail parts have been painted as well

The instrument panel has been painted and wired ... You may notice the switches on the left of the PE IP, done with 0.2 mm nickel silbver rod, and inserted in the holes I drilled for them ...

 

The main components have been primed and sanded a few times already, the vacformed canopy cut, trimmed to fit, masked and painted

And in the meantime, I have been working on my "Terry Crouch" figure. It is in fact an absolutely fantastic figure from Reedoak, of a "civilian pilot". Here is my current wip of the Quickie pilot. I had great fun painting the Hawaian shirt

TBC, and hopefully finished before the year end.

Hubert.

[JohnB]

Wow! What a neat project Hubert. 🙂

[GusMac]

Really nice job on the Hawaiian shirt Hubert. Zoomed the photo up just to get the full appreciation.

[DocRob]

Nothing better than a little side project from time to time, to reignite the mojo flow. I never heard of the Quickie (Quirky), but like it, especially with your careful treatment. The Shirt is fantastic.

Cheers Rob

[BlrwestSiR]

Really next project there Hubert. 

When I visited the EAA museum they had a display dedicated to the Rutans and their aircraft. Definitely an out of the box thinker. 

[Landlubber Mike]

Wow, fantastic project Hubert!  Looking forward to following along!

[HubertB]

A miniature (literally) update. Need glasses ...

 

A small update on the Quickie. Not much to show on the main assembly, as I fill, sand, spray, then re-fill, re)sand then re-spray, then re-re-fill, etc. The orihinal is a very clean and neat airframe, and the kit cannt afford blemishes, especially as there is no weathering to hide the surface defects. So I am trying not to let any of those pass undtected.

In the meantime, I work on teeny weeny details to be added. ON the video I posted, at about 40', ther is a view of the fuel gauge. It is an instresting mechanical contraption, and Brengun have totally missed adding it. Mine started as a piec of Albion Alloy 1.2 OD / 1.0 ID tube, that I filed for about its half, across a length of 6 mm. It was painted white outside and partially inside, then I inserted a rod made of strtched transparent sprue, and capped the whole with aScale Hardware 1.2 mm nut, that I file to reduce its height ... A sopics are worth a thousand words :

By suinting very hard, you can see the bottom of the transparent tube is slightly yellow (that is the brass tube showing through) whne the top is white. The tank is about 2/3 full with gasoline ...

Then on to fitting my "pilot". I could not help but see the glasses Terry Crouch wore during the video. What a great - well no, small, very small - idea to add glasses to my pilot !

After a few trials, this is what I produced bending some 0.2 nickel-silver rod for the frame, and flattened 0.3 mm copper wire for the branches  :

Have a good look at this one, because it took a ballistic trajectory when I tried to fill the frame with some tinted Micro Kristal Clear ...

I hope the one I have redone will not fly off in pursuit of her sibling who ended devoured by the floor monster

TTFN

Hubert

[DocRob]

Cool Aviators, Hubert, hopefully tinted deep green as they should.

Cheers Rob

[belugawhaleman]

8 hours ago, HubertB said:

A miniature (literally) update. Need glasses ...

 

A small update on the Quickie. Not much to show on the main assembly, as I fill, sand, spray, then re-fill, re)sand then re-spray, then re-re-fill, etc. The orihinal is a very clean and neat airframe, and the kit cannt afford blemishes, especially as there is no weathering to hide the surface defects. So I am trying not to let any of those pass undtected.

In the meantime, I work on teeny weeny details to be added. ON the video I posted, at about 40', ther is a view of the fuel gauge. It is an instresting mechanical contraption, and Brengun have totally missed adding it. Mine started as a piec of Albion Alloy 1.2 OD / 1.0 ID tube, that I filed for about its half, across a length of 6 mm. It was painted white outside and partially inside, then I inserted a rod made of strtched transparent sprue, and capped the whole with aScale Hardware 1.2 mm nut, that I file to reduce its height ... A sopics are worth a thousand words :

By suinting very hard, you can see the bottom of the transparent tube is slightly yellow (that is the brass tube showing through) whne the top is white. The tank is about 2/3 full with gasoline ...

Then on to fitting my "pilot". I could not help but see the glasses Terry Crouch wore during the video. What a great - well no, small, very small - idea to add glasses to my pilot !

After a few trials, this is what I produced bending some 0.2 nickel-silver rod for the frame, and flattened 0.3 mm copper wire for the branches  :

Have a good look at this one, because it took a ballistic trajectory when I tried to fill the frame with some tinted Micro Kristal Clear ...

I hope the one I have redone will not fly off in pursuit of her sibling who ended devoured by the floor monster

TTFN

Hubert

Had to look close to see the frames! Tiny!

[KevinM]

It's hard to believe that it could fly Hubert cool little build and yes that shirt looks great.

[HubertB]

Making slow progress on the Quickie. I am struggling to get the prefect finish I am dreaming of. Small blemishes in the white paint have to be touched up, the canard-to-fuselage joint proved troublesome and had to be sanded a few times, but then it means some repaint, and my second (or third ?) coat of Tamiya X-22 showed some orange peel that had to be sanded away . All of this whilst trying not to send the delicate compensators of the canards flaps fly away on their own !

Anyway, this is where I am at this morning :

A small paint build-up at the extremity of the left canard sanded away and to be repainted ...

See the blemish I scraped off on the canard-to-fuselage root  and needs a repaint 😡 ?

The airfield is ready for a fly-off ...

Uh oh ... Not without wheels and prop ...

... And the pilot is ready to take the Quickie to Florida for the weekend ...

But not yet !

In the meantime lookie lookie who is trying a creeping come-back in a corner of the bench ?

 

Whilst the paint and varnish on the Quickie were setting, I designed and printed some new slats for the Cutlass, after the frustrations of the original kit's ones ...

 

Hopefully the Quickie will live up to the thread's title

Hubert

[DocRob]

Bummer with the finish, Hubert. I use X22 as a base layer for decaling my WW1 birds with huge Aviattic Lozenge and usually have a perfect glossy finish, when thinned with Mr. Leveling Thinner, no orange peel, no nada. When you add a clear cot on top, you have an even better look, somehow deeper.
I love the guy with his aviators and flowery Hawaiian shirt, so cool. 

Cheers Rob

[HubertB]

Finished !

Ok, I can call this one done. And that brings my tally for 2024 to two finished kits (plus a restoration of Columbia, plus the pilot of my Fisher Ryan ST-M). I can call this year a record one for me in decades. And, yes, being retired and with a mind free of the family worries of the beginning of the year makes a big difference !

I had some sweaty minutes until the last moment; especially with the canopy. I have to admit these were self-inflicted woes.

When removing the masks from the canopy, the tape glue left a hazy residue. Ok, this could be cleaned with a paper rag dipped in lighter fluid. But then I felt I could be even more transparent. There is a saying in France that says "Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien" (literally, "The better is the enemy of the good"), and I should have remembered it, especially as the canopy was looking good after some polishing with Tamiya polishing paste.

But, anyhow, I decided an extra layer of X22 would do well. I have mentioned in the previous thread that I had some issues when laying the Tamiya X22. I am using for fine airbrushing a Chinese knock-off of soem well-known brand, and it has  worked extremely well so far. But, for laying even coats like varnish, it reaches its limitations simply by the fact that is has an 0.2 mm needle, and the paint flow is limited. The X22 varnish tended to dry quickly and produce an uneven finish. No problem, I have an Iwata Neo with an 0.5 mm needle, and that will do the X22 work fine ... (by the way, I re-discovered very recently  that at some time in the last years I had bought a H&S Infinity ). But my control of the Neo was such that I emptied the cup of the airbursh without even having covered the whole Quickie.

So, yesterday, morning, back to the "usual" airbrush. Open the needle, and have multiple passes for a "wet" look with the X-22. Needless to say that did not turn well. My canopy ended with marks, ridges, and a general unevenness, and it was mostly on the inside ! After trying to recover a smooth finish with Micro-mesh and 000 steel wool, the canopy still looked like crap yesterday evening. A cheating attempt by dipping it in Future just highlighted more of the issues 😡 ! In despair, yesterday evening, I brushed some lacquer thinner on the transparent part of  the canopy, and then the modlling gods turned on my side. Not only the white paint stayed, but the damned uneven varnish coats went away. Yessss !

This morning, I had a new attempt at polishing the canopy. All good ! But hey, what if I added another layer of X-22 ? Being dumb once is not enough for the brave dumbasses ! So I dipped my canopy directly in the X-22 jar, let the extra varnish flow back in the jar, and put it to dry under a cover... Then I missed one or two heartbeats : whe drying, my canopy was looking foggy and like an old gate-guard canopy !

Fortunately, when it dried further, the full transparency came back, and a last round of polishing allowed me to move to the last roller-coaster attempt : fixing the canopy to the fuselage

In the meantime, I had decalled the Quickie, broken the Neo again for another round of X-22 (but being very careful with how I handled the trigger), added the finihsing touches like the exhaust tubes, the wheels, and the rear tailwheel. The prop boss and tips were covered with aluminium foil.

All in all, I have managed to finsh the Quickie before the year ends !

 

 

And here it is, next to the Potez 25, under the bowsprit of Columbia …

More pics in the RFI section, here :

And a Happy New year to all my LSM buddies !

 

Hubert