fubar57
General
Nice. Gotta get me some of them brushes.......he said for the tenth time
1:24 Airfix Hawker Typhoon Car Door Build
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- Thread starter
- #22
Builder 2010
Staff Sergeant
Didn't do too much building today, but made some progress. I found some very good cockpit images on the web, downloaded and printed them for reference. I air brushed all the interior panels with NATO black and got my first panels installed. Unlike every other kid I've ever built, the instrument decals in this one are individual instrument faces. I'm not looking forward to that. There is a clear insert, but i'm not sure if the decals go on its back on front. If it goes on the front it defeats the entire purpose of being clear. If they go on the back, I'm not sure about the decal adhesion when you placing them on their face side. If they go on the front, I'll add a lens using some Bondic UV curing resin.
The arrows denote, 1) gyro compass, and 2) left hand panel. The pictures showed me that he plate under the lever is aluminum. I also have to paint the rudder pedals black.
This is clearly not a restored aircraft, but it really shows what's going on.
The arrows denote, 1) gyro compass, and 2) left hand panel. The pictures showed me that he plate under the lever is aluminum. I also have to paint the rudder pedals black.
This is clearly not a restored aircraft, but it really shows what's going on.
fubar57
General
I think all the RAF compasses had a grey body and though covered in dust, it looks like the Typhoon as well. Spitfire...
Hurricane....
Airframes
Benevolens Magister
Good stuff, and yes, the compass had a grey body.
Note that the reference pics appear to be of the cockpit section in the IWM, Duxford. This was a later, 'bubble top' Typhoon, and this example has some transparent panels to allow internal viewing. The 'bubble top' had the upper section of the cockpit walls and some other fittings painted matt black.
The earlier 'car door' cockpit would be silver for the frames, heel boards and rudder pedals (the latter may have had rubber pads on the 'treads'), with the cockpit walls and roll bar etc in the RAF Cockpit Grey Green. The quilted back-pad on the seat was normally a light khaki green, rather like sage green.
EDIT. Just noticed you've fitted a dark brown cushion into the seat pan. This would normally be empty, as it's where the pilot's seat-type parachute pack would be when he was wearing it, sitting in the seat.
Note that the reference pics appear to be of the cockpit section in the IWM, Duxford. This was a later, 'bubble top' Typhoon, and this example has some transparent panels to allow internal viewing. The 'bubble top' had the upper section of the cockpit walls and some other fittings painted matt black.
The earlier 'car door' cockpit would be silver for the frames, heel boards and rudder pedals (the latter may have had rubber pads on the 'treads'), with the cockpit walls and roll bar etc in the RAF Cockpit Grey Green. The quilted back-pad on the seat was normally a light khaki green, rather like sage green.
EDIT. Just noticed you've fitted a dark brown cushion into the seat pan. This would normally be empty, as it's where the pilot's seat-type parachute pack would be when he was wearing it, sitting in the seat.
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Good work so far!
- Thread starter
- #28
Builder 2010
Staff Sergeant
I've been working three projects at once, so my progress on the Typhoon has been slower than my normal, but it's steady. Each day I'm adding more stuff to the interior and touchup painting as I go along.
Yesterday, I put in the side panels, left and right, and today added some black boxes that flank the sides. Again, although I painted them on the sprue, I had to go back and fix them up after glued. I am blown away by the native detail in the cockpit. While I understand there are certain AM enhancements that could even make it more intense, I can't justify the cost for this model. For example: some of the molded levers coming out of the side panels represent little triangles instead of a true lever, but I also know that when selectively and carefully painted, the do show up and, furthermore, will be almost invisible when the skin almost encloses the whole affair.
Here's the right panel.
Here's the totally invisible right outside panel. It will be completely out of sight when the skin goes on... and that skin will NOT be removed.
And some added black boxes, right hand first.
Left side black box. I had to paint the aluminum colored tab that the box glues to so it look like a single object. But this too is outside facing and will be hidden by the skin. More AMS (advanced modeler's syndrome).
Last thing I did was assemble the throttle quadrant and paint the control stick. The Typhoon stick controlled the ailerons by hinging the top part of the stick and have some connecting rods carrying this side to side motion down to the lower mechanism. This is similar to the way the control wheels were tied in with the larger bombers during the time. The photos I had showed the colors of this and the throttles pretty well. There's some electrically wiring that goes from the pushbuttons on the stick down to below the floor, but I'm not putting them in (overkill).
There's also a tiny illegible decal over one of the throttle knobs, and it's shiny because I had just applied it and used MicroSol. The decals seem to take forever to wet off the backing. I mean minutes rather than seconds. Very strange. I think on a Tamiya kit that decal would have had real words, not just tiny yellow specks.
Till next time...
Yesterday, I put in the side panels, left and right, and today added some black boxes that flank the sides. Again, although I painted them on the sprue, I had to go back and fix them up after glued. I am blown away by the native detail in the cockpit. While I understand there are certain AM enhancements that could even make it more intense, I can't justify the cost for this model. For example: some of the molded levers coming out of the side panels represent little triangles instead of a true lever, but I also know that when selectively and carefully painted, the do show up and, furthermore, will be almost invisible when the skin almost encloses the whole affair.
Here's the right panel.
Here's the totally invisible right outside panel. It will be completely out of sight when the skin goes on... and that skin will NOT be removed.
And some added black boxes, right hand first.
Left side black box. I had to paint the aluminum colored tab that the box glues to so it look like a single object. But this too is outside facing and will be hidden by the skin. More AMS (advanced modeler's syndrome).
Last thing I did was assemble the throttle quadrant and paint the control stick. The Typhoon stick controlled the ailerons by hinging the top part of the stick and have some connecting rods carrying this side to side motion down to the lower mechanism. This is similar to the way the control wheels were tied in with the larger bombers during the time. The photos I had showed the colors of this and the throttles pretty well. There's some electrically wiring that goes from the pushbuttons on the stick down to below the floor, but I'm not putting them in (overkill).
There's also a tiny illegible decal over one of the throttle knobs, and it's shiny because I had just applied it and used MicroSol. The decals seem to take forever to wet off the backing. I mean minutes rather than seconds. Very strange. I think on a Tamiya kit that decal would have had real words, not just tiny yellow specks.
Till next time...
Crimea_River
Marshal
Very cool.
Nice work so far!
fubar57
General
Nice 
- Thread starter
- #33
Builder 2010
Staff Sergeant
Thank you! I was torn about installing the pilot, but as I noted before, I didn't think a pilot would be sitting in a plane with all the access panels removed around the engine. The instructions call for the cushion either way. The only difference was the removal of the hanging rear seat belts.
Installed the control stick and the throttle. Glued the oxygen tank together as well as the water (lube oil?) tank, and then filled the little seams. Neither of these are visible when the skin goes on, but it's fun to build them either way.
The instrument panel is a gray plastic piece sandwiched with a transparent piece that has the gauge glass. Now... this is dilemma. If you put the decals behind the transparent piece, the distortion will hide most of the decal's beauty. But if you put them on the clear part's faces, then you defeat the purpose of the transparent piece forming a clear gauge crystal. I chose the latter, but then created a new transparent face by adding a coating of Bondic UV curing resin. The decals are stiff, thick, and didn't adhere well. That was even with MicroSet. But the Bondic really worked to seal them in AND give a good look.
The panel fell on the floor and the biggest decal fell off and disappeared. So I hand painted the gauge face back on. I cured the Bondic en masse by putting the panel into my UV curing chamber that I use for my resin 3D printer.
There were other decals that had to go on, small stencils. These too took a bit of fussing.
I then installed the panel into position attached to the compass support and the rear of the tank. I then took some pictures.
Airframes spoke about the dificulty of getting the interior to seat properly on the bottom wing piece. So I tried it and it did fill well.
Now, this kit had an anomaly. There were two lower wings. At first I thought that they maybe were different (optional fitting), but no... they were the same Sprue E. Okay. I got two of the same sprue. Then I started looking for the rest of the fuselage parts to see how they fit the interior. And guess what? I had NO SPRUE M.
I contacted my hobby shop and they directed me to Airfix USA. I sent an eMail to the Customer Service contact and got a response within the hour. They had a bubble top Typhoon kit that didn't have an instruction book, but it had a Sprue M. They asked that I photograph the instruction page showing the part and they check to see if it would work. It appears that it does and they will send it too me. Whew!
Without the fuselage sides, the model would be a curiosity, but not an airpane.
Installed the control stick and the throttle. Glued the oxygen tank together as well as the water (lube oil?) tank, and then filled the little seams. Neither of these are visible when the skin goes on, but it's fun to build them either way.
The instrument panel is a gray plastic piece sandwiched with a transparent piece that has the gauge glass. Now... this is dilemma. If you put the decals behind the transparent piece, the distortion will hide most of the decal's beauty. But if you put them on the clear part's faces, then you defeat the purpose of the transparent piece forming a clear gauge crystal. I chose the latter, but then created a new transparent face by adding a coating of Bondic UV curing resin. The decals are stiff, thick, and didn't adhere well. That was even with MicroSet. But the Bondic really worked to seal them in AND give a good look.
The panel fell on the floor and the biggest decal fell off and disappeared. So I hand painted the gauge face back on. I cured the Bondic en masse by putting the panel into my UV curing chamber that I use for my resin 3D printer.
There were other decals that had to go on, small stencils. These too took a bit of fussing.
I then installed the panel into position attached to the compass support and the rear of the tank. I then took some pictures.
Airframes spoke about the dificulty of getting the interior to seat properly on the bottom wing piece. So I tried it and it did fill well.
Now, this kit had an anomaly. There were two lower wings. At first I thought that they maybe were different (optional fitting), but no... they were the same Sprue E. Okay. I got two of the same sprue. Then I started looking for the rest of the fuselage parts to see how they fit the interior. And guess what? I had NO SPRUE M.
I contacted my hobby shop and they directed me to Airfix USA. I sent an eMail to the Customer Service contact and got a response within the hour. They had a bubble top Typhoon kit that didn't have an instruction book, but it had a Sprue M. They asked that I photograph the instruction page showing the part and they check to see if it would work. It appears that it does and they will send it too me. Whew!
Without the fuselage sides, the model would be a curiosity, but not an airpane.
fubar57
General
Great looking innards and gotta love that kind of customer service
Good stuff....probably shouldn't come in here for a look....puts the pressure on to get my slack butt back to doing mine....
- Thread starter
- #37
Builder 2010
Staff Sergeant
By all means. Get cracking! If I have an unfinished model I am compelled to make it whole.
I got confirmation from Airfix that Sprue M is in the mail and will arrive next week. That solves that problem. Meanwhile, I started construction of that remarkable Napier Saber power plant. I read a white paper on the difference in performance between sleeve and poppet valved aero engines. I was wondering just how sleeve valves worked in this instance. I thought the Saber was the only engine with this arrangement, but UK's Bristol Radial engines also used them, which describes why they look different with their exhaust stacks coming out of the middle of the cylinder.
The sleeve actually performed dual functions. It served as the working cylinder liner in which the piston traveled and it moved simultaneously side to side and slightly up and down to expose and close passages leading in and out of the cylinder for induction and exhaust. Ported engines in 2-stroke are common since the ports can remain static with the piston itself opening and closing them. But 4-strokes have to close off induction and exhaust at different points in the cycle and this requires more motion.
Sleeve engines claimed to have less moving parts, but in the case of the Bristol Centaurus (used in the Hawker Sea Fury), it took a gear train of 48 spur gears to drive the actuating mechanism to both rotate and raise the sleeve. Because the sleeve formed an additional layer between the cylinder jug and the piston, cooling was a challenge, but like other engines, as it evolved these problems were genearally solved.
The motion was controlled by a small cam-like lever that jutted out below the cylinder jug and contacted a ring at the bottom of the sleeve. As the cam lever rotated 360 degrees it rotated and raised the sleeve into its various positions. Once the gear train was set up, valve adjustments were no longer needed. This compared favorably to the constant management of valve lash in the contemporary pushrod poppet valved aero engines. The sleeve timing didn't change with temperature, but its diameter would and this would affect operating friction.
There is an Airfix operation to put a motor in this large engine block to spin the prop, but I chose to not do this. I did make sure that the prop shaft is lubricated (Vasoline) so the prop will spin freely.
Between the inner framing and the mass of the plastic parts, the engine block is quite solid. Most of the parts fit together perfectly after routine parts cleanup, but the junction between the supecharger induction pipes and their block attachment had a significant gap. I filled this with a combination of Bondic for the larger gaps and Tamiya filler for the lesser.
This is the engine bottom. Even here, you apply two separate pumps. By leaving the entire front skin off, a lot of these details WILL BE visible.
The supercharger is a model in itself with five parts. I used a lot of different sanding devices including a neat powered micro-sander I got from MicroMark. I bought that specifically to clean up resin prints. But another very useful one is the Flexi-sander which is superb for sanding round surfaces such as the induction pipes from the supercharger. By being a soft band it comforms to the curves and gives a great finish.
Here are the gaps in the induction system. Two were very large and two were more manageable.
The big gaps were too large for typical fillers so I turned to Bondic. You put it in a layer, harden it for about 5 seconds, put in another layer, and so on until the gap is closed. It's quite hard, much harder than styrene, so you have to sand accurately. If you concentrate on the filler you will get it right. If you need to, apply some masking tape to the styrene from affecting too much styrene.
Here's filled, but not sanded.
And after finishing:
The next step is to install the engine on the airframe before adding any more piping (and there's a lot), but before that it needs to be painted and detailed a bit. While the plans call for black, I'm going with green. It seems all the pictures of extant engines are a nice British Racing Green. Besides, the engine will be fully exposed and, since it's the most interesting part (to me) of this aircraft, the engine's going to be green.
Another clue that this engine's valves are different is that the induction and exhaused enter the side of the block, not the top.
I got confirmation from Airfix that Sprue M is in the mail and will arrive next week. That solves that problem. Meanwhile, I started construction of that remarkable Napier Saber power plant. I read a white paper on the difference in performance between sleeve and poppet valved aero engines. I was wondering just how sleeve valves worked in this instance. I thought the Saber was the only engine with this arrangement, but UK's Bristol Radial engines also used them, which describes why they look different with their exhaust stacks coming out of the middle of the cylinder.
The sleeve actually performed dual functions. It served as the working cylinder liner in which the piston traveled and it moved simultaneously side to side and slightly up and down to expose and close passages leading in and out of the cylinder for induction and exhaust. Ported engines in 2-stroke are common since the ports can remain static with the piston itself opening and closing them. But 4-strokes have to close off induction and exhaust at different points in the cycle and this requires more motion.
Sleeve engines claimed to have less moving parts, but in the case of the Bristol Centaurus (used in the Hawker Sea Fury), it took a gear train of 48 spur gears to drive the actuating mechanism to both rotate and raise the sleeve. Because the sleeve formed an additional layer between the cylinder jug and the piston, cooling was a challenge, but like other engines, as it evolved these problems were genearally solved.
The motion was controlled by a small cam-like lever that jutted out below the cylinder jug and contacted a ring at the bottom of the sleeve. As the cam lever rotated 360 degrees it rotated and raised the sleeve into its various positions. Once the gear train was set up, valve adjustments were no longer needed. This compared favorably to the constant management of valve lash in the contemporary pushrod poppet valved aero engines. The sleeve timing didn't change with temperature, but its diameter would and this would affect operating friction.
There is an Airfix operation to put a motor in this large engine block to spin the prop, but I chose to not do this. I did make sure that the prop shaft is lubricated (Vasoline) so the prop will spin freely.
Between the inner framing and the mass of the plastic parts, the engine block is quite solid. Most of the parts fit together perfectly after routine parts cleanup, but the junction between the supecharger induction pipes and their block attachment had a significant gap. I filled this with a combination of Bondic for the larger gaps and Tamiya filler for the lesser.
This is the engine bottom. Even here, you apply two separate pumps. By leaving the entire front skin off, a lot of these details WILL BE visible.
The supercharger is a model in itself with five parts. I used a lot of different sanding devices including a neat powered micro-sander I got from MicroMark. I bought that specifically to clean up resin prints. But another very useful one is the Flexi-sander which is superb for sanding round surfaces such as the induction pipes from the supercharger. By being a soft band it comforms to the curves and gives a great finish.
Here are the gaps in the induction system. Two were very large and two were more manageable.
The big gaps were too large for typical fillers so I turned to Bondic. You put it in a layer, harden it for about 5 seconds, put in another layer, and so on until the gap is closed. It's quite hard, much harder than styrene, so you have to sand accurately. If you concentrate on the filler you will get it right. If you need to, apply some masking tape to the styrene from affecting too much styrene.
Here's filled, but not sanded.
And after finishing:
The next step is to install the engine on the airframe before adding any more piping (and there's a lot), but before that it needs to be painted and detailed a bit. While the plans call for black, I'm going with green. It seems all the pictures of extant engines are a nice British Racing Green. Besides, the engine will be fully exposed and, since it's the most interesting part (to me) of this aircraft, the engine's going to be green.
Another clue that this engine's valves are different is that the induction and exhaused enter the side of the block, not the top.
fubar57
General
Very impressive looking engine
Crimea_River
Marshal
What George said.
The museum I volunteer at runs, or should I say ran, a Bristol Hercules engine for event days in the summer - until it ingested a supercharger impeller which broke into tiny pieces, peening all the pistons and exhaust stacks.
The museum I volunteer at runs, or should I say ran, a Bristol Hercules engine for event days in the summer - until it ingested a supercharger impeller which broke into tiny pieces, peening all the pistons and exhaust stacks.
