**** DONE: GB-45 1/48 Gloster Gladiator - BoB/Foreign Service

[Crimea_River]

Thanks everyone. With the fuselage now together and an initial cleanup scrub done, my sights are now on the doubtful-looking oil cooler and filler cap on the starboard nose.

Mulling my options at this stage but will likely do something about making the cooler look a little more realistic. Here's a couple of pics of the real deal:

 

[Wurger]

 

[Donivanp]

There you go again! gotta make it all real and all. Looking good and that does call for something.

 

[Gnomey]

Great work so far Andy!

 

[Bustedwing]

Very nice work on the cockpit. Belts look great too.

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks guys. The last week has seen various attempts at replicating the oil cooler shown above. There have been four fails and the 5th is now underway and may yet join the others in the bin.

Many years ago, I had kept a brochure of actual stainless steel filter mesh material samples ranging from extremely fine to very coarse. One of these may have proved to be ideal but I don't know what the heck happened to the brochure. Plan A would have been to use one of these sample meshes. After scouring my work area and rummaging through all my spare boxes, I gave up on trying to find it so went to plan B.

The first stage was to cut back the moulded-in cooler to make a raised surface onto which a scratch built unit would would be glued. Below you can see this done along with a separate piece of cut styrene sheet with a number of vertical grooves cut into it.

Plan B entailed gluing this piece of styrene in place and then adding numerous horizontal bits of stretched sprue to represent the cooling fins. Below you can see the base glued on before adding the sprue. I got about 20% done and decided that this was not working out as it was hard to get the sprue bits to stay straight and maintain a consistent spacing as I glued them on so I gave up on this attempt. I thought wrongly that I got a picture of this before chucking it but, believe me, it didn't look the part so it was on to plan C

Plan C was to try and make the fins by softening a pics of styrene sheet with Tamiya Extra Thin and pressing it onto a file to crate the fins (below). Close inspection showed a very irregular pattern so this idea was also discarded.

Plan D - take a piece of Scotch Tape, stick it to the cutting mat with masking tape so that the sticky side is up, and stick on pieces of copper wire. Once these were on, the whole thing was doused with thin CA to make a sheet from which to cut the part

This was looking promising so I added the oil line and glued it on...but....

...after painting it, I hated how this turned out. So that part was binned and I went on to plan E.

Plan E is the one now in the spotlight. I went back to the idea of using the file as a mould and this time stuck on some Aluminum foil tape and burnished it down firmly. I then pealed the tape off and stuck it to some styrene sheet:

After cutting it to size and adding the curve, it looks like this:

Though the pattern is a bit course, this could be "The Chosen One". A coat of primer will be squirted on before I take a final look and make a decision.

All the foregoing to show you that I've not been sitting on my ass doing nothing.

 

[Bustedwing]

Looking good. The foil off the top of wine bottles might work if this doesn't.

 

[Airframes]

Looks like Plan E could b the one - nice experiments Andy.

 

[rochie]

Nice work Andy

now i have 7 Gladiators in my stash if you could russell up a few for me

 

[Wurger]

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks guys. Graham I do have plenty of wine bottle foil saved up but it's thicker than the aluminum foil I'm using which burnished into the file quite well. The issue is more the pitch of the ridges and finding a suitable form.

Karl I know you were joking but I'll gladly knock off 7 more of whatever I come up with.

 

[rochie]

Thanks guys. Graham I do have plenty of wine bottle foil saved up but it's thicker than the aluminum foil I'm using which burnished into the file quite well. The issue is more the pitch of the ridges and finding a suitable form.

Karl I know you were joking but I'll gladly knock off 7 more of whatever I come up with.

too right im joking, 2 sets of wings means rigging !

 

[Bustedwing]

How did you do it with the BMF ?? I thought it would get trashed from sticking to the file when you went to remove it. Or if you left the backing paper on it how did you get that off without distorting it ? Or am I completely missing something ? I made corrugated roof panels with the bottle foil but I mashed it between two fine combs. Couldn't get the BMF to work, with or without the backing paper.

 

[Crimea_River]

I hear you Karl but just shout if you want some - after I get it right that is.

Graham, maybe it's a terminology thing but the stuff I'm using is this Aluminum Foil Duct Tape, available at Home Depot or Canadian Tire. It's quite sturdy and I was able to peel it off the file after burnishing the pattern into it. I made the piece much bigger than I needed so that I could cut the shape i needed and avoid any edge distortions from the peeling stage. I peeled the backing off first. Once I stuck it to the styrene sheet,. I smoothed the grooves a bit with a rounded dental tool.

I've not done any more today but will report back when I can.

 

[Bustedwing]

Sounds like the same stuff as what I refer to as " bare metal foil". Got it at the local Hardware store if you can believe we still have a "local hardware store" !

 

[Gnomey]

Looks great so far Andy!

 

[Crimea_River]

So I think I now have a passable oil cooler. I refined the "foil-on-file" technique and used a file with a finer pitch. Problem was that it wasn't wide enough so I had to unstick and reapply the foil in EXACTLY the right place or the ridges would not have aligned. That's what happened on my first (or is it the sixth?) try so I started over and used the very first ridge on the file as my alignment line, Here is the new piece stuck to the styrene before cutting to shape and with the old one above next to it. Tough to see but there are a few more ridges on the new piece.

This is the piece as it now sits on the model. Damn if it didn't stick with the CA right away! There was no time to make minor adjustments as this Gorilla Glue thick formula is supposed to do (and always did) so now it's a bit cock-eyed and I'm loathe to remove it again. I think I can camouflage it a bit and thank God it's mostly under the wing!

Thee close-ups leave a bit to be desired but the effect has been achieved when viewed from normal distance. There are still fewer ridges than on the real thing so there search would still be happening had I not decided to accept this.

Thanks for looking!

 

[Wurger]

 

[rochie]

Looks very effective Andy and once the wings are on itll look even better I'm sure

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks guys. I did some engine work earlier in the month but didn't post pics so here we are.

Plumbing added.

Push rods were a bit big so I cut them off and replaced them with rod. The rod is still a bit too thick but it will do.

Partly replaced:

All rods in and plug wires added. Time for paint.

Thanks again for watching.