Airframes
Benevolens Magister
Nice work Andy, and the oil cooler looks good enough, and better than the kit representation. Do the cabane struts fit without interference ?
**** DONE: GB-45 1/48 Gloster Gladiator - BoB/Foreign Service
- Thread starter Crimea_River
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le_steph40
Chief Master Sergeant
Excellent work of details 
fubar57
General
Some great looking mods
- Thread starter
- #84
Crimea_River
Marshal
Thanks guys.
Good point! I think so because I left the edge of the original moulded cooler there to support the new one which is offset and higher up the fuselage. Will check though. The kit struts have been maligned in reviews as being too small in cross section anyway so I will possibly make new ones.
Good point! I think so because I left the edge of the original moulded cooler there to support the new one which is offset and higher up the fuselage. Will check though. The kit struts have been maligned in reviews as being too small in cross section anyway so I will possibly make new ones.
Airframes
Benevolens Magister
Roger, Victor.
- Thread starter
- #86
Crimea_River
Marshal
Airplane jokes never grow old, surely.
Engine painting is finished, though I may spray a thin matte coat to knock down the glossy black.
So it's on to the cowl, which I've been working on periodically for some time. The issue was, as I mentioned earlier, the three part construction, varying parts thicknesses, and the attendant seams on the inside. Though the seams will be partly hidden, I didn't want to leave them like that as they are quite ugly and there are some ejector pin marks as well. Fixing them involved several passes of putty, primer, and sanding using the below tool. The dowel I had laying around was the perfect diameter and, with some sandpaper glued to it, performed brilliantly.
With the inner surfaces smooth, my analness took over again and I added a rim to the cowl which is very much evident on the real airplane. I curled some styrene rod by drawing my finger nail along it then began gluing it to the edge with CA.
Work progressed slowly until the circle was closed. Below you can see the effect with the inner edge standing proud of the exhaust ring.
After a bit of filling and sanding, I dry fit the cowl to the fuselage to line up the gun trough locations and found that they coincide exactly with two of the three seams in the cowl. This enabled me to file in the cutouts in the ring for the guns.
With that done, I rescribed lost detail, filed down overdone detail, and added some rivets and circular panels.
I've now primed all this to see how it fares and, once it's good, I'll paint the interior and install the engine.
Engine painting is finished, though I may spray a thin matte coat to knock down the glossy black.
So it's on to the cowl, which I've been working on periodically for some time. The issue was, as I mentioned earlier, the three part construction, varying parts thicknesses, and the attendant seams on the inside. Though the seams will be partly hidden, I didn't want to leave them like that as they are quite ugly and there are some ejector pin marks as well. Fixing them involved several passes of putty, primer, and sanding using the below tool. The dowel I had laying around was the perfect diameter and, with some sandpaper glued to it, performed brilliantly.
With the inner surfaces smooth, my analness took over again and I added a rim to the cowl which is very much evident on the real airplane. I curled some styrene rod by drawing my finger nail along it then began gluing it to the edge with CA.
Work progressed slowly until the circle was closed. Below you can see the effect with the inner edge standing proud of the exhaust ring.
After a bit of filling and sanding, I dry fit the cowl to the fuselage to line up the gun trough locations and found that they coincide exactly with two of the three seams in the cowl. This enabled me to file in the cutouts in the ring for the guns.
With that done, I rescribed lost detail, filed down overdone detail, and added some rivets and circular panels.
I've now primed all this to see how it fares and, once it's good, I'll paint the interior and install the engine.
fubar57
General
Good stuff Andy
Airframes
Benevolens Magister
Very nice work on the cowl - an don't call me Shirley !
- Thread starter
- #91
Crimea_River
Marshal
Thanks guys. Nothing done on the Glad this weekend. However, I did hear of another option for rigging that I'll look into.
Apparently, this stuff is rectangular in cross section and stretchy so stays straight after gluing it in. May have to give it a go.
Apparently, this stuff is rectangular in cross section and stretchy so stays straight after gluing it in. May have to give it a go.
Good stuff Andy.
Lovely work so far Andy!
Donivanp
Major
Great stuff Andy, the oil cooler came out really cool. Much better than the kit part and I can understand why you have a large collection of wine bottle aluminum. I got drunk just reading your progress.
- Thread starter
- #96
Crimea_River
Marshal
Thanks again friends. Bench time has been limited but I did get some time to do a bit to the engine and fuselage yesterday.
After painting the cowl interior, the engine was pushed in and the individual exhaust stubs installed. There are no aids to line up the engine in the cowl so it's important to line things up by eye before committing any glue. The individual stubs were a pain to remove from the sprue and clean up but at least the gates were on the inner, unseen side.
The stubs also aren't shaped quite correctly in that they are supposed to go straight back from the ring and then crank slightly into the cylinders. This would have meant making 18 tiny left and right symmetrical parts and I wasn't going to go there.
The next item on the list was to open up the panel at the rear fuselage. Below is the area I mean with the horizontal stab dry fitted:
Here's what it's supposed to look like per photos posted over at Britmodeller:
The cutout was started by drilling a series of holes....
.....and then knocking out the unneeded bits then squaring up and thinning the edges with a scalpel.
Til next time.
After painting the cowl interior, the engine was pushed in and the individual exhaust stubs installed. There are no aids to line up the engine in the cowl so it's important to line things up by eye before committing any glue. The individual stubs were a pain to remove from the sprue and clean up but at least the gates were on the inner, unseen side.
The stubs also aren't shaped quite correctly in that they are supposed to go straight back from the ring and then crank slightly into the cylinders. This would have meant making 18 tiny left and right symmetrical parts and I wasn't going to go there.
The next item on the list was to open up the panel at the rear fuselage. Below is the area I mean with the horizontal stab dry fitted:
Here's what it's supposed to look like per photos posted over at Britmodeller:
The cutout was started by drilling a series of holes....
.....and then knocking out the unneeded bits then squaring up and thinning the edges with a scalpel.
Til next time.
Great work so far Andy!
T Bolt
Colonel
Very fine work there Andy
- Thread starter
- #100
Crimea_River
Marshal
Thanks guys.
The horizontal stabs have been glued in place after squirting the interior of the fuselage at the new cutouts black. As always, I line up my vertical stab so that it's exactly perpendicular to the work surface, clamp the fuselage in place, and then align the stab parts to be perfectly square and horizontal. I took care not to push the stab parts all the way in so that they are flush with the fuselage. Rather, I kept a gap as there is one present on the real aircraft.
While that's setting, let's have a look at some of the other fun stuff that has to be dealt with. The undercarriage struts both suffer from some pretty hefty sink holes. Fortunately, the location is easily dealt with for adding putty an no crucial parts are distorted.
I fiddled with a dry fit of the undercarriage for some time before realizing that the instructions reversed the left and right part numbers. There's only one way these will fit and it sure is NOT they way the instructions tell you to do it!
The sprue gates for the upper wing are very odd. There should be three moulded-in hinge points represented. The outer one looks like it's at the location of the sprue gate.....
...until you flip it over and find out that the hinge point is non-existent, that the sprue looks like it wants to give you one but that it actually doesn't extend to the wing, and that, oddly, the gate zig-zags over to the outboard side to make the attachment. Looks like someone messed up here.
Again, no big deal as the hinge point is easily fabricated.
Thanks again for following.
The horizontal stabs have been glued in place after squirting the interior of the fuselage at the new cutouts black. As always, I line up my vertical stab so that it's exactly perpendicular to the work surface, clamp the fuselage in place, and then align the stab parts to be perfectly square and horizontal. I took care not to push the stab parts all the way in so that they are flush with the fuselage. Rather, I kept a gap as there is one present on the real aircraft.
While that's setting, let's have a look at some of the other fun stuff that has to be dealt with. The undercarriage struts both suffer from some pretty hefty sink holes. Fortunately, the location is easily dealt with for adding putty an no crucial parts are distorted.
I fiddled with a dry fit of the undercarriage for some time before realizing that the instructions reversed the left and right part numbers. There's only one way these will fit and it sure is NOT they way the instructions tell you to do it!
The sprue gates for the upper wing are very odd. There should be three moulded-in hinge points represented. The outer one looks like it's at the location of the sprue gate.....
...until you flip it over and find out that the hinge point is non-existent, that the sprue looks like it wants to give you one but that it actually doesn't extend to the wing, and that, oddly, the gate zig-zags over to the outboard side to make the attachment. Looks like someone messed up here.
Again, no big deal as the hinge point is easily fabricated.
Thanks again for following.
