Indiana Jones & The Secret Santa

[cthulhu77]

 El Fabulouso !!!!  Wonderful work, really neat to see it coming together.

[Mossie]

Thanks Greg & Carlos!  I've done a bit mor work over the last few days, no pics it's mostly been chopping & setting the wings up ready for mounting (bit more work to do) & re-setting the tail.

I accidentally knocked the port vertical tail off, originally all I'd done is score the joint with a razor saw & change the angle between the vertical & horizontal tails & the fuselage.  The majority of the tail turned out to be very weak so I broke of the whole port tail & the right vertical tail (the right horizontal feels very solid).  I drilled some wholes for some brass pins & re-set it the tail.  I'm glad it happened, as the angles are much better than they were before.  I'm resisting the urge to completley re-do it as the tail boom has a twist in it, but it'd be going back to square one.  Anyway, the twist gives it a 'natrual' look, as if it's been in a minor prang & pressed straight back into service! My story & I'm sticking to it!

Really speaking, if this kind of minor damage occurred in wartime, aircraft were patched up & sent back in to the thick of it.  I've got a picture of the fantastically bizzare Turbinlite Havoc (a British variant of the A-20 with a huge searchlight in the nose) that has a large scar on the nose & obvious rippling in the metal work.  It stayed like this for over in year until it retired after being badly damaged on landing.  I don't like to see models that are too 'perfect', especially thoses that are supposed to be in battle!

[cthulhu77]

A very good point.  I always chuckle when people start arguing about colour correctness, etc...dad was in the pacific in ww2, and said they camo'd stuff with whatever they could scrounge up, paint from local stores or houses...whatever. Got a bullet hole? Tape it over. Have an apc that sticks out too much in factory o.d. ?  Splatter mud on the sob, with a few leaves for good measure. War is a messy, stinky, filthy, rotten business, and the craft reflected it.

[Mossie]

Yeah Greg, I've always got annoyed when I've painted up an aircraft from photo refs & someone says (queue irritating trainspotter voice)  'erm, you can't paint it like that, offcial document ABC123-XYZ says the demarkation line should be 3 thou of an inch higher'.  B**locks.  If your on the ground, & re-painting in a hurry before several squadrons of enemy bombers drop several tons of firery metal on your head, your not going to worry too much about ringing up HQ to get a copy of the official guidlines & wait three weeks while they post it through.  Theres tons of photo material that shows that this is often the case, especially in wartime.

A point of case, I work with a Girl who was an Airframe Engineer in the RAF for a few years (you'd never guess it, the girliest of girls & damn good looking too!).  She told a case of a Tornado that was sent up on exercise after the OC started crowing that heads would roll if a single aircraft was unservciable.  At last minute, this Tonka developed a problem with a part they didn't have in stock & would take a couple of days to arrive.  So one of the guys fashioned the part from a flattened out a Coke can and used this as a quick fix, knowing it's last for a few flights while the official part would come.  Rough, but did the job & got them a handshake from the OC for keeping the Tonkas in such good order, they didn't tell him about the Coke can though!  And this was peace time....

[GTX]

So one of the guys fashioned the part from a flattened out a Coke can and used this as a quick fix, knowing it's last for a few flights while the official part would come. Rough, but did the job & got them a handshake from the OC for keeping the Tonkas in such good order, they didn't tell him about the Coke can though! And this was peace time....

Ok for wartime contingency maintenance, but if that had happened on my watch back when I was in the RAAF, the members involved would have been charged!  As for the OC making a big fuss, he/she should have known better - they could yell all they like, but at the end of the day, if an aircraft is U/S then that's life and you don't go compromising airworthiness like that.

Sorry for the rant.

Regards,

Greg

[nev]

Baztastic!

[Mossie]

No, your quite alright to rant Greg.  This girl I mentioned said exactly the same thing, the fix was a hell of a risk & had anybody found out (or the Tornado crashed) they'd have been in a heap more trouble than had the aircraft gone U/S.  The ground crew should not have made such a bodged repair, but then the OC ahould not have demanded that aeroplane fly at the risk of their careers.  He was an idiot appaerently, more interested in looking good then worrying about the consequences of his actions.

Although that was extreme, I've heard of field repairs done in a similar way, although of course it's a completley different situation.  This was peacetime & unessecarily risky.  In wartime, if many peoples lives depend on you making a quick fix, you assess the risk & do what you feel is right.

[Mossie]

Minor set back again, realised I'd aligned the left wing shoulder too far forward by a few mm (two parts to each wing, I'll post pics soon once they're complete).  Doesn't seem like much, but when I looked at it, it looked completley out of kilter to the right & very noticeable.  For once, impatience worked for me, I intended to leave the joint a whole day to set, but I thought I'd have a quick look & spotted the problem so the joint was still slightly soft & easy(ish; see below!) to part.  Could've sworn I'd double checked the slots I'd dug out for the supports, but nope, can't have done.

Then whilst removing it the left jet engine cracked too   (the sound of cracking plastic, a modellers worst nightmare come true, the sound of fear!    ) & I feared the worst, but it was only the seam that had split & there was no serious damage .  All in all it only took me about twenty minutes to re-glue the seam, mark up the jet for the wing, dig out a bit more plastic from the jets add, a little bit of sheet styrene to the supports to shore up the gap & re-align the wing.  Should be able to get the wing completed in the next day or two & you'll all be able to see the shape of the finished article, although theres a lot more to do before that time comes!

Amazingly, there hasn't been a time where I feel like pelting the thing at wall, that usually comes on me when a few setbacks come in a row.  On a roll at the moment, but that can soon change.  To be honest, except for the undercarriage, there shouldn't be too much that should cause me any bother, but I've said that before!  Best not jinx it for myself.....

[Sisko]

I know the feeling of damaging your model while in construction.

I broke so much off the beaver during construction that it almost ended the build. A man can take only so much  

Can't wait for some in progress pics.

[BlackOps]

This is a really cool build, I love the pic you've chosen for your inspiration and you have impressed the heck out of me with how great your build is coming along.

[Mossie]

Thanks again guys!
Sisco, for a change the trials & tribulations of this build haven't worried me, I guess it's beacuse I knew it would be difficult & to be honest it's given less bother than some kits I've built!

Black, I'm happy to have impressed you, wow, thank you very much!

Okay, a couple of pics to start with showing the inboard wing sections in place:




This being my first time doing this kind of thing you can see there are some nasty gaps to shore up, but nothing a bit of plastic card, milliput & elbow grease with the old wet n dry shouldn't sort out.

More to come in a very short while....

[Mossie]

And here it is with the whole wing attached.  Now you don't see aircraft birds with a combined falcon & gull wing!







The wings came from a 1/72 Revell Dakota (I had plans for it & didn't want to cut it up, but you've got to make sacrifices!), I found they're the perfect swept wing, just they're not swept on the Dak!  It took some effort to get them to mate to the engines the each section to each other.  I inserted formers I cut (very roughly) from plastic card into the cut wing to act as mating surfaces for the poly, then reinforced them with either more plastic card or plastic covered steel rod (this wasn't as useful as I was hoping).

I've just rested the canopy in place for now so you can see roughly how the bird will finally appear.  I was thinking of changing the nose or swapping the canopy so that you'd never recognise it was ever a Ta 154, but I can't think of another canopy that would fit it (even with persuasion) & look appropriate & I wouldn't know how to go about the nose.

There's a hell of a lot of gap filling to be done & then I've got to hack a hole in the fuse for the undercarriage.  Oh, & did I mention I'd packed every space in front of the CofG with putty to make sure it didn't tail sit?  I'll have to dig through that lot & Milliput doesn't like to be dug out!

[ysi_maniac]

Hi Simon,

You are going very productive and the quality is just top notch.
bttb this plane is a WONDER.
         

[Mossie]

Thanks Carlos!  I thought this wing would give it a very distinctive look, and would visually offset the anhedral tail.  There were several times I nearly went with a regular swept wing, it'd have been easier, but it's been worth it.  The gull-wing is in-line with several Luft '46 designs, Heinkel especially went for it, but a couple of others did too including Blohm & Voss & some others I can't recall.

[cthulhu77]

  Holy Smoke!  that is looking too good for words!