Nowwhen I Was A Lad Cont`d

[HOG]

"Hi Bluntie,
Jokes aside, that old box brought back memories for me. As a kid I had an uncle who was a bloody marvelous carpenter who used to make terrific furntiure and specialised in carts wagons caravans etc for fun. Anyway he tried to get me involved in woodwork in which I failed miserably. Its the grain. I can`t cut a straight line in wood even now, but give me a lump of plastic and I can make you a piece of roughcut timber lookalike easy. Now I haven`t tried anything like this for around 45 years and I`ve been thinking of building a Horten 10 tailess luft45 jet for ages and so I thought I`l give it a go."





So far its like someone said "All ya gotta do is carve away everything that doesn't look like a Mig. " and now the fun starts. If I get anywhere I might post this as a project if only to let people know how many fingers I lost  

regards Gary  

I`ve lifted the above from Blunties post in Gen Mod Topics and suprisingly good progress has been made.




images borrowed from the Luft 45` web site a must for whiffers

I had started by tapeing two balsa blocks together with double sided tape, so that I could seperate the halves to hollow out cockpits etc. scaled the 3 view up to 1:48 on the computer and stuck the side view onto the blocks with DS tape and cut away any hing that wasn`t HoX with a razor saw, repeating for the plan view. This left me with a rough block as above of a HoX in lump form.

Now I`m quite well equipped in the tools dept`(he said modestly) but have absolutely no idea of whats required to build a complete model in wood. As mentioned above I hav`nt tried anything like this for years. I have sanded to a rough shape lumps of balsa over the years but only of simple shapes or more recently to be pushed into some plastacine to be cast in resin for final shapeing.
A quick phone call to me old mate Alan, who at 73 is a modeller of the old school, who told me of his `tools` from tree carving days, which is quite short by modern standards:-
A Pen Knife - kept as sharp as possible
A Single Edged Razor Blade - for cutting and scrapeing
A Gentlemens Saw - apparently a small tenon saw with a thin blade
Garnet Paper - like sandpaper but in finer grades
Drawing Equip - ruler pencil paper etc
and thats it!
The glue came as small beads which was boiled in a `glue kettle` with a small amount of water on the cooker, basically the hotter it got the thinner it became. Any thing else was a luxury.
As an aside I often take Alan and Tony, another keen aviation nut, he`s 68, with me when I go to airshows museums etc and at 53 it`s quite strange to be refered to as the boy, and I really do get "when I was a lad............."
Anyway armed with all this info I set to with my modern tools.
1/  I put a new blade in the scalpel, a disc of Captain Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen in the computer and tried my hand at wittleing. Disaster, every time I tried to cut off a bit the blade went deeper into the wood or split off in lumps. It was that `grain` thing again.
2/  (THINKS if I carn`t carve it - sand it!) I put a piece of 600 wetndry in the orbital sander which worked for about 30 secs and become clogged. Now I couldn`t dip this into water like usual so I moved up to 400 ,which is the coarsest I use and got similar results. I drove to the DYI store thinking `perhaps I need sand paper` so purchased a pack of what I thought was really rough stuff but was graded as fine, and it worked but slowly. another call to Alan and back to the DYI for a mixed grade pack. Now with plastic we start with maybe 400/600 grade and progress to final polishing with 1200+ used wet. Forget all that , Alans advice was start with the roughest and work down, so with some 80 grade in the sander (looking like some kind of torture impliment ) I set to with some trepidation.  SURPRISE it worked fine on the soft balsa and dust was flying everywhere. Now balsa dust is funny stuff, it is VERY light and floats. And floats. And floats. Taking a break for the loo and a coffee. I noticed that the walls in the hallway had a slight dusty feel. Now the missis is very understanding with regards to my modelling activities, she puts up with the noises and smells that linger resulting from these activities, but she has her limits. Now I prefer that the susppension arrangements to my undercart remain where they are so power sanding was out. Back to the modelling board for a think. After some experimentation I`m acheiving resonably quick results with the tools below.

The rasp is something that don`t get used very often and is mainly used for quick cleanup of resin blocks. The putty knife is about 15 years old and originally had a 6inch blade but cleanup on wetndry paper has given it a very thin and sharp blade and is great for scrapeing.The little ruler has had an edge put on the end with the dremel and is great for large area removal and dosn`t catch the grain like a knife and used like a scraper.



Here the second side has been shaped and I am now really enjoying this.



Here I`vd added the wingroots and am in the process of shapeing. They were glued on with supergle, must get balsa cement, and joints have been filled with plaster of paris.

So far it`s been a learning curve but very enjoyable. Thanks to the computer scaling plans up is a lot easier than the copyshop. Balsa as a modelling material is very cheap, bought a bundle pack of offcuts from my local raiilway shop for £1:10p
(around $2), and I still have all my fingers. I`m definately going to continue with this as it is so much easier than scratchbuilding in plastic and I`ll keep you posted with events.
regards Gary


NOTES  With balsa when sanding wear a mask. as its a natural product I`m not sure of the side effects but it does get in your mouth etc and stops your boogers from coming out like reinforced cement.
Why DYI instead of DIY- Do Yourself In sounds more honest that Do It
Yourself or even Did It to Yourself

[bluntie]

Hiya HOG,
Sure looks like you are off to a pretty good start there.i rang a chap i know who does a bit of balsa scratch building mostly for vacform subjects,and he has kindly passed on a couple of tips ,so here we go  Balsa 101.
When you have the balsa to shape give it a heavy coat of timber sealer , Selleys Deck gloss was the product name,i'm sure you will be able to find the equivalent over there. the idea here is to seal and harden the balsa ,it will require a couple of coats with a good sand in between .and pay special attention to the end grains of the peice as these will suck up a lot of sealer.
Once happy with that ,start with an automotive primer,again a few coats with a sand between.at this point you should be looking at an 80% finished job.
Now the fun starts, proof the model with silver [automotive rattle can] and correct any flaws you may find,
Then start to build up detail with spares box bits,styrene,putty.like the intakes look pretty close to B.A.C. Strikemaster to me.wheel wells, under cart  and cockpit from a 262?, you get the idea
Gently scribe a few panel lines here and there ,or build up panels with BMF, the resulting gap between produces a fine recessed line.
Cammo and markings of your choice and presto! another little gem from HOG works inc.
Altho' this may sound like a lot of work ,i have been assured that it requires a lot less effort to build something like this than it does to build a vac form kit!
i would think that the only special peice of kit needed would be a Dremmel,if you dont have one allready,i got a Chinese Cheepie with 20 odd tips and things for $20 and it has served me well for several years.
I'll be watching this with much intrest Hog ,i'm sure with your skills you be able to beat it into shape. realy hope this is of assistance to you,give a yell if you need anything else.....   and remember 'wood is our friend'..

[HOG]

Hi Bluntie
Thanks for tips, have another look it the post as I posted by mistake instead of preview and it now shows where I thunk I actually are am in the build.
Thanks again for the advice
Gary

ps "or build up panels with BMF"      whats BMF?

[bluntie]

Oh wow!! you have been busy!
Sorry Gary, BMF,  bare metal foil.      Steve.

[HOG]

Greetings Seasonal
Not done much as I can`t get my belly near the workbench, but have cut out the wings,

and will soon start to shape to an airofoil section.
Having rechecked my calculations and have found that the wingspan is 1inch under scale,  it measures about 10 1/2 at the moment and not sure if the full sized model would fit on one of my prefered 9x9 inch dio` bases, I shall continue the experiment but will build as a solid on stand in flight mode.
As to conclusions thus far, it certainly beats my usual method of an outline `keel` with profiles on each side, boxed and milliputed for speed, but I`m not sure if I will get the amount of detail I like on a balsa build. Perhaps the answer maybe to balsa the shape, mould and then make a resin copy.
All comments etc as usual
regards Gary  

[John Howling Mouse]

Loving it!  Have you ever tried carving using grainless "RenShape" ™ or other polyurethane/tooling carving blocks?

http://www.freemansupply.com/RenShapeModelingan.htm

[BlackOps]

Hey, this is looking great!    Another skill I'm afraid to try    

[Andrew Gorman]

That's looking sharp!  It's always good to pare model making back to first principles every once in a while- or forever if you are so inclined. You'll find a support group and a lot of inspirational whittling at:
http://groups.msn.com/SolidModelMemories/
I'm looking forward to seeing the final product.
Andrew

[Mike Wren]

Having rechecked my calculations and have found that the wingspan is 1inch under scale

scrap it & start again!    but seriously... fantastic stuff to watch...    

[HOG]

Hi All
And thanks for the kind words.

John  
nope never. My whole problem with wood is the grain so if I do try this properly I might have a go with MDF (medium density fibreboard) (or as I call it the Moronic Designers Favourite used in all the designer make over prog`s on UK TV) as it`s wood but has no grain and is a little harder than balsa.

Black Ops  
Give it a whirl, its so damn cheap that if you don`t get anywhere its no great financial loss. My bundle cost £1:10p or about $2. It`s cheaper than the paints.


Andrew  
Interesting site but I don`t think I could do this all the time, just a challenge to my self.

Mike  
I nearly did.

regards
Gary  

[noxioux]

Wow.  I have to say this idea of carving an airplane out of a chunk of wood is a little intimidating.  But I guess glue and putty would be a whole lot less difficult.  Maybe this is one of those things we should all try once. . .

[HOG]

Hi All
Havn`t done anything to this yet this year as I`m doing my bit to help the missis and cutting down on her housework (ref balsa dust) and waiting for a warm day to work outside. But I did find this interesting pic on the net.



Which sets my mind to thinking..............

Regards Gary

[GTX]

Cool picture - one could do up that pair as a mistel type arrangement post war.

Regards,

Greg

[Mossie]

I saw this thread when you first posted Gary, but I've somehow missed it since then.  Great work for someone who can't work with wood!  It's really looking good, here's to Old Skool!!!

PS, Lost any fingers yet???