Thorvics'Blog

[Captain Canada]

Don't sweat it, you can always give her a gloss coat after the fact. The Shak and the new Sea King are eagerly awaited here as well.

[Thorvic]

Don't sweat it, you can always give her a gloss coat after the fact. The Shak and the new Sea King are eagerly awaited here as well.

Trouble is they will be more likely Spring 2016 for you in Canada, unless you keep an eye on the US Distributor

[Captain Canada]

Or later ! 

I'm hoping to do a trip to the States on my days off next week.

[Thorvic]

Oh well ended up getting the Airfix Hercules fuselage assembled, so I suspect I may well complete this build and switch back to the 681 once its assembled. The Herc is built closed up so I don't have to go mad on the detail, just the windscreen to fit before getting on with the wings and tailplanes. The wings are a pain as they have the propellers fitted and separate control surfaces so effectively have to pre-paint the props and then mask them, fit them into the engines and join the wing halves together.

Test fitting the Herc reminds me of the size of the model and its not too bad on the bench so that gives me an idea of the completed 681 and the space I will need during assembly, storage and transport.

[Captain Canada]

Beauty. Looking forward to seeing that Herc, on of my favourite aeroplanes. I built one around 1983, the Airfix kit. I painted it as an RCAF bird, by hand, and the white top was a real bear I tell ya ! Then I hand painted the lightning stripe...it was messy but it was a big impressive model when finished !

[Thorvic]

Oh Bugger !!!!

Just had a long Bank Holiday weekend and got bogged down assembling and prepping for painting the Hercules, it still needs a few joints cleaning up and re-scribing but its getting there, so hopefully it should be primed this week so I can paint the nose cone and skull cap prior to the rest of the masking. One thing I've realised is that its too big for the spray booth so I will need to clear up and set up a spray station in the garage again to allow this and eventually the HS681 to be painted 

The other problem is that the Hercules is currently inhabiting my build space so I can't get back on with the Aldershot till the Hercules has vacated it. I may only take the Hercules to primer stage and relocate it to shelf space I cleared at the weekend so I can crack on with the 681 assembly. That way I can do the painting at the same time.

In the meantime I got to looking at one of the sword Gannets I picked up and decided to have a tinker whilst the Hercules cured. Its not too bad a kit and actually managed to knock the wings together with their undercarriage bays. I think I may try to get the cockpit assembled and painted and see if I can build this kit whilst working on the two transports just as a bit of light relief. This will be a Whiff I think as I have the Alleycat kit for the non-whiff models.

[Howard of Effingham]

any plans for the wiffed AEW gannet, thorvic?

mine gets USN markings when I get her done.

good luck with yours.

[Thorvic]

any plans for the wiffed AEW gannet, thorvic?

mine gets USN markings when I get her done.

good luck with yours.

Yeap it will be RN, but it will be a more subtle whiff and in line with Project Cancelled so it will be genuine too 

[Captain Canada]

So it's a good news/ bad news update ! lol

Getting the Herc primed and out of the way is a good idea, then you can just go back to painiting when the urge strikes.

Looking forward to seeing what you will do with your Gannett !

[Thorvic]

Managed to get the original Airfix Hercules finished off this weekend, looks OK but a bit rushed as it held up my proper HS681 build so was done OOB, not happy with the glazing as probably needed more blending in but catch 22 as would likely crack a seam if worked too hard as 40yr old plastic. The nose glazing is a poor fit despite some working of the parts to get it to fit, the port holes are too deep and despite the nose weight it still tips up onto its main wheels, but found the nose leg to be rather weak so not really prepared to add more and have that break, also not too happy with the touch up areas to the light stone, although the paint appeared to match when applied it looks different when dried.

Anyway this wasn't a primary model, more a fun OOB build of one of the kits of my youth  (I remember it as a Christmas present in the mid 70s  ), if I wanted a better kit I could have used the Italeri kit with the mods applied, although I still think the Airfix fuselage is a better shape. The idea behind building it was to show what we got instead of the HS-681.

So tonight I clear off the work bench of the Hercules stuff, put away the paints and tools. clear away the rubbish and get ready to jump back in with the HS-681 Aldershot which is sat waiting to be continued 

[Captain Canada]

Glad to hear you got it done and are carrying on. Look forward to seeing a few pics !

[Thorvic]

Well finally managed to get the 681 laid out on the cleared off work bench late last night so I'll see about cracking on with that this weekend. I shall have to paint the cockpit and finish off the cargo bay so I can get started on bringing the fuselage together, which should be fun. I think i'll focus on getting the fuselage and wing join sorted and then get on with the tail fin so it ready to be fitted when main assembly starts, that should mean the upper fuselage conversion work is done and the wing and tail should effectively slot into place when the time comes.

Focus will then shift to the main fuselage sponsons I think I may see about extending the kit ones to accommodate the extra wheel, then use plastic card and milliput to stretch them and blend them further. Once that's been sorted I can scribe in the new panel lines and the fuselage will feel to be nearly done  .

After that its on with doing the rest of the engine pods and creating the wing pylons to complete the last of the major sub assemblies. I may possibly be able to do the engines whilst some of the other bits are curing and setting, but I'll have to see how that goes :-)

I was hoping to get kicked off on the 681 once the Hercules was finished but discovered this sudden warm spell shot the pollen count rather high that I had to start on the hay fever pills onto top of my usual red light allergy reliever 

[Captain Canada]

Sounds like you have a plan ! That's always a good thing  Allergy season was in full bloom here starting last week. Sounds like everybody has a head cold lol

[Thorvic]

Managed to get the interior done over the weekend and assembled into a fuselage half, then got the fuselage joined (sort of !) I suspect my shortened two halves made the job harder as the cargo floor had a slight warp so the interior is possibly not quite as well seated as it should be, which has resulted on some gaps when the lower fuselage was fitted so in the process of filling in those gaps. Oh and of course as worked on the gaps to the 6 pallets I added to use as ballast came unglued and fell out so those are going to be fun to re-fit. However I may not need to as its rather heavy with the other ballast added.

Going to get the fuselage joints fixed up and cured and then I'll have to cut some of them out so I can create a mounting location for the wing. A bit daft I know but I needed the rest of the fuselage to be securely joined before I cut another chunk out of it or else it would have been even more difficult to join together.

Still its nice to have the fuselage together as it feels like progress and now its about getting the sub assemblies done and cleaned up and ready to be fitted once the basic fuselage is sorted:- Sponsons, Tail, engines & plyon's 

[Captain Canada]

Glad to hear. I could see how getting the fuselage together on a major conversion like this would be relieving...it feels good enough getting past that stage on a simple single engine fighter !