Thorvics'Blog

[Thorvic]

Brilliant bit of kit bashing there Geoff   

Cheer Robert that's nice coming from a fellow kit basher 

Its forcing myself to stay focused, I know if I get distracted and be tempted by various ideas, new kits or new decals that I've had this year that this build could easily end up on the shelf of doom and this years effort would have been wasted. I even have an idea for the extra C-160 I picked up to act as donor for the sponsons as a competing design to the HS-681 but I that's one i'll have to leave for next year.

With the 681 to finish, a Battle of Britain GB idea egging me on, plus some of these new Airfix kits tempting me I now know that the Vulcan MPA that I had lined up to follow simply can't meet the SMW deadline, and after a couple of big builds this year it will be nice to do something compact again 

[kitnut617]

Its forcing myself to stay focused, I know if I get distracted and be tempted by various ideas, new kits or new decals that I've had this year that this build could easily end up on the shelf of doom and this years effort would have been wasted.

I know that scenario only to well I'm afraid, get all these ideas in my head ------- 
I've got some 1/72 GE90 engines being made right as we speak for another idea which has been bugging me for ages --- think enhanced B-52 ---

[Captain Canada]

Great work Geoff. She's really coming together now....keep at it ! Thanks for posting the pics, it's great to see a selection like that altogether, really brings the scale of what you are doing out.

[PR19_Kit]

That's looking pretty darn good Geoff, most impressive.

That's one BIG wing it had too! 

[Thorvic]

Got the observer port glazed in the nose cone and then the Nose cone fitted, and starter to add a few detail bits now before fitting the wing. I must remember to do the masking and priming in some areas whilst its still easy to access without the wing and engines fitted 

[Thorvic]

That's looking pretty darn good Geoff, most impressive.

That's one BIG wing it had too! 

Cheers Kit, Yeap it was a STOL transporter with possible VTOL option so plenty of lift required, at the moment it just looks like I have a Boomerang on the work bench 

[Thorvic]

Well I managed to add a bit of detailing to the undercarriage bays so I was able to install the wing this weekend. Went great, used super glue. filled the gaps milliput and got the wing nicely seated and let that cure over night. 

Had a look yesterday, really starting to look the part sat on the workbench until I noticed that something didn't look right one wing tip appeared to be slightly lower than the other, so I checked with a bottle of Humbrol Acrylic paint and found on one side the wing tip was about half a cm above the lid whilst the other side wouldn't allow it under.  Problem !!!, the wing is level on the fuselage and after using superglue and milliput to get a good fit it wasn't going to be coming off again without some serious damage  .

Then I checked the underside joins as the 135 wing has separate outer wing panels that join to a central lower wing section. obviously to create the wing as a single unit I had separated the wing and lower fuselage of the 135 and on one of the lower wing joins I had to pack a joint with plastic card to get a decent join. This was the wingtip that was higher so on the other wing with a bit of flexing I was able to crack the seam between the lower wing joins and use a bit of 10thou plastic card as packing in the joint and lo and behold that wing tip was now a similar height to the other one. A few PSR sessions ensured a cleaned up joint and I was able to re-prime the area and re-scribe the panel lines.

Once the wing was sorted out I managed to add the spine that runs from the tail to the wing and add a blister over the wing which I assume is for the blown flap system for part of its STOL performance.

The HS-681 is now starting to look the part, whilst the wing was curing I primed the wheels and then sprayed the hubs before painting the tyres, will need a bit of tidying up before a dark wash to bring out the details. I also started on scribing up the engines, done the inner ones but still need to do the outer engines. After that I need to add the PE grill for the deflected thrust and then clean up the painting so it can be masked before being fitted to the wings.

Once the engines are on its just a case of doing the detailing and finish the masking 

[PR19_Kit]

I like the bit about '......just a case of......' 

[Thorvic]

I like the bit about '......just a case of......' 

Ah but you know what I mean, when scratch building your still winging it during the initial build as its a lot of trial and error bringing the build together, but you eventually reach a point where it becomes a final assembly like a normal kit and that's the status i'm getting near - FINALLY !!!!

[Gondor]

Nice to see that there was a relatively easy fix for the tip droop, nothing worse than a case of tip droop 

Gondor

[Captain Canada]

Great stuff. Glad you weren't dissuaded and carried on !

[Thorvic]

Well had a long weekend so managed a bit of time to get some stuff done, the undercarriage is painted and the engines have been primed although they still need a bit of PSR to neaten them up, I got round to priming the inner wings in grey and the upper fuselage in white to try and get the area sorted before I fit the engines where it would be harder to mask. Of course once I did this I could see numerous surface imperfections that stood out on the white surface so the rest of the weekend turned into another PSR session. So much for progress but starting to look the part.

Another PSR session should do it then I can mask the interior of the rear fuselage properly and attempt to tack the doors in place so I can get the right area of white sprayed and sealed prior to the proper masking. The Black nose cone will need to be redone as I had to blend in its join and it caught some of the overspray.

Anyway its something to keep me busy this week and hopefully if the engines clean up OK I can possibly get them fitted for next weekend which should capture that HS-681 look.

[Captain Canada]

Always something eh ! Getting there tho. Looking forward to seeing more !

[Thorvic]

Into the priming stage now, prior to fitting the engines so have done upper fuselage in Transport Command white, glossed it and now masked it to seal it off for a basecoat of Tamiya Grey, once any clean up is done I can finally fit and blend in the engines  .

Slow progress on this build, as I just don't have that much modelling time these days, so plans and output for the year are really down, just a shame the acquisition is still relatively higher to the build rate  . Post SMW I think I'll focus on a few OOB builds for fun and steer away from the Scratch Builds for a while as quite a few interesting kits and decals I want to get my teeth into next including the new Airfix Shackleton.

[Thorvic]

Strewth it really is amazing how a primer coat does highlight the surface imperfections, finished off the spraying of the grey last night and found split joins that I could have sworn were not visible prior to priming  . Anyway those got a coat of fine putty last night so a light sanding and a quick re-spray should so if those are sorted or not. I'll also fit the inner engines this weekend so I can tidy up the pylon too wing join before doing the outer engines.