Zenrat's Flying Circus

[ericr]

that pattern on a biplane is twice as beautiful, of course 

[zenrat]

Rigging day today.
But not the Tiger Moth.
To get my hand in and to test my modified rigging forceps I rigged the Airfix RAF Rescue Launch I have been working into a PDRV Revenue Protection vessel.
I have a couple of pairs of stainless steel forceps I acquired from first aid kits I was decommissioning.  They work fine for even the smallest of small parts but when rigging, squeezing just that bit too hard has the tips separating slightly and the Ezy Line slipping from between them.  In an attempt to solve this problem I have put a small blob of araldite on the tip of each arm of one of the pairs of forceps.  The idea being that the blob of glue grips the ezy line better than the bare metal.
And it works!  At least so far.
This Tax Boat is now finished but I want to weather it up a bit before posting pics and also sort out a crew.

Also today I put some colour on the half-track fuel tanker.  Major modifications are done to it but as well as painting the thing I need to paint and attach all the little pumps and valves and pipes and booms.
I've solved the problem of the vinyl tracks joint by heat welding the ends with a screwdriver and cigarette lighter and adding some skirts to cover the upper track run and so hide the join.

Turbocat tried to take flight from the bench but I caught it before it did more damage than loosen the end of one wing strut.

The third paintjob on the Sunbeam Tiger is acceptable and i've managed to polish it without going through the paint in more than two places.  And those have touched up OK.  Assuming I don't screw it up somehow final assembly should be in the next couple of weeks.

Magpie Wyvern is currently resplendent in gloss white enamel.  I have runs on one horizontal tail to sand off and re touch but it doesn't look too bad and you wouldn't know the undercoat I put on on a hot day had chucked a fit and given me mega orange peel finish.  I need to plan out the Magpie paint job ready for masking.

I have also started an Italeri Macchi MC205.  It'll be an unarmed civilian raceplane.  Parts fit is not the best.  I have bought a rattle can of Tamiya Italian Red just for this build.

[NARSES2]

Interesting idea re the Araldite. I must admit keeping a secure grip of the rigging line whilst rigging can be a right p.i.a. 

[zenrat]

My first thought was that I needed a rubber coating on the tips but I had no way to achieve that.
I also thought about silicone bathroom sealant.
However, the araldite was there on my bench so I tried that first.

I spent most of my modelling time today sorting out the crew of the Tax Boat.  Airfix Bofors Gun crew, Airfix Air Sea Rescue gunner and one white metal Elheim figure.  All carved, sanded and reposed as needed.

Painted the Turbocat undercarriage and started modding the Rotodyne props to fit.  Thought about painting the canopy and blister frames but decided I was lacking in mojo today as I had been dropping paintbrushes all morning and fumbled a half full jar of pickle onto a tiled floor at lunchtime.  None of which boded well for using a tiny paintbrush.

I also did some rummaging and parts trying out.  The jet Mosquito i've been thinking about is certainly doable without massive amounts of PSR (not massive, just huge  ) and by combining the body of the wing donor with the Mossie wings and a pair of turboprops I will have a rather nice looking ground attack bird.

[zenrat]

Academy strikes again!
I have spent today attempting to fit the undercarriage to the Turbocat.
Well, fitting it wasn't actually the problem.  The problem was getting it to bear the weight of the model without flexing or folding*.
I have added a metal wire brace to the front and extra glue to the mains including gluing the lower struts to the edge of the openings (they touch there anyway so I thought I might as well add some glue).
I am hopeful that after drying overnight this will be sufficient.
Obviously SAC white metal legs could be the solution (although they do appear to be straight copies of the Academy plastic parts) but my usual suppliers don't have them in stock and when i've had no joy trying to deal directly with SAC in the US.
If they still collapse I will knock up some stronger, properly braced struts from wire and styrene tube.  Accuracy is not an issue here, I just want it to stand up on its own three feet.

*OK, so the resin nacelles add some weight and there may be rather a lot of ballast in the nose, but still...

[kerick]

Sounds like you need forged steel struts and cast iron wheels!

[zenrat]

A cast iron nose wheel would have been helpfull.  Despite filling all the nose with a liquid gravity/epoxy matrix and replacing styrene engines with longer, heavier resin ones it only just nose sits.
My undercarriage modifications seem to have done the trick however - no sign of flexing.

I was feeling the canopy painting mojo today, and was doing well (canopy done, just started on the first blister) when Mad Aunt Phoebe from next door dropped in.  By the time I had finished chatting about nothing and listened to the gossip the mojo had gone.

[zenrat]

Knocked this up as I needed a poster to brighten up the interior of the Turbocats sun lounge.  It's not my art, I borrowed the picture and changed the text.  I printed it out at about 8mm by 5mm.  There is also a pin up in there of Alyson Hannigan in her underwear which I reduced to the same size.  Neither are really visible through the blisters but I know they are there.



Work on the Sunbeam Tiger today.  I have a deadline of next Monday evening for this one.  This includes alcladding parts that are currently only in primer and so it'll be tight.

Also the Turbocat.  Its nearly done.  Painted the inside of the undercarriage doors today and built up the front of the nacelles to form new prop mountings as I had snapped a bit off in the solid resin while drilling a mounting hole.  Before gluing on the canopy I added some more fishing weights in the hull behind the cockpit.

Put filler on the poor joints on the Macchi and also repaired a rigging line that let go on the Tax Boat after weathering it yesterday (possibly due to the thinners in the wash weakening the ezy line).

[NARSES2]

Why Ms Hannigan ? Always a Buffy man myself 

[zenrat]

Why Ms Hannigan ? Always a Buffy man myself 

Redhead.  The 1/35 D9 Dozer has a pinup of Kari Byron brandishing a gun.  Being 1/35 you can actually see this one.
As this is a family website I won't go into detail about the pinups in my 1/35 Huey...

[NARSES2]

Why Ms Hannigan ? Always a Buffy man myself 

Redhead. 

Ah I see the attraction 

[zenrat]

I love women of all hair shades, but as with my politics it seems the older I get the more I drift towards the red side of life...

But enough of that.

Turbocat is almost done.  Wheel hole doors are attached and I just need to finish painting the props and attaching aerials (ariels? can never remember that one) and antennae.

Macchi needs another round of PSR.

Wyvern still needs the paintjob designing.

Tiger Moth is ready to rig but I am waiting for the mojo.

D9 Dozer is also waiting for the mojo but of a different kind - the rusting mojo.

Tax Boat is waiting for Captain Jasmine and her crew to be finished.

Sunbeam Tiger is in final assembly apart from the bumpers and sidepipes which are in black gloss and will get alclad in about 10 minutes time.  Once this is done I have another two cars with painted bodies to put together.

Half Track fuel bowser is coming along with the work on the hoses and pumps just started.
The left over Airfix Bedford chassis will get a 20mm AA gun on it.  Or maybe a Stalin Organ.  Or maybe a civilian delivery van body (zi colours natch).

[PR19_Kit]

Looking forward to seeing that Tiger, the car I mean.

It was my fave test car back in the 60s, very under appreciated by the market and the media at the time.

[zenrat]

Well the Alclad seems to have gone OK.  I have a one in three failure rate with Alclad Chrome.  This must have been my day as it looks nice and shiny.

I've built this in the stock configuration and I can't get over how skinny the tyres are.  It must have been fun in the wet and on loose surfaces with all that V8 power.
I should get it all together tomorrow.

[PR19_Kit]

You needed to be careful when it was damp, but the Tiger I had the smaller Ford 260 cu. ins. V8 so it wasn't as tricky as the Cobra with the full fat 289. The tyres and wheel arches were wider, inwards, than the 4 cyl. Alpine, so Rootes did take some notice of the extra grunt when they shoe-horned the V8 in there.

The Alpine and the Tiger used the basic underframe from the Hillman Husky estate car, which also had a van variant called a Commer Cob, so we built a Cob body on top of a Tiger chassis so we could carry a full load of instrumentation for the tests. The only way you could tell it wasn't standard was the twin exhaust pipes and the wider tyres when seen from the rear. 

And by the fact that you couldn't catch it unless you were driving a Ferrari of course.