Hawker Siddeley P.1121

[loupgarou]

Scriber looks a bit like a dental pick.
My dentist has offered me the pick (sic) of his old tools and i'll be taking him up on it next time I see him.

Oh, yes, grab them.
A lot of very useful shapes, also for distributing putty in difficult points etc.

[Gondor]

After nothing being done yesterday due to other commitments, I have almost finished off sanding down the Starboard wing, I think I can get the trailing edge a bit thinner before I glue the two half's together. Not too sure which glue to use, Liquid Polly which I usually use or maybe tube glue which is thicker and takes longer to dry/stick the parts together. I am leaning towards the tube glue as the Liquid Polly has a habit of being a little more aggressive with the plastic and as I am aiming for a very thin trailing edge that could be a problem.

Pictures when the wing is together.

Gondor

[Captain Canada]

Progress ! This thread is making my want to dig out one of my vac aeros. I think I have a Canadair Tutor or two, as well as an Arrow and several CF-100s. I think the resin sets are available from Obscureco and Jay Laverty.

[Hobbes]

After nothing being done yesterday due to other commitments, I have almost finished off sanding down the Starboard wing, I think I can get the trailing edge a bit thinner before I glue the two half's together. Not too sure which glue to use, Liquid Polly which I usually use or maybe tube glue which is thicker and takes longer to dry/stick the parts together. I am leaning towards the tube glue as the Liquid Polly has a habit of being a little more aggressive with the plastic and as I am aiming for a very thin trailing edge that could be a problem.

Pictures when the wing is together.

Gondor

You could use CA glue instead, you can be sure that won't deform the plastic.

[Gondor]

You could use CA glue instead, you can be sure that won't deform the plastic.

I think I would prefer some "wiggle" time which I don't think CA would give me.

Gondor

[Mossie]

Two part expoy?  A bit messy so try and keep it from spilling out of the edges but if you're sparing with it, it'll be okay.  It'll give you plenty of 'wiggle' time and should have a strong grip.

[NARSES2]

You could use CA glue instead, you can be sure that won't deform the plastic.

I think I would prefer some "wiggle" time which I don't think CA would give me.

Gondor

Use thicker CA and then have some de-bonder around ?

[Mossie]

Putting the thick CA in the fridge also helps, gives you an extra 10-20 seconds or so.

[PR19_Kit]

I've always used the Revell 'S' cement, the stuff in the blue bottle with the needle sticking out at an angle, plus some liquid cement too, and it's served me well over numerous vacforms.

I run a narrow bead of the 'S' along one side of the joint, assemble the parts and then run  brushfull of the liquid cement along the joint. The liquid glue re-energises the 'S' and smooths off the glue layer.

[Gondor]

I've always used the Revell 'S' cement, the stuff in the blue bottle with the needle sticking out at an angle, plus some liquid cement too, and it's served me well over numerous vacforms.

I run a narrow bead of the 'S' along one side of the joint, assemble the parts and then run  brushfull of the liquid cement along the joint. The liquid glue re-energises the 'S' and smooths off the glue layer.

That sounds like the best approach as it is a variation on my usual methods for glueing parts together.

I have chickened out a bit though and decided to concentrate on the fuselage first then add the wings or at least look at adding the wings one I have the parts available to construct the fuselage.

For me, the fact that the instructions have just a simple exploded drawing as assembly instructions rather than a step by step guide and the fact that there are no location points and any surface or part can vary dependant on my skill and I get rather worried that I will easily mess this up.

Gondor

[PR19_Kit]

Tabs Alastair, tabs........

Glue small tabs of thin, 5 or 10 thou styrene along the edges of the parts to be joined. Sometimes glue them on alternate sides so they interlock like fingers, and you may have to bend the free ends down a tad if you're butting up against a curved item like half a fuselage.

That way aligning the two halves is a matter of interlinking the tabs, gluing the bits together, then it's the dreaded PSR work to finish it off. Rarely will a straight butt-joint work with vacforms, unless they're the size of the Aeroclub 1/48 Vulcan that is.

[Gondor]

Tabs Alastair, tabs........

Yes kit, if necessary I will add tabs to the fuselage although I doubt that the wings or tail surfaces will require any. I was simply expressing my concern over the ease at which two surfaces can easily be made to be dissimilar when they should be similar thus causing problems when trying to get them to match up and of course there is no guarantee that the parts I am starting with are engineered to the same level of precision as we are used to from IM kits either.

Gondor

[Gondor]

Well my worse fears have been realised and I am sure that it's not my fault! The two fuselage sides are different! If you are building this kit you are warned. Tue Starboard fuselage side appears to be slightly wider than it should be while the Port side is smaller in places 
I took my time and was very careful in sanding back the plastic to the point where the plastic that surrounded the part was removed and nothing else. Looks like I am definitely going to have to use a fair amount of filler to hide the gaps, I'm not even sure that all the resin parts are going to fit well. At least I will be really happy with the result if it turns out well.

I have come up with a good idea though. I am going to spray with a primer, probably grey, the next vac-formed conversion-kit I build prior to removing any part from the sheet. This will give me a guide to where the edge of the parts will easily show up due to the difference in colour.

I was surprised though that the work on the fuselage sides only took roughly half an hour per side, but as I said earlier there will be time spent filling gaps.

Gondor

[Gondor]

Work has progressed with this despite the problems I have encountered. All the major holes that are required to be opened in both fuselage half's have been opened and some test fitting of the resin interiors has taken place.

The number of tools I have used has increased as well. I have now used the scribing tool, sanding sticks, sand paper, pencil and a knife which was used to remove the plastic from the openings. I am hoping that is all I need the knife for.





In the above picture you can see a straight line along the resin main undercarriage bay. I achieved this by marking the middle between the front and rear of the bays then scribing a line between the resulting two points. I then gently sanded the lead of my propelling pencil so that it could get into the engraved line so that the line could be clearly seen and not removed by handling. This is allowing me to see if either side of the lower fuselage near the main undercarriage bays is too wide or too thin without my having to stick anything together yet. There was a little excess on one side which has now been removed. Unfortunately the rest of the parts will have to be temporarily fixed in position to allow me to perform the same kind of operation, mainly for the cockpit and the exhaust. This now leaves only one wing, the tailplanes and the fin to be worked on for the airframe to be ready. I have yet to decide on my course of action for the under-wing stores.

However that's for another day.

Gondor

[Captain Canada]

That is looking really good so far. The fuselage halves are cleaned up so nice it looks like a regular IM kit !