Martin Monterey MR1

[PR19_Kit]

Much thanks to those of you who suggested that using the whole bead would be easier than cutting the darn things in half. 

It works very well, and I'm waiting for the putty to dry off the first one (or the first layer of it anyway...) to see how it looks when it's done.

Only seven more to do after that............. 

[zenrat]

You appear to be having problems with your vowels, Kit!

and then full in the edges, but I'll need some more beads to do the while thing.

Oh, and this, too;

whatever I'm trying to gold it with

I tried to find a pun linking consonant & constipation but I couldn't work it out.

I get this feeling I've been hanging around Fred too long!

I resemble that remark...



Could there be vowel play afoot here Kit?

[PR19_Kit]

Could there be vowel play afoot here Kit?

This is a Mach2 kit I'm building Fred, it goes without saying! 

[PR19_Kit]

The air bag 'production line' is in  full swing. Well, I've made two of them anyway, and I have enough bits to make two more, but that'll be it till I get some more beads.

Having to do PSR on one of these tiny things is pure purgatory I can tell you, and the prototype will need at least three sessions I'm sure!  Once I've applied a layer of putty I can't lay it down anywhere, so I have to do it each end at a time, so it's pretty time consuming. The 'construction phase' on the other hand takes only seconds, file the ends of the tube flat and at the right length, scrape a small taper in each end, apply superglue and jam the bead in the end. Job done. 

Here's the first two, one PSR'd and one not, complete with a rule to show how small they are.

[TheChronicOne]

You gonna come outta this build with carpal tunnel syndrome. 

[Old Wombat]

That or mikrophobia^*!






^*Note: I found 3 different spellings for this word, the one given was the primary version in the text.

[PR19_Kit]

More like 'Mach2phobia'......

I've got maybe 5-6 more of their 'kits' as well, and almost by definition they're unusual and interesting types too. 

One's an RB-57F, a MUST build for me naturally. 

[PR19_Kit]

Having made and PSR'd two of the air bags, I could build up the side support frame and see if I had the positioning correct. They have to touch the side of the fuselage when it's sitting on the trolley of course, so the positioning of the side bags is pretty crucial.

While the build of the frame went OK, it's pretty simple after all, it will only fit on one side of the trolley as the darn trolley is asymmetric! 

I'd noticed this a while back when I fitted the aft support brackets but I didn't think it would make that much difference, sadly it does. I'll have to adjust one of the aft support brackets, and maybe take the opportunity to strengthen the 20 thou one, and hopefully that should sort it.

[DogfighterZen]

  That looks tiny... but looks like very good work!

[PR19_Kit]

That looks tiny... but looks like very good work!

It is, just over 30 mm wide, but it's just bits of styrene glued on top of each other.

Mind you, some of them are very SMALL bits of styrene. 

[rickshaw]

How to mass produce your things, Kit.

After you've added the beads with glue, put a small support through the thing.  Stack them onto it, one by one until it's full.  Make sure you leave about 20mm empty.  Put the putty in the slots on all of them.  Then put the support into a cork or something similar and place the cork in a power drill.   Run it slowly over sandpaper.  Voilà! 

[PR19_Kit]

Good idea Brian, thanks. 

Of course I'll have to be precise in arranging the holes in the beads so they align, but even I should be able to do that.

I'm off doing railway things till early Monday, but I intend to top up the bead supply while I'm away.

[PR19_Kit]

Despite buying the Stafford Hobbycraft out of their complete stock of 8mm dia. turquoise beads I found to my chagrin that I STILL didn't have enough of the darn things to finish the job! 

So today I had to go back to the Gloucester branch and get some more, this time correctly in that filled up one of their pots with other colours and sizes, which will assist Mrs_PR19 in making some jewellery I suppose.

So it's much cutting of tube, and superglueing beads and PSRing tonight.......

[PR19_Kit]

A mammoth session of sawing off little 5 mm lengths of styrene tube, threading them onto an aluminium rod interspersed with pairs of beads and then then first PSR session has produced eight more of the airbags for the trolley.

The 'air bag kebab' idea came from Brian Rickshaw on here, and it's an idea of pure genius. It made aligning the beads and tubes a doddle and makes the whole thing easier to handle. I'll have to hand sand each of them though as the rod isn't really stiff enough to chuck in a drill and use it like a lathe.

Oh yes, I only sawed my knee twice and stabbed it once............ 

[TheChronicOne]

Purple Heart and CIB winner right here! 


Kit, by the end of this build:




Great work, bud... I admire your persistence and more over the craftsmanship.