Martin Monterey MR1

PR19_Kit · June 22, 2017, 11:14:54 PM

It's not too difficult a shape to build piece by piece Alastair. I can scratch them up reasonably well, and I've got lots of pics of the thing in the book.

I'll stock up on some Albion Alloys tubing at Coventry on Sunday.

zenrat · June 23, 2017, 03:14:25 AM

Quote from: PR19_Kit on June 22, 2017, 11:14:54 PM
It's not too difficult a shape to build piece by piece Alastair. I can scratch them up reasonably well, and I've got lots of pics of the thing in the book.

I'll stock up on some Albion Alloys tubing at Coventry on Sunday.

As its a Mach 2 model you'll and up with something vastly superior to the kit supplied one anyway.

PR19_Kit · June 27, 2017, 12:56:14 PM

Apart from the never ending PSR work on the fuselage (aaaaagggghhhhhhh!

) my work on the Monterey the last two evenings has been to produce some sort of working plans to build the beaching trolley.

To this end I've scanned most of the pics of the trolley in the book and reduced them to 1/72 scale, but I'll still have to guess some of the bits of it, but then that's modelling.

PR19_Kit · June 27, 2017, 04:51:33 PM

It's all one piece now, with the wings and tail assembly all glued onto the fuselage. Which is good, except it'll now need even MORE PSR work!!!

I shortened the MAD probe on the fin tip as I thought it looked a tad silly sticking that far out, and the rear facing ECM aerial is now mounted just under the MAD probe.

I'll have to get a different carpet, it's the same colour as the model!

Mounted on all that exists of the beaching trolley at the moment.

TheChronicOne · June 27, 2017, 05:49:36 PM

This makes me want to start building my Mach 2 kit so bad....

A lot of work ahead and whole lot behind.. but it sure looks cool...

zenrat · June 28, 2017, 03:30:48 AM

You make it look easy Kit...

PR19_Kit · June 28, 2017, 04:29:48 AM

Quote from: zenrat on June 28, 2017, 03:30:48 AM

You make it look easy Kit...

Whhhaaaat?

That's 'cos you're only seeing the 'finished product' at each stage. If I'd posted endless pics of me PSRing the blasted thing a) you'd all get bored and b) I'd run out of space in my ImageShack account!

I admit I'm quite pleased with how well it's going so far though, better than I thought it would. One wing's still 1 mm thicker than the other one..............

zenrat · June 28, 2017, 04:48:06 AM

Heh heh heh. I knew that would stir you up.

McColm · June 28, 2017, 08:25:42 AM

Looking good Kit, compared to my build.

PR19_Kit · June 28, 2017, 03:53:41 PM

Goodness gracious, I'm so glad Dizzy got me a large number of tubes of Presto putty, I think I'll have used an entire tube on this model by the time it's done. It'll have used its own all up weight in putty before much longer!

When I got bored with PSRing I scanned every single pic of the beaching trolley in the book and reduced them down to 1/72 scale as well as I could, and from that I determined that I needed 4 x 15 mm dia wheels and 4 x 12 mm dia. The 15 mm wheels came from a FROG Shackleton, of which I have three I think, but I'm still looking for the 12 mm ones.

I've started scratching up all the brackets and stuff on the trolley, with the aid of the scans, but there's a fair way to go on that yet.

PR19_Kit · June 30, 2017, 07:27:47 AM

After what I fondly thought would be almost the last PSR session I decided to give most of it a first primer coat.......

Deep Gloom!

Needless to say it's going to need a LOT more PSR to get it acceptable, and the primer's brought out the variability of Mach2's panel lines. While they're all engraved, some are obviously fugitives from Matchbox's factory, and yet others are almost invisible.

I may have to colour coat it before I attach the engines as it's going to be pretty difficult to mask down in that trough between the nacelles, but we'll see how that goes when the time comes.

I may put some post-primer pic up later on today depending on how it looks post the next PSR-primer cycle.

Oddly the beaching trolley main frame looks quite good after priming, nowhere near as much work to do as I thought.

PR19_Kit · June 30, 2017, 01:12:58 PM

To ease the boredom of the endless PSR-primer sessions I started to look for the smaller, 12 mm, wheels for the beaching trolley. After spending maybe 1.5 hrs up in The Loft I came to the conclusion that almost none of the aircraft manufacturers ever fitted 34" wheels-tires to their products!

Then I came across an A-6, and lo and behold, it had 12 mm wheels.

But I only have one of them and I need four wheels so the search continued until, Bingo! An F-14 also has 34" wheels and I know I have more than one of them. I found a Revell F-14D and an Airfix F-14A, which was good, but the wheels are much thicker on the D.

Maybe I'll use an F-14 set and the A-6 set in the hope that SMC make a white metal set for an A-6.......

Gondor · June 30, 2017, 02:13:20 PM

Quote from: PR19_Kit on June 30, 2017, 01:12:58 PM
To ease the boredom of the endless PSR-primer sessions I started to look for the smaller, 12 mm, wheels for the beaching trolley. After spending maybe 1.5 hrs up in The Loft I came to the conclusion that almost none of the aircraft manufacturers ever fitted 34" wheels-tires to their products!

Then I came across an A-6, and lo and behold, it had 12 mm wheels.

But I only have one of them and I need four wheels so the search continued until, Bingo! An F-14 also has 34" wheels and I know I have more than one of them. I found a Revell F-14D and an Airfix F-14A, which was good, but the wheels are much thicker on the D.

Maybe I'll use an F-14 set and the A-6 set in the hope that SMC make a white metal set for an A-6.......

How about using half's of wheels from each F-14 kit Kit? Outsides from one kit with the other side from the other kit, that way each wheel has a thick half and a thin half which should make two medium wheels of the same thickness.

Sounds confusing but its really simple

Gondor

PR19_Kit · June 30, 2017, 03:03:05 PM

It would be simple if each kit had wheels split down the middle, but the Revell kit has them all in one piece and the Airfix kit has the tyres in one piece and the inner hubs as inserts.

I've settled on using the Revell F-14D and the A-6 wheels as both are almost the same thickness. I figure it's much more likely I can get some resin or white metal F-14 wheels and they'll fit the A-6 anyway when I come to build them, IF I get to build them of course......

PR19_Kit · June 30, 2017, 04:11:57 PM

It's all primered up now and it's not looking too bad after 2 more PSR sessions this evening. There's just a couple of places that it may need some more PSR, but that's about it. I've figured out a way to mask up between the engines, so they're the next area of attention. The forward ECM aerial on the fin has vanished in the PSR-primer process, but that's not much of a problem.

The trolley frame has come up very well, which amazes me as it looked like a bag of bolts after I'd got it together. Lots of work to do on that yet, but it's getting there.