USN P-4 Pluto **DONE, PICS PG. 10***

[TheChronicOne]

I'll never learn otherwise! It may be anxiety inducing but like the Mythbusters say, even a negative result is a result and I will have gained knowledge.

[NARSES2]

Miliput has it's uses and the fact you can shape it with water is a huge plus  The fact you have to measure and mix it is a minus in my view.

I got some 2 part putty by Deluxe Materials at SMW which is self measuring. The hardener forms the core of the roll so you simply cut a slice off and roll/blend. Haven't tried it yet but my GB build will probably require it.

[TheChronicOne]

I just guesstimate with the milliput. Eyeball it is good enough. Never had any problems doing it that way. I just pinch off two equal looking parts and mash them together and I have my putty.     Like JB Weld. 


I had some JB weld one time that was so good that it nearly turned itself into metal. I never seen nothing like it and the JB Weld I've had since didn't work the same. Not sure what was going on there....    Anyway... I was just playing around and epoxied a busted piece of sharpening stone to the top of a steel table. It stayed there for many years through all the extreme temps we have.

[NARSES2]

I just guesstimate with the milliput. Eyeball it is good enough. Never had any problems doing it that way. I just pinch off two equal looking parts and mash them together and I have my putty.   

As long as you get the parts approximately right that's fine, indeed you can even vary the time it takes to set and thus increase the time you have to "work" it that way. It's not an exact science however as I have discovered in the past 

[TheChronicOne]

Good to know, thanks! I'll have to remember that........ It never occurred to me to play around with the ratios to have it do different things. Hmmmm.....   

I know I kicked myself thoroughly after the first time because I put way too much on thinking it would be easy to remove the surplus later after it had set. DEAD WRONG. Like granite. 

[Old Wombat]

Which is why I prefer Aves Apoxy Sculpt, when cured it has a texture similar to styrene.

[NARSES2]

I know I kicked myself thoroughly after the first time because I put way too much on thinking it would be easy to remove the surplus later after it had set. DEAD WRONG. Like granite.

Strange. I've never had a problem sanding it ? Loads of water and plenty of time needed, but no great problem. Always tended to use sand/glass/emery paper with it though rather than sanding foam pads.

[TheChronicOne]

I had built up a huge excess. If were just a typical amount I could have hit it with sandpaper but I had like 10mm thick of it around an engine and I thought I would just be able to sort of "shave" it away but I had to put a grind tool on it. 

[PR19_Kit]

Milliput tends to get harder with age, and if you leave it more than a few days it gets VERY hard. That goes for all the versions, but the original, khaki coloured stuff seems to get the hardest.

I've even drilled and tapped it during my serious slot racing days in the mid-late 60s!

So the earlier you sand/grind/file it the better, once it's set solid of course.

[TheChronicOne]

Well there's one problem. I let mine sit around for weeks.   

[TheChronicOne]

I THINK I'm on the right track here. I'm pretty certain that the cockpit stuff is going to be fine... I just need to wet sand that nose fairing thing I just made then glue in the control panel. That should about do the inside then I just need to mask the canopy and glue it on or something. If I do it now, I can use regular glue and flip the fuselage half upside down and it being wide open will let the fumes out and not fog up the canopy. It's been dipped in Future, as well, to help avoid such a problem.

Like I said... it's the whole gear, gear bays, gear doors, and associated "mess" that is going to be the most challenging aspect of all this. What I have for the main gear is half of a fuel tank. I'll cut an opening in it for the gear to sit then I'll need to put some sort of nose pieces on them and get them blended into the wing. WAAAAAAY out of my pay grade here. Can I do it? Sure. Will it look worth a crap? That's the problem. I don't want it to look like it was designed by chimps or something.




Of course... if I can pull all this off.... it'll be glorious! Only one way to find out....    I think I'm going to put this stuff up for today. Put all that red glazing putty on and cut the fuel tank pieces in half and got them matched up and symettrical. Next session I'll start cutting out the stuff in the wings and try to get the fuel tanks cut open so the wheels will fit inside.


EDIT: one last thing before I box this up for the day.... The engines I have don't have any internal stuff so I'm having to make facsimilies of the outer fan blades and the little spinners so I've since measured and cut out a circle template to use to trace onto plastic card to cut out for the fans. I've already taken some spare spinner cones from an ATR-72 kit to glue into the middle of the circles then I suppose I'll sort of "paint" the fan blades on. One more small step toward completion...

[NARSES2]

EDIT: one last thing before I box this up for the day.... The engines I have don't have any internal stuff so I'm having to make facsimilies of the outer fan blades and the little spinners so I've since measured and cut out a circle template to use to trace onto plastic card to cut out for the fans.

You could always just put "covers" over the nacelles ?

[TheChronicOne]

Now why didn't I think of that?!      I'm already started down the path of making my own now but I'll be remembering this option in the future. I could put some of them little red tags on, too, to help complete the look. REMOVE BEFORE FLIGHT. 

[63cpe]

Did the same once with 1/72 C-130 tanks to add a little "Tupolev feel" to this build:
IMG_20170207_092843240 by Buddy Holly, on Flickr

Just like I did: take the same tanks and glue them opposite direction in front of the aft facing ones. An alternative could be to use a little more narrow tanks or bombs ( Mk 82/83/84's) cut the in half and glue the in front. Get it smooth by a dash of putty...

David aka 63cpe

[TheChronicOne]

Good to know I'm on the right track. It's very slow going but I feel it will work out. I dig the scribing idea... I'm also considering having part of those fuel tanks pehaps be on rails and they simply slide inboard to allow the gear to drop out. Pretty novel approach but there's no reason it wouldn't work. Could also just have the whole thing (minus the rear part, of course) open like a clam shell. I'll have to check ground clearance and stuff.

I worked today getting the footprint of the bays smaller. Next phase I'll decide on the way to go about having them open and close whether it be with the sliding thing or just scribing some stuff and making one little door outboard.


David, how did you go about blending the fuel tanks into the top sides of the wings? Just fared the other half of the tank end pieces into the wings, right? This is the next part that has me wondering.....  I don't actually have enough of the this fuel tank left to use "the other half" so I'm going to have to jump into the parts stash again to find some others that might work or.... come up with something.