RAF FE8, Scaleplanes 1:72

[lone modeller]

Excellent progress since I last dropped by Ian. The ribs should look really good when you put the top coats of paint on.

Stephen.

[Borsos]

It’s looking better and better with each step!
Andreas

[Old Man]

Seems to be a rash of F.E. 8 s about the place, Sir....

You are going above and beyond with this one. Excellent work!

[IanB]

Thanks Stephen, Andreas and OM for the comments - OM, there may be, but not in "the one true scale"  Good to see you back too!

Well after nearly a week here's a small update. Things have been done, but not much to show visually. Plus I kept putting off stuff I didn't fancy doing....



First of all, I finished off the struts and woodwork on the prop.







The pins have also been clipped to size, and the holes in the bottom of the lower wing filled so the struts don't stick through.



The prop, first after its "leather" wash







then after the final clear orange coat







I still need to do the tips and paint and add a PE hub. More jobs I've been putting off!



Today I got around to removing the rib masking and filling the unwanted holes in the underside of the lower wing. Here's how the wings look now.







They now need another thin coat of CDL to tone down the ribs and blend it all in.



The final job I tackled today was the main one I'd been putting off, the cabane struts. I started by trying to use brass rod and bend it to shape at the same time as trying to CA the ends together. That just got extremely frustrating so I gave up on that plan and resorted to my usual plastic strip with brass pins. The strip has been shaped and the pins added.





I've only added pins to one end as the plan is to mount them and adjust the pins to get the correct lengths. Then I'll add a small piece of plastic strip to the upper ends where they meet which will be drilled to accept a pin for each pair. That should make it all strong enough and also allow me to remove them for painting the wood finish.



That's the plan now, anyway...



Annual recurrency check in the sim tomorrow. Oh fun.

Worse, I've been doing two weeks of ground school instructor training on the King Air, and my recurrency is on the Embraer. That should be interesting...King Air systems/numbers on an Embraer anyone?



Stay safe and thanks for looking in!



Ian

[lcarroll]

   "Annual recurrency check in the sim tomorrow. Oh fun."

    Ian, fun, isn't it"? It never goes away until it does................. enjoy it now as the older I become the more I miss it!
    Just remember to put the power up in the turns, pull back to go up, and pull back harder to go down and you'll be just fine!
Best,
Lance

[Old Man]

Looks like solid progress, Sir.

The part I hate doing, and always put off, is wind-screens....

[Bughunter]

Ian, my highest respect for this careful work on a vacu kit!
I don't own a vacu yet, but own more then I can build in my life, so the probability is very low that I will build one. But anyway thank you very much for the very detailed description!

It's almost impossible to get a fine saw in without knocking the plugs off, so I used a number 11 blade and scored either side then they snapped off easily.

I have build a lot of those engines, mostly 1/48, only one 1/72.
The resin is very soft, so I cut those parts with a razor blade. I opened a new triple blade - be careful with the plastic - and I have now very sharp and thin blades to work with that engines. I think this was a tip on the extended manual, the link was on every manual page.

Great result so far! I will follow.

Cheers,
Frank

[RAGIII]

Struts,prop, and wing painting look outstanding!
RAGIII

[IanB]

Thanks to Lance, OM, Frank, and Rick for the comments, I hope you are all staying safe!

Sorry for the long delay in updating folks, I just couldn't get the mojo to finish off those bloody little cabane struts. I forced myself to do it today and I'm glad I did. It really wasn't too bad after all. As stated earlier my Plan A was a waste of space. The problem was trying to get the correct slope to the rear, have them meet dead centre when viewed from the front, and get the height correct. All at once!

I made up a couple of templates to assist in getting the forward pair right. Very simple, but it worked. A couple of pieces of card cut to fit and marked for height. I also did another template with a cutout 19mm deep so I could be sure I got both front and rear struts at the correct height - I simply sat it across the fuselage and ensured that the top of the strut sat nicely under the template.










As you can see, the mounting holes for the centre struts need to be in line with the wing struts, so the template also helped there. It was a very slow process as I had to first cut the struts roughly to length, then glue them together and wait until they were dry enough to sand the top down level. After that I could add the mount itself. I made that from a tiny piece of .010" x .040" strip, drilled to accept a piece of .016" brass rod which was CA'd into the hole. I trimmed up the strip, filed the joint surface to ensure it was flat, then glued it to the top of the pair of struts. 



Front one done







and the rear







They are not glued to the nacelle yet as I want to remove them for painting. They will be reattached once they and the nacelle are painted.

Of course I will only really know if i got it right when I come to attach the upper wing!



With that job out of the way I can finish off the prep on the wings. They need, in order: rigging holes and holes for the control cable pulleys drilled, Final coat of CDL, PC10  on the nacelle, wing and tail upper surfaces and wrapped around the edges,  (hence finishing the undersides first).

Then it's decals on the nacelle and final assembly!

Oh, and I need to make the landing gear before painting the PC10 too.



Have a good weekend folks! Stay safe and thanks for looking in!



Ian

[Alexis]

Hi Ian , it took me awhile on mounting the struts , not something to over rush with . I do like how the struts turned out so far and you have a good plan for lining it all up . So far your build is really shaping up wonderful ! Looking forward on the next run on updates 



Terri

[RAGIII]

It looks as though your planning and template are working well! I have to keep checking the scale because this doesn't look to be 1/72nd!!
RAGIII

[NinetythirdLiberator]

Looking really slick!  Can't wait to see this one done and dusted...Dan

[IanB]

Thanks Terri, Rick, Dan, for the feedback and comments.
 I too am looking forward to getting this one in the cabinet Dan. It is my first pusher and not a common kit. It's also the pushers that really got me interested in Great War aircraft so there will be more! (I also have Small Stuff engines for the DH2 and the Caudron G3 and G4 - not pushers, but still the lattice tail to deal with!)

So onwards to today's session!

Most of it was spent at the spray booth. There were a few things I wanted to get done today. In no particular order they were: A second coat of CDL on the undersides, paint the cabane struts, aluminium coat on the engine mounting, paint the prop hub PE and control horns, also PE. 



 I got all those done, and some work on the Airfix Fairey Battle too!



Here is the evidence!



cabane struts done







undersides (the actual colour is a little yellower than it appears on the pic)







I didn't take a pic of the PE, but I also did the rudder. I cut a 2.5mm strip of tape and masked the centre white stripe, then decided to see how accurate i could get with the airbrush and sprayed both the red and blue with no further masking.

It turned out pretty good, but there is a faint trace of red overspray on the blue so I will mask off again and respray the blue.







Not too bad though for a first attempt at spraying anything even remotely accurately!



Tomorrow's jobs sound like fun - drilling rigging holes and making the main landing gear will be the first priorities. If I get time I will start preparing the masks for the undersides. These aircraft had the upper surface PC10 wrapped around the edges onto the underside of both wings and tailplane so I'll need to cut the masks from tape. After all that's done...paint time!



Have a great weekend folks, stay safe, and thanks for looking in!



Ian

[RAGIII]

Nicely done on all. I really like the subtle rib tapes!
RAGIII

[smperry]

I agree with Rick, those rib tapes are quite subtle as appropriate to the scale and perfectly executed.
sp