RAF FE8, Scaleplanes 1:72

[IanB]

Thanks guys!

Evening all!



Plans for today all accomplished!

I spent most of the morning drilling all the rigging holes, and also the mounting points for the landing gear and control cable pulleys. There are 10 of the latter: two just inboard of the inner rear struts for rudder and elevator cables, two under each lower wing, and two more above each upper wing! I tried not to drill through the lower wing but it's so thin I did so on a few of the holes. The outer ones shouldn't be an issue as they will be covered by the roundels and hopefully the inner ones will cover up without major problems.



Here's a taster of how close together the rigging holes are...







That meant this afternoon could be used to make the main landing gear. I used my usual method of (0.5mm) brass rod with plastic strip CAd on to give some shape. 



I managed to get two legs pretty well matched up, and tweaked the bends to make sure they give the correct measurements as far as spread and distance from the bottom of the nacelle. They fit well enough now so I can make final adjustments when they are glued in place. Here are the bare brass legs







I then added strips of .5 x .75mm to give the required shape. Initially that gave me this







but on comparing to photos I wasn't happy with the rear leg (the outermost one on each side). I decided to sand down the strip to the rear and add a piece of .5 x .5mm strip to the front of the rear leg. Outer edges of all the strip had the edges rounded off and the rear leg was thinned to match the depth of the front. I now have this which I'm much happier with.







A smear of PPP which will be sanded down tomorrow evening and the legs are done!



Masks next....



Thanks for looking in, and stay safe!



Ian

[lone modeller]

Missed the earlier post Ian: my you really are going to town on this one! Your method of making the undercarriage struts is a very good one - strong and neat at the same time. I must keep that in mind when I next scratch build a 1/72 scale land plane - which will not be too long in the future I hope!

Stephen.

[Alexis]

Nice progress Ian , excellent job on the under carriage struts and alex . Those are some nicely painted wings as well .


Terri

[RAGIII]

Outstanding work on the struts Ian. The look to be quite strong!
RAGIII
 

[IanB]

I worked yesterday so have a "normal" weekend this week, instead of Friday and Saturday. I still can't get used to that even after nearly 2 years!

Continuing on from the last post I got some paint on the undercarriage today to check for any sign of extra work being needed. A couple of smears of PPP should see these sorted.





Then it was masking. I did the lower wing earlier in the week. Today I got the tail and upper wing done, along with attaching 0.3mm masking tape on the upper surfaces for the ribs. I still need to do the riblets along the leading edges.










I'm not sure if I should give that a coat of Mr Surfacer, or smear some PPP along the edges to blend them in. Recomendations?



More tomorrow hopefully!



Thanks for looking in and stay safe!



Oh and Happy Liberation Day to all Channel Islanders!



Ian

[smperry]

Use what is thinner, because it is easier to add another coat than to remove what turned out to be too much. I always get impatient and try to get away with one coat of whatever and then spend way to long sanding it down, usually doing collateral damage, so go with light coats built up slowly.
sp

[IanB]

I thought I'd get some paint on this today so went ahead and did so. It's now green! However, I'm not sure about the rib tapes as they're far too obvious. I may still attempt to blend them in with a smear of PPP but that will now have to wait until later in the week.

here's how she looks as of this evening.











If that doesn't work they'll come off. It will look better with no detail on the upper surface than with these sticking out like a sore thumb!



Thanks for looking in!



Ian

[Alexis]

I like her Ian , she is cute for her size ! Agree with you on the ribs . They are to pronounced and really stick out , looking forward on seeing what you do with them .


Terri

[RAGIII]

Perhaps the Tapes are oversized, but I would be Damn Proud to have done what you have done with this kit!
RAGIII

[IanB]

Thanks Terri,
 Having looked at a load of pics on Vintage Aviator, it's quite apparent that the fabric is very taut and there is virtually no sag. What little there is would be impossible to do in this scale. I'm therefore toying with the idea of treating them the same way as I do the undersides, and removing the masking then spraying to leave the rib tapes slightly lighter. It worked fine on the Donnet-Leveque so I think that will be the way to go.

Rick, many thanks! It has been fun so far, if not a little challenging, but I like it that way! Hopefully the booms will be up to what I have done so far!

Ian

[IanB]

Well folks, after referencing pics on Vintage Aviator it was clear that the fabric is very taut and there is no visible change in levels where the ribs are. There really isn't much of a colour difference either in most pics, but as mentioned above, it needs something to liven it up a bit. I therefore decided to follow the same technique that I used on the undersides. That meant removing all masking.







The wings will be given another coat or two of PC10 which should leave the tape areas slightly lighter and add a bit of visual interest.

Other than that, today was a detail day. I painted the metalwork on the landing gear and cabane struts. Tamiya black, nothing special, but another job done.







The cockpit nacelle needed a couple of extra bits that I'd missed. Some FE8s had something stuck under the nacelle. It looks to be central (side to side) and is just forward of the elevator control horns. Maybe its a fairing of some sort (for a compass?) Not all aircraft had it, but the one I'm modelling did, so that's been glued on. I also made up an intake for the engine. 0.8mm aluminium rod was bent and drilled out. I would have used tube but couldn't get it bent tight enough without kinking, even with brass rod inside it. 







That's gone in a little ziplock bag with the tailskid I made the other day! Finally, wheels. I had intended to use my own 3d printed ones but they are fractionally too small. I found a recycled pair of Aeroclub wheels taken from the Meikraft SPAD I built, which was destroyed by my relocation experts when I moved over here, so they've been cleaned up and will be painted tomorrow, along with the upper wings. I also had to fill the axle hole with CA and redrill it smaller so they'd fit but that went fairly easily.







That's about it for today. It doesn't look much but took most of the afternoon, hopefully tomorrow will show some visible progress.



Thanks for looking in, and stay safe!



Ian

[Alexis]

Already looks better with the tape removed and will look excellent once a bit more paint is applied ...getting closer and closer to the rigging 


Terri

[kensar]

You've made quite a lot of progress on this since I last looked in.  Nicely done.
Sometimes those round shapes that need a tight bend can best be done by heating a styrene rod and bending.

[IanB]

Thanks Terri, and Ken for the tip!

Music turned up (I'm on a Magnum binge at the mo, fabulous band and way too under rated!) and off we go!



As you would have seen in my last post I had removed the masking for the ribs on the wings. I had gone a little over the top with the paint so I had some rather big ridges along the tape lines. Those were lightly sanded down to leave just a trace of their presence and the wings were returned to the paint shop.











I'm very happy with that. Subtle but definitely there, which is just what I wanted. Unfortunately I also did the top wing which I had intended to leave until after it was mounted and rigged to make it easier to blend in any repairs needed after the rigging sessions. Bugger. I'll have to be even more careful with the rigging now!



The rudder was also finished off. It looks a little rough but is actually ok, and with a matt coat there should be no issues.







The wheels were painted too, but there is more work to do cleaning up the inner faces on those.

There was one other little job which I have kept putting off, and which I decided to tackle today. Masking and painting the prop tip shields.

I spent quite a while trying to figure out how best to do it and keep the shapes constant. Finally I realised that the masking tape I'm using is see-through so the plans were reduced to the correct size (the prop was not drawn to scale) and I stuck masking tape on both sides over the prop tips.



One of them needed to be removed which showed up an interesting feature of this stuff - the printed pattern was stuck to the tape, very clearly marking exactly where the cuts needed to be made.







Unfortunately they were still too small to do that way and ensure that they matched, so they were cut out with a scalpel blade directly from the plans. Since I had put tape on both sides I knew that I would have 2 matching masks. They were also cut slightly wider than necessary to wrap around the edges.







This stuff is tacky enough to stick multiple times, but not too tacky that I can't peel it off paper.







Once all the blade tips were done I added thin strips down the edges (just in case!) and covered the hub.



The end result:







More than happy with that, so now just the hub to add and that will wait until I come to mount the prop.

That's it for now, I may get some more done later, we'll see.



Thanks for looking in and stay safe!

Ian

[NinetythirdLiberator]

WOW!  Looking sweet, Ian.  Such attention to detail.  Really making the most of this model.

Love it! 

Dan