Detailing S&P models - my builds

[Siwi]

Originally Posted by Butelczynski

Interesting take on separating control surfaces. I tried doing something like that once but I went a bit different way about it. I failed,not so much because it didn't work but because I tried I found another way of assembling wings and control surfaces so much easier to keep them straight without twisting and much faster. I'm a fan of water based carpenter glue so time management is essential .

It's good to see someone else succeeding

Thanks karol; I would be interested to learn what method works for you. In other larger builds I have tried making a hinge-cum-spar from a rolled paper tube and/or wire and strips on the control surfaces, closer to the mechanism on a real aircraft. But it's very tricky to make this small enough to avoid an overly thick construction in 1/72, easier with bombers or in larger scales I feel.

[Siwi]

After a few weeks where real life got in the way of modelling I made some more parts of the Yak with additional detailing.


Most WW2 aircraft have at least two scoops underneath for air, radiator and oil cooler. Life is too short for me to source cutaways and work out exactly which one was which for every single type so if in doubt I just assume the biggest is the radiator. (Some like the Bf109 don't follow standard practice, and radial engines often put them all below the engine). The Yak fighter family have one smaller scoop under the engine, two small intakes at the wing roots and a larger scoop with a hinged (?) exit under the cockpit, which moved around a bit fore and aft between variants. We can get a nice easy bit of additional realism by insetting the mesh faces further inside the scoop since this was invariably done, presumably to concentrate the inflowing air, and also by building our own rear flap, which is in the open position on the ground.


This is as simple as cutting the front part free, making a duplicate for the rear, then sticking these to reinforcement and putting them inside the scoop before gluing it in place. I double the skin of the scoop housing and colour match to the model with paint. The rear flap is a simple C-fold matched to the width of the original part.


Next we start the cockpit. As the cockpit area goes across two of the model sections, we have to account for glue tabs and differing cross-section. What I decided to do was to make an internal tub attached to the rear section and add the cockpit details inside before finally closing the two fuselage halves. Finding good pictures for cockpits can be difficult - they are tight spaces to shoot, and in most museums you won't be able to see much in there to start with from ground level. Plastic kits and video games are useful resources assuming they are accurate, and at this scale we will only be giving a general impression of the layout and not extreme detail. The cockpit parts themselves are fairly simple apart from the burnished seat bucket, mostly flat surfaces layered.

[Siwi]

Model is finished. I will detail the techniques used for specific parts in a future post, for now here are the pictures. Overall ok, but I had the usual bad time using superglue on the canopy; despite my care it stuck to my finger and was nearly destroyed, and the contact surface wtih the fuselage is small. Also not a great result with the rear curved window trying to use tape to hold a cut line in the clear plastic. On the other hand I got some wires into the LG bays and am happy with the spinner and the 'fridge launcher' cannon, plus finally achieved more realistic angle on the prop blades. I have already had one "internet expert" on a well-known social media platform 'splaining to me that the upper colour should be the usual two-tone grey camo, which is not correct for this aircraft. At least on this forum people are polite and offer constructive criticism where appropriate.


Noteworthy is just how small this aircraft is: the Spitfire was not exactly large but is considerably bigger, and the Hellcat is a giant.

[Don Boose]

Another beautiful model!

It looks great next to the Spitfire and Hellcat, and whatever the historicity, the gray uppersides finish looks good and appropriate for the time.

I take your point about the canopy, but in the end, it looks good to my eye.

Don

[Siwi]

Thank you Don. Let's elucidate some detail on the techniques used from where the build log left off:


The fuselage was built in two halves and was a fairly simple matter to insert the front half over the cockpit tub - in fact this served as a very useful means of holding the halves at the correct position and giving a large surface to glue. At this scale, the instrument panel is very simple and consists of punching holes into a piece of thick paper coloured black, and gluing it over a white sheet behind. We get the impression of the 'basic six' instruments there, although Soviet aircraft did not always have even all of these according to Eric Winkle Brown. Of course, sources must be studied here because any aircraft in flying condition will inevitably have modern instruments installed, and museum pieces may be incomplete.


On the nose is an auxilliary heavy machine gun - you will recall the 9K's main weapon was the ridiculous 'fridge launcher' 57mm piece through the spinner. The teardrop opening is cut away and a curved piece is glued almost level with the skin behind it - hard in this scale. The gun barrel is a short offcut of 0.4mm wire pushed through the hole this leaves.


The gear bays have some visible wires so I superglued some strands of old headphone wires into place following the printed details and carefully brushed some grey paint over them. Also cut out some relief on the bay doors, these are double sided in the kit so easy to do and paint in the holes.



Landing gear: again sources must be consulted, as some Yak-9 variants had the legs curving around the inside like a Mustang, others had 'straight down' struts like a Hurricane (all were inswinging). Having installed wire for these much earlier in the build it was a simple matter to use the kit parts for the legs, which were semi-accurate but required thinning the 'hoops' and adding two more to each leg. The wheels were done by cutting the kit parts and backing with an additional seven layers of 160gsm. Judging the width of tyres can be tricky and the outside rolled piece in a kit may not be an accurate guide. After the sandwich was built, the edges were sanded to curve them. Again sources should be studied on how much of a doughnut the tyres were, as some (eg Lancaster) are very soft-looking whilst others are almost squared off and the size of the tyre or weight of the plane is not an consistant guide. The advantage of the sandwich is that it also confers a subtle tread pattern. I cut in a few layers with the knife to give some relief to the wheel hubs. A hole is pushed on one side and superglued to the LG wire.


Spinner: I decided on this build for the first time to blend half the kit part where the propeller blades attach and scratch the front from the usual method of stacking and sanding mount board. This turned out very well, and was helped by having the spinner have a hole right through it for the cannon, which made turning it against the nail file much easier. After cutting to a rough shape with the knife, I just kept sanding and test fitting until it looked right, then glued inside the kit part and matched the colour with paint.


So yeah, I would love to hear of some better ideas for canopies. The scale does not make things any easier and I had a much easier time with the 1:48 Bf109 (which also has an easier glass shape to start with). I have experimented with using sticky film which goes directly onto the paper and elminates the double-sided tape, but it's superglue I'm mainly having the problems using.










Blades: Again a slightly new technique. I have tried simply doubling and sanding the blades and also using internal wire, neither of which were entirely satsfactory. What I tried this time was rolling a thin paper tube, squashing and trimming this to go up the blade as it flattens, and doubling the blade skin but planing it with the knife near the tips. This way we can get a reasonably strong part and also depict the transition from circular at the hub to flat at the tip. Some gentle pinching with tweezers assisted this. Also got an accurate bend in the blades, after taking the time to understand that the angle of attack should be much greater near the hub.


The cannon was just a thin paper tube which was inserted and another tube rolled over the end for the muzzle brake.


Canopy...nearly ruined this after superglue leaked on to my finger during positioning. The kit part was stuck to double-sided tape and glass cut out, then stuck to clear plastic film. This leaves the tricky business of supergluing the corners of the windscreen which have miniscule contact area, without sticking the part to either fingers or tools. This is proving very difficult and I would like to hear of any better methods. Any bubble glass is also a headache. For the Seafire I managed to put a bit of heat curve in a piece of packaging and get a semi-ok result, but that was a faff and the rear glass here was so small I didn't want to attempt it. I tried making a cutline and using tape to hold it which sorta worked but the result is not very tidy and not really curved - might as well have just attached a single piece at an angle.

[gomidefilho]

The results are very interesting. I dare not paint a paper model entirely, whoever does it like you do demonstrates great skill. As for criticism about color and details about models on social networks, unfortunately trolls are everywhere, the business is not to pay attention.

[outersketcher]

Have you considered vacuum forming the canopy? All you need is a little box with holes drilled through the top. And a picture frame thats the same size as the box top. You can build the box out of wood. Or use something like a cookie tin. (I once made one out of wood.) You cut a round hole in the side of the box and glue in a vaccuum attatchement connector. To use it. You form the shape that you want and place it on the top of the box over the holes. Then you heat up a piece of clear plastic taken from some sort of product.. whatevs.. toy, tool, cupcakes. We just want the clear plastic packaging. You heat that up till its wobbly.. then lay it over the form you made on the box. Then press down over it with the wooden picture frame to hold it firmly in place on the box. Then you turn on the vaccuum. The suction will suck the hot plastic down around your form. Creating a perfectly formed little clear canapy for your plane. Just cut it out and trim to fit.

[Siwi]

Originally Posted by outersketcher

Have you considered vacuum forming the canopy? All you need is a little box with holes drilled through the top. And a picture frame thats the same size as the box top. You can build the box out of wood. Or use something like a cookie tin. (I once made one out of wood.) You cut a round hole in the side of the box and glue in a vaccuum attatchement connector. To use it. You form the shape that you want and place it on the top of the box over the holes. Then you heat up a piece of clear plastic taken from some sort of product.. whatevs.. toy, tool, cupcakes. We just want the clear plastic packaging. You heat that up till its wobbly.. then lay it over the form you made on the box. Then press down over it with the wooden picture frame to hold it firmly in place on the box. Then you turn on the vaccuum. The suction will suck the hot plastic down around your form. Creating a perfectly formed little clear canapy for your plane. Just cut it out and trim to fit.

I had an experiment with this to make the bubble canopy of a Seafire and have seen it done elsewhere. On that occasion I made a mould from air dry clay, heated plastic using a solder iron and pulled it over the mould, which was acceptable for a first try. I could probably knock up some kind of vaccuum box as you describe. But the main issue still remains, which is a) attaching paper to the clear plastic to make the frames and b) attaching the plastic to the main model, specifically how to stop superglue getting where I don't want it to. However careful I am it always seems to leak on to fingers and/or tools and the nature of SG tubes is that they have wide nozzles as the stuff clogs openings easily.

[Siwi]

Anyway, having finished both the Yak and Texmod's China Clipper this week I naturally fired up the printer and started another build! This one will not be an aggressive warplane or glamorous flying boat, but instead an aircraft so ubiquitous that it perhaps is overlooked in the modelling and real worlds - the Cessna 180.


Chances are that you will see one of these at any airfield in the world -over 6000 have been produced in a thirty-year production run. The model itself is from a bundle I bought earlier this year, consisting of an early and late production 180 and two Cessna 208 Caravans, each in a different colour scheme. Rescaling was an easy process by importing the pdf into Inkscape and enlarging to 138.89% to take it from 1/100 up to 1/72.


As usual, we will be adding plenty of additional detail to the build. I started by adding a registration (fictitious - 'CAHO' translates to 'C180') and rivets to the top of the wings in Inkscape. I intend to build the other 180 as a bush plane with fat tyres and other field modifications. Before anything else, it is advisible to have a general plan of how the finished model will appear. I decided to have the pilot's door open and the passenger window open, flaps able to move down plus the option for an engine panel to be open. In addition to the interior, we will need to represent some engine detail since it is visible through the intakes. Wheel chocks and a display base also appear on the wish list. A good supply of reference photos are saved for consultation as the build progresses.



Having cut out the main parts, we cut the glass sections out and glaze them by using small pieces of double-sided tape to attach thin plastic. Getting glass flush with the surface is a long-term ambition of mine but at this scale this is the next best thing.


The pilot's door is cut out carefully from the main part. Already we have to make some decisions about detail - some C180s have been decked out with luxurious leather interiors, others are basic door panels. In this case, I add just a simple grey cloth panel, with some gentle knife indentations to depict the stitching. It would be possible to come back and recolour this in later stages.

[ReynoldsSlumber]

Originally Posted by Siwi

I did initially leave the glue tabs on but then cut them off and made internal tabs. This is not such an obvious choice as it might seem, because the advantage of internal tabs giving a smooth edge is negating by it being very difficult to avoid a gap on the leading edge and a too-thick trailing edge when the skin is in final shape and closed up. I think I should probably have used thinner paper but again that can be a compromise to accuracy in holding the final shape and general durability. These are going to be handled quite a lot.

Very nice Yak! On wing edge tabs, has anyone tried making separate internal tabs and insetting them in from the wing edge by a couple mm? Could work especially well on the trailing edge, leaving only two layers of thickness at the edge itself while still having the strength of the tab inside.