Vacform Britannia

[VH-WAL]

thanks for your comments so far chaps..
Work on this slowed for the last couple of days as I got things shipshape for my wife's return from the UK. My spare bench inside the house has been dismantled and put away..(pity it was damn useful!) then.. having a missus is better than having a spare bench so I can't complain:smile:.

She's back and I got a few hours in on the Britannia, my mission was to do the exhaust / jet pipes. I found aluminium tubing at the local hobby shop in various sizes, I used the K&S tube cutter to cut off the short lengths required. Drilled holes of increasing diameter in the apoxie sculpt - filled rear nacelles filed to shape and put in the slightly flattened tubes. Each engine took at least 30 mins work, they are not perfect but many hundreds of percent better than what they were I still have to "dress up" the exhaust areas put an endplate in so you cant see through all that will be done as the same time as all over seam filling and sanding... lots and lots of it..sigh

[RayS]

Ooo! Nice, I need one of the K&S tube cutters, where didi you get your Wally?

[VH-WAL]

Ooo! Nice, I need one of the K&S tube cutters, where didi you get your Wally?

Ray I have had that tool so long I have no idea where I got it, probably a radio control shop?

[RayS]

Thanks Wally, I got a K&S offcut pack from one of the local shops, I will see if they have the cutter.

[VH-WAL]

Getting a bit more done besides filling and sanding
A wing box spar created from 2 novelty plastic dominoes that were a woolworths giveaway promotion a few years back.. I kept a few thinking they might become useful plus some plastic beams.


Tailplane spar and one plane installed, (second one is on now)

[VH-WAL]

wings and empennage on!
Engines just pushed on for fun!

[VH-WAL]

Ok so now I have glued the four lady fingers to the wing, a lot of faffing around with steel rulers, eyeballs to the light etc to get them in some semblance of alignment on all axes, a lot of gaps now need to be filled, this will be a job for days, the worst of the "holes" have a wall glued in to stop the filler falling into the void.

[hrtpaul]

Amazing as always Wally

[VH-WAL]

hello Paul and others, much filling sanding and patching later.... the engine front ends which were improved earlier on in the piece to give them some depth needed more work, the prop spinners do not extend far enough back from the rear of the blades to give the right look, I toyed with adding plastic material to the back of the prop spinner but settled shaping a plastic piece at the front end of the engines, this gives the model the narrow intake area and the right propeller "sit" much closer to the real thing. The metal props need a heap of fettling straightening and polishing. tedious, no, really tedious work. I gave the wings a shot of silver...... loads of masking coming up with shaded metal bits at the engine "hot" zones, lots of light aircraft grey control surfaces and cowling panels and wing undersurfaces.

trial fitting of the extra intake bit (like a gearbox housing or a truncated shock cone but it isnt)

the intake on the adjacent engine not modified yet

whoops back to the drawing board

The prop spinner mod experiment

shot of silver

[VH-WAL]

things have been going slowish here due the tediousness of masking. wings now done in various shades of metallicness and light aircraft grey. The fuselage gets painted after I sort out the undercarriage mounting.. so I don't mar the fuselage finish while the model is on its back