Airspeed Ambassador 1/72 W.I.P

[VH-WAL]

All things on the bench have moved aside for this project. The vacuform kit features very soft, clunky detail, plenty of dimples lumps and bumps and it is a major exercise in building / preparing the model to the finish.

Days have been spent on one cowling to sharpen the gills / and the hot air egress ramp behind them. The engine gearbox and cooling shroud thingy behind has been scratch built as has the chin intake, still to do is the overwing exhaust fairing.. then repeat for the other side!.




I just shot some primer on the empennage assembly.. bit more filling and scribing work needed but looks ok!



The bench is littered with bits of spare parts / balsa etc that have been used in my experimentation to get the cowlings to shape

[Graeme H]

Hang in there Wal, I seem to remember you having a lot of trouble with a Truculent Turtle's cowls, and you got there in the end

[VH-WAL]

Greetings chaps,
I have been quiet but busy, this has been driving me batty.
I have been battling this demon on and off for weeks now. My first modification of the kit nacelle did not work out satisfactorily..while the lower intake looked real good the rest of the nacelle was so malformed I hated it so I went about seeing if I could make one myself. Not having or knowing someone that has a lathe I hit the spares bin looking for shapes,

Airfix Sunderland engines / cowls left over from a conversion were the basis for a new cowl front.. the interior reamed out, the leading face thinned and the outer area beefed up and reshaped with Apoxiesculpt.

Engine gearbox and cooling shroud were made from plasticard, balsa and apoxie sculpt, these were copied in resin.

Next the nacelle aft of the cowling needed a shape.. the spare parts bin had nothing, I went through the stash and found that my 1/100 Nitto Boeing 747 nacelles were close to the required shape, so I cast a copy in resin. This was then cut to size and shape and glued to the cowling and engine gearbox combination, the again it was all filled and reshaped with apoxie sculpt. Next the artifact was cut up to add the slot and ramp behind the cooling gills. The ramps were made from off cuts of various cowl shapes that had started to litter my bench! The assembly was beefed up internally with balsa, primed sanded and used to make a new mold.

Next Resin poured and set and the engine copy popped out of the mold.. hey not bad!

Ok next fabricate the lower cowl cooling intake again using shapes from the spares box plus filler and sanding, next to do is the exhaust ramp on top of the nacelle, make mold and cast a couple of completed donks then somehow get them faired in to fit the wing / nacelle.

What a palaver!


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Also on the bench is the resin 1/48 Heritage Comet. What an absolute pig of a kit, a pinholed, mishappened piece of crap, the number of times I have filled and primed is too depressing to think of.

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Better though still challenging this resin 1/48 Miles Falcon

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Also challenging and right out of left field for me:



OK next thing to do today.. Print TORs decals!!!!

[Knotty]

You are a machine Wally , keep up the good work .

[VH-WAL]

hey oop all

Work continues..
Fuselage / wing centre section reprofiled to remove an unwanted dihedral and fuselage primed, dimples seams etc filled.
The empennage needs a bit more shaping.
Wing dimples, canyons, creases and other blemishes filled sanded primed and rescribed (just the basics)
The big ticket items.. the engines are done the final "master" is the grey. The first copy pulled from the mould is the white.. needs a few touch ups but no problem there, second copy setting there in the mould. My donks may be roughish and not completely accurate but they are miles better than what was on offer.. the model should look half reasonable with these on, the kit ones would have looked like small sweet potatoes on the leading edge!




also on the bench a couple of p.o.s resin jobs in 1/48.. one day soon I will build something in plastic, easy and out of the box..one day

[VH-WAL]

I glued the engines in, some savage surgery was required at the bottom of the nacelle to reduce its diameter and make it a closer fit to the diameter of the cowls.. look away if squeamish, it is not pretty but nothing a heap of filler wont hide. The major bits were then all loosely laid out together in one piece. The wing mounts are fixed in the fuselage but deliberately "wobbly" at the wing roots so when I jig it up for assembly I can get the right dihedral and incidence and get both wings on the same "plane".







So far my plans are to finish her as an Australian registered example of Butler Air Transport who flew three of them for a short time late 50s early 60s. Some problems though are that the decals are going to be difficult to design and print / make. The Butler Air Transport titles look like no "font" known to man and are smallish and the lettering is white "shadowed". Because the colour scheme is so "bland" : white top, silver bottom, silver wings, blue cheat-line, the finish would have to be something special and I am not good with that. A Danair example is a possibility, I do like Autair but the fuselage titles are difficult to design and they are white on a blue background. So my plans are not firm on this as you can see.. I'll worry about it when she is closer to completion.

[Adam the Akrodude]

Hey Wally

Is it just me or is there a problem with seeing your pic's? I just get the dreaded white cross in the black square.

[VH-WAL]

Hey Wally

Is it just me or is there a problem with seeing your pic's? I just get the dreaded white cross in the black square.

I can see the pics.. so I don't know really

[hrtpaul]

I can see the pics too. Coming along well Wally

[Graeme H]

Really starting to look good
The one at Duxford was for all of the last 2 decades without wings, and tucked away against a far wall, and covered in dust, it has now been bought out into the light and had it's wings put on at last