Jakko’s 1:48 Tamiya Brewster B-339 Buffalo

[Guest]

Oh, good idea too. it’d help if I had any of that at hand, of course, but it makes sense: it’s flexible, strong and sticks to the model.

[rtfoe]

Yes the dymo tape method has been my scribing template ruler for the past 15 years. Before that I had to use a blade and basically walked the blade over the curve then with that only there was a guide for the scriber(sewing needle chucked into a holder) to follow. Man...those were experimental days.:smiling6: Many puttying and re-scribing nights.

Cheers,
Richard

[Guest]

More cockpit work. My recent building of a number of planes has now given me the thought that cockpits are to the aircraft modeller what suspensions are to tank modellers: something you just have to get through so you can get to the fun part I added most of the cockpit parts and added some paint, just a cockpitish green with a darker green wash and lighter green drybrushing so far. Detail painting will follow a bit later.

First, the right side of the fuselage:

[ATTACH]359822[/ATTACH]

The poor instructions struck again at this point. Here is the left-hand side:

[ATTACH]359823[/ATTACH]

Notice the areas with the paint scraped off. The instructions give the impression that a crosspiece at the bottom of the cockpit (the wing spar?) goes in front of the rib, but test-fitting it showed that it can’t go that far forward because then the seat supports won’t fit.

Now compare this photo to that of the right side …

[ATTACH]359824[/ATTACH]

Yep, the holder for the oxygen bottles had to go so the crosspiece will fit. That’s alright, the real cockpit photos showed simple rings on an upright instead of a base with two holes in, but I can’t figure out how True Details expects me to fit both that support and the crosspiece in the same place. I could put one above the other, but that obscures all kinds of details on the crosspiece there. Easier to leave it off, I think.

Now with the crosspiece and seat supports fitted:

[ATTACH]359825[/ATTACH]

And the bottom of the cockpit with the fuel tank, pedals and control stick fitted:

[ATTACH]359826[/ATTACH]

And similar fit problems with that stick: it looks like it should go in the hole at the top of the linkage piece, but if you fit it like that, it gets fouled by the crosspiece. It does prove the latter can’t go in the forward position as I first thought, though: there would be no room for the stick at all.

[papa 695]

Looks like your having your work cut out with this one Jakko, nice work so far.

[Mini Me]

Harking back to Mr. T's comment about caricatures, first thing that entered my mind was "Toon Planes"...wonder if Pete Low has one of these? :rolling: lol.
Rick H.

[Guest]

Looks like your having your work cut out with this one

Isn’t it always like that? Advanced modeller syndrome, really … Once that cockpit is done, the rest of the plane should be a quick and easy job, I think.

Wait, that’s not entirely true. I just remembered that I will also need to sand down the back of the resin engine I showed at the start, because there’s a pour plug about a millimetre thick on it that means it won’t fit correctly in the cowling. A task I’m not looking forward to, let me tell you. I might end up taking that wall inside the fuselage out instead.

[Lee Drennen]

Jakko. Nice progress

[SimonT]

It looks like they made each piece in isolation and never tried assembling them!

You would expect someone to have actually built it before they released it to the market

1mm pour block will soon sand off - bit of wet and dry on a flat surface and just move the part in circles turning it as you sand to keep things even

[Guest]

It looks like they made each piece in isolation and never tried assembling them!

That’s a very good thought … it does indeed almost look that way, that they only fitted individual parts to the Tamiya kit but never the whole thing put together.

1mm pour block will soon sand off - bit of wet and dry on a flat surface and just move the part in circles turning it as you sand to keep things even

That’s what I intend to try first, but I’m not sure it’ll work all that well due to the size of the part. It’s an almost-round shape of about 25 mm × 30 mm and the plug (on measuring) turns out to be 1.5 mm thick. If I don’t see much progress I’ll just remove the fuselage wall and glue in some blocks just behind it to support the engine.

Now, where did I leave that piece of MDF I glued a sheet of wet-and-dry sandpaper to …?

[SimonT]

Hi Jakko,

Another method is to scrape with the side of a straight blade, as you would with plastic

I use this method quite a lot - removes material quite rapidly and without creating dust, just shavings

You can always scrape then finish of with a light sand at the end

[Mr Bowcat]

Advanced modeller syndrome, really … Once that cockpit is done, the rest of the plane should be a quick and easy job, I think.

I agree with you on that Jakko, the pit seems to take an age, painting bits, fiting bits, painting other bits, detailing & weathering. Once that's all done the rest of the build part seems to go quite quickly.

[Jim R]

Hi Jakko
Despite all the issues you're making good progress. I'm sure it will look good and be worth the effort and hopefully the frustration.
Jim

[Guest]

Another method is to scrape with the side of a straight blade, as you would with plastic

I’m under the impression that the shape and size I’m talking about, isn’t quite coming across Here’s a photo of the part and its pour plug:

[ATTACH]359900[/ATTACH]

Removing pour plugs with a knife by cutting, scoring and scraping is my normal method for all but large and wide plugs, exactly because it doesn’t create dust. Here, though, I don’t really see that as a viable option I also appear to have misplaced my sanding board. Despite looking for it this afternoon I can’t find it anywhere.

I agree with you on that Jakko, the pit seems to take an age, painting bits, fiting bits, painting other bits, detailing & weathering. Once that's all done the rest of the build part seems to go quite quickly.

Exactly, it’s a lot of fiddly stuff that seems to take forever and you’ll never see most of it

Despite all the issues

It’s all just minor things, really. It appears a lot worse than it actually is for the reason I just mentioned. The True Details cockpit set is pretty good, but it could have done with slightly more thought being put into it and its instructions.

frustration

Nothing frustrating about this one so far Just little things that are all easy enough to solve. I still kind of intend to buy a Kitty Hawk OV-10 Bronco to see if it really is as frustrating as has been claimed on this forum …

[SimonT]

Perfectly doable Jakko - no cutting or scoring required

Just scrape - if blade doesn’t go right across use a slight angle and take it down in a shallow cone shape

I have even been known to use the edge of a steel rule - bit of a misuse of tools but it works :smiling5:

[Ian M]

Having built a good few aircraft with a heap of resin cockpits and seats, I too am wondering about my sanity along with that of the people that produce these sets.
Some of the casting blocks are crazy to get off of thined down enough to work.
As good as the it looks when done, you close up the fuselage and think, (well I do), that was a wast of time. An enjoyable one though.
You are doing a great job so far so keep plugging away at it.