Wednesday 26th October 2022
Bad weather and my muscle spasm affliction have kept me from the outdoors but I will be back as soon as as the stars are re-aligned. The muscle spasm I'm glad to say has more or less disappeared, and in any case the physio encouraged me to keep walking.
In the meantime I have made a start on my Westland Lysander model. I bought this a long time ago and then thought that I had not enough experience to tackle what is a difficult kit.The interior cockpit is very detailed and the canopy in particular will be the greatest challenge, it looks like a major greenhouse from Kew Gardens.
The Lysander was used in WW2, often to drop off agents and pick up rescued air crew in France using its short take off and landing attributes. Operations were usually carried out at nighttime using remote fields and improvised landing strips. One of the options with the kit is to paint the aircraft black as it was used for those missions. and that is what I intend.
Progress so far is shown below.
 |
| Not a model. Here you can see some of the complexity of the canopy and also in the shot below |
 |
| This shows the black livery used for clandestine missions to occupied France in WW2 |
 |
| All the parts that are to be Cockpit Green. I wasn't happy with this colour and later re-sprayed them in the authentic RAF colour as below |
 | ||||
Here part of the cockpit module has been primed and painted and partly assembled. Note the pilot's seat with the detailed harness (click to enlarge) - very fiddly. The length of the cockpit sides is 7.5cm.
|
 |
| Here I have started on the rotary engine. difficult to eliminate the shadow |
To be continued.
That looks an intricate build Conrad which will make it all the more interesting a project. But dear oh dear, that canopy...
ReplyDeleteI'm glad to hear your muscle spasm has pretty well resolved and you'll soon be out and about again.
Afoot - It certainly is intricate and there are also irritating fit issues from a not too well engineered kit. I have been following a perfectionist step by step video on You Tube and he has become so annoyed he has abandoned the build two thirds of the way through. I am not so bothered about minute details of authenticity so I will carry on. That guy was particularly critical of some sub-standard decals. which he reckons completely ruin the final result. I shall see.
ReplyDeleteI am trying to estimate the diameter of the dials on the instrument panel: 1.5 mm? 2 mm? Or did they arrive coloured?
ReplyDeleteIn the most recent episode of The Repair Shop, Kirsten, the ceramics expert, is given the task of refurbishing a sort of dilapidated china bowl provided by our new sovereign. Normally this work wouldn't have required micro-precision skills seen elsewhere in the programme but she was faced with improving some quite casually painted handwriting in which the density of the paint varied widely - tricky to duplicate. For this she used what she called a "double zero" brush which seemed to consist of four hairs at most; and with which she contrived to re-create the fainter and thicker parts of the lettering in one neat sweep. Probably by pressing on the brush to splay it out and thus create fainter colour. Are you aware of brushes graded in this way? If so, is there a brush that is even more vestigial than "double zero"?
It was the minuteness of the Lysander's dials that triggered this query but I can see another model-aero application. In creating the black stains left on the fuselage from the engine exhausts one would be looking for an effect that proceeded from the thickest black (nearest the exhaust) to the faintest black (furthest away). To be able to do this with one brush stroke would not only be easier to achieve but would, I suspect, look more authentic
Sympathising with the pilot may get you over your less-important aesthetic problems (than his) with the canopy. If you were 25 ft above a downward sloping landing field that you suspected was 20 ft shorter than what you needed, in the dead of night, and guided by the feeble light from three torches, you'd demand optimised visibility. Here's what an expert says:
ReplyDeleteFrom the cockpit, the field of view is nothing short of superb. The pilot sits well up over the engine with eyes in line with the wing chord and head in line with the wing leading edge. It’s a grandstand position and accordingly, he can see well to the front over the engine and down to the side as well. He also has a good field of view to the rear, both up and down if his head is raised and lowered over and under the wing. The raised position also leads to a good view forward when taxying, so there is not so much of a need to weave the nose from side to side as with other tailwheel types.
That last sentence refers to the problems many fighter pilots, especially of Spitfires, faced when landing. Coming in the plane is flared (ie, nose up) which means the long, long engine blocks all direct sight of the runway. To overcome this, pilots used to jiggle the plane from left to right and back to check what lay ahead. Just at the most demanding part of the flight (ie, landing). All part of the job.
RR - The instrument panel is the only bit I have not or will not paint. It is supplied as a ready painted photo-etch part. These are not usually ready painted being laser cut on a (I think) brass very thin sheet and can be inscribed with more minute detail than the traditional ejection moulded plastic. They often allow you to create three dimensional shapes, e.g. box-like, being flat they have to be folded tediously into their shape. I think since the introduction of this feature nerds were overjoyed and kit manufactures felt that they would be losing out if they didn't include at l east some parts fashioned this way, but perhaps that is me being cynical.There was a plastic part supplied with raised instruments which can be painted to good effect using dry brushing technique and blobs of Crystal Clear glue on the dials to simulate glass, but no match for the photo-etch. There is much of that etch in this kit and some of it is so small it is just pointless and will not be used.
ReplyDeleteMy smallest detail brush is in fact a 00. It was bought from from the old established and highly respected supplier of artists materials, Winsor and Newton. It is from their Series 7 range and cost in the region of £20. It is stored carefully in a plastic tube!
Yes, I was aware of the attributes of this aircraft. It did also have eccentricities that some pilots were not enthusiastic about.
I have learnt more about WWI and WW2 aeroplanes as spin-offs from this enterprise than I ever thought I might have wanted to know - now, if it were battleships, that would be very different story .
ReplyDeletegimmer - There are ,many battleship kits available. I have said before that I prefer to have some affinity with each kit I build. Is there any particular Royal Navy vessel that would give you such an impetus if you happened to be in the way of making models? There are of course famous ones that I would hesitate to refer to as cliché because they all deserved any accolade that can be given, but perhaps you have a more personal selection?
ReplyDeleteI admire your tenacity in dealing with the intricacy of this model!
ReplyDeleteWell - my uncle claimed to have been on the Iron Duke at Jutland (you will gather there is some doubt about that - as well as his rank - always a man for a trick) and one of his sons (ie my cousin) definitely was on the Ramilles on D-Day - so I have a sort of familial interest in those colossi: somehow I doubt if there are any model kits of those two - whereas KGV, Bismarck and Yamato kits are easy too find: I looked at one once but they looked very crude and plasticky - not worth the cost or effort . I think one has to build one's own from scratch - and have a big chimney shelf !
ReplyDelete