Skyking

OK let's move on to covering the parts with the corrugated aluminum. I cut each "skin" to roughly the correct size. I'd rather have them a little larger than needed, as it's easier to remove material than it is to add it. A Popsicle stick is used to smear 5 minute epoxy to the surface of the core. I used epoxy because it gives me some time to fudge the skin around to final position, and it also smooshes into the corrugations on the back side to fill them in and help prevent them from getting damaged. This aluminum is quite soft and susceptible to damage. The epoxy backing gives it a litt

OK let's try this again. This is my second attempt at doing this reply. 3/4's of the way through the first one I get the dreaded "Internet Explorer has encountered a problem and must close" message, and all my typing was blown to oblivion. Hopefully it'll last this time. Hiya Richter. That would be a good method if I only had one chair to do, but I have to make 4, and I don;t think I could keep them consistent, one chair to the next. Thanks for the suggestion just the same though. Thanks for following along guys. I appreciate your comments and suggestions. Hiya Guy. I'd be disappointe

Oh okay that explains it then..lol. I like their rubber too as it's equal mix. The ratio stuff opens too many doors to screwing it up. I have some of the resin too, and I hope mine isn't bad either. Thanks Pete. Cheers Mike

Hey there Pete, It's from EZ-Cad, and it's older than dirt. the copywrite date on mine is 1995, and was designed for Windows 95, but I do have it loaded on my Home and Work PC running Xp with no issues. It's a Raster based program though, not a true Vector, but for my needs it's adequate. If you want it I'll burn a copy and send it to you. Thanks for the comments and following along gentlemen. I appreciate them very much. Cheers Mike

Holy moly. How did I miss this thread? Stunning stuff there Mark. Beautiful detailing, weathering, painting... the list goes on and on. I just spent 45 minutes at work looking this thread over. You have given me some ideas to use on the Trimotor as well. That's what I love about these forums. Cheers Mike

Hey Pete, Great progress so far. The spine looks terrific. Question what type of rubber are you using for your molds. You mentioned RTV, so I assume there's no mixing involved? My Micro-Mark rubber went bad in the bottle so I need to get more. If yours is a true RTV I'd rather go that route then mixing a 2 part rubber. How thin is it, and is it very flexible? I'm a newb when it comes to casting. Cheers Mike

Hey there Pete. No you can't do that. I forbid it. At least not until you get your T-33 done.. then I'll think about it..lol. Thanks for following along Pete. This one will either be my Magnum Opus, or a Maxim Oopsus... depending on how it turns out. Pretty close Richter...lol. Hi Mike. Yeah I've been lurking around here for almost 6 years now, so the place must have some pretty loose standards if they let me in the joint..lol. Thanks for following along. Modeling and Origami I will be having some custom Photo Etch done by the Ole' Etching Wizard - Fred at Foto-Cut, so the last seve

Great pictures Barney. Those are of a 5-AT though, not a 4-AT as I am building. The 5 was a bigger airplane. Longer fuselage and wingspan, and more powerful Pratt & Whitney engines in place of the Wright 950 Whirlwinds. The easiest way to tell the two apart is the extra passenger window that extends out behind the trail edge of the wing. Most 5's also had the forward windscreen, while most 4's had the conventional swept back like mine, although there was instances of both being on either. The maddening thing about building one of these is that no two were exactly alike. There was differenc

Thanks for stopping by Karl. Appreciate the comments. Thank you Holmes for your enthusiastic reply..lol. I am too, but it's way early in the build yet. Something can jump up and bite me at anytime..lol. hi Greg. I find a lot of my woodworking tools can cross-over into model building, especially my band saw. I use that more than the tablesaw actually. Thanks for stopping by. Cheers Mike

Hi Barney. Thanks for following. The major airframe components are done for the most part, other than some fine tuning and sanding here and there to remove a few nits, dings and dents. I used bondo to fill in one major gash in the bottom of the wing when my belt sander grabbed it out of my hand. Nothing major, just annoying. The initial fit went well, although it may be a bit too tight yet. I'll finish sand it some more until it's a nice smooth fit into the opening. Renshape is very easy to work with, but if there's one drawback to it, it's dust. Very fine dust. Talcum powder like dust, an

Thanks for all the comments guys. I certainly do appreciate it. This was one of those projects that was fun to do, but boy am I glad it's done...lol. This just reinforces my belief that it's easier to scratchbuild a model than it is to work with an older, poor fitting kit and make any major modifications to it. Cheers Mike

Denzal, Holmes, thanks for following along. I hope to make some progress on the wings done either tonight or tomorrow. Stay tuned. Cheers Mike

Hiya Karl, thanks for the comments. There were actually several different models designed for Ford by Stout, but the 4AT and 5 AT were the most common. Thanks for the link Sean. That is the aircraft I plan to replicate. The polished aluminum and dark blue trim is a real eye catcher. Thanks for following along Richter. Hope you enjoy the show. Last night I spent the time finishing the Fuselage master, shaping the rear portion and fixing the nits pointed out in the last pictures. I used my trusty block plane to do the initial shaping. I have much better control of a plane than I do a knife. I

HI Karl. Thanks for the comments. Liberator glad to have you tagging along. No actually it's a General International, with an upgrade 50 inch Biesmyer fence. I also added a 30 inch side extension with drawers underneath, and a 40 inch outfeed table. When cutting sheet goods you can never have enough table space. The plans are Clevelands. They make the only 4-AT plans I could find. Wylams are 5-AT, which was a bigger airplane. The 5's also had the verticle windscreens. I like the looks of the 4 better, plus the subject I am replicating looks like a chrome airplane with dark Navy Blue trim.

Hiya BOC *Right click Save AS* It's worth a lot BOC. I was wondering what the inner landing gear attachment looked like. You just answered it for me. Thanks much! Before I can do an cladding, I have to have an airframe to put it on. Last night I began creating some very high quality saw dust and shavings, and at the end I hope to have a high quality master to vacuform my fuselage halves from. Here's a brief step by step on how I whack out a master. This is where it starts. A 5 x 5 x 19 inch hunk of Renshape. Somewhere in there is a Fuselage. It's my job to find it. First thing I do

Thanks for the comments BOC. I'm not sure what the number is... all I know is it's free, so it could be 903495803 and I wouldn't care..lol. I did a little more playing around with it and there's definately a learning curve. Power tools eat the stuff alive and it's very easy to take off too much material. Hand sanding with a block seems to work about the best and give the best control for finish work. A table saw or band saw works well for rough cutting, as you will see in my next update sometime this weekend. I've begun carving the fuselage Master, and I'll give a brief tutorial on how to

Tonight I got my first practice part done... the Rudder. This is my first time using Ren Shape. Up until now I've always used basswood to carve my masters. Never again. This stuff is so easy to work with it's almost shameful.It sands easy, shapes easy, is dimensionally stable and my bandsaw blade doesn't "walk", because there's no grain. The only drawback is the dust from sanding feels almost like sand and gets every where, but it's easy to clean up. It does not finish as well, having a coarse texture to it even after sanding with 220 or 400, but this will be covered with aluminum so it's moot

Hiya Mike. Wow what an airplane for your first ride. That had to be pretty exciting. I'm envious. Hiya BOC. I am lucky. I get cast offs and scrap from a local shop that uses it for 3D prototyping. They have minimal sizes that they can use, so anything smaller I get. I've got some chunks that are 4 feet long, 3 inchest thick and 12 inches wide. Thanks Holmes. Glad to have you and everyone else along. My drawings arrived Tuesday, so I'm about to cut some practice parts and see how this stuff will work. I'll post some pictures sometime this weekend. Cheers Mike

I am about ready to begin my next project, a 1/32nd scale Ford Trimotor. My plan is to use a corrugated aluminum material from K&S Engineering that's .002" thick, with .060" spacing of the corrugated skin, over a basswood or Ren-Shape core. The majority of the airplane is a flat, slab-sided box, so cladding that type of structure should pose no problems. The only curved areas are the wing lead edges, so I was a bit concerned about getting the aluminum to wrap around without kinking or bending. I ordered a package for testing purposes and to see how workable it is. It arrived today, and th

Thanks Grant I appreciate the comments. Well the beast is done... finally. The decals are a combination of home made and some older Aeromaster insignia sheets I had. I thought it odd the original airplane had the call sign only on the Starboard side, but it did made making the decals easier so I'm not complaining..lol. After application I used Dullcoat to knock down some of the sheen, and it helped hide the carrier film on the decals, so it doesn't look to bad now. I'm much happier with the model now than I was a week ago. I was hoping to get it done over the weekend, but painting the three c

*Sticking a 3 x 5 card to my forehead and giving my best "Great Karnak" impersonation...* I see another future Judges Best In Show in the works. Great looking work so far Pete. Whatcha gonna do this one as? Cheers Mike

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I appreciate the comments. Hiya Mark. They are from Archer Fine Transfers. They can be bought direct from Woody at Archer Fine Transfers, and Sprue Brothers carries them. They are designed mainly for armor builders, but I used the smallest diameter (.020 I think) and they look good in 48th scale. Thanks Pete. I'm in this till the end, till death does us part...lol. I've come to the conclusion it's as good as it's ever going to get. It doesn't look all that bad now, and I'm afraid if I try to "fix" them I'll muck them up and end up wising I left them alone

Wow has it been since April I did anything on this beast? Time flies I guess. Anyways, I am back at the bench again with the colder temps getting here. I'm working from a temporary work area while my modeling room gets a make-over, but the temporary inconvenience will be worth the wait. I wanted to get this one finished before I moved on to my next scratchbuild, so over the last few days I've spent doing more (what else?) riveting, then primed and painted the floats and aluminum on the fuselage. I used Alclad aluminum, and I'm pleased with the finish. Hiya Jotepe. I wasn't too concerned wit

Here's Abby, AKA Dumbdog, Nose, Stoopid or any other nicname I can think of at the time. She's a 2 year old Basset Hound we rescued from the ABC Basset rescue a year ago. I have to say she is the best dog I've ever had. I can't imagine that someone would give her up, but I'm glad they did. She originally hails from the state of Georgia, so a rescue was made from NY, and 7 dogs were brought up from the Peachstate. The first time she saw snow was comical. She bounded out the door like always and landed in snow that was 6 inches deep. When you consider her tummy is only 5 inches off the ground it

Oustanding detailing Guy. Glad I stopped in to see some progress on yet another masterfully done model. It looks like you are progressing at a slightly faster snails pace than I am with the Devastator..lol. I hope to get back at it soon. I have just started gutting and redoing the modeling room so until I get that done all modeling has come to a standstill. I'll need fixes like this to keep me motivated. Cheers Mike