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I'm a sick, sick, sick, sick man... 1/48 MiG-25RB


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Ok, not as much work as I wanted to get done, but I cleaned up the exhausts and started to insert more of the internal "petals". Here is an in progress pic...

exhaustbuildup.jpg

You can see the way they stick out further than the top of the cast. I need to sand a little to even them out. Before I add more layers, I'll have to insert the exhausts into the rear of the fuselage.

I've poured molds for the flameholders and some internal structure for the intakes. Once they dry I'll go ahead and cast a pair of flameholders and put the exhausts in place. Then I can continue with the exhaust petals.

I've continued working on cleaning up the MLG wells in preparation for making a mold. Right now I am waiting for more mold material to arrive, but I should be able to start casting MLG wells by midweek.

Cheers,

Dave

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Alright, well I finished up the row of "petals" in both exhausts. I made a second mold for the flameholder and intake structure pieces. I just cast another exhaust trunk and the first flameholder. I managed to figure out the right amount of resin to mix to be able to pour one trunk, one flameholder, one piece of intake structure and another stinking set of F-14 bombracks...good grief. I need another shipment of mold material to arrive (tomorrow hopefully) so that I can make the MLG bay molds. I think I am going to go mess with cockpit stuff now since I have been ignoring it for a while. I have the next few days off from work and then next week I am going to take a chunk of leave so hopefully I'll get a bunch done.

Cheers,

Dave

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No real work today other than casting. Once the last set sets up I'll have made:

2 exhaust trunks

3 flameholders

3 intake structural pieces

12 F-14 bombracks...good grief:wacko: ...I need to get the mold rubber for the MLG bays.

Never got to the cockpit...maybe tomorrow.

Cheers,

Dave

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Here's a pic of everything I cast yesterday...

casts.jpg

In the upper right you can see the turbine face master I am starting to create. You can also see the master exhaust trunk and the first to casts in the row at the top. In the next row you can see the new trunks after I tweaked the mold some. I am probably going to completely redo the exhaust mold because I think I want to be able to cast a pair together and tweak the insides some...the trunks as they are are acceptable, but we nukes are somewhat anal I guess.

You can see the three flameholders I cast. The top one has a bit of run off because I used a single sided open mold and pour a little too much. The big "C"s are some structural pieces for the intakes..not very exciting. I'm contemplating the idea of totally remaking the intakes inside and out and trying to cast them as a single piece.

And, of course, on either side are two more sets of bombracks due to extra resin. You can see the mold is getting old as I am starting to get a bunch of flash...it's easily cleaned up though...right now I have 35 bombracks (one in the last cast has a huge air bubble)...I have managed to cast 52 racks (50 useable) out of the one mold, so I'll call it a success.

Oh well, back to the cockpit...I did get more work done and then managed to screw up what I did for the side consoles with one uncontrolled swipe of a #11 while tweaking.

New mold material arrived so I am working on the layout of the MLG wells mold. I want to be able to pour them at the same time in a single mold so it's requiring extra planning to keep the size down but also have it be air bubble free.

Hopefully more pics and progress tomorrow.

Cheers,

Dave

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Well, today was somewhat of a bust. Too much time doing unimportant things other than Mig-work. I did the final preps for the MLG bay mold. I'll pour it tomorrow...it's gonna be big. I also moved along on the turbine face.

Major setback of the day was finding out that I screwed up the structural piece I made for the intakes. It was supposed to be un-handed...instead it only works on the starboard side...oops...I mis-measured a part on the master...so I guess I'll cut up that mold and redo the master...oh well...I didn't like the way the single sided open mold worked for it anyway.

Cheers,

Dave

Edited by parche
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Alrighty then, I poured both halves of the MLG bay mold. First half was yesterday afternoon, second half last night. It set up overnight and I just went to check it. It came out pretty well. It did consume almost half of my supply of RTV mold rubber (15 oz of the 32 I had). The mold is huge, but I think I saved some RTV rubber by making a single mold instead of a separate one for each bay. I've cleaned it out and now I need to do a water pour into it to determine how much resin it will take. I normally don'tbother, but based on the size of it I don't want to make too little resin. So, hopefully I will have my first MLG bays by later this afternoon. Pics to follow later today.

Cheers,

Dave

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So the first pour of the MLG wells is done and here are some pics...

First, the making of the mold itself, here is the putty floor and the masters for the thicker side of the mold that will have all of the detail...note the obligatory Lego wall (my wife hates that I use her Legos for this)

prep.jpg

Next a shot of both sides of the completed mold...when put together it is about 7 inches long, 5 tall and 2 deep...

finishedmold.jpg

Here is the mold set up with a load of resin poured in...

poured.jpg

Finally a shot of the first set from the mold...new casts are on top with the masters below them. I pulled the casts a little early so they are still kinda shiny and not fully set. They weren't misshapen by pulling them early, thank goodness...

finishedset.jpg

That first set is drying and I will probably be able to install them tomorrow AM. I went ahead and poured a second set. I am gonna leave them in the mold for a little longer. Oh, and I only ended up with one set of Tomcat Bombracks from the extra material from the first pour...second pour, no leftover resin...Yay! :monkeydance::woo::nanner:

Cheers,

Dave

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I cleaned up the second set of MLG wells today and prepped them for install. By tomorrow I should have pictures up of them in place and the after fuselage reassembled.

Cheers,

Dave

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Well, I installed the MLG wells and then closed up the center fuselage section...here's an inside shot of the wells installed...

inside.jpg

The red stuff inside there..yup, that's some blood from an errant knife cut...

And a shot from below...

installed.jpg

All in all they went in fairly well with only a small amount of sanding and shaping. There were some slight gaps, but nothing a small run of CA couldn't fix. There is still a little clean up to do, but I was happy enough that I went ahead and closed the top over them.

After closing the top, I added some pieces of sheet styrene to give a bit of a mating surface...

matingsurface.jpg

I also closed up the after section of the fuselage...I used strips of styrene inside to provide a mating surface there too...

aftinside.jpg

Here's a shot of the two pieces test fitted together...line up is pretty darned good along with the mating surface. One little correction to it should cause it to be a nice consistent seam...

fuselage2.jpg

As you can see from the red marks, I need to sand the rear pars of the wing joint down to a rounded shape. You can also see that I totally managed to fail to remove part of the mating surface at the rear end of th fuselage. That is why I haven't cleaned up the surface and mated the two parts together yet. I have to cut all that out and I would rather do that and not risk breaking the seam.

Cheers,

Dave

Edited by parche
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Thanks for posting updated pictures, I was waiting them so badly :salute:

I love russian stuff, and I am always happy to see some Urss bird under construction.

Very very nice building, my best compliments again! :)

Edited by GodHammer
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I wouldn't say they fit perfectly, but I'm quite happy.

I'll be wandering around the waterfront tomorrow (Thurs) so maybe I'll pop in at Spike's around 11 and see if you are there.

Guess stuff has been painful on the dock this week.

Cheers,

Dave

Edited by parche
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I've managed to get some work done in the cockpit and started planning out the master for the NLG bay. Nothing on either point that is worthy of a picture...maybe later over the weekend.

I also got somewhat bored and decided to assemble some of the major parts to see how everything was fitting and going together in comparison to some drawings.

Here are a couple pics...

assyview2.jpg

assyview.jpg

overheadassy.jpg

Everything looks pretty good placement wise compared to the drawings...The only major adjustment needed is to slide the wings another 1/8 of an inch or so forward. I had intentionally cut the alignment tabs a little less than needed based on my measurements because I didn't want to over do it and take more than needed out of them. So, out with the sanding sticks and I'll get that 1/8 inch or so. I'll have to sand down and reshape the rear end of the fuselage side of the wing joint for this move too.

I'm pretty happy so far, but there is a lot of sanding and scribing and master-building and mold-making and resin-casting and general hard labor to go...

I'm almost thinking of starting a PDS real quick and working in parallel...that might be a little too sick however.

Cheers,

Dave

Edited by parche
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Holy Cow! She's coming along fantastic. Can't wait for your next update. BTW, are you going to offer up any of your bits for sale? If so, sign me up!!!

Mark

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I hadn't really considered selling the parts I am making for this bird...mainly because they are what I would say is garage quality...I've researched pictures and whatnot to make them, and I'm happy with their accuracy, but I don't know if I would feel comfortable selling them for a profit.

I guess if there is some interest I'd be willing to make some extra casts for cost and shipping. For now I'll just get all the masters for this bird knocked out, and get it built. We'll see.

I've given away or traded some of the F-14 bombracks that I made...I guess AnthonyWan or Tomcatter727 could comment on them as far as quality of what I have done.

Like I said, we'll see.

Baby's asleep, time to get back to the NLG well and cockpit for a little while.

Cheers,

Dave

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Alright, so here's some of what I have gotten done once the baby went to bed and the wife went off to her knitting (she knits as an online business)...

I worked on the cockpit a little bit...not all that much, but here is a look at it...

cockpit.jpg

My largest area of progress was on the NLG bay. I took a couple pics as I was moving along so you could see the progression...

nlg1.jpg

nlg2.jpg

nlg3.jpg

I am using the kit part as a basis...you can see how I just cut the appropriate hole in it and started adding bits and pieces. The added advantage of using the kit piece is that I will be able to use it as a direct replacement into the slots for the original kit piece. That should help ensure the weight-bearing ability of the piece. I am gonna move the locating hole for the NLG slightly aft to more closely fit the actual position of the gear...(it is only a slight change based on the way I have been resizing the kit.

I also marked up the nose for where I will cut out the camera bay...yup as I mentioned way back, I want to put the camera bay in a partially dropped position so that you can see the cameras themselves. I have been able to find a couple of pictures of the cameras so I am fine there, but I have no idea what the inside of the bay itself looks like. So, the bay may end up as a work of fiction...

noseandtips.jpg

In this picture, you can also see the wing tip pods/mass balances that I cleaned up after removing them from the wings. I'm gonna make a mold of them so I never have to go through dealing with them again :cheers: .

That's all for now.

Cheers,

Dave

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