Martin T4M-1 Torpedo Bomber, circa 1930

[hazmatt]

Mike that kitchen is incredible! You did a spectacular job!

Matt

[Skyking]

Chappie, OM, hazzmat and Bob, thanks for the comments regarding the new galley. Maggie is thrilled with it and that's all that matters. And yes OM, I did enjoy it more than I am letting on. I am, however, glad it's over so I can get back to modeling.

And speaking of which....

I got back to the bench today and fiddled with some test shots of the louvers. I've had plenty of time to plan these things out and what approach I would use, so today I made my forming jig and tooling and gave my ideas a test run.

I formed my forming jig from a scrap of 1/8th tempered hardboard. I cut a 4mm kerf in it with my table saw, and filed it smooth. The angle of the blade forms the buck to emboss the louver onto. Next I glued two pieces of .040 onto each side of my kerf, the width of the PE louver blank. This keeps it from walking side to side as I emboss it. I then cut a slot across at the head of the kerf. This slot is to accommodate a steel rule I use as a clamp to hold the brass in place as I form the louver. I tried it on my first test piece and voila... it worked like a charm. Thinking to myself this is way too good to be true, I gave it a shot on a second test piece... same results. By this time I was thinking "Holy Crap... this can't be happening. Something has GOT to go wrong here". I decided to not press my luck any further, and cut my first test piece down to size, scrapped a depression in the cowl of the model and set it in place, and the results are what you see here. This weekend coming up I plan on doing the rest of them, and hopefully (fingers crossed) I can have the most worrisome part of this project behind me. Thanks for taking the time to look.

Here's my PE fret that Foto-Cut did for me. I made many many extras to cover the FUF, and also to give me plenty extra for test shots. I only need 6 of the small ones, and one of the long ones.

Here's a view of my jig. Nothing major, just a hunk of scrap hardboard with some plastic glued on each side. The slot for my steel rule "anvil" is across the top of the kerf.

One view of my first test shot from the rear, after priming with Tamiya primer. The small blurp in it edge is from my tweezers interfering with the primer.

Another look from the front. There's a couple of small dings in the edges, but it looks authentic. Every picture of every T4M louver I've seen, shows some form of minor damage or gaddingle to them.

And finally, the second test shot cut to size and placed in the relief in the plastic. I used my Dremel and a small cutter to cut a dado into the plastic, so the brass sits flush with the cowl. Some CA for filler and it'll all blend right in.

The only mystery I will have to go through yet is making the louvers for the more curved surfaces, but I don't expect and major problems. After I annealed the brass it was pretty soft and easy to work with.

Thanks for taking the time to look, and as always, any thoughts or suggestions are welcome.

Cheers

Mike

[geedubelyer]

YAAY!!

Wow Mike, that grille looks super-dooper

This has definately been worth the wait.

I'm thrilled that you've conquered the grilles and I'm sure the curved examples will be no more troublesome.

They really look splendid in situ. Congrats on another neat trick.

:D

[Skyking]

Thanks Guy, appreciate the comments.

Stick a fork in it, the louvers are DONE. The part of this build I was most worried about actually wasn't nearly as much trouble as I was afraid it would be. The PE louvers were definately the way to go. The pictures here show them roughed in and primed. I have to do some minor filling around them, scribe the panel lines for the cowl panels and I can move on to other areas of the model. I can't believe I've been fretting these things for 6 months and they are finally over.

Thanks for looking.

Cheers

Mike

Edited December 29, 2007 by Skyking

[chukw]

Slick work, Mike! Not a bad job on the kitchen, either... <_<

[Old Man]

All right, Mr. King!

Great to see this up and on track once again!

A solution both elegant and methodical, and a beautiful result!

[regevmo]

Mike, great work until now.

I keep watching this thread with much interest :-)

[FAR148]

I don't know what I like more your kitchen or your built!

Both are awesome!

Steven L

[Donnico]

Unreal. Im really astounded by this scratchbuild; I have enough problems putting together tamiya kits.

[Skyking]

Thanks Chukw, OM, regevmo, Far and Donnico. I appreciate the comments. They are keeping me motivated to finish this thing.

I've spent the last couple of sessions at the bench refining the louvers, priming it, and actually got a coat or two of paint on it. I used Pactra Aerogloss Silvaire Aluminum Dope for the silver doped fabric areas, (whatta concept... using silver dope for silver dope :wacko: ) and Alclad Dark Aluminum for the metal lacquered cowl areas. I don't mean to sound obnoxiously bragging, but I'm really happy with the louvers and how they look. The only thing I wish my panel lines were a little cleaner, but scribing lines into .020 plastic after it's been vacuuformed is not easy. I was afraid I'd actually cut through, so using my usual scribing methods was impossible. All I could do was lightly drag a sharp #11 blad where I wanted them and gently score them. They are what they are. The rest of the day I am going to paint the walkway along the top of the fuselage, add some fiddley bits to the fuselage, and then plop it in the jig board and start planning and laying out the assembly jig.

Cheers

Mike

Edited January 2, 2008 by Skyking

[Skyking]

Several have asked how I finally overcame the louvers, so I thought I'd toss up a few pictures and quickie explanation of each step. First of all it wouldn't have been possible without the help from Fred at Foto-Cut. His PE is still arguably some of the best there is, and the fact he's a good person to work with makes it worthwhile to have him do your custom PE work. He had a few equipment failures over the course of the summer that held things up a bit, but he communicated the problems to me, and besides, I wasn't really in a huge hurry to tackle these things anyways. Looking back now I fretted for nothing. I had plenty of time to figure out the tooling and jig I used, and it worked like a charm.

Here's the three items I used. A hunk of hardboard 6 inches square, with a 4 MM kerf cut into it to serve as a buck. Two .040 plastic strips were glued on each side, the same width as my PE parts. These helped keep the PE part from moving side to side. An old flat file I used as a clamp, and my burnishing tool round out the tools used.

Here the blank is set in place. I have a pencil line drawn across where the lip of my kerf is. I lined the slot etched in the PE with this line, set the file on top and held it in place with my fingers to clamp it to the hardboard.

Here's a closer look, same picture.

I start the first louver by pushing my burnisher against the brass, forcing it to the angled part of my saw kerf, and slide my burnisher back and forth, burnishing the brass into shape. The first part I made I took the time to anneal the brass to soften it. The second part I made I tried it without burnishing, and the brass was soft enough to form without it, so that saved me a step.

As each louver is formed, I scooch it down the jig, lining up the next PE slot to the pencil line and repeat the process.

I repeated this process 12 times for each louver. All in all it took me about an hour to do them all, hardly the time consuming nightmare I thought it was going to be...lol.

I have enough of these left over too. I have an old AMT Chevy Apache pickup I've wanted to do as an Old School 50's style Kustom. I think a louvered hood is definitely in order.

I hope this illustrates the technique well enough. As always if you have any questions feel free to ask.

Cheers,

Mike

Edited January 2, 2008 by Skyking

[Old Man]

Coming together beautifully, Mr. King!

Looking forward to seeing it on the jigs....

[geedubelyer]

Thanks for the latest update Mike, most informative.

It's marvellous when someone takes the time to explain (with pictures) precisely how they've overcome a particular challenge. I find it enormously helpful.

The louvres have turned out beautifully and look very pleasing now that they're in place.

Keep at it. :)

[Maxtype]

WOW! :blink:

Skyking....you are an artist!

I just discovered your work today...and I shall follow it closely from now on.

She's a beauty!

-Dave

[Pete "Pig" Fleischmann]

Hey Mike!

I knew you'd figure out those loovers-absolutely brilliant method..thanks for sharing how you did it. George Lee is smiling down on you. Could this be your Magnum Opus?

Warm regards,

Pig

[Skyking]

Thanks for the comments everyone. I appreciate them.

Could this be your Magnum Opus?

I hope so Pete. the flip side is it could become my magnum oopsies...

I've spent the last week of evenings figuring out my assembly jig. Because I'm doing a float plane, I need to make not only the wing struts, but also the float struts. My first intent was to make a double duty jig, but the more I looked at it and thought about it, I came to the conclusion that initially, it would be easier to make two.

Here's the one I will use to get the lower wings set and aligned, and also to cut my wing struts on. I'll do the lower wings only on this one. Once they are mounted, I'll transfer it to this one...

This one I'll use to mount the float struts after the lower center wing is in place. Once they are set, then I'll add my "scaffolding" for the upper wing and cut my struts. The floats jig is a hunk of 3/4 x 4 x 6 basswood. I put my dado blade in my tablesaw and cut two parallel 3/4 inch slots, 2.75 inches apart. That was the parallel spacing I determined the floats to be. After the dado was cut, I ripped the float jig in half, and used the edges of each one to mark where my float strut attachment points will be. This way I can keep everything even and parallel. There are 6 struts per float, and keeping them even and parallel is going to be critical.

The block on top is the distance of the fuselage from the floats, and the end of the block lines up with the rudder post of the fin. This makes it easier to set the fuselage back in place each time as I cut and fit everything.

Once I get the basics of the jig down, I'm going to paint and install the lower wing center section and struts, and begin cutting the float struts. I'm shooting for a late February completion, but it'll be up to the modeling gods to determine whether that happens or not.

Cheers

Mike

[Maxtype]

Simply beautiful.

<_<

-Dave

[Skyking]

Thanks Dave, appreciate it.

The louvers were the biggest of two hurdles, today I tackled the second, the cooling shutters on the front of the engine. The T4M used two distinct styles. One was smaller in diameter, matching the diameter of the crankcase. The second style is larger in diameter with a lip all the way around, with no baffles going around each cylinder. I choose to do the latter, as it would be less work than trying to make a full cowl to go around each individual cylinder. The photos you see are of my 4th and final succesful attempt. The first one was too shallow :) , the second too deep , the third tore apart when I was cutting the openings , and the fourth was the charm.

I made my master form an old spinner I had kicking around that was the correct profile and diameter. I glued this into a piece of hardboard, and vacuuformed the lot on my small vacuform.

After I cut the excess plastic off, I laid out a circular grid of lines, 40 degrees each, so I could keep my "gill" spacing even. over this grid I centered my part, and extended the pencil lines up and to the center. I then marked two lines circumferentially around to mark the ends of the openings, center punched the holes with a pin, then drilled out each end with a .030 bit. The bottom holes I then enlarged with a .100 bit, and using a sharp blade, trimmed out the area between. I then squared up the bottom holes, and presto... my cooling grill.

Here it is in place on the model to check for dimension and proportion and it looks pretty good. When sitting on the ground they would be in the open position, until the engine was started. The the inner doors would rotate and close off the opening until the engine reached operating temperature, then they would reopen. Because mine will be in a sitting display, I choose to leave them open, which will save me form having to make a second and hide it inside this one.

Thanks for looking.

Cheers

Mike

Edited January 20, 2008 by Skyking

[Gambler]

Just unbelievable modelling Mike!!!!

Modellers like yourself have my one hundred percent admiration for the work that you do.

Keep up the great work, it is a pleasure watching this unfold.

Cheers,

Jeff.

[regevmo]

Good work as allways

This vacuform device can be very handy, can you explain in a few words the 'working mechanism' of it ?

Thanks :)

Edited January 20, 2008 by regevmo

[Skyking]

Hi Jeff,

Thanks for the comments. I am glad you are enjoying the progress.

Hiya Regevmo,

This vacuform device can be very handy, can you explain in a few words the 'working mechanism' of it ?

Sure no problem. It's an old Mattel vacuform, one of two that I got on Ebay. I use it for small parts, as the table is only about 2.5 x 3 inches, if that. It saves plastic that I would have to use on my larger home made machine.

On this particular one, the vacuum pump diaphragm was so dry rotted that it would no longer work, so I removed the diaphragm and handle, and found that the plastic vacuum cylinder was almost the same diameter as my Shop-Vac's hose. A simple adapter I made allows me to use my Shop Vac as a vacuum source, and on small parts it gives me plenty of suction.

I understand there is someone making repair kits for these now, so if you manage to snag one on Ebay, you can rebuild it to like new condition.

Cheers

Mike

[Old Man]

Great work, Mr. King!

Glad to see you over the hump and on the downslope with this!

[regevmo]

Hiya Regevmo,

Sure no problem. It's an old Mattel vacuform, one of two that I got on Ebay. I use it for small parts, as the table is only about 2.5 x 3 inches, if that. It saves plastic that I would have to use on my larger home made machine.

On this particular one, the vacuum pump diaphragm was so dry rotted that it would no longer work, so I removed the diaphragm and handle, and found that the plastic vacuum cylinder was almost the same diameter as my Shop-Vac's hose. A simple adapter I made allows me to use my Shop Vac as a vacuum source, and on small parts it gives me plenty of suction.

I understand there is someone making repair kits for these now, so if you manage to snag one on Ebay, you can rebuild it to like new condition.

Cheers

Mike

Thanks man

[Skyking]

The last two weeks have been interesting. The more I looked over this thing, the more nits I found that were bugging me. It's no secret I was not happy with the scribing on the cowl. There were also some nits on the fuselage that were bugging me. What tipped me over the edge was the wings. When I carved the blanks, I did it as one solid wing, then cut each section free and then skinned them separately. They looked great until I mated them together. Each outter panel did not line up with the center sections, and my airfoil shapes were different, the top wing center section was thicker in section than the outter panels, etc. In other words... I thought they sucked..lol.

So... I decided to redo the wings at the same time I redid the cowl. This entailed carving two new blanks and vacuforming 4 new skins, but this time instead of skinning them separately, I skinned the cores as one piece, then cut the outter panels loose from the center sections after skinning. Now my airfoils all match, my widths are good, and I also was able to emboss some short ribs into the lead edge, which I forgot to do completely on the original wings. I cut the ailerons loose, and also the small square sections that are hinged panels that flip out of the way so the wings can be folded back. I am so much happier with these wings than I was the previous set, and it's given me the impetus to get going on this and get it finished. Funny how when something really bugs you it can take the enthusiasm to work on it away.

These are the first set of wings, lower wings in the foreground and upper in the rear. The airfoils don't line up and the gaps are not even or straight. I also neglected to emboss the short half ribs on the lead edge, forward of the spar.

In this view I made an attempt to "fatten" up the center wing so it would match the profile of the outter wing panel. This mess is what finally pushed me over the edge to do them over.

Here's the end product. Straight and parallel, airfoils match, gaps are nice and tight. So much better than my first attempt, which are piled up behind.

Thanks for looking. Tomorrow night I'll post some shots of the repainted fuselage and cowl area. I'm to the point now I can start jigging it up for assembly soon.

Cheers

Mike

[geedubelyer]

Whoa.... :blink:

That sure looks like alot of work Mike but, knowing what you've told me in the past, you'll be much happier now. The new wing set looks marvellous. That rib detail will be the icing on the cake.

Great job

I'm glad you've re-kindled your enthusiasm my friend, keep at it.

;)