Helldiver!

[messy60]

absolutely fantastic stuff! this is certainly one build i will be watching religiously. great looking model room too, lucky guy!

Jason

[vrsa]

Very nice & detailed work. Nice camera with a huge zoom.

[Impatient Pete]

Maybe a little too much zoom?

This is fabulous work but it's so close in that it's really hard to see clearly. Does that make sense?

Great, clean work, which can be very tough on these PE jobs.

Pete

[chukw]

messy60: Thanks- and yes, I am one lucky feller. :D

vrsa, Impatient Pete: Thanks- I'm using a Canon SD800 with steadycam and a 3X digital zoom. It gets in close, but the pics are a bit "crunchy"=- especially after I adjust the levels in Photoshop. It's the best I can do at this point... Glad you're liking the progress content, anyway!

As for progress, I got a little done last weekend, but nothing to write home about. I spent this Saturday at the office- the pilot's office, that is! So far, just the cockpit floor, bulkhead and one little sidewall bit are left from the kit parts. I've used all the Eduard bits and some of the better parts from from the True Details set. Here's an early shot of the starboard sidewall. Note the soldered brass legs for the control quadrant, the solder hydraulic lines for the wobble pump ready for placement- and the repair to the goofed-up PE quadrant. Oh, well- ya mess up these little bits once] in a while... :blink:

I added a guage seen in a photograph. The True Details version was kind of lumpy so I made my own. The wire is stripped from an old bit of electric cable.

Eduard provided this bracket, but I made the crank that goes through it. I drilled tiny holes in styrene and then punch out the discs for the knob and support spacer.

Here's an annotated view of the sidewall listing all the scratchbuilt (and repaired) pieces.

Likewise, a breakdown of the True Details elements.

Let's see it without all that yammering:

There's lots of pre-colored and printed PE to go in, but that will have to wait until after painting....

Every office needs a comfy chair, and True Details wins out here- check out the comparison with the kit chair. I like seat belts as they're molded here.

Eduard adds this uber-nifty set of pulleys and bungees for the adjustment mechanism. I love this stuff!

[BjornB17]

looks great, i cant wait to build mine!

[ron]

Just a jaw drop, that all. :D

[Blackcollar]

This an outstanding build, keep it up, I'm on the edge...

-Al

[Aggressor Supporter]

Amazing level of detail! Keep up the good work.

[chukw]

Thanks for the support, fellas!

I'm truly thankful- for four days off this week! My Thanksgiving holiday gave me plenty of time to get down to work. I always study my ref before tackling a sub-assembly and noticed that the kit rear canopy opening was just plain wrong. Curses! The rails need to be fixed and the opening re-shaped. I've already glued a bit of styrene into the gap to shorten it up.

I cut a new opening, matching it to the PE inner rail and photographic ref. That notch is abit deep and got a styrene bit to fix it. Also note the block in place to level out the rail.

The inner rail is supported by a shelf. You can see a punch-disc pulley in the cut-out.

Here's the finished bit. Inner and outer rails have been added, the handgrip and circular port filled and rescribed.

A much more accurate set of rails for a late-model Beast. The compulsive nerd in me can now sleep at night...

[chukw]

While I'm railing on- how about the gunner's footrail? The kit's is pretty basic, and that oxygen bottle has to make way for sweet, sweet resin....

Styrene rod to the rescue!

Now I could finally move on to the rear sidewalls- I'm working on the starboard side first. I mixed bits of the kit sidewall, the True Details O2 bottle, styrene, wire and solder.

A broken guitar string serves as the oxygen hose. I heated it red hot in a gas flame and let it cool slowly to anneal it and make it pliable. That white circle is a styrene disc filling an ejector pin depression.

The True Details radio boxes are more square than the kit examples. Each box and rail is a separate piece and need to be glued, drilled and pegged. I used copper wire for that, clipping the excess off after the glue had set.

The TD parts have a lot of character- it's a shame I've got to scrape it off to make way for the Eduard printed faces- they can't be beat!

I started to replace the upper rack with a simple shelf, but photo ref revealed a much more interesting rack. As I'm building -4E model I'll have to scratchbuild the APNS radar set and it's components to mount here

The radio is seen temporarily in place- it's a busy little station!

The space behind the radios was wide open- I can't bring myself to hide it behind the kit "bulkhead". There's a rollover pylon, fuel tank and lot's of cool piping. I could open up some inspection hatches... do you dare me?

[moeggo]

ooooooh, I TRIPLE DARE YOU!!!!!! :D

Outstanding work so far! I'm sitting waiting for you next post!

[Anthony in NZ]

I quadrouple dare you!!

I am like Dave.......on the edge of my seat waiting for the next installment. Nice work mate! Learning lots........most of all, not to be scared to cut things up.

Cheers

Anthony

[Icchan]

I triple-dog-dare and if you DON'T put a fuel tank in you gotta stick your tongue to a pole and post pics.

Hehehe, that said, BRILLIANT idea on the guitar string. Oxygen hoses and such, all of that makes things perfect. I do like the creativity and scroungeability.

[mycole]

fantastic thread! love the double-triple-quadruple dog dare!! DO IT!!

[martin_sam_2000]

great looking build youve got going. I cant wait to see what this looks like when it is finished. these in progress pics really help me(and im sure others) see how some of this great detail is built. some great ideas for my own scratch building toolbox

sean

by the way...build the fuel tank!!!

[chukw]

Peer pressure! Peer pressure! :lol:

So, here goes- I cut away the bulkhead, thinned the sides (sooooooo boring!), filled the ejector pin marks, thinned the sides some more and cut away the access panels. Not all -4's had the upper panel, but I figured screw it! I want this work to be seen. Next came the fun stuff- building up the inner ribbing. Aaaah- modeling heaven!

I began building from the front of the compartment- here are the two front legs of the turnover pylon and the pilot's armor panel. Details from bits of strip stock and sliced sprue, just like our armor-building brethren. See the notes for various details- and pitfalls!

The ribbing on the other side was a bit more challenging with the various subcomponents already in place. Not crushing things is always priority one! I glued the front assembly in and added one of the rear braces. Note that I've gotten those rivets installed correctly at last. :D

The fourth leg was carefully added- I did some test-fitting with the other fuselage half in place before gluing.

The radio is set in place temporarily to assess the size of the pylons. I'm doing this by the Mk I Eyeball method.

I did some caliper measurements on the space between the pylon legs, drew up some paper patterns and cut the endcaps of the tank from styrene. These in turn were glues to a small block of balsa wood. The tank is, lengthwise, flat along the top but sloped on the bottom, so these endcaps are differently-sized.

With a sanding block I carved the tank to shape- it was pretty easy, as the endcaps set the shape. I got the to and bottom angles right, but the tank was too long. Well, it's easier to take material away than add it... ;)

Using my trusty calipers I scribed a line around the rear end of the tank, held my breath and cut it off. Success! From here it was a simple trick to glue it a scrap of styrene and trim that down to match the balsa profile. Whew!

I wrapped a bit of paper around the tank to create a rough pattern, then used it to cut a piece from .010 styrene. Wrapped, glued and trimmed to shape, it's starting to look like a fuel tank! There's more shaping to be done- I'll break out the Miliput for that. This photo shows how much more internal ribbing needs to be added- not much, but that's for later! ;D

Edited December 3, 2007 by chukw

[regevmo]

Good job on the fuel tank, it seems very accurate.

Waitng for more updates :-)

[parche]

Awesome build...great work...can't wait to see more.

Cheers,

Dave

[CorsairMan]

that bolt idea....

Thank you!

[Aggressor Supporter]

Wow!

[chukw]

Thanks a heap, fellas!

Man, the Christmas season has been keeping me busy! I got in only an hour or two last week, but was able to hit the bench some yesterday and today. First order was to add the rounded ends of the fuel tank from Milliput, smoothed out with a wet, sloppy finger. I usually hold the camera in my teeth for this kind of shot, but my wife helped out this time- thanks, Honey!

While harding for the putty to harden I whipped up some sub-assemblies and such. There's a big ring around the fuel filler cap, so that was first- here's how I did it:

Next came the filler neck itself. I was guessing at the length- it was later cut to fit.

The Helldiver's wing tanks were inked to the main tank by a series of beautifully bent, nesting lines. A template is the only sane way to do this, so I broke out the calipers, took some measurements off the rear rollover bar and drew a guide onto some cardboard. The various marks were used to bend the three differently-stepped lines. I used copper wire for the lines, and bent them using my Mission Models Etchmate. The template made it relatively easy.

One week later I got back to the tank itself. The Milliput sanded easily and to a beautiful surface.

[chukw]

All this from two old photos! The notes explain a lot, but patience was the main ingredient. I bent the three nesting lines first, then the feed lines from the tank itself. The auxiliary lines that run under the tank were last. The nested lines were glued first ( they run down into the wing roots and out of sight). Next the tank was wiggled into place and its lines added. lastly the auxiliary lines went in. The fuel filler cap was the cerry on the cake. :D

The radio got some love, too- but that's another story... :blink:

[Lock n' Load]

This is EPIC, the plumb work is amazing, so clean and accurate.

One question, kinda out of subject, but.. how much to these fantastic overly worked models weight when finished? can the landing gear handle all the details weight?

[geedubelyer]

:blink:

:o

:wacko:

:blink:

Crikey!! Superb work on that little lot. Since there is so much detail in there it makes me wonder why it was left out of the kit in the first place?

Do you solder the joints of the copper wire or use CA?

Thanks for the clear and concise explanations BTW. It really adds to the experience.

I for one, am really enjoying everything about this build.

:)

[moeggo]

OMG!!!!!!