Bluebird & Other Scale Models

[midlife]

Been busy, made a hand held hot wire foam cutter and....





There's plenty of sanding to do & a coat of body filler before I hit it with the fibreglass.
So now I'm waiting for glue to set & I've run out of blue foam, deep joy
Cheers
Wayne


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[midlife]

Came out of work early & got some more blue foam[.][.]


Just on with making a fixture so I can cut the sponson profiles.

Cheers
Wayne


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[Richie]

Looking good Wayne

Now to be accurate sponsons you need to toil over them for 18 months until you get a tolerance of 1mm...you know when you are there as you will have entered some kind of altered state

[midlife]

Thanks Richie, you've got to remember that it's only 1/4 scale, I'm sure it will be at least 4 1/2 months until I'm happy[.]
The glues I'm using have had me in an altered state for months lol
Cheers
Wayne


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[Richie]

Hahaha yes I bet !

The workshop uses isopropanol to remove chocky sauce or assist with any die grinding that we do... I recall leaving the workshop on a number of occasions somewhat light headed having spent seven hours inside the hull with the covers on, riveting them up cleaning down with isopropanol as we went

It's all good fun

[Renegadenemo]

That was something that gave Bill no end of entertainment- getting the new skins to go from a flat to a curve!

Flippety-blinking right! In the first instance we couldn't get a piece for the new top skin out of a 2x1m sheet. Of course, sheets are supposed to be 8x4ft but for no good reason they've been shrunk so job-one was to weld a strip to the end of one to make it big enough. Flat is by far the hardest shape to make so that was the first trial. then the panel is mostly a double curve so that had to be wheeled (and you can't wheel some of a panel) until the fit-up over the formers was good but immediately above the headrest it had to be flat again because there was originally a hinge in there for the flip-up canopy and you can't have a curved hinge line. It was easy enough to gather the edge up with the shrinker to get it straight but that left a crown behind the gathered edge that then had to be shrunk out. It was a deep shrink going back about a foot into the panel and making it blend into the shapes was properly difficult. Almost as bad as sponson tops that go from flat on the inside face to double curves over the top then to a single curve on the outside. I'd have some good questions for that Norris bloke if I could get him on the phone these days!

[midlife]

Hehe Bill, you could contact him via a medium, now that would be a rollicking that'd be worth a listen!
I hope that if I'm a good boy you'll let me have a drive over to see her in the flesh one day before I start the filling/sanding process, as you know every pic from a different angle looks completely different & going back through the archives there are very few pics that are square on, just about every pic is taken from a jaunty angle.
Cheers
Wayne


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[midlife]

Isopropanol, trike & cellulose thinners are my faves Richie[.]


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[midlife]

Hi Mike, I've a looong way to go before I can start filling & sanding in the detail. To operate the linear rack that will open/close the canopy I've had to buy an Ardunio, programming that will be a learning experience. The only positive is that I'll be able to animate my DMC.
Cheers
Wayne


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[Piston Broke]

Hi Mike, I've a looong way to go before I can start filling & sanding in the detail. To operate the linear rack that will open/close the canopy I've had to buy an Ardunio, programming that will be a learning experience. The only positive is that I'll be able to animate my DMC.
Cheers
Wayne
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Those actuators are simple to program if you have the associated driver board. Are you going to control it via your RC transmitter ?
If you look up Brainy Bits on you tube he has tutorials using a rc controller to control a pan and tilt camera that could be modified to control you acctuator

https://brainy-bits.com/blogs/tutorials ... an-arduino