James H

To those who HAVE posted, the issue is with the content provider, not the journal. It would seem to be intermittent. For example, I've logged in first time, with no delay. When an issue is made 'subscription only', it's one click which does this for the entire membership, so it's not an individual thing I need to do for each single member. Please be patient with this as we simply can't control any issues with the content provider.

That looks insanely good!

Video coming very soon.

Conclusion Out of all the engines I've built so far, this is by far one of the easiest in terms of design and accessibility for the various fasteners that inevitably go into awkward places. I do think I'd have liked the LEDs to have been a little brighter, but they do show up well in subdued light. If helicopters are your thing, then this is most definitely one to add to the collection, especially anyone who liked the Black Hawk. Great kit, easy assembly, and very rewarding. My sincere thanks to EngineDIY for the sample you see here on MSW. To buy direct, click the link at the top of the article.

T-700 Turboshaft Engine - Teching EngineDIY Available from EngineDIY for $499.99USD The General Electric T700 family are turboshaft and turboprop engines in the 1,500–3,000 shp (1,100–2,200 kW) class. The T700 was initially bench-tested in 1973, passed military qualification in 1976, and went into production in 1978. The initial "T700-GE-700" is an un-geared free-turbine turboshaft, with a five-stage axial / one-stage centrifugal mixed-flow compressor, featuring one-piece "blisk" axial stages, with the inlet guide vanes and first two stator stages variable; an annular combustion chamber with central fuel injection to improve combustion and reduce smoke; a two-stage compressor turbine; and a two-stage free power turbine with tip-shrouded blades. The engine is designed for high reliability, featuring an inlet particle separator designed to spin out dirt, sand, and dust. The T700-GE-700 is rated at 1,622 shp (1,210 kW) intermediate power. The T700-GE-700 was followed by improved and uprated Army engine variants for the UH-60 Black Hawk and the AH-64 Apache helicopters, as well as marinized naval engine variants for the SH-60 Seahawk derivative of the Black Hawk, the SH-2G Seasprite, and the Bell AH-1W Supercobra. T700s are also used on Italian and commercial variants of the Agusta-Westland EH101/AW101 helicopter, and Italian variants of the NHIndustries NH90 helicopter. These are all twin-engine machines, except for the three-engined EH101. Abridged from Wikipedia The kit This kit is beautifully presented in a tough box with numerous images of the finished engine. This one is rated at 4 star with regard to complexity, and contains around 470 parts, inclusive of the various bolts, nuts and washers. Not quite sure how the star rating works, but this one was very straightforward to build, so all is good! Under the lid, the first thing you see is a nice, full colour, 88 page manual, with every stage presented in colour CAD format and easy to understand text. A full colour parts index is also included, although that's more for checking individual parts, which the main instructions do very well anyway. The parts trays are protected under a thin sheet of clear acrylic. Three parts trays are included, in semi-rigid foam, holding the parts securely in place. The first try shown underneath, also has two containers which contain all of the screws, bearings, specialised fittings, nuts, etc. The parts are clearly identified from a list in each lid. Building the base As with many of these aero engines, the T-700 requires a base unit from where it will be controlled. Unlike the others though, the modeller gets to build this one from components. Here you see the cast shell, control board, dual lithium batteries, the speed controller and also the various port connections. Also seen here are some tools supplied to start work on this kit. The base unit is very straightforward and it's seems very unlikely that anyone could go wrong with this assembly. When the components are fitted, a small plate holds everything in situ. Engine construction From here, I'll merely show the various assemblies being constructed, and you can follow along. Where appropriate, I've used lithium grease for things like gears. The bearings don't need any lubricant.

Pruned. Please keep on topic.

Doing some planking BEFORE fairing? Looking real good. Watching with interest.

Nope. Not one single issue out of more than a dozen I’ve built.

The compound curves in that fuselage look absolutely perfect. I'd love to be able to do stuff like this.

Pavel has sent me a new set of images, showing flags and sails. He says the kit release is imminent.

This is your answer, from Amazon. I use it all the time when working.

Here's a new set of photos of the prototype. Enjoy!

Welcome to our friendly little corner of the interwebz!

Shhhh, I told you not to tell anyone 😉

Lovely work, Glenn. Real nice to see how this is progressing.

I used to use it for second planking when I first started building, and built many ships, both large and small, with it. The glue I used was Dunlop Thixofix. It absolutely stunk and you had to have a good method to apply so it didn't leave any excess or blobs.

Outstanding!

Here's the latest set of photos, giving you more of an overall idea of the finished model.

It's Pavel's own set.

There's just too many of them to contemplate anything other than a black material. That'd need to be resin, and I'd need several thousand of them. I think it's a pass on this now. I'll just build and stain as out of box as I've HMS Surprise starting in the not too distant future.

That's simply a technique that the designer used to ensure the stresses in the parts were catered to. If the planks had been single parts, they may well have split as you pulled them into alignment. It's the next best thing to having to steam those things into shape.

Work has been progressing painfully slowly, but I'm in no rush. Since my last update, the work has involved fitting the last three plank runs (10, 11, 12), adding patina and stain, and doing a lot of test fitting. The first job is the patina on the bulkhead deck beams/ears. 1/900 is first sprayed over these and then sanded back about 80%+. Next, stain 7121 is applied and then sanded. You can't really tell much contrast here, but it will be evident when the deck sections are down. One note, don't be stupid like me....do all this BEFORE adding plank run #10. I didn't, and needed to mask all spaces between ears, and then again when I masked the ears so I could paint those spaces. Two days of mind-numbing masking 😆 The temporary bow and prow curved parts are now removed and the laser carved sections fitted. This also included the other carved parts. All a bit of a jigsaw, but it fitted superbly. The inboard curved section on the inner bow and prow, needed to be soaked and bent slightly so match the concave area it had to be fitted to. Plank runs #11 and #12 are now treated with 1/900 patina, sanded, and then stained with #7013. The multipart plank runs are now carefully glued into position. You'll see here that I still need to shape the prow and stern into the scrolls that sit atop each. Here you will also see the rudder position that is a part of plank run #12, with a few extra parts fitted. Lastly, those deck sections are NOT glued down. They need patina and stain to be applied first. They are also slightly bowed as they're individual parts. They will sit nice and flat when glued though.

Pavel has kindly sent me some extra photos of this kit development. I'm told this will be released close to the end of May, give or take.

Nice to see you're importing OcCre to North America. Welcome to MSW!