thibaultron

Don't rush. Your body will let you know when you're good to go.

The coloring on this kit is really very good, and I agree that the plane has pleasing lines -- unlike, say, the SB2C, which I also have in my stash. I like the early-war light blue over gray scheme, and I already had suitable edge coloring paints left over from my F4F-4 build. The blue just needed a little lightening. The 30-pen set I purchased earlier from AK included a shade called "deck tan" which is a pretty close match for the underside gray of this kit.

Chris, this is superb. And what a treat to not have to paint: I find that to be the most difficult (for me) in building a model.
I truly love the look and proportions of that Vindicator, done in an era where planes were designed to really fly and not just be a cockpit pushed by big engines (basically a rock when the engine shut down).
 
Yves

Looking Super Chris.
 
OC.

Empennage is complete.
 

 
Work has started on the engine.

And now with elevators.
 

Horizontal stabilizer added. The framing went together lickety-split, followed by some thin CA to stiffen the structure and a little sanding to get the outboard taper correct.
 

Brilliant! from the upper side, although it seems you have some reservations, I couldn't notice big blemishes. Now rereading your text, perhaps you mean that the edge of the fillet panel doesn't run side-by-side with the edge of the black anti-slip strip. But that is hardly noticeable for one that doesn't know all the fine details of the build.
So, I can say it is a good save.
Dan

Oh, it's done already. Did you not notice? Good! 🙂

Good luck with the modification. The work so far is very nice.
Best regards,
Dan

Somewhere along the way, I picked up a little bit of error creep, with the result being that the starboard dorsal fillet didn't line up well with the ventral part of the fillet, producing a large-ish gap.
 

 
The fix for this included surgically removing the fillet from the ventral skin, cutting off its joiner tabs, and moving it over slightly before reattaching. The seam still didn't end up being very good on the top side, but it will have to do.
 

One down, one to go -- port fillet is done. Fillets are always tricky to do because they curve and bend in multiple directions. Parts for the starboard fillet are shown for comparison.
 

It is a big bird, for sure. Superb construction as always.
 
Yves

Wingtips finished, ailerons built and attached, and wing mated to fuselage.
 

I love whatever subject I happen to be working on at the moment. 🙂
 
 
That is just the artwork, which is very good. One interesting feature of the kit is that the fuselage bulkhead that goes where the fuselage on the real aircraft transitions from all-metal to fabric-covered tubing is actually a polyhedral; that way, if the modeler chooses, he can emboss the printed 'tubing' on the aft fuselage skin and get a more realistic fuselage shape. That is rather beyond my skills. Plus, once that bulkhead gets beveled it is more or less oval -- at least in my experience.

Sometimes I think you love card-planes better than card-ships.
Is the pattern of the ribs just rendering, ordid you do something to enhance it?
 
Jan

I started adding the wingtips, left wing first, but had quite a bit of trouble getting the tip pieces to close correctly. It dawned on me that there was no interior framing here, as there is in some kits. It's possible I simply overlooked them somewhere, but I don't think I did. In any case, I decided to make a couple of such pieces from scratch.
 

 
The left tip is not closed up at this point, so I can still get the framing piece in there. The hardest part of making the framing was getting the left and right versions correct. I already knew in advance that the two pieces are mirror images of each other, but inadvertently made two right wing pieces anyway. Had to make a third piece to get the correct left wing version. 😑

Thanks guys…feeling much better…maybe tomorrow I will reopen.  
 
Still exhausted though.

Chuck first; us buying stuff from you second. Take the time to rest and recover, Chuck!!
 
John

Chuck
you have always been there for all of us and we need for you to take care of yourself first. Rest, recover, relax!!

I finished the drawings for the Commonwealth Pattern cannons from 1650 to the end of Charles II's reign.
 
The original pattern was developed during the Commonwealth control 1640 to 49, and originally featured their cypher. When Charles came to power those cyphers were removed from the existing cannons, leaving cannons with plain barrels.
 
These drawings feature the plain barrels and those with Charles' cyphers.
 
I still need to go through and create the STL files, and the graphics for each cannon, as well as updating the spreadsheet to include them. So it will be a couple of weeks before I publish them.
 
I hope to add these to the NRG Resource page.
 
Overhead and perspective views with the original 2D drawing at the top. The 2D drawing mistakenly shows the Tutor Rose as the correct cypher.
 


A closeup of one of the larger caliber guns showing both types of barrels. Note: that the drawing shows them 12X size this is how I typically scale the drawings to be able to get the fine details, as SketchUp is designed for architecture and has a 1/32" minimum drawing unit (at least my 2017 version). For these drawings I had to go with 144X due to the small "pearls" in the crown.
 
When I create and verify the STL files, I rescale to 1:1 in the verification program.
 


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

On a note about the above post. The Commonwealth Pattern cannons came in three major "favors". With the Commonwealth Cypher, a plain barrel (After King Charles reign started, the Commonwealth cypher were filed off any existing cannons), and with the Charles II cypher cast on. I have the defaced, plain, barrels drawn, already.
 
I will not be doing the Commonwealth cypher for this set. The cyphers take a long time to get right, and I have many projects on my plate, so drawing a cypher that only spanned 10 years is more than I want to take on. The same applies for any cannons cast after Charles reign, if the cypher pattern was changed.

Finished the files for the cannons on HMS Tiger ca. 1650 to 1690. I'm not sure just when this set of cannons were carried. The cannons are from illustrations in the book "The Master Shipwright's Secrets".  Three of the cannons in the pictures had no cypher, so that is how I drew them.
 
These drawings were requested by a forum member.
 
6 Foot 6 Inch Saker 6 Pounder
 

6 Foot 6 Inch Saker 6 Pounder Full Size_2166_14mm.stl
 
 
7 foot Saker 6 Pounder
 

7 Foot Saker 6 Pounder_Full Size_2436_94mm.stl
 
9 Foot 3 Inch Saker 6 Pounder
 

9 Foot 3 Inch Saker 6 Pounder Full Size_3050_38mm.stl
 
 
9 Foot Demi-Culvern 12 Pounder This was shown with the Tudor Rose cypher.
 

 
9 Foot Demi_Culveren 12 Pounder Full Size_2945_34mm.stl
 
Rupertino Saker Cutt 6 Pounder. This cannon is based on a cut down cannon. They shortened cannons from a previous design whose muzzles had cracked, for the original Cutt cannons, liked the performance, and cast new cannons to this length with a muzzle flair. This cannon has the King Charles II cypher.
 
 

Rupertino_Saker_Cutt 6 Pounder Full Size_1716_09mm.stl
 
 
Though I can't promise when, I have already drawn the Commonwealth Pattern cannon barrels, and will be posting them after I've added the Charles II cyphers. This cypher gave me a lot of trouble, and takes a while to "weld" to the 3D barrels.
 
 
 

Here is the first of the Commonwealth cannon barrels. This is the 32 Pounder 108 barrel. I'm going to draw all the barrels I have 2D drawings for, initially, with no cyphers. The earlier cannons had the "Arms Of The Commonwealth" cypher on them, then when Charles II retook the throne, these were removed Filed off), leaving no cypher. Cannons cast during his reign had his cypher cast on.
 
I will draw that "Commonwealth" and Charles "Tudor Rose" cypers after I've finished all the barrels.
 
Yes the trunnions are too long. I did this on purpose, after doing a couple of barrels for Chuck, last year. He leaves his long, so that modelers can then trim them to match the carriages they build, which might end up a little wider than a "Perfectly Scale" width. Easy to do for small scale models. When installed the ends can be trimmed to match the model carriage.
 

I finished the baggage shed drawings for the Boron Station.
 
I started with the only two photographs I could find. One is a color photo of two sides of the shed, as of about 1995. The other is a picture out of the magazine I found the drawings in.
 
Here is the color photo I found showing one end and the side with the sliding door. I heavily adjusted the original to highlight the battens so I could scale for the drawings. The battens are spaced 12 inches apart. The door is shown at the righthand side of the picture. The exposed door framing resembled that for a sliding shed door. This framing would originally be on the inside. I think the door used to have the standard tongue and grove siding when built in 1912. As time went on the siding started to decay, and they nailed a piece of plywood on the inside to strengthen it. By 1995, all the siding had decayed leaving the exposed framing shown in the photo. I CADed the door as having the original style siding. The shed was drawn as being 12 X 16 feet, as indicated by the battens, and I made the door opening the standard 82-inch height of a shed door. The door opening measures out at 30 inches, which is narrow for a standard shed door, but I went with the shown width.
 

 
Here is the picture from the article, showing just a little of the opposite end on the station side. The portion of the window that is visible, shows that it is in the same position as the one on the side shown in the color photo, and that the pane was originally a 6 pane 2 vertical x 3 horizontal sash, like the ones on the station.
 

 
I left the rear wall plain with no doors or windows. That seems correct for a building like this baggage shed.
 
Here are two colored drawings of the shed, showing all four walls. Note that the photos showed exposed rafter ends. This was also typical of the standard Santa Fe shed designs.
 

 

 
These next two graphics show the station and shed; in the general configuration they were in when at the Boron spur area. The red and black tiles/linoleum floor shown in the station, was what the station drawings showed. The graphics show the building as seen from the tracks.

 

 
This last graphic shows the underside of the roof with the rafter ends.
 

 
Now that I finished these drawings, I’m going back to CADing cannons, this time the British Commonwealth Pattern ones, from the mid to later 1600s.