davec

Beautiful work - congratulations on finishing!

Welfalck- again, many thanks. I have some small rotary cone bits, although I don't know about quality. I just had some surgery , so it will be about a month before I get back to my workshop. Will give it a try then. Looking forward to seeing if seating 30 4 mm tubes in the pin vice for using the rotary tool is easier or harder than holding them by hand and using a hand held drill. Dave

The tube segment that need deburring are .5 mm tube (.3 inner diameter) and are 4 mm long. Is there a rotary cone bit small enough? I can see using a rotary tool on the free end before cutting the segment, but any suggestions for holding the short tube to use a rotary bit on the second end once the segment is down to 4 mm? thanks!

Hi Rob - I think it was you who gave me the idea for using the bigger drill bit. I couldn't remember where I saw it or the specific size. I'll experiment with some other sizes, but am already really happy with the improvement with the size I am using. I made a jig for cutting the microtube: The horizontal slot is a few thousandths wider than the .5 mm microtube so it can roll while I am cutting with the scalpel. The scalpel fits in the vertical slot. The brass pin is 4mm from the scalpel cut. This gets me equal sized 4 mm tubes (I had a hard time getting them the same size when I was rolling them on the mat), is quick, and keeps the tube from flying away at the end of the cut. I think because the boxwood is a firmer backing than the mat, it gives me a little better cut. I don't have to do a ton of clean up, but the small amount makes a big difference in threading the line. I was planning to leave the sharp demarcation between the green insignia field and bordering camouflage. I don't have a good photo of the original airplane, but the Ronny Barr drawing shows it sharp. My best guess is that the field was painted over the camouflage, likely with a brush, so a sharp line feels right. The colors are awful bright which does give more contrast than it probably should have. I'm open to suggestions. I have so many things on this model that I'd like to cover over that I've given some thought to trying to weather it, although that's not something I usually do. Dave

I've added landing gear and rigging. I can't remember where on this site I read about using a .35 mm drill to clean the ends of the microtubing after passing a .3 mm drill through it, but I am very grateful to whoever suggested it. It turned threading the fishing line through the tube from almost impossible to just a little bit tedious. I also added the other pieces to the bottom of the plane. After knocking the upper wing loose a few times, the repetitive reattachment of the struts led to it being pretty crooked. I was able to break the glue joints where the struts met the fuselage and realign them. I'm hoping with a little touch up and clear flat the areas where they were reattached and the decals were disturbed won't be too distracting. The build has had a series of frustrations, but I'm glad I've kept working on it. It's beginning to look like an airplane and the color and camouflage overall effect is pretty good.

Windscreen, exhaust, and upper mid wing section added. This was the last part I anticipated problems with and it went OK. I'm glad I added the midsection before assembling the rest of the upper wing. It was a lot easier to manage aligning all the struts. When I took the picture I saw a band of exposed primer that I missed on the leading edge of the wing. I'll paint it the same color as the bottom of the wing. I just need to be really careful that the masking doesn't lift the decal.

She came out great! Congratulations on finishing!

Quality does sometimes come up on ebay. I watched for a while before the Grobet set I wanted came up for auction. It wasn't cheap, but it was a lot less than buying new.

Thanks everyone for the likes and the comments. I really appreciate them. Robert - next up is finishing the two projects I have on the bench (longboat and Halberstadt airplane). The Halberstadt is close. Once I finish the longboat, I will start the fully framed Echo that I have been planning for a few years. Thanks! Dave

The decal issues are touched up as well as I can do and I’m moving ahead to finish the model. I’ve added the kit decals, applied micro crystal clear to the lenses, done more touch up, attached the rudder and a few other parts, and sprayed everything clear flat. I also spent an evening twisting 40 eyelets for the rigging. The cartograph decals felt much different than the aviatic ones – much thicker and took longer to soak before they were workable. It was a lot easier to deal with the smaller decals.

I just wanted to second Druxey's escapement file recommendation. I bought a set on ebay for my model ships and they are one of my favorite and most frequently used tools. I use them on my plastic models all the time - they can get into places that sanding sticks and regular jeweler's files can't reach.

Wow - beautiful build! Congratulations on finishing!

Your planking looks great!!

I'm back at work on the Halberstadt. Things got delayed by holidays, finishing the Dory, and a city-wide water outage that lasted almost a week, but mostly by trying to figure out what to do with places where the primer showed through the decals. This happened in a few areas where I had trouble placing the decal like on the center upper wing or near the cowl, where I misaligned the placement: The area near the cowl was the worst. I tried a couple of things. Trying to cover with scrap decal worked poorly because the pattern did not line up and any place the decals overlapped caused a dark purple area. Trying to match the color with paint was even worse because even when I got close with the color, the pattern was way off. The thing that ended up working adequately was just brushing with neutral Tamiya X-22 grey which is used on a lot of the metal fittings. It isn't perfect, but I think it is adequate: The extreme closeup unfortunately highlights some decal flaws that fought the heat and decal softener and won. They are a lot less obvious without magnification. The good news was the modifications I made to the cowl when it didn't fit at the dry fitting stage all worked and it fit on nicely. The white area was decal misalignment, not an issue with the cowl. The decal on the other side fit perfectly. I aligned this side with the openings - the opening for the big nacelle looks aligned correctly, so not sure why I had the big gap when I glued the cowl on. Anyways, some additional assembly. Stabilizer and gun ring have been added. Most of the decal flaws and touch up start getting a lot less visible as the magnification drops. I think I will add the upper wing center section before attaching the upper wings. I think it will be easier to get all the struts aligned. I started painting the propeller and laying down some gloss for the rest of the decals.

I also really like the natural wood and think it would be a shame to hide the precise and careful planking. I had the same dilemma with my first ship and left it natural. Since then I've used different color woods to try to create a little bit of the impression of the painted ship without using paint.