Scale Model Shop

**Greyhead** · 06 December 2008, 18:13

Andy

Glad everything is now working OK! I’m sure this will be an excellent build thread.

I know it’s said that “a picture paints a thousand words” but a written explanation of what each photo shows is always appreciated, remember we don’t have the benefit of seeing the plans or the instructions. But if you’ve not got the time to spend writing just keep the photos coming, they’re great!

Grahame

**Guest** · 06 December 2008, 18:46

Originally posted by \

AndyGlad everything is now working OK! I’m sure this will be an excellent build thread.

I know it’s said that “a picture paints a thousand words” but a written explanation of what each photo shows is always appreciated, remember we don’t have the benefit of seeing the plans or the instructions. But if you’ve not got the time to spend writing just keep the photos coming, they’re great!

Grahame

Thanks for the info. I did put a breif description on each file, i guess it doesnt show here. I will do something on the next upload. Thanks again for your help.

Andy

**Guest** · 07 December 2008, 18:01

Originally posted by \

Well gang, here we go with the build process pic. i have many now as i am about 6 week into it. At this point i will show you just a few and then upload more as time goes on if you are still interested.Andy

A breif insight for you gang. The first picture shows the general layout for the rear fin. The struts are glued to the leading edge and the trailing edge, then the skin is applied, we use glue called Zap and it is as good as its name. There is instant Zap and 2 Minute Zap. Zap is even stronger and faster than super glue... once both surfaces are connected thats it. This is why we use 2 minute Zap for areas that need a little fiddleing with. The fin rudder isnt cut away from the fin until the skin has been applied. This keeps everything in line, for this we use a Razor Saw, very fine and very good for tigh gaps. Before the ribs are fitted it is advised to pin the rails to a flat surface this will reduce the risk of any twisting in the fuse, once this is done the ribs are fitted to the rails and Zapped in place. Pic 6 shows the ribs, rails and part skin fitted. Ignore this pic it is a little in front, my next upload will show you exactly how we get to this stage. Stay tuned for the next episode.

Andy

Its time for the next update of the build process. As you can see the fuse is built in two halves, top & bottom. This is Razor back version a little more tricky to build than the Bubble top but i think you agree its a much better effect on the cockpit than just having a straight back slopeing fuse. The skins have to be wet to form the surve in tight areas but generally are fine to deal with. It may sound odd but the hardest part of building these planes is fitting the skins. I have just completed the bottom section that you will see soon and it took all day just to fit the 4 skins to it.

Andy

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**Guest** · 09 December 2008, 21:12

Originally posted by \

Well gang, here we go with the build process pic. i have many now as i am about 6 week into it. At this point i will show you just a few and then upload more as time goes on if you are still interested.Andy

A breif insight for you gang. The first picture shows the general layout for the rear fin. The struts are glued to the leading edge and the trailing edge, then the skin is applied, we use glue called Zap and it is as good as its name. There is instant Zap and 2 Minute Zap. Zap is even stronger and faster than super glue... once both surfaces are connected thats it. This is why we use 2 minute Zap for areas that need a little fiddleing with. The fin rudder isnt cut away from the fin until the skin has been applied. This keeps everything in line, for this we use a Razor Saw, very fine and very good for tigh gaps. Before the ribs are fitted it is advised to pin the rails to a flat surface this will reduce the risk of any twisting in the fuse, once this is done the ribs are fitted to the rails and Zapped in place. Pic 6 shows the ribs, rails and part skin fitted. Ignore this pic it is a little in front, my next upload will show you exactly how we get to this stage. Stay tuned for the next episode.

Andy

Its time again to let you see a little more of the old Jug. Here are the next stages of the build process. Hopefully it will be more interesting when we get to the scale detail stage. As you can see folks the upper canopy is complete and its now time to progress onto the lower section. All of the ribs sit nicely into place and form the base for the connection of the lower ribs, The fuel tank roof sits directly behind the .90 Four stroke engine. The wing support crutched are next to go in along with the fire wall and fuel tank floor. This is a tricky build section as you have to dry fit several parts and try to align them and make sure they fit before glueing them together. A shot through the fire wall shows how pefect this model is manufactured and the quality of the parts are second to none, exactly what you would expect from a TopFlite Gold Edition Build Kit. The final stage here is to fit all of the stringers rear of the wing bay before applying the lower skins. The front area is left until the mid wing section is constructed along with the section of fuse below the wings, This is to enable a better contour by applying the skins in one and then using the razor saw to cut out the removable wing section. Stay tuned folks.

Andy

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**Guest** · 09 December 2008, 22:41

Hi Andy,

Glad you got the pics posting problem sorted. That is a very impressive looking model there and very tidy work too. Certainly looks like she will be an awesome model when she is completed - especially at that size.

Keep the pics coming - looking forwards to seeing more

Regards..........Mark.

**Guest** · 10 December 2008, 20:29

Originally posted by \

Hi Andy,Glad you got the pics posting problem sorted. That is a very impressive looking model there and very tidy work too. Certainly looks like she will be an awesome model when she is completed - especially at that size.

Keep the pics coming - looking forwards to seeing more

Regards..........Mark.

Hi Mark,

Thanks for the comments, it is much appreciated as this is my first ever attempt to build a Plane since i was a little kid with the Airfix kit. There seemed to be a problem with me having high enough access level to upload any files. I dropped a line to the site admin and low and behold the next day it was sorted. Thanks for your help also in trying to get me sorted.

Andy

**Guest** · 11 December 2008, 21:07

Originally posted by \

Its time again to let you see a little more of the old Jug. Here are the next stages of the build process. Hopefully it will be more interesting when we get to the scale detail stage. As you can see folks the upper canopy is complete and its now time to progress onto the lower section. All of the ribs sit nicely into place and form the base for the connection of the lower ribs, The fuel tank roof sits directly behind the .90 Four stroke engine. The wing support crutched are next to go in along with the fire wall and fuel tank floor. This is a tricky build section as you have to dry fit several parts and try to align them and make sure they fit before glueing them together. A shot through the fire wall shows how pefect this model is manufactured and the quality of the parts are second to none, exactly what you would expect from a TopFlite Gold Edition Build Kit. The final stage here is to fit all of the stringers rear of the wing bay before applying the lower skins. The front area is left until the mid wing section is constructed along with the section of fuse below the wings, This is to enable a better contour by applying the skins in one and then using the razor saw to cut out the removable wing section. Stay tuned folks.Andy

Its time again to upload some more of the Thunderbolt. As you can see gang, all of the stringers are now complete and ready for the skin to go on. You will see a couple of pics of the rear wheel steer and rudder linkage along with the stab linkage. The Fire wall has now been installed and bonded tight with 30 min epoxy resin. This is best advised rather than using the standard glue, you would look quite an idiot when on the runway and you throttled up and your plane stood still as the engine took off down the strip.

Andy

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**Guest** · 14 December 2008, 20:34

Originally posted by \

Its time again to upload some more of the Thunderbolt. As you can see gang, all of the stringers are now complete and ready for the skin to go on. You will see a couple of pics of the rear wheel steer and rudder linkage along with the stab linkage. The Fire wall has now been installed and bonded tight with 30 min epoxy resin. This is best advised rather than using the standard glue, you would look quite an idiot when on the runway and you throttled up and your plane stood still as the engine took off down the strip.Andy

Hi Gang,

Its me again. Here is the latest installment of the Thunderbolt. This will almost complete the basic build of the fuse, almost ready for the glass covering. There is not much to explain here as you will see , its just a skin covering process with a little bit of filling here and there. The next episode will show you how the wings are constructed along with the fitting of the air driven retracts.

Andy

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**Guest** · 04 January 2009, 19:34

Originally posted by \

Hi Gang,Its me again. Here is the latest installment of the Thunderbolt. This will almost complete the basic build of the fuse, almost ready for the glass covering. There is not much to explain here as you will see , its just a skin covering process with a little bit of filling here and there. The next episode will show you how the wings are constructed along with the fitting of the air driven retracts.

Andy

Hi Gang, Happy New year to you all.

Well its been a slow process with the P47 for a couple of weeks. The model shop i use has had a lot of problems getting his delivery of landing gear from the states, he tells me it been some 9 months since he placed the order. Any way iw ent to collect the gear on Saturday and we still have problems. The retract units are ok (air) but the struts are too short and the off sets we tried will not accomodate the wheel diameter. So i have decided to jump the process some and started on the Cockpit detail. This i can thank some of you for for finding me the pics i needed. Anyway before we get to that i can show you the wing construction as far as i have it. The process can not proceede further until i have the landing gear sorted out. You will see from the plans that this is more complicated than it looks. The left wing is built over the right wing plan as it is an upside down veiw and visa versa for the right wing. Wow... what a stupid idea, if you dont be careful you could end up with 2 left wings. As you can see the wings are built in 2 halves and then joined later once the gear and all the servos etc are installed.

You will see a picture of Topflites Cockpit, this is purchased as an extra, well, i didnt think much of it so i set out to ask for some help with the pics, couldnt find any at all. Once obtained i set out to start to construct my own (scratch it). I have so far mangaged to build the left hand side but the components are not yet fitted as i need to weather the panel first. I will have this completed this week and will be able to show you. I think that you will agree that the scratch build was a good descision, shame i wasted 14 quid on the Topflite one.

I set to work on the throttle and bomb release quadrants and the the trim control and the power teke off box, finally the gun sight. All of this was made from Evergreen styrene and balsa. Take a look guys and feel free to comment, as you know i am a total beginer to all of this and would welcom coments and critisisums.

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**Guest** · 10 January 2009, 20:52

Originally posted by \

Hi Gang, Happy New year to you all.Well its been a slow process with the P47 for a couple of weeks. The model shop i use has had a lot of problems getting his delivery of landing gear from the states, he tells me it been some 9 months since he placed the order. Any way iw ent to collect the gear on Saturday and we still have problems. The retract units are ok (air) but the struts are too short and the off sets we tried will not accomodate the wheel diameter. So i have decided to jump the process some and started on the Cockpit detail. This i can thank some of you for for finding me the pics i needed. Anyway before we get to that i can show you the wing construction as far as i have it. The process can not proceede further until i have the landing gear sorted out. You will see from the plans that this is more complicated than it looks. The left wing is built over the right wing plan as it is an upside down veiw and visa versa for the right wing. Wow... what a stupid idea, if you dont be careful you could end up with 2 left wings. As you can see the wings are built in 2 halves and then joined later once the gear and all the servos etc are installed.

You will see a picture of Topflites Cockpit, this is purchased as an extra, well, i didnt think much of it so i set out to ask for some help with the pics, couldnt find any at all. Once obtained i set out to start to construct my own (scratch it). I have so far mangaged to build the left hand side but the components are not yet fitted as i need to weather the panel first. I will have this completed this week and will be able to show you. I think that you will agree that the scratch build was a good descision, shame i wasted 14 quid on the Topflite one.

I set to work on the throttle and bomb release quadrants and the the trim control and the power teke off box, finally the gun sight. All of this was made from Evergreen styrene and balsa. Take a look guys and feel free to comment, as you know i am a total beginer to all of this and would welcom coments and critisisums.

Hi Gang,

I promised you a look at the finnished cockpit panel. This is the left side of the cockpit. Still waiting for the retract issued to be resolved before i can carry on with the aircraft build. I'm looking for a Lathe at the moment. Cant keep relying on people who have no concept of urgency.

Andy

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**Guest** · 10 January 2009, 21:03

Hi Andy,

Looking good so far, I think you have done a cracking job with the cockpit fittings and controls so far - should look even better when they are fitted in place in the office.

I am enjoying watching this build very much, so keep the pics coming. I hope the supplies appear soon too as there is nothing more frustrating than being held up waiting for necessary bits.

Regards.......Mark.

**Guest** · 10 January 2009, 22:00

Originally posted by \

Hi Andy,Looking good so far, I think you have done a cracking job with the cockpit fittings and controls so far - should look even better when they are fitted in place in the office.

I am enjoying watching this build very much, so keep the pics coming. I hope the supplies appear soon too as there is nothing more frustrating than being held up waiting for necessary bits.

Regards.......Mark.

Hi Mark.

Thanks for the comments...really appreciated. Yes you wouldn't chuckle about the landing gear. Six weeks now i have been waiting for the parts and when i get them the struts are too short, so we decided to go for off set struts, then we find that the wheel diameter is too big. In the end we decided to revert back to the straight struts and machine some parts in the lathe to extend them to lenght. I phone up today chasing and got a "they should be done for next weekend" 2 weeks to turn somthing that would take all of 10 minutes to do. I thought sod this, i'm not going down this route again so i have just brought a new WARCO mini lathe of the net. Should have it Tuesday. When i have set it up i'll show you some pics.

Cheers

Andy

**Guest** · 18 January 2009, 20:52

Originally posted by \

Hi Mark.Thanks for the comments...really appreciated. Yes you wouldn't chuckle about the landing gear. Six weeks now i have been waiting for the parts and when i get them the struts are too short, so we decided to go for off set struts, then we find that the wheel diameter is too big. In the end we decided to revert back to the straight struts and machine some parts in the lathe to extend them to lenght. I phone up today chasing and got a "they should be done for next weekend" 2 weeks to turn somthing that would take all of 10 minutes to do. I thought sod this, i'm not going down this route again so i have just brought a new WARCO mini lathe of the net. Should have it Tuesday. When i have set it up i'll show you some pics.

Cheers

Andy

Well gang here we go again. After several weeks of waiting for landing gear and as many disapointments, we have managed to make some progress. I picked up the struts yesterday after having waited 2 weeks to have them extended as they were too short and set about fitting them into the wings. Guess what guys, they were wrong, the overall profile was too deep to fit in the space provided. I ponderd for a while and thought sod it. The ribs will have to go and the air retract units will have to be sunk deeper into the ribs. This means additional strengthening is required once the top skin has been applied. This isn't really a problem as i intend to fibre glass the undercarriage compartment and add the scale detail to it. The issue is here, that i may not be able to add the carriage doors due to the struts sticking out above the skin by a 16th. We will not know this for sure until the upper skin has been added and we can see where the wheel stops and meets the underside of the skin. Anyway, i have now moved on a few steps today and have the wings joined together. We should now be able to carry on with the build so you should see some frequent downloads from here on in. From the pictures below you will see clearly the problem that i met when adding the gear. Also the wings joined together with 30minute epoxy, glad it wasn't 5mins. Whilst waiting for the landing gear i managed to finish 95% of the cockpit deatail so my time wasn't totaly waisted. A couple of these you have seen but i thought that i would take a better pic for you. You will also see the gun sight that i made and my latest addition to the family.... my new lathe. No more waiting for people to do the job for me. I can now do it myself in a 100,000th of the time. With some help from Bogs and his mate John guiding me in the way of explaining what additional tooling i need to carryout what job i'm doing. I know, any idiot can use a lathe, it only turn round bars and a cutter travels up and down. Wrong, thats what i thought and then i thought i need to buy a Mill to produce square and triangular weird sort of scale things.... then Bogs tells me you can acutualy do this with a lathe if you buy the right attachments. So he is helping me at the moment and who knows in 6 months time i might know a minute fraction that he knows but will be able to produce some stuff. So if some of you out there are desperate for a small part and are desperate enough to ask me, i might be able to do you a favour. I promise that i wont take 14 bloody days to do a 20 minute job.

Andy:smoking:

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**Guest** · 24 January 2009, 20:32

Originally posted by \

Well gang here we go again. After several weeks of waiting for landing gear and as many disapointments, we have managed to make some progress. I picked up the struts yesterday after having waited 2 weeks to have them extended as they were too short and set about fitting them into the wings. Guess what guys, they were wrong, the overall profile was too deep to fit in the space provided. I ponderd for a while and thought sod it. The ribs will have to go and the air retract units will have to be sunk deeper into the ribs. This means additional strengthening is required once the top skin has been applied. This isn't really a problem as i intend to fibre glass the undercarriage compartment and add the scale detail to it. The issue is here, that i may not be able to add the carriage doors due to the struts sticking out above the skin by a 16th. We will not know this for sure until the upper skin has been added and we can see where the wheel stops and meets the underside of the skin. Anyway, i have now moved on a few steps today and have the wings joined together. We should now be able to carry on with the build so you should see some frequent downloads from here on in. From the pictures below you will see clearly the problem that i met when adding the gear. Also the wings joined together with 30minute epoxy, glad it wasn't 5mins. Whilst waiting for the landing gear i managed to finish 95% of the cockpit deatail so my time wasn't totaly waisted. A couple of these you have seen but i thought that i would take a better pic for you. You will also see the gun sight that i made and my latest addition to the family.... my new lathe. No more waiting for people to do the job for me. I can now do it myself in a 100,000th of the time. With some help from Bogs and his mate John guiding me in the way of explaining what additional tooling i need to carryout what job i'm doing. I know, any idiot can use a lathe, it only turn round bars and a cutter travels up and down. Wrong, thats what i thought and then i thought i need to buy a Mill to produce square and triangular weird sort of scale things.... then Bogs tells me you can acutualy do this with a lathe if you buy the right attachments. So he is helping me at the moment and who knows in 6 months time i might know a minute fraction that he knows but will be able to produce some stuff. So if some of you out there are desperate for a small part and are desperate enough to ask me, i might be able to do you a favour. I promise that i wont take 14 bloody days to do a 20 minute job.Andy:smoking:

Hi Gang,

Back again. Well having got over the landing gear issues ( i hope ) we have been able to progress a little further with the build. It should get a bit more exiting from here, with a lot of things going on. From this issue of pictures you will see that we have started to trial fit the landing gear, struts and retracts. Once happy we can commence to skin the underside of the wings. Once complete its time to assemble some linkages and install servos. Hatches are made to provide access to the servos once the skins have been complete. We will be fibre glassing this model so a fit at this point will be removed before glassing. You will see that the linkages have to be cut to length and then the ferrels have to be soldered to the rod. The servo spigot has to be screwed onto the rod once it is in the wing so as to get the exact length from the ball link to the bell crank of the ailrons.

Andy

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Scale Model Shop

P-47 Thunderbolt 1/8th construction

P-47 Thunderbolt 1/8th construction

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