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Well, all my intentions to build the Nimrod at the same time as the Sabre fell by the wayside. As did my building mojo when Covid struck. I couldn't face going into the shed, despite having all the time in the world. The adrenaline rush of having to achieve the maximum in the least amount of available time had gone.

Back in the shed and more importantly, downloading all the shots i'd taken of the build and uploading them here means I can crack on and, looking back, there's a few things I'd forgotten about. So here goes!

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Studying the plan for a few days gave me a good idea of the task ahead

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Fitting the wing jig together was a bit fiddly as some of the lugs didn't fit the holes...

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... managed to get it all together and flat over the plan.

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I spent a lovely hour in Costa with a note book working out how to produce the working airbrakes. Then decided not to bother. Dirk has done a masterful job.

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I discovered that I needed more clamps and more pins, substantially more pins!

The jettison able drop tanks would be mounted on permanent pylons as per the full size, so I strengthened the area of wing to support the pylon.

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Pins and weight secure the other wing plate while I got to work on the pylon mock-up and drop tank.

The pylon has a short locating tongue for stability, which slides into the wing tank.

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An aluminium lug, fixed to the tank locates into a pin in the wing through the pylon

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I think the pylons will work as underwing fences and keep the model on rails, but we'll see. The front edges of the tongues are rounded to minimise any snagging on landing and hopefully keep the underside of the wing off the scratchy bits of the Orme!

Edited By Bob Jennings 1 on 13/08/2020 23:07:31

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I decided the wing had had enough surgery already, so opted to use two centrally mounted servos with full length flappy bits that I could change the camber to slow it up. The servo for the drop tanks posed the next question as I wanted a straight run for the locating wire.

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The torque rods were easy enough to fit. This is clamping both wing halves together.

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Here is the straight run for the drop tank wires using a servo cut into the two central ribs. The wires will run in plastic tubes fitted through holes in the ribs and the shear webs. Yes, the servo lies between the aileron control rods.

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Here's the slot for the pylon. A plywood tongue is glued against the wing rib inside and the inner ply plate spreads the load.

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How to make the drop tanks light-ish to survive the bouncing across a welsh rock. A ply spine sandwiched by blue foam with some balsa formers seemed the way to go, covered in brown paper and PVA. They don't want to be too light or they may fly up and hit the tailplane. In the background you can see the two black plastic tubes for the actuating wires. I thought I had a better shot of this.

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The blue dust is nasty. Here you can see the aluminium lug and the slot for the pylon tongue.

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A lot of progress here showing the tidy set up of the drop tank servo. The actuating wires move freely in the tubes and a simple 'z' bend on the wires fits the horn. I wish I'd taken a shot of the top skin fitting, with all the weights and pins I used, I couldn't really see the wing while it dried!

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Setting the ailerons with Robart hinges makes for a nice snug fit. The drop tank protrudes just the right amount forward of the leading edge.

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Wings done, better start on the fuselage. What a cool fit! A sturdy structure comes together really quickly, but use a square on the formers to keep the 90 to the board. The long rule is for the cutting of many, many... many planks! Here's where the extra pins would have been useful (Thanks to John Hey who got me some at the Nat's)

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Far from perfect planking. lightweight filler hides a few sins. Don't plank all the way to the board as I did. You need some air to join the two halves together with clamps!!

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Sanding... lots of sanding, and more sanding. Then you slice through it to fit the wing. I got this so wrong that there was a huge gap on the top surface of the wing that needed re-fettling.

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Finally fitting the wing seat was satisfying.

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Moving onto the tail and the AMT mechanism caused me consternation a few weeks/months later when I discovered something wasn't quite right. It all looks fine here. I didn't check everything was absolutely square and should have epoxied the silver wire into the brass tube to stop it rattling.

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I had intended to make a working rudder, but didn't like the snake solution. I'll fix it permanently later.

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For the tailplane fairings I clamped the two pieces together and ran them up and down a Permagrit block together to get the shape.

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I got a really nice fit on these. I had to Dremel into these later (after I'd fibreglassed the fus) to re-set the tailplane rod!!!

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Reference really helps here and the Italieri 1/32 kit just happened to be lying around.

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Just because I can, I decided to try a small fillet along the entire edge of the wing seat to hide some of the mistakes in cutting and provide a line for the front fairing.

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I had to build up the front edge that didn't conform to the wing profile at the leading edge.

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Once that was sanded I put the front fairing in place to blend the wing into the fuselage. I also put another small fairing at the back edge of the wing seat. Just for practice.

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This took some work with a needle file while the wing was fitted to get the smooth blend. A little bit of P38 finished this off before glass.

Looking at Dirk's blog, I found his method of getting a secure fit for the canopy ingenious, so I built the same fence on the inside of the canopy line. Note, the balsa is chamfered to sit snug against the camber of the fuselage. More pins!

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The cockpit had me scratching my head at first but Italieri came to the rescue again.

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Lots of reference from the plastic kit. I needed a pilot, so a Freewing item was ordered and arrived in a few days. Not sure about the finger nail impression on the gloves! I'm assuming they are gloves...

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Cracking on with blocks and strips of balsa, plasticard and wire, progress on the back end of the cockpit was a breeze with a rough rendition of the MB bang-seat. It's all going to be obscured by the canopy to a degree so its more of an impression rather than perfect scale.

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For PSS this is enough detailing for me. I usually carve a pilot for my models, but this one was just right and a lot lighter than I could have produced. Needs a lick of paint though to fit my scheme.

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Again, looking at Dirk's blog, he had a good idea for localising and minimising the compression stresses of the wing bolts. This also shows how I've blended the trailing edge into the fuselage. Oh, I forgot to mention I glassed the fuselage at some point! The white is a mix of filler under the glass and an initial coat of primer to reveal and conceal any rough spots.

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The front edge of the wing seat with the blended fairing, thanks to balsa, P38 and a lot of sanding.

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I was amazed by Dirk's solution for his canopy, very tidy and professional. I had to think of a quick way of achieving a similar effect. Out with the thermal tape I used on my shiny spitfire. I masked the canopy first. Laid the silver tape down with a burnishing finger nail to show the masking tape underneath and ran a new scalpel blade along the edges.

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The canopy was one of the last purchases I made, luckily I got it from Vortex before the stock of acetate sheet was commandeered for PPE. I gave the cockpit and pilot a lick of paint to bring it to life. I devised a speculative aerobatic touch for the helmet, squadron badge and gloves. All photos I'd seen of the Hellenic Flame pilots showed they flew in green. Couldn't resist tarting up the shiny helmet and give him blue gloves.

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I spent ages prevaricating over the instrument panel. This was stopping me sealing up the cockpit and cracking on with the paint job. I had a suitable image but I haven't got a printer, and, with hindsight, the solution came out much more satisfying. From references I chose a simple layout of dials and buttons. Using a set of compasses with a clutch pencil I measured out the panel insert and divided the width to take the 6 dials with a 2mm space.

Once I had there technical bit sorted, I hand drew the instruments with a highlight on the top edge of the bezels to give the impression of top light and wear.

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Then added some acrylic paste to create the shiny surface. (Micro Krystal Klear that I use for plastic kits).

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The impression is just right to my eye. It saved me a bit of time and hassle. Plus it made sense to do it this way as I'm a bit arty-farty by trade.

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This means I can close up the cockpit and crack on!

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All sealed and secure. Innards won't be seen again for a while.

I twisted a small brass tube in places to represent smooth rivets on the canopy frame. Again, an impression of scale detail. I'm not going to count them, and I know I haven't allowed for the sliding portion of the canopy frame!

I used RC Modellers glue to create the bond and a thin line of epoxy on the front edge.

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The pencil lines are an indication of an idea I have for the panel lines as I did on my ME109. Thin lines of tape over the first cut back primer coat, then a final spray over the taped lines. This coat then gets cut back with fine finishing paper to reveal the tape surface. Peeling the tape off leaves a shallow groove in the primer. Its surprising how this catches the light once the top coat is on.

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Back to that tailplane! I had too much play in the set up so dived in with the Dremel to free up the brass tube. This needed tweaking for dihedral and I epoxied the joiner into the tube. Happy with the fix and its all squared up. I had a fettle of some Sabres at the Lleyn bash to get an idea of the feel of the tailplanes and they were solid compared to mine. I'd obviously not been thinking straight in the rush to get it done!

One thing that surprised me. I swapped the tailplane panels over and they fitted much better. At some point I must have muddled them up. (Over 55 now so some befuddlement is expected I suppose).

I did manage to get a nice sharp transition into the fuselage with a smooth blend into the fin with the tailplane fairings. A good session of sanding, filling and checking.

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That's it so far.

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