I thought I had been cured...

[Gondor]

I thought I had been cured of my resin addiction...

I recently bought a couple of boxes from @scautomoton. One is a complete kit, and the other is a conversion set.



The subject of this build is the conversion kit, the English Electric P.8 which Stuart has just made available for purchase. Please contact him if you wish to get hold of one, the same goes for the kit of the AW. 169.

Stuart has done a great job with this. The box is to a high standard with a nice, clear picture of the subject on the box lid.



The inside of the box is stuffed with parts, along with a comprehensive set of instructions.







There are three bags containing all the conversion bits; an Airfix Lightning is required to give up a few parts as specified in the instructions.



The fuselage is in three parts



With the nose ring being exceptionally fine



The rest of the parts look just as fine in their detail.



I intend to use decals by Model Alliance Decals from set MA-72134 for the Leuchers Training Facilities Flight, which are no longer available.

Progress will be slow at first as I need to prepare the parts and carefully read the instructions. If you have ordered one of these conversions and it is on its way to you, there is a typo in the list of Required Parts. The Compressor is not part B3, it is part B22. Stuart is aware of the mistake, so any set that has not been set should receive a corrected set of instructions.

Gondor

[Gondor]

With a slight mix of "Ohh shiny" and just wanting to test fit some of the parts together, I have now started this build.

The three fuselage parts fit together very nicely indeed. As with any 3D model, there are loads of supports that need to be cut away. Stuart has done his best to minimise any that get "in the way" of separating the majority of the supports.

So far, I have only had to clean up where the supports contact the parts and the locating pins which help align the fuselage sections. The outsides of the intake trunking require a little sanding so it is easier to fit into the forward fuselage part. The seam between the two rear parts almost disappears when they are fitted together.

More tomorrow, as I have given the parts I have separated and cleaned up a light wash to remove dust and my fingerprints.

Gondor

[jcf]

Well, the AW.169 does look like a hypodermic.

[sandiego89]

Wow those do indeed look like crisp castings!  Impressive.

[Gondor]

Not much has been done during the last week due to life getting in the way, however, this conversion set is a dream. I decided to modify the wings as per the instructions. The wing tip, helpfully, not only requires removal at a panel line, but that panel line is also where the wing tip is fully moulded as part of the upper wing half, which makes it so much easier when cutting the tip away from the wing as it acts as a guide. This is also the first time that I have glued a set of lightning main undercarriage doors in the closed position on a modern Airfix Lightning wing, they fit very nicely. Talking of fitting nicely, the wings fit nicely into the centre fuselage part.





The upper picture is from the top, and the lower picture is of the underside. Simply a friction fit of the upper and lower parts of the wings together and into the fuselage.

Gondor

[scautomoton]

Wow those do indeed look like crisp castings!  Impressive.

The joy of high resolution resin printing, pixel size is 0.018x0.024mm. Any inaccuracy tends to either be in the conversion from the Fusion 360 file type to a .stl, or due to movement of the part during printing (big cross-sectional area changes can leave bands/grooves etc).

The upper picture is from the top, and the lower picture is of the underside. Simply a friction fit of the upper and lower parts of the wings together and into the fuselage. 

I spent a while getting the fit correct. I hate filling wing-to-body gaps. I want to be able to just paint some Mr. Surfacer in them and move on. Obviously all of this relies on Airfix having good manufacturing tolerances.

[Gondor]

I spent a while getting the fit correct. I hate filling wing-to-body gaps. I want to be able to just paint some Mr. Surfacer in them and move on. Obviously all of this relies on Airfix having good manufacturing tolerances.

You are achieving that. Really enjoying this build. If I had not started it last week and had time off work, I would have thought about building it for the One Week Group Build, it's that easy to put together due to the amount of time and thought you have put into its design.

Gondor

[Gondor]

I have decided to deviate from the instructions for this build by using a spare fin from a Sword T.4 kit, seeing that it comes with the fin for the T.5 as well.



The handy thing about using this particular fin is that it's too big. This means that you have to sand it down to fit, and if you are careful, you can end up with a friction fit as in the above picture. I did find a slight, and I mean slight, depression in the forward left side of the fin, fortunately, the sanding down of the fin levelled out the depression.

Gondor

[kerick]

There is no cure for model building addiction. Some say you have to want to change. I say, "Why?" 

[Gondor]

There is no cure for model building addiction. Some say you have to want to change. I say, "Why?" 

The title is a joke. This is a resin conversion, and you have to cure resin......

[scautomoton]

simply pun-derful..... I'll get me coat...

[NARSES2]

simply pun-derful..... I'll get me coat...

I'll find it for you   

[Gondor]

Pottering along doing bits and pieces with this build, when I decided to test fit the engine exhausts, only I could not get them to fit 

Eventually, I realised that I had been trying to fit them in from the wrong end of the fuselage section, and the wrong way round 

The picture below shows which way round the parts are, and from which end they are fitted.



Gondor

[NARSES2]

We've all done something similar.  The real problem is when you've somehow used brute force to get the part to fit and then realise what you describe. 

[zenrat]

We've all done something similar.  The real problem is when you've somehow used brute force to get the part to fit and then realise what you describe. 

Or you've had a serious go with the sanding/grinding/cutting tools before you've realised your mistake.