MUSTARD glider

[Rheged]

The M2-F1 was originally towed behind a 1963 Pontiac.

What UK automobile could one use to tow the MUSTARD glider?

When the Rotabuggy  (flying jeep)  was tested in 1943, a supercharged 4.5 litre Bentley was used.  In the early 1960's, perhaps an Aston Martin DB4  or a Ferguson FF  would do?

[Weaver]

First coat of yellow on this morning. Looked good going on: might or might not need a second coat: we shall see.

[Gondor]

Dijon, Yellow or Colman's?

[NARSES2]

Dijon, Yellow or Colman's?

  

The "Book" has even taken to hiding under a cushion on the sofa 

[Weaver]

Dijon, Yellow or Colman's?

Dunno - it was just some yellow stuff I found in the cupboard. I didn't taste it...

It didn't need another coat. First round of decals is on. Because it's so small, the decals cover a significant proportion of its surface, so because I'm not putting the landing legs on yet for fear of breaking them, I'm going to have to do decals in stages after the last lot (plus some minor paint details) have dried enough to stand being on the bottom while it rests on the mat.

Meanwhile, here's the seat. I was going to say it's finished, but I've just realised that the seat buckles need painting Aluminium. The ejection handles were made from brass wire, then dip-painted yellow. The black was then done with a fine pigment marker, and the grey brush-painted. I made them in one piece, with the ends bent downwards and fitted into a couple of holes I'd drilled.

[NARSES2]

Nice work 

[loupgarou]

Dijon, Yellow or Colman's?

  

[Weaver]

Topside and right side decals on. One of the roundels on the right side tore in the blue ring, so I'll now have to touch that up.

One of the problems I'm having is that this Montana spray paint leaves a very hydrophilic(?) surface finish, that is to say, it makes water (and MicroSet) bead and run off it. This in turn means that decals are either moving about wildly on a big droplet of water, or stuck to the surface with nearly no water under them at all, with no intermediate state of controllably sliding around. This is compounded by the fact that, although they're nicely printed, the Fantasy Printshop decals are VERY thin and thus wrinkle very easy.

I can certainly finish this for Sunday night, but I was hoping to finish on Saturday because there's an event in town on Sunday that I'd quite like to go to. Having said that, I don't know how long said event will go on, so it might be possible to go down there for an hour or three while something's drying.

[Weaver]

Final decals on - more damage and sub-optimal placement.

It occured to me that I might have been better off putting a coat of varnish on first in order to cover over the Montana's hydrophilic coating. Then it struck me that I don't actually know if the Plastikote varnish I've been using is compatible with the Montana, so I quickly sprayed up a paint hack with the latter so that when it's dry I can test the varnish on it.

[Weaver]

Well that was a pisser.....    

Touch-up went well, varnish test went well, gave it all plenty of time to dry, went to the bench to get the glider out of it's jig, and noticed (thankfully) an empty Blu-tack-on-marker-pen stand.

Where the ejection seat used to be.

It had fallen off the Blu-tack, landed on the floor and broken. The bits were quite well separated, so it's likely that I'd accidentally kicked them around a bit. wasn't a clean break either: the headrest had separated from the seat, and part of one frame rail had broken off and disappeared, so I couldn't just glue it together.

Bugger.

After contemplating painting up my Pavla Folland seat (not enough time), or sticking the bits to clear plastic, I eventually opted to stick them all to a sheet of thin black plastic, which won't need painting. The missing section of rail has been replaced by a tiny bit of Harrier pitot tube and it's all had paint touch-up which might do a little to conceal the breaks. The other part of the plan is to paint the top of the cockpit rear bulkhead black (it was yellow) so that the black backing of the seat doesn't show when I've cut the excess off after it's dried.

All done and drying now, but it does mean that my schedule's been knocked back about two stages. Oh well, it was going FAR too easily.....

The annoying thing is that I've mostly been very careful about putting tiny kit parts in a special compartmented plastic box that I cleared out for the purpose. This is probably the only time that the seat's been left out when it didn't need to be....