Simple 1/12 Scale Bristol Scout C for Electric

[AndyB]

Finally got the fuselage and cowl covered, that's all the covering done. I must say, though, that lightweight Modelspan wasn't as nice to use as I remembered.

I did the cowl with tissue and sanding sealer in the end, partly because it looked to be a bit easier than faffing around with epoxy or multiple coats of acrylic varnish.

Paint (Vallejo Model Air Aged White) is arriving on Friday, so I'm just going to spray most things with the base colour. Lots of people recommended Xtracolor Doped Natural Fabric, but it's an enamel paint and and I'm more comfortable with acrylics these days. We'll see how it goes, just hope I manage to avoid fingerprints in the paint.

[AndyB]

...and of course, I forgot all about fairings to the cabane struts and undercarriage; I'll now have to wait a day or two for the sanding sealer to finish gassing-off, so we're probably looking at Monday for painting.

I'm wondering if I've done the right thing with the paint choice; acrylics are so much easier to use and Model Air paint is pre-thinned and is supposed to be useable straight from the bottle at relatively low pressure (15-20 psi), so the amount of faffing about should be minimised. Against that, there may be a tendency for the airbrush tip to dry out, and they might be a bit fragile - the advice is to wait at least 3 days before masking. Also, I'm not using primer because I want a see through the wings when done, so that might cause problems. I hope not, but we shall see.

[AndyB]

The attached picture shows where we are with the airbrushing, the colour looks - from memory - pretty close to the colour of the various natural doped linen aircraft at the Shuttleworth collection, so I'm quite pleased with it. the paint isn't perfect but it's sport scale, so I'm not worrying about it.

The Vallejo Model Air paint is supposed to be ready to use straight from the bottle, but that didn't work with my airbrush set-up (Iwata TR2, 0.5 mm needle, 20 psi). The paint needed about 10% Airbrush Flow Improver and I also added a little less than 10% thinner, but I think it could have done with a little more.

I now need to leave it for another couple of days before (carefully!) masking for the next colours.

[gravitywell]

Thats a real nice bit of work on the cockpit coaming.  Looks perfect.

[AndyB]

Thats a real nice bit of work on the cockpit coaming.  Looks perfect.

Glad it looks Ok in pictures. Up close, it's not perfect by any means but I'm trying to convince myself that it'll do.

Anyway, this is where we are after another week - feels like a lot longer though! I've also airbrushed some white decal sheet for cutting roundels

I'm not very happy with the wheels, the masking hasn't worked very well. I might have one more go with a brush and then leave it be - it's a sport scale test bed and won't be winning anything, so as long as it looks OK from six feet away, I'll take a sensible pill and declare myself happy with it.

As it stands the task list looks like this:

• Clean up the remaining painting issues.
• Cut the decals with an Olfa circle cutter and apply.
• Draw on a tasteful amount of detail, where appropriate.
• Paint the pilot.
• Draw & print the serial numbers onto clear decal sheet and apply.
• Wait an extra day and spray on some gloss or semi-gloss varnish.
• (Almost forgot the windscreen.)
• Assemble and await calm weather.

[dputt7]

Very nice job, good to see you fixed the covering problem.

[TheLurker]

If it's ready do please bring it to the next Trinity 'cos it'd be nice to see it in real life.

[OZPAF]

I'll take a sensible pill and declare myself happy with it.

Now that is definitely the way to go - it looks great to my untrained scale eye

John

[Squirrelnet]

Looks great Andy

If it's ready do please bring it to the next Trinity 'cos it'd be nice to see it in real life.

+1 to lurk's comment too

[AndyB]

Well, that was a bit of a kerfuffle.

I couldn't get any Sunnyscopa decal sheet so had to use what was available from Amazon, which was Hayes waterslide decal paper. This stuff hasn't got a layer of film to print on, it's just paper and either clear or white adhesive and needs spraying with 3 coats of "acrylic lacquer" before it can be printed on. Since I was going to cut-out some circles and rings using an Olfa circle cutter I thought that the matt Tamiya acrylic paint would probably be Ok if it was sprayed straight on to the adhesive layer...

Unfortunately, that didn't work because the cured acrylic paint just splits when attempting to apply the decal - the layer of acrylic paint has insufficient structural integrity.

I next tried Tamiya clear spray acrylic lacquer which just about worked Ok for the white circle background, but it didn't take the acrylic paint for the red and blue parts of the roundel - bit of a mess, really.

Back to the model shop again and the last roll of the dice before ordering some Xtracolor Enamels (which are known to work) was a couple of cans - red and blue - of humbrol acrylic spray lacquer; the colours aren't quite right but by this stage I'm past caring.

Thankfully, this seems to have worked and has produced some smooth, gloss painted decal sheet. Actually applying the roundels was relatively straight forward, I do need to get some Tamiya acrylic varnish on them tomorrow to stop them lifting.

[AndyB]

More kerfuffle - I have just discovered that the built-up stabiliser has warped in about three different modes at once!

B*gger!

(can I say that?)

I really want to get this thing done so I've located some 5.5-6 lb sheet balsa and I'll just make as new all-sheet stabiliser as on the original plan, because it's relatively quick. I will, however, make the elevators adjustable.

[TheLurker]

...the built-up stabiliser has warped in about three different modes at once!

Yus, werl, s'probably yer fractal folding innit? Or mebbe's sunnink quantum. Defin-ately not yore fault.

Here, have this consolatory cup of hot sweet tea and a digestive biscuit.

[AndyB]

These things are sent to try us. Or so I used to be told...

Finally got a new tailplane made from 6 lb balsa, doped and covered in Esaki with hinges (4 x 0.5 mm aluminium sheet), it unfortunately weighs about 12 grams even before it's been painted, which is double what the built-up one weighs. That's about an ounce of noseweight, right there  .

On the other hand, it does seem to be flat rather than looking like a large Pringle.

[AndyB]

Managed to find time (in between indoor flying and prep for same) to airbrush the solid sheet tailplane a doped linen colour. The tailplane is probably slightly rushed so isn't as smoothly finished as normal, but Time Is Of The Essence because the Oxford MFC "Bring a New Model" evening meeting is on Wednesday and I want to get it into a flyable state by then.

I'm currently going through my job list with a red pen and removing anything that isn't 100% necessary, but I'm telling myself that this is just a modern expression of the "Coates Doctrine" (as championed by the late great Eric Coates) where we ascertain whether the model will in fact commit aviation in an acceptable manner before we expend too much effort on the final details... 

[Squirrelnet]

I think that's a great idea... and the Scout is looking very nice BTW