The Model Building Thread

[Captain Willard]

I grew up next to quite a busy railway junction and locomotive depot in south london (Hither green). Am planning to recreate the 1970s version in o gauge one day but I have been planning this for 40 years now. 
 

 

[dockers_strike]

23 minutes ago, Captain Willard said:

I grew up next to quite a busy railway junction and locomotive depot in south london (Hither green). Am planning to recreate the 1970s version in o gauge one day but I have been planning this for 40 years now. 
 

 

Need a lot of room for O gauge. Old girl wants me to build something like this is OO but we havent the space!

 

 

[Captain Willard]

1 minute ago, dockers_strike said:

Need a lot of room for O gauge. Old girl wants me to build something like this is OO but we havent the space!

 

 

Yes I meant OO. O too expensive as well. I’m on a train full of chanting Chelsea fans (the youngest is a fan so going to the game) looking up old maps and layouts right now. More interesting. 

[Preston Red]

Get on this beauty being brought out by Airfix in the Summer.

 

£95 though!!!

 

https://uk.airfix.com/products/supermarine-spitfire-mkixc-a17001

[Mike D]

[Captain Willard]

3 minutes ago, Mike D said:

Is that what they sent you ? 

[neko]

20 hours ago, Preston Red said:

Get on this beauty being brought out by Airfix in the Summer.

 

£95 though!!!

 

https://uk.airfix.com/products/supermarine-spitfire-mkixc-a17001

1:24 is a big scale.

 

interesting that the kit includes so much of the wing and fuselage structure. wonder how the skin/covering works ?

 

reminds me of my own spitfire model....

[Preston Red]

26 minutes ago, neko said:

1:24 is a big scale.

 

interesting that the kit includes so much of the wing and fuselage structure. wonder how the skin/covering works ?

 

reminds me of my own spitfire model....

That looks amazing. The level of engineering and CAD involved there is impressive.

 

Must admit, I'm wondering how this will turn out too with the Airfix tooling.

[neko]

Yeah - it was a real plane design (80% scale). I drew it with an engineer friend, based on his replica Spitfire. We used to sell the technology for others to build.

 

I should clean it up / finish it and get it 3D printed.

[Preston Red]

55 minutes ago, neko said:

Yeah - it was a real plane design (80% scale). I drew it with an engineer friend, based on his replica Spitfire. We used to sell the technology for others to build.

 

I should clean it up / finish it and get it 3D printed.

You have my utmost respect. Hopefully, I'll be moving into a materials testing role at work soon so I may pick you and your mates' brains for info.

[Lee909]

Well my miniature just got a bit more interesting 

[dockers_strike]

This is one of my next 3 projects. It's a Vario 1:6 scale Airbus Helicopters EC145 fuselage waiting for installation of Vario 4 bladed mechanics. Overall length is about 1740mm. Will be powered by 2 x 6000mah lipo batteries and capable of upto 10 minutes flight.

 

The fuz was pre painted by Vario to represent the US Children's Mercy Hospitals and the detail is painted, not decals.

[Captain Willard]

3 minutes ago, dockers_strike said:

This is one of my next 3 projects. It's a Vario 1:6 scale Airbus Helicopters EC145 fuselage waiting for installation of Vario 4 bladed mechanics. Overall length is about 1740mm. Will be powered by 2 x 6000mah lipo batteries and capable of upto 10 minutes flight.

 

The fuz was pre painted by Vario to represent the US Children's Mercy Hospitals and the detail is painted, not decals.

That’s proper. 

[Stouffer]

6 hours ago, dockers_strike said:

This is one of my next 3 projects. It's a Vario 1:6 scale Airbus Helicopters EC145 fuselage waiting for installation of Vario 4 bladed mechanics. Overall length is about 1740mm. Will be powered by 2 x 6000mah lipo batteries and capable of upto 10 minutes flight.

 

The fuz was pre painted by Vario to represent the US Children's Mercy Hospitals and the detail is painted, not decals.

What are the other projects?

[dockers_strike]

6 hours ago, Captain Willard said:

That’s proper. 

Thanks. cant take any credit for the build and paint job. Think it will be knee knocking time when I eventually get to fly it!

22 minutes ago, Stouffer said:

What are the other projects?

This is one, a Vario Bell 212 about 1680mm. This is it on their stand before I bought it. They didnt tell me they'd damaged the right horizontal stab though. They were going to fit a mini jet engine but I'll be using 2 x 5000mah lipos to fly it.

 

Other project is the old girl wants me to build an OO scale train layout in the garage!

 

 

 

[Stouffer]

2 minutes ago, dockers_strike said:

Thanks. cant take any credit for the build and paint job. Think it will be knee knocking time when I eventually get to fly it!

This is one, a Vario Bell 212 about 1680mm. This is it on their stand before I bought it. They didnt tell me they'd damaged the right horizontal stab though. They were going to fit a mini jet engine but I'll be using 2 x 5000mah lipos to fly it.

 

Other project is the old girl wants me to build an OO scale train layout in the garage!

 

 

 

She's a beauty dockers.

 

Are they hard to fly?

[Stouffer]

I always wanted a model of an Oerlikon Skyguard FCU which was a bit of kit I used to work on. Never seen one tho'.

 

[Captain Willard]

1 hour ago, dockers_strike said:

Thanks. cant take any credit for the build and paint job. Think it will be knee knocking time when I eventually get to fly it!

This is one, a Vario Bell 212 about 1680mm. This is it on their stand before I bought it. They didnt tell me they'd damaged the right horizontal stab though. They were going to fit a mini jet engine but I'll be using 2 x 5000mah lipos to fly it.

 

Other project is the old girl wants me to build an OO scale train layout in the garage!

 

 

 

The fact that she wants you to build a layout is a sign she’s a keeper. Crack on and post the result. 

[M_B]

If you ever go to Hamburg, then make sure you go to this. It's amazing.

 

 

[Mike D]

Where it all started for me back in about 1986. These were my dads who would set them up for me, I wasn’t aloud to touch back then! Since then Ive been a member of the Liverpool model railway society off and on over the last twenty odd years, so I still play and build the little trains and I drive the full size freight ones as a day job so a lucky little boy.

 

 

 

[Evelyn Tentions]

When I was a kid we used to go to Christmas shopping at Lewis's which was always absolutely crowded. On one of the floors they always had an enormous model train layout and my mum used to say that if we got separated, meet up at the railway display. As soon as her back was turned, I was off to the train display.

[Red74]

Rod Stewarts is off the scale

 

 

[dockers_strike]

15 hours ago, Stouffer said:

She's a beauty dockers.

 

Are they hard to fly?

Im  currently flying a 'semi scale' MD500 which is about 1350mm long. It has what's called a 2 blade 'fly bar' rotorhead and is easier to fly. The bigger Vario ones will be using scale heads that will need a 'flybarless' flight control system.

 

Are they hard to fly? Yes although Im no expert. It's best to learn on what's called a pod and boom heli which is basically one without a fuselage but has a fish head like canopy on the front!

 

Alternatively, there are RC flight sims that you can use. The thing is with a flight sim, you have no nerves flying but when your model cost a couple of grand, that's always at the back of your mind when flying the thing!

 

You have to learn in stages. First is getting it off the ground into the hover without it tipping over. Think of holding a tray underneath with one hand. Place a ball bearing in the middle of the tray and keep it there by gently tilting the tray backwards, forwards and either side and you get the gist.

 

Once you've mastered hovering, flying figure of 8 circuits is the next challenge as you're having the heli fly away from you then back towards you, left and right turns. What you have to remember is flying towards yourself, turn command become transposed. Your left becomes the heli's right which can be interesting.

 

RC helis 'work' the same as full size heli's do. You have to control rotor blade pitch, input roll and yaw all the time. The only real difference is the power source where full size helis use a wet fuel. RC can use lipo battery or a wet fuel.

 

 

[dockers_strike]

14 hours ago, Captain Willard said:

The fact that she wants you to build a layout is a sign she’s a keeper. Crack on and post the result. 

She's going to do the scenery and Im doing the build of baseboards. It's going to be OO scale DCC which means you can individually control the locos and accessories unlike DC where you just increase or decrease the voltage to drive them.

3 hours ago, Red74 said:

Rod Stewarts is off the scale

 

 

Yeah you need a lot of space for an O scale layout! Waterman has a large O scale one and recently did a large OO scale one in Chester Cathedral.

[Mike D]

In the comedians thread I posted American talk show host Tom Snyder who I know very little about chatting to Billy Connolly and he did so a few times and I thought I like this guy, so watched a few more of his interviews including Charles Manson. Do a bit more searching and to my delight, he loved model trains and had them on his show a few times..

And as anyone in to them will always say, it all starts at early childhood.