Saturday, February 7, 2009

F8 part four: oil cooler flaps

I really don't know if these are oil cooler flaps, I just call them that. I never worked on radial piston engines, only turboprops.

Here's the real thing:




and here's what the kit came with (I accentuated the scribed panel lines:



I'd originally planned on cutting out the scribed area to install a scratchbuilt panel. As you can see, towards the front of the area it's very narrow. I wasn't completely sure if I could cut the panel away without breaking that bit or if it would even stay structurally sound. I would bet it would, but I lacked certainty. If I broke it, repair would require scratchbuilding skills that, if I'd had them, I wouldn't have broke it in the first place (makes sense?).

My solution was to make flaps and place them over the scribed area, painting the interior area black to simulate a hole. This MAY work. The problem is making the flaps look, at least a little bit, like they are rotating into the fuselage. It looks pretty good unpainted, but we'll see.

Here are the flaps:



and here they are installed. I'm sorry that the picture is after I'd pre-shaded (see below), but I mistakenly thought I'd taken good photos before I pre-shaded.



Pre-shading is a way of adding depth to a scale aircraft. I could explain it to you, but I'll let the the video by Brett Green explain it to you as he did to me.



listening to while posting: "Don't Let Go" by Weezer

4 comments:

  1. pretty sweet. Never saw this technique explained before :) But as plains go smaller..it probably get's a lot more difficult..

    I still have an Orljonok (1:144, which is still LARGE) to finish. It's going to be a diorama where it's being escorted by 2 mig29's (I don't care too much if it's not historically correct).

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  2. Whoa! That Orljonok is one cool craft! That's going to be one cool diorama. I'm terrified of water effects, myself.

    the 29's might not be incorrect, it was retired in 1993 and the 29's been active since the eighties.

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  3. well the watereffect is nothing more than just a simple 'water' plastic stuck to a greyish piece of wood hehe.

    *btw..comment as Google Account doesn't work as it should...

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  4. In what way is Google Account not working. Hmm.

    check out this water effect for a flying boat. http://hyperscale.com/2009/features/sunderland72gm_1.htm

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