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So work continues with the nose strut. Even though the nose strut is about half the size of a main strut, it has enough unique features to drag out assembly. The first unique hurdle was the bent fork. Rolled a tube using an appropriate size punch for a mandrel, then cut a series of wedge...

As Mchale pointed out, the Stirling, along with all the other Gary Pilsworth designs, is a free download. AFAIK, it is only available in the "Aviation" section of the Papermodelers.com download area: http://www.papermodelers.com/forum/downloads.php?do=cat&id=5 If you're already registered and...

Hi Bob I'm an old plastic model guy myself. I guess I still am, since I do have a few models in the "stash", but I like the card stuff more and more. More of a challenge, and does my scratch-builder's heart good. Back at the secret modeling lair, I was able to cleaned up and aligned the...

Thanks Stonefort. Being that was your first post here on Zealot, I appreciate it even more. Made a little progress on the main struts here at the undisclosed location in Southern New Jersey. Alas, my dad's camera, plus the available light where I work make for some poor images. But the...

Started on the main struts. I’m going pure scratch on these as the kits parts are too rudimentary, and I’ve already started down this path with the rims/tires. Rolled two “cores” with a wire inside for strength: Coated them with superglue after the fact as I wanted to get a smooth surface...

So I took a small diversion from the landing gear to the make the radio compass loop antenna otherwise known as the “football”. This was the last part on this model that I would make using the dremel tool/card stack trick, and since I just finished spinning up the tires and had all the stuff...

Thanks guys. Always a pleasure when you two drop in. Yes Elliot, in his early days, Elvis was known to visit the local aircraft plants around Memphis to practice his dance moves with landing gear struts. Years later, Sylvester Stallone would use this same idea for his "Rocky" movie, only there...

Prototyping is over, time to make some keepers. I wanted to make the hubs silver, and I realized earlier in the week, the only way to do that was to print on metallic colored paper. Towards that end, I've added an uncolored version of the rims to my parts sheet. The new, updated PDF has been...

Outstanding build Peter! The custom U-cart came out great, and your Stirling stands every bit the stork like the real deal. Mike

I think this new tool’s a keeper. Started slow, but the technique was mastered fairly quickly. The trick was to saw like you mean it, not take little tentative strokes (the tool probably senses fear in those wimpy moves). Here some pics of it in action: . Pretty much freed me up to...

Worked the kinks out of the wheel parts: Darken the gray a bit, lighten some of the line weights, and some general tweaking of the parts sheet. Looks like it will fit with the rest of the model (just imagine a strut there holding up the wheel instead of those fat fingers): PDF is in...

No, but I did spend some time in a radiation physics lab as an undergraduate lab assistant. Got to make a lot of test rigs, fixtures, and what not. Those were the days! Sadly, these days, it's nothing more than a work bench, vise, and hand tools in my garage. :( Not much progress to report as I...

Treads are tough! Title says it all. So I had some ideas rolling around in my head about how best to cut in the diamond crisscross tread pattern into these wheels. One thing I knew, I would make a computer drawn template to mark the interval of tread, since CAD does such an easy job of...

Now that I have enough discs cut in the varying thickness’ and sizes: I can start stacking and gluing. TIP: Save the cut center discs for smaller wheels on future projects! Since the main wheels are rather large in this scale, I decided to assemble them in steps: Two outer assemblies...

Wheel Work..... Cleaned off the work space, and printed out a couple of sheets of the replacement wheels and rims I drew up awhile ago in preparation of this event on card and sealed with mat fixative: Glued lighter paper versions on some 0.5mm card for some templates I'll need. Once I'm...

Thanks Elliot. It's all your fault that I opened this canopy in the first place! :p But it was a good call. You're right, nothing to hide here, I want it all out in the open. I made this stuff, why wouldn't I want it show it (within reason)? I still get flack to this day for not opening up the...

Amazingly, I actually finished something on time. I hinted before in the preceding post that I would try to wrap up this canopy tonight. Well, lo and behold, I succeeded! To begin, I took some 0.030” thick Vivak (thicker stuff that what I use to vacu-form) and shaped a rear armored glass...

Work on the gunner's canopy contiues. Framed out the inside using printed sticker paper (red arrows) and doubled up 65lb paper (blue arrows), both printed with the interior green color. Fairly basic, and due to the canopy’s smaller size, pretty quick: Prepped and rehabbed the fuselage...

Outstanding Mr. Taft! Like the actual engine it models, your build is a true work of engineering art. Take pride sir, and look forward to the Stirling. Mike

Got mine! Model's not bad.....but BOY! That cover art. Whoo-hoo! :thumb: Well done gentlemen! Mike