Won't say what it is till later...ooops too late now!

Gandolf50

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NOTE: When replacing images due to the move to here, I placed the images for this in the last post on page 1...(they seemed to fit, what can I say) !! Stuff like that happens when trying to fix a hosed thread and you don't have all the images anymore!

OK Here is the way I made the parts fit for the S-curve section of the solid frame...

The first skin was on so I picked several areas to use as control points..ie: points that will not change..

Builder ERROR is from gluing parts to first skin .. when they should have been on the second... NOTE: all other parts have been checked and they all fit like they were made for this model!

I was lucky as I still had the sheet with the first cut-out hole in it..so can use this as a pattern, to match the curved sections of the second skin.



This is what the problem is ... here we have the original cut-out skin 1, and the new kit pattern for the second skin.. there is NO WAY, it is going to cover the first skin.. and I tried both the old Alfa Pattern and the Beta... NO JOY.. so here we are..

You will also notice there are 2 more relief cuts on the left side, I did not start, as they would have made the piece even smaller. I checked the piece against the first skin after the first relief cut, finding the problem, early on!
So using the original cut-out and the new pattern piece I created a new skin piece, with a little extra on the bottom and along the curved area, for some wiggle room!
Here you can see the amount the piece was increased and also the difference in the curve.



Then it is a matter of making it fit, in this case..just to trim off the excess I added to fit to the curve, making sure that all the control points are still in their positions!
First added the end pieces that cap the nose of the frame. ( NOTE: all corners get a hard sanding to round them off )



Then started to trim new section to fit cutting very slight sliver at a time..



Till everything was lined up and also made sure that lines that should be a certain angle ..were !



Checked against other skin pieces and we are good to glue!!! Little sanding here and there and it will be DONE ready for paint! and you can do this on ANY MODEL OUT THERE!! Well at least any that you are going to paint anyway!!



Side Note: Carburetor looks WAY BETTER in an antique copper that I used for weathered bronze!
Decided to change color scheme and dump the OD Green, and go with a medium gray!
 
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zathros

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I can't help thinking that the Russians did this exact same thing but with steel sheets in the various factories!! :)
 

zathros

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@zathros, those are called Ladas :)

@Gandolf50 , looking fantastic, and may I saw well done on admitting your humanity with your builder error, all too tempting to not publish that photo :)

That's why I always read what Gandalf posts. There is always something I learn. :)
 

Gandolf50

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@zathros, those are called Ladas :)

@Gandolf50 , looking fantastic, and may I saw well done on admitting your humanity with your builder error, all too tempting to not publish that photo :)
That's why I always read what Gandalf posts. There is always something I learn. :)

I try to help those learn from what mistakes I have made! I would write them all down, as they would fill volumes, but that would require a new thread!;)
 

Gandolf50

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Some updates...
First, off I finished getting the second-skin cut and glued, engine fits and all was well...till...
Skin-SideView.jpg

( I just noticed where that missing piece of wire sheathing went!! it's the blue thing on the front next to the circle!)

Gear-Parts.jpg
To continue..been working on completing all the tiny bits of the engine as well as all the parts that fit the top of the solid frame, switched over and put together the rear axles... Woah.. talk about lots of tiny parts!

Rear-Axle.jpg

and things have to fit as there are the pins that hold the 3 point hitch that goes on later!.. you can see been cutting tons of tiny bolt heads! and there are hundreds to go!

The control sections.. ie: gear levers and the like are 3 units on top, so worked on that also... lots of tiny parts there also... Let's face it ..the WHOLE THING is TINY!!
Side-Gearparts-2.jpg


Lots of compound curves to cut and make intersections with other curves and the like..FUN STUFF!!
anyone building this..gets to PART #21, PM me if you need help..the instructions did not help at all! It's the part in front of the pix below!


anyway..while I had this I took a pix with the engine also...

Side-Gearparts.jpg

and that is when I discovered that the carb and fuel lines stick out too far over the side.. I first checked the planes to see if there where additions that brought the engine covers further out, NOPE.. then I checked placement sizes..all other options..and no help for it.. got to tear the exhaust off a reduce the amount it sticks out.. well... I took this pix just in case I had to rebuild the engine..

Fuel lines are telephone wire, with part of the sheathing removed and part left for gluing ( left the blue so you could see them) .. Fan belt, buff colored card stock, well rolled several times, and pulled under a large sharpie marker, it also looks blue? I think the white card to hold up the engine messed up the white balance with the daylight bulb I have... so all the colors are??

Engine-Belt.jpg
anyway...all went well...managed to get things to just on the edge of the limit! and then this morning, was looking over the alfa builders notes, and he reported, " will have to leave the left side cover open as all the fuel line and such won't allow it to close!" well, Sh**T !! Add that one to the list!

Anyway... off to build some wheels!!!

PS.. Forgot..here is a French Lass starting up a 1929 or so McCormick 10-20 ( which is almost identical to this model)...

 
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Gandolf50

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Small Updates/...

Working to get as many parts as possible together that don't glue to something else so that I can airbrush them all at the same time.. as the body is ready for at least a first coat..
just now working on the radiator, hood area..as I needed to change some things..
Radiator was a section glued to .5 stock, and strips 20.6 x 23 mm with a spacing of 0.2 mm ( I DON"T THINK SO !!!! ) I can't even SEE something spaced 0.2 mm !!! I can't even cut something .o2 mm thin!! so..
used my trusty super secret formula for radiators, of very thin corrugated cardboard I happen to have found ( used as a backing from a calendar I think, if memory serves, look around it is used to stiffen packaging for paper products .. WAIT I LIED, it came from a take it home and cook it yourself Extra Large Five Cheese Pizza, from Walmart... I just flipped it over..:facepalm:) Measures out at just at 1.74 mm thick. Figured out width and height and all that and cut off the outer edges of the original pieces so all was the same as it was intended..added the ,5 to the cut-off sections and stacked my "Pizza Box" in a butterfly R-L-R- etc etc.. and as I had worked out the calculations had even sets across and looks more like a radiator that a block of solid material! Painted w/ cheapo water based acrylic spray, and then had to figure out how to come up with a good " Dark Grey "! Found out that the MCCormick 15-30/ which the Russian's copied this from was originally a McCormick Grey #1063 with red wheels, figured the Russians ( and from looking at the archived pictures ) it looks like the CT3-XT3 was a dark grey and perhaps black wheels. On the McCormick-Deering website there is a story about a gut finding two cans of original #1063 on auction, he called the seller and was surprised that the 70 year old paint seemed to still be liquid. You can read the story here http://mccormick-deering.com/storyPaint.html if interested, long story short , they have the original formula for free. Looking at it, and the fact I don't need a gallon of the stuff, I made up something that should be close enough! using a 4oz bottle, I used a inch scale on the side, and el cheapo liquid acrylic. My formula... 3/4"-White, 1/2"-Black, 3/4"Matte Medium, 15 Drops Mountain Forest ( dark Green) 15 Drops Tuscan Red ( Dark Red), 10 Drops Ultramarine Blue... here is the result..
Mc-Paint.jpg

I LIKE IT! " Notice the Firewall, the holes, measurements are critical! the exhaust has to fit through the large hole perfectly, and above that is a tube that has to attach to the side of the carb .5mm off and you are OUT OF LUCK !! I was lucky!!

also would like to share how I am dealing with the ignition/distributor/magneto wires.. as back then they were large and covered with rubber, I took some 2 strand phone solid copper wire, stripped an end so I could grab hold of the copper, and pulled the sheathing half off, cut the wire in just about half, so that when I pushed the sheathing back on there was no wire for an 1/8 inch on each end. Using a embroidery needle ( large and blunt ) and a candle I heated the needle JUST ENOUGH, to soften the sheathing on each end of the wire and form a small CAP. I can latter sand and sharpie these to something that resembles the actual wires, it does 2 things, gives me a glueing surface on each end, and allows me to bend the wires to the shape I need to look good!

Plug-Wires.jpg

and for now..just a few more details on the engine..as more is built on the rest of the model, more things get added to the engine!!
Engine-Up.jpg


Till Next time...
 
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zathros

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Freakin' awesome!! :)
 

Gandolf50

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Working on the hood and continuing, want to add in the ornament on the front. Original was way too hard to read, much less cut out.. so not to be deterred went into the PDF and changed some things around a bit..
Original was actually a dark grey for PDF. Changed it to full black and got a better print on the bottom..
TopRadiat.jpg
Original line width was .7 mm so changed that to .2 mm and broke out all the elements to make cutting a bit better ( don't know how much better it will be as the whole thing is only 3.5 x 3.5 mm but ... ) at least now I can see what I am dealing with..stacking these and recreating the emblem is going to be another matter !!! I may not be able to see anything more than 1/2 an inch away after this... Wish me LUCK!
 
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zathros

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I have a magnifying glass with a fluorescent ring around it. I mostly use it for reworking circuit boards. I mostly use eye glass Loops, that click on the arms, the 10x, 5x ones, (like on pic below) stacked so I get really large views, you do have to get close. I wanted a pair of those glasses the Dentist use, but OMG, they are expensive! Cheap headband Surgical Gaussian Loops are more than $500 bucks! The cheap ones put your nose 1/4 inch from the part. ;)

You have to get kind of close with these too. I wish I understood lenses better because I have a bunch of them, some make things smaller, some bigger, can't seem to find the right combination. Gandolf, maybe you could find me a link explaining this stuff, yo seem to know something about everything, I write this as a compliment. :)

Clip on loop.JPG
 

Gandolf50

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I have a magnifying glass with a fluorescent ring around it. I mostly use it for reworking circuit boards. I mostly use eye glass Loops, that click on the arms, the 10x, 5x ones, (like on pic below) stacked so I get really large views, you do have to get close. I wanted a pair of those glasses the Dentist use, but OMG, they are expensive! Cheap headband Surgical Gaussian Loops are more than $500 bucks! The cheap ones put your nose 1/4 inch from the part. ;)

You have to get kind of close with these too. I wish I understood lenses better because I have a bunch of them, some make things smaller, some bigger, can't seem to find the right combination. Gandolf, maybe you could find me a link explaining this stuff, yo seem to know something about everything, I write this as a compliment. :)

View attachment 163066

To give a scientific answer


if your brain has not completely fried after that ... this might be a bit better...


:hammerhead::headbange::hammerhead::headbange: got it?
 

zathros

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I will try with much attentiveness! Thanks! :)
 

Gandolf50

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anyway.. with all promise and bright ideas.. it was still WAY TOO SMALL!!!! I trashed the first two, and changed tactics on the third and just added the star and stuck the CT3 on top of it... and even then with a super light coat of watered down paint, what was not filled in by the glue was filled with paint... I then lightly sanded the surface with 800 grit on a stick, and that's when I discovered it was upside down...argg.. had to cut it off and flip it..., after all that I still ended up adding a thin wash of darker grey, that did little to bring out the design, and finally went with a touch of bronze on the top surface just to make it visible... may not be kosher but at this point I dunno Care Laddie!
TopRadiat-2.jpg

remember the tutorial on lenses..at this magnification even small hairs look like trees... "no..it really does look better to the eye.. or at least that's what I keep telling myself"!

?? Question for all the experts out there... and first let me say.. no I have no money, so buying such and such should not be an answer... but what is usually used as an undercoat when you have paint weathered like in the above.. Right now it is just showing the card stock itself.. which works.. in a way,, it should be metal but at this scale all metallics overpower anything.. I have tried all forms of lead and graphite just too dark,, or too shiny, same with aluminum powders.. don't have iron powder or anything like that, just the rust powders.. from real rust. that you see... Suggestions welcome!!

and here is the wheel factory in full operation...NOTE.. these really have to be cut EXACT!!!
Wheel-Factory.jpg

and a blurry shot of the fan shroud...
Fan-Shroud.jpg


and the fire-wall ready when I get to the point of gluing it in..
Fire-Wall.jpg

off to cut all those little tiny things that no one can see under the paint! ;) till next time...
 
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spaceagent-9

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OMG! Brilliant!!! "Like" isn't enough praise! That just takes it all to a new level. Thank you for showing what can be done.
 

zathros

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Looks like the real thing. I guess, in a way, it is! :)
 

DanBKing

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?? Question for all the experts out there... and first let me say.. no I have no money, so buying such and such should not be an answer... but what is usually used as an undercoat when you have paint weathered like in the above.. Right now it is just showing the card stock itself.. which works.. in a way,, it should be metal but at this scale all metallics overpower anything.. I have tried all forms of lead and graphite just too dark,, or too shiny, same with aluminum powders.. don't have iron powder or anything like that, just the rust powders.. from real rust. that you see... Suggestions welcome!!

Start with black, and use dry-brushing techniques for high-lites....... The Citadel artists can give you many pointers...