Chris' B-25H and some goodies

[phantom II]

Hi folks,
not much to show for my efforts this week. I have not felt much like building. Maybe it's all the fresh pollen in the air.
Anyhow, after tinkering for ages and getting all the guts to fit temporarily I started looking for enough led to get the old gal to sit up on it's own legs.
I just did something I have never done before . Melted a bunch of lead and shaped it to the nose and still had to add a good chunk of lead else where to make it worse.
Maybe we should change the name from gun nose to led sled. At any rate I just remembered why I like tail dragers.

Now, I should be able to move forward again. Cheers, Christian B)

 

[jknaus]

The hammer is a bit worrisome. But is getting there. Looks good.
James

 

[phantom II]

Hi James,
in that case the vise would have really scared you ! I've never needed any of these things to build a plastic model before. It took a lot of shaping .
Luckily that is not an F-4 hammer ...

Thanks Bob and James for the encouragement. We'll get there or beat it into submition ! :laugh:

Christian

 

[Iron Mike]

If it don't fit, get a bigger hammer!! I was wondering what all that pounding off in the distance was!!

 

[moon puppy]

I missed this update. Talk to us about the melting lead, nice skill to have there.

 

[phantom II]

For some reason manufacturers generally don't the weight needed to keep you otherwise beautifully done tricycle gear airplane. Or, for that matter they don't even tell you how much you might need to do that. So here's a simple way to cure this problem.

First. temporarily assemble the major components (as above picture) and add small amounts of weight until it becomes nose heavy.

Once you have worked out the amount you can set out on how to make it fit inside the available spaces.

Here's how I did this build.

You will need the following items

The lead sinkers from Walmart or your neighbor's wheels.
The stainless cups from the bakery section at Sam's club
Some sort of mold to pour the melted lead in. In this case a formed bottle top but one could be made from clay or plaster of Paris if you want to be more precise.

The next thing is pliers and a source of heat. A micro torch would work well if I had everything.

In just a few moments you can pour it in the mold which has been placed in a heat resistant container ( ashtray ). Just in case !

By the way, look at the color of the cup. If you borrowed it from your wife's stuff. You will get busted !

Once cooled , you can pull it out of the mold and shape it on a hard metal object. A vice for me and a tack hammer worked well.

Finally, everything was positioned with a bit of Blue tack and glued in place with two part Epoxy. Don't use Superglue as it reacts with lead and will swell and rupture the item over a period of time .

Cheers, Christian B)

 

[Iron Mike]

Yeah, on the wife's stove too!! :pinch:

 

[moon puppy]

Nice, thanks Chris, I can see this being done for a lot of stuff. Custom shapes to stick in the booms of the P38 or narrow ones for some of the small aircraft. Didn't know that about the CA and Lead not liking each other.

 

[Old Dog]

For those not interested in playing with fire and hot metal (I know that leaves the pup out) Terry Dean makes a whole line of weights that are cast to fit specific models, are reasonably priced. Terry is a good guy to deal with and I have always gotten good service from him. Look here for a sample of what he offers
Terry Dean nose wieghts

 

[phantom II]

Hey OD. that sounds like a great service. As soon as he starts cranking out those 1/72 weight I will consider giving him some business,
Thanks for the info.

Cheers, Christian B)

 

[moon puppy]

(I know that leaves the pup out)[/url]

My reputation precedes me..

 

[phantom II]

Oh yeah ! What fun is it without some possibility for mayhem ? :laugh:

 

[mlp]

real cool stuff you doing here Christian!

I'm sorry I missed to step by for some weeks - sorry for that

 

[Sherman 18]

Nice SBS Christian!

 

[dukwhunter]

OMG Great Work Chris . Don't know how i missed this one , must be getting old i guess !!! :idonno

Looking forward to more progress on this .


regards
JOEY

 

[phantom II]

Hi guys, sorry for the lack of new post. Hope to have that remedied soon !

Hi Joey ! Don't worry, that seems to happen to all of us while we're not looking. :laugh:

Cheers, Christian B)

 

[Dusan]

Very nice! Good idea for lead mold, I use white glue somethimes to secure led in place.

All the best!
Dusan.

 

[phantom II]

I have used white glue in the past. Just don't use the superglue. B)

 

[chukw]

That's pretty neat, Chris- my wife would have a kitten if she caught me melting lead over her stove! My grandfather was a roofer/tinsmith and have a propane rig that he'd use to mould his "dipsies"- fishing weights. He'd also use it to heat up his huge, old-school soldering irons. A real craftsman- and a veteran of the Great War who fought in France!

Cheers-
chuk

 

[Iron Mike]

She hasn't caught him yet! Lord, how I remember those giant old soldering coppers in shop class, heating them in the burner, tinning them on the sal ammoniac block and then trying to soldering sheet metal into something that gave a passing grade!!!!