Subject: Re: Article
From: "Submissions for ARC" <[email-masked]>
To: "Green, John" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2007 16:55:15 -0700

Hi,
I just wanted to let you know your article went on ARC today.  Thanks again 
for sending it in.

Steve Bamford
Aircraft Resource Center
http://www.aircraftresourcecenter.com

Live like there is no tomorrow;
Love like you've never been hurt.
Work like you don't need the money.
Dance like nobody's watching.
Sing like nobody's listening.
Live like it's Heaven on Earth.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Green, John" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Sent: Monday, July 23, 2007 8:14 AM
Subject: Article

> Gallery Template #02
> Aeroclub 1/72 Gloster Gamecock
> by John Green
> --------------------
> Steve Bamford will insert full sized version of photo 01.jpg here
> I've always liked the look of the RAF's biplanes from the Inter-War 
> "Silver
> Wings" period , but rarely feel brave enough to tackle one .  Recently ,
> however , I decided to take the bull by the horns & finish the Aeroclub
> Gamecock , which had been lurking part-built in a drawer under the bed for
> more years than I care to remember .  It's a typical Aeroclub product 
> which
> , for those not familiar , means short run injection main airframe parts 
> in
> a butterscotch-coloured plastic with massive sprue attachments which 
> really
> MUST be sawn off rather than cut , a collection of white metal detail 
> parts
> , some Contrail rod & strut & a nice decal sheet .  The injected parts 
> take
> a fair amount of work to get them free of the sprues but , once this is 
> done
> , they're actually really nicely moulded & remarkably free of flash & 
> mould
> joins .  Being short run , of course , means that they're also totally 
> free
> of that bane of the modeller's life the ejection pin mark , since the 
> moulds
> don't have ejection pins .  The white metal parts need rather more 
> clean-up
> , but are nice enough once done .
>
> Once everything was cleaned up , much of the assembly was quite painless ,
> the fuselage , interior , lower wing & tail slotting together with little 
> in
> the way of rubbing down & a couple of small smears of filler .  The first
> problem arose , however , with the one-piece white metal combined fuselage
> nose & engine , which was a very poor fit & significantly larger that the
> fuselage , resulting in much work with Milliput , worked down whilst wet ,
> to conceal the step .  The kit supplies white metal interplane struts , 
> but
> the modeller is required to cut the cabane struts from a length of 
> Contrail
> rod .  This maybe doesn't sound too bad , but the Gamecock actually has 10
> of the accursed things , giving much scope for sense of humour failure !! 
> It
> took a considerable amount of time looking at the various photos &  scale
> plans in Lumsden & Thetford's fine book "On Silver Wings" before I 
> actually
> worked out exactly how many struts there actually were & exactly where 
> they
> went , but I figured it out in the end .  The majority of the strut
> locations in the wings & fuselage are shown as slight dimples in the
> mouldings which I deepened with a drill , then drilled out any missing
> locations using the plans .  Having got everything ready  , I decided the
> best way was to fit the interplane struts first & tape the top wing in 
> place
> , then cut the cabane struts to length & fix them to the fuselage , which
> then allowed me to remove the top wing again once the struts had set .
> After a final coat of primer , everything was ready for paint .
> As is usual for RAF fighters of that era , the Gamecock is finished in
> silver dope on the fabric areas , with any metal panelling left unpainted 
> &
> usually highly polished .  The upper fuselage was normally painted in a 
> dark
> colour , presumably to serve as an anti-glare panel , which was a dark 
> grey
> in the case of the Gamecock .  Having pondered the best way to paint it 
> all
> , eventually I did the nose area in automotive gloss black followed by
> Alclad Polished Aluminium , masked that & sprayed the rest in Alclad White
> Aluminium  .  Next , I masked out the dark grey fuselage decking & brush
> painted that so I could retain the silver finish on the struts & finally
> brush painted the interplane struts .
> Once the painting was completed , I then applied the decals .  The sheet 
> was
> subtly out of register & when I applied the underwing serials they had a
> white drop-shadow , which looked distinctly odd .  A phone call to 
> Aeroclub
> brought a replacement sheet in the mail within a couple of days & the
> serials on that turned out to be fine .  The main problems with the decals
> were the squadron markings on the fuselage & the rudder stripes .  The
> fuselage markings go over the gun troughs & are supposed to follow their
> contours , but if you lay the decals down into the troughs it distorts 
> their
> shape & the whole appearance is totally wrong , so I laid the decals flat
> across the ports & , once they'd dried , slit them with a scalpel &
> persuaded the cut edges down into the troughs , then attempted to fill in
> the gap between the cut edges with scraps of spare decal from the sheet .
> This was distinctly unsuccessful & so after much fiddling I eventually 
> gave
> up & touched the decals up with paint , Humbrol 104 Oxford Blue & 19 Post
> Office Red turning out to be near-perfect matches  .  The rudder stripes 
> are
> supplied as plain straight lengths & really didn't want to fit the rudder 
> .
> Eventually , after much messing about & vast quantities of assorted decal
> softeners , I gave up & removed the sorry mess from the rudder . Having
> found with the gun troughs that Humbrol 19 was a decent match for the red 
> ,
> I then used it to brush paint the rear half of the rudder , cut the blue
> sections from a spare set of stripes & applied them to the front of the
> rudder , trimming once they were dry & finally used Xtradecal white stripe
> decal to add the white portion . This may sound long-winded but trust me ,
> it was a lot easier & MUCH more successful than trying to use the kit
> stripes .  As a final point for anyone who's confused by my painting the
> rear of the rudder red , RAF aircraft had rudder stripes with blue leading 
> ,
> rather than red , until 1931 when the order was reversed .   Once 
> everything
> was dry , I washed off the surplus decal glue & solvents & brushed on a 
> coat
> of Future top seal everything in .
> Now came the bit I'd really been dreading , the accursed rigging .  I 
> looked
> at the plans & photos again to determine what went where & decided that I
> could do the bulk of the rigging before I put the top wing in place , but
> before I started I fitted the main landing gear so that the model would 
> sit
> securely while I was working on it .  I then found some silver sprue from 
> an
> old Esci car kit , stretched it & made a start .  Some days & much failure 
> &
> swearing later , I'd finally got the wing rigging in place & then fitted 
> the
> top wing , breaking some of the rigging in the process .  Another round of
> bad language & sense of humour failure later I finally got the wing 
> rigging
> finished together with that on the tail .  This just left the additional 
> vee
> struts from the bottom of the front interplane struts to the front & rear
> spars & the aileron link rods , all of which I cut to length from some
> Contrail rod , superglued in place & then brush painted once they'd set .
> Finally I fitted the pre-painted propeller & exhausts .
> Building this kit was sometimes a distinctly frustrating experience ,
> largely due to my lack of experience with biplanes  , but art the end of 
> the
> day , I was very happy with the result .  Was it worth the effort ?- too
> right it was !!  Would I do it again ? - certainly not for a while !!!
> Steve Bamford will insert full sized version of photo 02.jpg here
> Photos and text © by John Green
>
> <>  <>
>
> John Green
> Logistics
> Tel :  +44 (0)1270 653530
>
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