DJ Parkins makes quality PE and white metal kits, well researched and ideal for RAF diorama builders.
As you can see, a few parts (notably the wheels) are in white metal. Before removing parts from the fret, I used a sharp X-acto knife to separate the louvers in the radiator.
The main body is a complex fold that really requires soldering to ensure it stays together. I made up a paper model to practice the folds (although I could have done better)
Before folding, you need to punch out the rivets from the indentations on the inside of the hull. There are quite a few of these.
Folding commenced with the rivets punched out You can see the (messy) solder joints here on the inside and outside of the body (click the images to get full size). I was experimenting with solder paste of various temperatures (rather than using separate flux plus solder bits). Bottom line, the hotter the iron, the faster the soldering. Trying lower temperatures with the corresponding low temperature solder paste didn’t really make anything easier on such large joints. Solder paste apparently has a 6 month shelf life and is not cheap so it is best not to dawdle on your project across months. It was somewhat irritating to receive paste from Internet retailers with 4 months of shelf life already gone.
I never look forward to rolling PE into a cylinder but that was a requirement to build the turret. I highly (and I mean highly) recommend using a kitchen mini torch to anneal the PE. Works much better than a candle, is super fast, pinpoint, and safe.
It took several tries to get the turret mounting seat to solder successfully to the hull top. This was exacerbated by inadvertently introducing a slight ‘dome’ in the hull top during folding. All the surfaces need to be slabs (oops). The dowel was used to make sure that I placed the mount centered in the hull top hole. Here is the annealed and rolled turret:
I decided to try an ultrasonic cleaner (Micromark) on the PE prior to priming. You should be able to tell from the before and after pictures that the cleaning actually did remove some grime.
Ultrasonic cleaning tip: Don’t try this after you have super glued some parts to the PE. The ultrasonic cleaner dissolved the CA glue and I almost washed the little details down the sink drain!
The chassis to hull was an interesting problem that I ended up doing badly wrong. First, the chassis folds were straightforward. The folds provide mounting points. However, the brass axle rod that would fit in the open holes on the chassis was much too small a diameter to snugly fit in the white metal wheels. I decided to build sleeves using telescoping Albion alloy brass tubes to get a snug fit.
A test fit of the wheels was done to make sure the axle lengths weren’t too long as the rear wheels fit inside the hull.
The astute observer will note a slight gap between the rear of the chassis and the rear panel. I ignored this for the time being as I wanted to paint the wheels off the hull and add back later when the entire hull was completed. The extra ‘play’ in the chassis would make it easier to get the rear wheels onto their axle. In retrospect, I think this was a mistake as the gap was too wide for CA or even epoxy. You can see this gap better here:
Rear panel to chassis
The above picture was taken after painting. Uh-oh. Let’s hope the soldering iron can solve this problem without too much painting rework.
After careful cleaning of the surfaces using a fiberglass brush and file, masking the painted surface so no solder would leak, neat application of 179C solder paste, 300C soldering iron, and, most importantly, the rear plate clamped to the chassis (thank goodness there was a place to clamp!) a successful solder joint was made. I didn’t bother to clean up the underside as there is no chassis detail anyway.
I’ll cover painting and decals in a later post.
Cropredy Beaverette Project 