Rob's Buccaneer mob *finished*

[fredk]

You have more than 7 days till this GB ends - on March 4th. I make that 11 days

[rob_van_riel]

You have more than 7 days till this GB ends - on March 4th. I make that 11 days

Correct, but consider: 7 days waiting for the resin to cure leaves only 4 days (3 if you take into consideration that I won't be working on this on 3-3) for mounting the canopy, correcting any issues around the canopy-to-fuselage join, painting and decalling. I'm going to have to get creative with out-of-sequence work and/or that curing time (a 40 to 50 degree celcius hotbox might help - I'll probably do several castings, and leave some of them at room temperature while others get fried).

[ShaunW]

Hopefully you will not run out of time Rob. I have to say that your replacement resin canopy does look very promising. I'm always impressed with members who have a go at things like this.

[rob_van_riel]

Hopefully you will not run out of time Rob. I have to say that your replacement resin canopy does look very promising. I'm always impressed with members who have a go at things like this.

I'll almost certainly fit the original canopy to the grey/green/grey camo plane well before the resin ones are ready, so that should buy me some time. The plane with the resin canopy will become overall Desert Pink, so at least it's a simple paint job, but on the other hand, my Desert Pink is from Xtracolor, which means it might dry in five hours or five days, and this is the first step in the finishing process

As for having a go like this, the key is to not be intimidated, and just not caring if it succeeds or fails. That way, even the worst case scenario becomes an interesting experience, good for a laugh at the next club meeting and/or series of forum posts Of course, first attempts, when spectacular disaster is still an option, should not be made on items that somehow matter, unless they're write-offs anyway.

It does help that I only share my home with the cats, meaning I can fill the whole place with interesting toys and experiments

[rob_van_riel]

de-mould time specified as 2-4 hours, as opposed to about 15 minutes for the plain stuff.

Judging by the speed at which the leftover bit is curing, this may actually be an optimistic schedule. The leftovers are a sort of thick paste now, after an hour and a half. De-mould after 2 hours is out of the question. Some time after dinner seems more likely..

On the bright side, at least it is curing. I'm sorry to say that hasn't always been the case with my little experiments

[DavidWomby]

Impressive moulding a resin canopy!!!!

You certainly have had more than your share of needing to cast parts for these builds, Rob.

David

[rob_van_riel]

Impressive moulding a resin canopy!!!!

You certainly have had more than your share of needing to cast parts for these builds, Rob.

We'll see about the canopy.. depending on how the clear resin turns out, this may end up rather less than impressive It's only possible because Matchbox canopies are a bit on the thick side; I wouldn't have a hope doing this from a vacform original.

Resin copies are just my style of dealing with missing parts; I've seen others here deal with similar issues by sculpting balsa, or scratching from Evergreen. I could never do that properly; to me, the sculptors are the impressive ones.

Casting up all those bits has become an excercise in irrational behaviour. I've by now spent the price of a Revell repop in rubber alone. Any halfway sensible person would have snatched the parts from the Revell kit and stuffed the remains in the spares box, but writing off an otherwise workable kit on account of a few missing parts just bugs me. I just consider myself fortunate that I can afford these little inefficiencies

[IronMan129]

Don't worry Rob I am exactly the same.
I bought a Fujimi Harrier from Telford for a quid as I needed the landing gear and I will only split it only because I have uses for the rest of the kit otherwise I wouldn't have split it up!
Fantastic work on the Bucc mate!

[rob_van_riel]

de-mould time specified as 2-4 hours, as opposed to about 15 minutes for the plain stuff.

Judging by the speed at which the leftover bit is curing, this may actually be an optimistic schedule. The leftovers are a sort of thick paste now, after an hour and a half. De-mould after 2 hours is out of the question. Some time after dinner seems more likely..

The resin has passed the four hour mark, and it is now a very flexible solid, a bit like normal resin after about ten to fifteen minutes. I could get it out of the mould at this point, but that would be certain to deform the cast. Later. Much, much later..

[rob_van_riel]

The resin has passed the four hour mark, and it is now a very flexible solid, a bit like normal resin after about ten to fifteen minutes. I could get it out of the mould at this point, but that would be certain to deform the cast. Later. Much, much later..

OK, so that didn't work. I just opened up the mould, and the resin inside was still just so much gunk
Tomorrow will see another attempt, in the oven at low heat; see if that gets the chemistry moving..

[fredk]

Could you use the test casting [with a bit of tidying up to it] for making a push/crash/smash moulded canopy from some clear sheet?

[rob_van_riel]

Could you use the test casting [with a bit of tidying up to it] for making a push/crash/smash moulded canopy from some clear sheet?

Possibly, but there's a minor complication there: I haven't the faintest idea how.
OK, that's an exaggeration. The basic concept is clear; heat sheet, stretch over master. That's not enough to work with. I know quite a few people here use the technique, but until now, I've never had any need for it, and so didn't investigate to figure out the actual procedure and materials involved, or experiment with it. Now might be the time to start looking into it though.
You wouldn't happen to know where to find a good write-up, preferably illustrated, would you?

[rob_van_riel]

Tomorrow will see another attempt, in the oven at low heat; see if that gets the chemistry moving..

Scrap that, the oven isn't cooperating; it can do cold, or too hot, nothing in between. I'm quite willing to drive this stuff to about 40 degrees, but without more knowledge of all the chemicals involved, I'm not going above temperatures that naturally occur. I'd rather not run into some unexpected chemistry and release poison gas or something (not entirely out of the question, there are cyanide compounds involved, and if they should break down in inconvenient ways at high temperatures, things could get messy).

I might, with a week or so of patience, get decent results from this resin, but that's an experiment that will have to wait. I suspect I'm really driving it beyond it's specifications though; it's designed for items of 4mm or greater thickness, and without that bulk, the chemical reactions might not behave as intended (i.e. very slow, and possibly incomplete - there is such a thing as critical mass before they start to work properly).

I think I still have some clear epoxy resin hiding somewhere. Maybe I'll dig that out, and see what can be done with it...

[rob_van_riel]

You wouldn't happen to know where to find a good write-up, preferably illustrated, would you?

I found a few, but they all seem to indicate crash moulding will give me a canopy shape without any of the frames. Is that correct?

[rob_van_riel]

I think I still have some clear epoxy resin hiding somewhere. Maybe I'll dig that out, and see what can be done with it...

And then again, maybe not. As near as I can determine, this would have characteristics very similar to the PU resin; not much improvement.

Like all proper techies, I checked the manual only after the initial experiments had failed (occupational hazard..). Turns out the rubber I used was not the best type to use with this resin (I used condensation rubber, which may leave a sticky interface between rubber and resin, rather than the more appropriate addidion rubber). There is a cure for this: baking the rubber at 150 celcius for about two hours; guess what's happening right now.

Even when so post-cured, the mould still needs to be pre-heated to about 50 degrees, and it is recommended to cast the resin and after a few minutes put it right back into a 50 degree environment for a few hours. None of which I did, of course.

Round two coming up..