Builds By Baz - Full scale MKII Colonial Viper

...or else it gets the hose again!!!!

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Surprise on my doorstep!!!! A random kindness from an internet friend. He just sent me 20 square metres of 300GSM chopped strand fibreglass mat to skin the Viper with! I've also picked up a generous gift of 300 square metres of 100GSM mat. I am continually blown away by the kindness and generosity of people who see a project and want to support it.

Thanks to the generosity of two total strangers, I have all the fibreglass mat I need to skin the Viper. Now to work on the resin, one which does not eat polystyrene. Bote-coat or similar...

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My boss was also good enough to cut out the steel support vanes for the rear turbines. Looks like I've got some welding to do.

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Meanwhile, I've been working on the upper aft panel. A mate from work converted a 3D file for me, then CNC routed it out of a piece of my demolished pergola. Something went wrong with the scale in the 3D file, so it printed too small, but it came out nice so we will do it again and up the scale. You can see from the photo I have in my hand below, it really needs to fill the space in the middle of the pane. Works out to about 300mm, which makes sense because a lot of stuff made in the US rounds off to the nearest inch or foot.

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While I wait for that, I've been working wood and plastic to make the rest of the panel and paint it up.

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Working on the rear cages for the exhaust turbines.

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At work, we had a couple of split and failed shield bosses, so I cut the flanges off them, polished them up and thought they might look better as the centre hubs on the intake fans. The existing hubs are turned from a 90mm post, so they look a bit small. Also, the plywood fan blades are starting to peel and look ratty, so I'm going to replace them with aluminium.

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Finally, I am under enormous pressure from my family to build this extension, right where the Viper stands now. I have to modify my garden shed to temporarily accept the modules, stacked in until required. Later, the whole building will come down to be replaced with a hangar. On Sunday, I cut the front wall off, framed it and turned it into a door, wide enough to get the palletised cockpit in. (Cockpit being the largest, widest module.)

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I was looking and reading this thread. At first when I saw the cardboard cut out I was like, "Wow, this looks goo...oly *Bleep*!" That was when I saw that you were making a much larger scale... WOW!
 
The next and one of the final outer detail jobs, are the mechanicals under the top engine cowling. Surprisingly easy to replicate, once I stopped to study it.

Here's a reference photo from the screen-used prop.
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Again, lots of leftover materials used, but I had to buy a length of PVC pipe that was a specific diameter that I didn't have. My next door neighbour gave me a heap of old 50mm pipe. Design work chicken scratches on a bit of old ply, after using a tape measure up on the engine and my blurry MkI eyeball. Gets the job done.

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