That is a bit unfortunate on the curl Tom. I might have come up with something viable...but only since my curiosity was peaked when it was brought up...and the old saying, nothing ventured, nothing gained applied....

Not trying to hijack your thread here but this is what I cam up with:

To bend the metal much easier it needs to be annealed...as you may know.



I used a lighter as you can see. I heated the PE with a waiving motion as to not melt it. It will curl up pretty bad if you hold it there too long. Just a couple of three passes, which causes it to discolor a little, is all that is needed.

I snipped a small piec of styrene stock...in this case it was a 0.020 x 0.030 square. I chamfered the edge. Figured it was best to take the sharp edges off and even make an irregular shape to it. I glued it to my makeshift work surface.




The styrene was smaller than the netting as you can see below. I used the full length of my tweezers to lightly press the PE down to the styrene. Since the piece is shorted and thinner width-wise I just moved the piece around a bit and kept pressing.



Here is what it looked like after I was done....



I think it came out reasonably well considering. The side rails are straight. If they bent a little, it is easy to just press them flat with some flat-nose tweezers.

Good luck if you wanted to have a go!! If you need me to try something else so not to sacrifice your pieces, let me know!!

Simple and effective solution, Todd

Wow, thanks Todd! You did that just for me? What a good idea and what a great guy!!

Have been somewhat busy with spring clean-up around the yard and house...its that time of year around here when our golden retriever's 5 months of accumulated dog poop piles in the backyard are starting to show through the snow melting. Anyway...onto to less objectionable things:

Starting back onto the airplanes...here you see a couple dozen torpedo bombers and a dozen or so Zero's (still have another 12 Vals to make). These all need their canopies and props installed, you can see the pe canopies and props on the left of the pic:


Applying decals to the underneath of the Zero's and getting ready to add their landing gear and wash:


Here's my first torpedo bomber done, still have some touch ups to do like apply some black wash on the canopies, but anyway:


The first 15 torpedo bombers done, another 6 to go...here they are resting on the flight deck while I work on the others:


I'm doing a few folded wings ones too, two for the deck and one for going in the forward elevator:




Comments and suggestions, as always, are welcome in this thread. Cheers to all and thanks for looking! -Tim

Hi Tim,

Etched canopy frames look great, as to the wing folds. Really coming together.

Si

Another fine update Tim!! Great seeing the flight line coming to life!! I'm with Si on the canopies...superb!! Keep up the great work!!

I can't believe the detail on the aircraft,just as impressive as the ship.

Very nice, Tim.

The aircraft really give it a sense of scale.

Looking good!
Russ

Tim,

Amazing work. The air wing brings her to life and compliments what is a phenominal build.

Dave

Tim,

your clean-up sounds somewhat familiar, that and a little easter leave kept me away for some days from following yours and all the others great work here on MSW. And when I found some time finally yesterday, the internet let me down...

But be assured, I am still following your build, and it continues to be most inspiring and amazing!!

After watching you building all the PE and wonderful detail on the ship, what you are doing now to the planes again leaves me in awe - almost unbelievable with what attention to detail and patience you approach all of them, just plain out fantastic and stunning work!!!

Looking forward to every single one of your updates!!

Cheers,

Jan

Thanks everyone!...and Jan, its great to have you back and thank-you for your kind words.

Only a small update today as the Zero's pe landing gear was more trouble than anticipated, but we got through it ok.

The Zero's landing pe landing gear and canopies:


Landing gears attached and getting ready to roll the canopies:


Comments and suggestions, as always, are welcome in this thread. Cheers to all and thanks for looking! -Tim

Every little bit!! Some great work on the wee planes Tim! More power to you...my eyes are hurting just thinking of the tiny landing gear!! Keep it coming!

Ok

How I made my landing gear wheel hubs:
(I always make extra because not all turn out)


Photoetch landing gear..its beautiful, too bad at this scale its hard to notice on the finished plane, but anyway...on the left is the kit part, one the right the etch, and after a double fold, the finished landing gear. I hand painted the wheels black and then the next day painted the outside stuts the fuselage color, then the day after that, I folded them, Most of the paint stayed on, I was quite happy about that
(oh ...and those tabs on the bottom of the wheels are supposed to be there they are locators for the the wheel when folded onto the strut)



More to do!


Pic of folded and painted landing gear:

Wonderful work. Excellent PE handling.

Great stuff Tim,

The etch undercart looks really good, and the canopy frames too.

following with interest.

Si

Tim,

Great update. I am definitely taking a copious amount of notes so that I can refer to them whenever I build a Carrier.

thanks for sharing not only your outstanding build but the process you use.

Dave

Your little airgroup is looking fantastic! The photoetch canopies and landing gear are especially impressive. The planes tend to make or break a carrier model, and yours are definitely doing the Akagi justice. Great work!

Again, absolutely amazing!!

For myself, I have to admit, when it comes to the planes I am about to lose patience. Well, they are not the main feature of cruisers/battleships, but I know I should pay more attention to them. Seeing what you do to your airwing is both amazing and inspiring!! I'll have to do an CV at some point of time - maybe the dream of a RN flat deck in 1/350 will come true eventually

Great job Tim and looking forward to more from your Akagi

Cheers

Jan

You guys are wonderful...your encouragement makes a big difference when I get the doldrums for working on this model, which seems to be happening more often lately as its a marathon for sure. So thx again!!

I have the canopies for the Zero's installed, but I have a question; in the 2nd pic below there are two versions of the props...the kit part with the decals and the pe part without. I could not get the decals to apply/stick to the pe ones, but they did nicely to the plastic ones. The pe ones are thinner by quite a bit, but they lack the decals. If it was your model, which ones woudl you use? As you can see, I haven't installed the props yet except for these two...awaiting what the majority of you think before I do the rest.




Sorry for the bad pics but these things are about an inch or so long I guess. Let me know which way you would go. Thx! -Tim

Amazing work, Todd. I would go with PE props and mask & spray them, if decals are not an option. Why can't you apply decals on them?

Tim,

I agree with Todd. The PE props appear a little cleaner. Not sure if applying gloss coat to the prop would help in applying the decals or not. Might be something to try.

Dave

Thanks gentlemen...so photoetched props it will be!

I put the Zero's on the deck to have a look:









I'm not sure the planes will be in this layout on the deck when done, but its good enough for a couple pics
Thanks for checking in! Cheers, Tim

Tim,

I have to admit that viewing your latest pictures caused a slight shudder.

Your work is an incredible representation of that historical ship.

It is an awe inspiring master piece.

Dave


Dave

This just keeps getting better and better.

Im gonna open another beer and look at these photos again.

Bryan

Top job Tim,

Looking really superb, the deck full of aircraft looks superb,

Si

Tim,

absolutely amazing, I am quite speechless...

I find myself really looking for words to describe your work but I fail - just watching in some kind of awe...

For your props, well, I'm late again - simply don't manage to check in daily - but should it help, I would have voted for PE as well

Looking forward to more pics - and keep up your spirit!!!

Cheers,

Jan