-wow, thanks for all the response guys
-Carlos, thank you!

-thanks Andrzej , i am particularly happy of seeing some great train related dioramas here btw

-Alexandre, I know you got it

-Anirudh thanks a lot!! No not a clock mechanism, though it sure looks like it in places!

-oh so soon? John-Paul is the winner of the chocolate medal!!

Congratulations! now don't follow this thread too closely as I know you know loads about planes and some details I didn't understand I will

simply lost in eerr, the crash.
So yes inded guys, i will model (between other things) a ball turret as you can find on a B-17.



- Jesper thanks for your comments! I use both Inkscape and illustrator, the first one being free. You need to have a vector graphic software that supports precise measurements and boolean operations. No need to own a recent illustrator either, a version 6 or 7 should be enough -as long as it wants to print the stuff..
Indeed I will develop it myself, I am not a great money spender when it comes to model making. But more on that later as you will see.


-Ron, of course i have to leave a bit of the suspense! Even if Jaypee got it, that's not the end of the story! I don't have the time to do

something as neat as that great modeler who does his Me-410 over there at Aeroscale, so I have to find other ways
but the semi-dreamy vision while being bored in a train is spot on

-Erik, second medal of the day

You got it too, though that won't be mere illustration. Actually, I had another idea which was very close, and then I read the poem and just fixed the original idea to the poem -that's very well guessed!
John-Paul, I also read that ball turret gunners thought they were also the smallest target of the whole plane

-thomas, thanks, yes ghastly and very beautifully said.

-Bring on the popcorn Scott! that one should be 6 to 10 weeks long.

-Koen, same thing! and thanks for popping in too

more to show tomorrow morning -same time as today

Ah JB,
It's like going to a movie that you know nothing about and eventually realizing that it's beyond Oscar caliber! There have been some good guesses here so far and I think some are close but I'll wait till there are 'more letters on the board' so to say before I make a guess.
I would like to request that at some point perhaps you could make a tutorial/explanation as to how you create your photo etch. A step by step starting with the design and ending with the fret. That would be very interesting I think.
Well, kudos to you for keeping this very interesting. Looking forward to further progress

Cheers,
Charles

EDIT: oops, apparently we were posting at the same time...I will no longer need to guess!!

Looks very interesting, buddy, count me in. I am rather technical than anything else anyway.
Libor

Wow JBA!. Great idea! Im really looking foward to this!.
Where did you get the idea from?

Another medal is going to me for finding a way to be noticed by modeller like JBA (not for my model making, that's different thing, but as a Guy-With-Name-So-Bl#$dy-Difficult-To-Spell for sure )

And most important medal should go to JBA himself for receiving 12 posts after just saying that he starts to work and showing PE parts layout


JB, to be honest: I've mentioned choo-choo train for fun but also because some parts of your PE layout reminded me of train wheels - just a simple train of thoughts...
Cant wait to see your work again!

A.

Funny Andrzej, Your so right about JBA's ability to stir interest by simply posting a title!
He's the only guy I know who can do this!

Bring it on JB...............

Cheers,
Charles

JBA,
It looks like you got the whole world waiting at your door steps for this one. It's a pleasure and an honor to see a Master at work. I'll be watching!!

Cheers,
Kirk

Charles, thanks hey you know the whole will be about setting up a realistic mood, and above all avoid bad taste. Actually that's the second goal -the first being "how to be able to scratchbuild that circular holey thing, but I have already an idea about the question
I will be creating photoetch just right now, so even if that's going to be rather fast, all the elements are there -and then when i built up my 2 machines, I took lots of pics, and hopefully I will end up doing a paper on it, but that's when my Masséna diorama will be finished, so not before another year I presume

Libor, yeah maybe you are technical "only", but you're a great deal better than me at scratchbuilding plastic

Jaymes, thanks too, as for where the idea comes from, well, maybe by the end of the diorama UI will tell, but just not right now

Andrzej may I remind you that I've got the French version of your own name? It helps
12 answers, this is cool! As long as I put my stuff on internet and am ready to spend a bit of tuime explaining it, I am rather very happy that people take notice! Oï thanks for the medal too, though 10 months of compulsory army service rather disgusted me to ever bear one!

Kirk thanks! A master I ain't! just a lot of cheap tricks

Starting here..

Once you do the drawings on a vector software, you have to print it, I have a b&w lazer printer at home, and bought some special tranparent printing paper. This is not an extraordinary printer and surely the result could be way better but here it goes..

Then I cut the right size of a specially treated metal sheet covered with some photoresistent material. the blue surface is the adhesive on the metal that protects it from the light.



The next step is of course to cut and glue the 2 sides of the plan one face to another. I glue on 3 sides and will insert the metaol plate between the sheets once I have remove the plastic film. Of course, take care NOT to touch the surface of the photoresist coated netal with the fingers! And it can be hard to do that as the paper glues quite hard indeed

I have been building a device with 2 special neon lights and a glass and wood cover to "insulate" (right word?" the plates. 2,30 minutes on each side



The next step is of course to cut and glue the 2 sides of the plan one face to another. I glue on 3 sides and will insert the metal plate between the sheets once I have remove the plastic film. Of course, take care NOT to touch the surface of the photoresist coated metal with the fingers! And it can be hard to do that as the paper glues quite hard indeed

I have been building a device with 2 special neon lights and a glass and wood cover to "insulate" (right word?" the plates. 2,30 minutes on each side



I bought some photo developing liquid (available in electronic shops because the guys into printed circuits use those same products), pour the right amount of water to make the mix and dipped my fret into it, shake gently for a good dozen minutes (depends on wether the product is new etc..). take care not to overdo things of course. Check under darkness, because the light still acts on the metal

When you are happy, wash it down! industrial gloves of course as the photo revelant is an acid and sort of burns.



yeah!

Man! You're making this look real easy... This is almost as bad as watching 24, can't wait for the next episode...

Cheers
Stef

Hello JB,

then it's better with pics added to words. The last times, in your garden, I have not comletely understood your explainations...

My new rule for holidays : check JB's topic every morning...
Now I vais faire le marché.

Bises.

If I follow correctly this just step one in producing PE. Exposing the brass. Is is possible to use a grey in the exposing stage to produce texture on the part? Or will that bit just melt when the acid gets at it?
What a great way to spend the day playing with dangerous chems.

I think your brass plate looks beautiful... Like a Miro painting... You should print a couple of more and sell them... It would be pretty cool to have an original JBA artwork on the wall

hey Stefan thanks!, yes it's easy for me *now*, but I have put in the dustbin quite a lot of material when i first tried.. Anyway the result is to be seen below

Alex my dear neighbour, I wasn't properly clothed to show you how it worked anyway, the stuff is dirty as hell! Well take the best of your holidays and I hope the weather is back to excellent!

Well John-Paul, consider the picture below

Those are some tiny portholes for a 1/35 battleship, something home-brew. As you can see the rivets just pop out the material and I got that by simply not doing the same pattern on each side: the "top" side features a normal porthole, the "bottom" draw just shows the rivets, which means that on a .2 thick brass sheet, .1 will be left for the rivets, look below for an example of plan
.
The difficulty is to be sure that both sides of the transparent film are well aligned which is why i use some sight looking things.
This is the best way to do "2 sided" photoetch. using grey I never tried but I think it would work okay. I should add that if you try doing those 2 sided photoetch you've got to be extra careful, because a minute or 2 too much and the work is ruined.
I didn't need that for the ball turret so the 2 sides of the transparent are identical.

Jesper, that's *still* year of Sweden here thanks for your comment. Actually my fret was not so well designed in that you have to occupy the maximum of space with stuff, otherwise the ferric oxide I use works more and clogs faster!

Time to dip the fret in the ferric oxide (is it?). The machine I built is basically a morning chocolate plastic box with a hole for an aquarium bubble maker. The heat needed uis provided by an aquarium heater. Now take care as the fumes are not very good for the health when the ferric oxyde is heated. the picture shows roughly 10 minutes of the process

10 minutes later..

Rheingold!

Sweet JBA, another topic for the "must check every day"-list !

Cheers/Jan

Love the PE lessons. You've gotten this down to a science.
One thing that strikes me is the artistry of knowing what is going where. Looking at the last photo of various PE bits and pieces in a cup made me dizzy with trying to figure out what goes where?

Nice job jb

JBA : thank you for sharing this unique PE lessons. I admire your knowledge.

Jan thanks! "Everyday except on week-ends except maybe some Saturdays when I work far from home on Mondays" is actually the rule

hey Scott Thanks too, but you know I had something like 3 weeks to think about that thoroughly and then yes. The process of actually drawing the fret is so much time consuming that you can't forget easely what piece goes where. It's very easy when you don't build your own frets though!
You may have notice that some of the pieces were actually numbered, and this will come handy at one point.

Thanks again Guy, everybody scratchbuilding things (hint, hint) should have a go at home-made photoetch



Now the photoetch is done it's all very well but how to create the circular shape of the ball turret? Photoetch won't save me at this stage. So this summer while in holidays I had the time of thinking about it thrice and this is how I am going to try.

First, there is no way I am going to scratchbuild the 2 browning guns you have in the turret. I first intended to buy some barrels only but I soon found out that the plane version is not the same as the ground one, so I had to search what was available with the plane guys. So i found out that of course everything was in that stoopid scale 1/32, so either I was about to get a bit oversized barrels or I would do the whole diorama in 1/32 -I choose the second solution because i am a rivet counter

Actually the main reason why I choose 1/32 is that a ball turret diameter is roughly 35mm in 1/32 which is the size of small plastic balls for kids

Now it's time to consider the sources which are surprisingly scarce. Sure internet is loaded with ball turret pictures, but plans nope. I found some 1/72 drawings of the ball turret -but as put on the plane directly, not the whole ball turret -except a small thing I think on a Wartech book.

There were a minimum of 2 types of ball turrets with me choosing doing the earlier one.

I set up with doing a plaster form of one of the balls. I took a yoghurt plastic pot, put some pins on the toy ball and poured plaster. I did this 2 times..

I really like where this is going! Your step by steps are an oppurunity to see a master at work, to follow his creative processes and offer an unique look in his atelier. Thank you for that!

Hey JB !
I just saw the topic my friend and spent the last 30 minutes looking at your excellent SBS on how you did the photoetch. I am impressed !!!! GOOD JOB, my friend, and like the others, I'll definitely be keeping close tabs on this one ! Cheers !
Kenneth .

..And thanks for your comments Thomas! those justify the amount of time I an spend doing those SBS

Kenneth dear friend, thanks for your enthusiastic comments as usual, and I am very happy to see you aboard on that one too

Okay update today, no update on Monday, I really work far away.
Please consider the drawing for the photoetch will you, You will notice that there are essentially 2 sort of shapes; the first with the tiny holes are for the "windows" supports, the holes will sort of figure the rivets in the end.

But there are also some blank geometrical shapes too. Those are for the shape of the opening of the windows. the reason why they are pierced is because of that, the Magic Sculp putty will hold better.

Indeed, the surface of the brass is flat while the openings will be on a circular shape, so i need to sort of glue those openings to the form but following the curve of the form (not very clear? it will be in a moment!)

So that's it, I have been putting some Magic Sculp on one side of the form and let those dry so that they get a curved shape.

then I sand them carefully -remember that the reason I used photoetch for those is that i wanted some precise, strong shapes.

Okay now it's going to be tricky as I must glue those tiny elements in the inside of the form following the plans, yuk, that was hard to get something symetrical!

Great work Jba! This will be interesting to see it develop.

HI JB. Great to see that your next project is underway. Eventhough its not long started, its already becoming educational as far as modelling is concerned.
What aircraft are you actually modelling .. not really my area, but its definatly got my attention.

Some really interesting stuff your doing with the photo-etch JB.
Could you possibly post a shot of the plans/blueprints that you are working off of? I'd be interested to see ball turret plans.
Cheers,
Charles

When i checked in yesterday after my short holiday i completely missed that there was already a second page for the thread with such an interesting discussion.

Anyway, i'm really just shaking my head here, standing for something like "this guy is crazier then I am"

Salut à toi Jean Bernard

Claude

Thanks Martyn that's not the end of it just yet

Frank thanks for telling as I thought i made it clear after the initial discussion,
I model a B-17 E or F Sperry Ball Turret, between other things. The ball turret can be found underneath the plane, and is the subject of some literature considering that the guy there must have been really small to fit in (apparently they found suitable personnel with Mexican and Italian born guys!), that he got to be rather courageous as he couldn't carry his parachute inside the ball. I found one picture showing a ball turret after a direct hit, and well, they probably washed the guy out like the poem says.


thanks Charles, here are the *only* scale plans I found

And that's not the right version i model. On those plans the side of the turret is covered by plexiglass, while in earlier version, you have more soemthing of an uncovered axis like in the picture on the previous page

Coming from you these are indeed compliments Claude

next update on Tuesday morning, 9AM French (and Luxembourgian) time!