Battle of Britain 75th Anniversary Airshow, Duxford, UK

Some views of the Big Show at the Imperial War Museum

check out the IWM website 

In these films and photos, you can see Spitfires, Tiger Moths, Hawker Hurricaines, a Bristol Blenheim, a Chinook doing amazing aerobatics, one of only two flight-worthy B-17s in the world, and a Big Wing of 17 Spitfires!

It was a once in a lifetime event and absolutely fantastic!

Rabid Models F-104

This is work in progress...

Watermelon Man: Doctors Recommend It!

Félix et amis jouent dans le concert de fin d'année d'Alain Cupper!

Chamonix 04 2015

Off-Piste & Touring

with special thanks to Seb Cazorla for his really great guiding!

Sestrière 03 2015

Some off-piste skiing guided by Boris Debeaune!

Chamonix with The Boys 03 2015

Some off-piste with the boys at Chamonix in early March 2015.

There was too much wind at Chamonix itself, so we skied Courmayeur and Verbier, guided by Jacques Senly and his friend Fred.

Techone Rafale Woes...

I've had a Techone Rafale for a while now.

It came damaged by the post and was a challenge to assemble. In particular the EDF unit was poor quality and I never managed to balance it properly.

Although it flies very well, is stable yet agile, I had a first crash leading to nose repairs.

Then the EDF unit started vibrating so strongly that I decided to replace it. So I took out poor quality Chinese junk and replaced it with slight better quality Chinese junk.

The Repair Log tells the story.

The photo album below illustrates.

FrogJet

Well, inspired by so many people and having so much fun with foam RC planes, I decided to make dream one up myself!

The Build Log tells the whole story. The Slideshow below illustrates.

Now I'm gearing up fro the test flight!

JeSuisCharlie

Tout est dit par Patrick Pelloux :

RCPowers F117 V3

I built an RCPowers F117 V3 as a gift for a friend. 

The Build Log tells the story.

The first test flight shown below the photo album, was not great, sigh...

RCPowers SU-34 V4

Check out the Build Log and the Forum Discussion! 

USA 2014

My Carvin BoltPlus Guitar

Hello Guitar Fans!

Here's a report on the construction of my Carvin BoltPlus Guitar kit. The process so far has been:

1. Sand down the maple neck and alder body with 150, 320, and finally 400 grit dry sandpaper. I carefully followed the wood grain while removing the machining scratches mainly from the cutaway's and the butt of the body. The neck was practically perfect out of the box.
2. I then applied Tung oil with a cotton rag. I applied a light 1st coat to the entire body including the cut-outs and pockets. The following 4 coats were applied much more heavily, but not to the cut-outs. I allowed at least 12 hours between coats and buffed away as much of the Tung oil as possible after the coat and then again before applying the next.  The neck could hardly absorb any oil so it only got 3 coats. I did not oil the rosewood fingerboard. All in all I hardly used much Tung oil, only 3/8 of a 1/4 liter bottle.
3. Finally, after the 5th coat on the body, I used 000 grade steel wool to polish the body, only. I did some more buffing with a microfiber buffer cloth.
4. I am now waiting for the oil to fully dry before applying the red furniture oil and continuing the construction.

Here are some views of the neck and body after step 3:

The following references may help other builders:

• Tao Guitars:
  Master Luthiers in Brussels, Belgium, provided all sorts of help and advice.
• Grande Droguerie le Lion:
  in Brussels, supplies Tung oil and other products - a cool shop if you're an alchemist!
• Cream Audio:
  The very pleasant Carvin Dealer in Belgium.
• Carvin Guitars:
  The guys who make the best kits and guitars at really great prices!
• Probag:
  provide custom made leather guitar bags that are great quality at a great price!

Brussels Air Museum

This is a great place to spend an afternoon, and it's free!

Il se passe toujours quelque chose sur la route du Tour...

...Tout à fait, Thierry!

Les Vacances, 2014

No Comment.

Spain 2014

Mollecular Modelling and 3D Printing

This can be 3D-printed to get a cool something....

The process used:

1. Open the .pdb file in Pymol (opensource, free if you install yourself).
2. The molecule will appear.
3. To the right of the molecule, click on the "S" then the "As" then "surface" (this calls the "show as surface" command, which hides everything but the surface; it's important to hide everything else since unwanted artifacts may be present and screw up the 3D printing later on...)
4. Again, to the right of the molecule, click on the "C" then the "by element" then the 3rd "CHNOS...." from the end. This sets the color scheme.
   
5. Use the menu bar to set maximum display quality:
   Display / Quality / Maximum Quality
6. Finally, from the main menu, save as VRML2:
   File / Save Image as / VRML 2...
7. Optionally, in case of slow Internet upload speeds, zip compress the resulting .wrl file before uploading to Shapeways.

If you need other formats, e.g. STL :

1. Open the previously generated .wrl file in MeshLab using the menu:
   File / Import Mesh
2. Save a copy in the format of your choice using the menu:
   File / Export Mesh
3. Again, optionally compress to save space and upload time.

3D Printing

Yep, I've been doing some 3D printing lately...

Check out some 3D printed Spinners on my new Rabid Models P38!

The full Build-log photo album is also available!

And then came proteins and the PTHR1 GPCR Model!

Which can be downloaded and/or printed from Shapeways or Thingiverse !

It's cool to be alive in the 21st century!

Selector: Marathon Backpack Pressure-Cooker

The Force or the Dark Side, take your choice...

Snowden vs. NSA

"If you're not connected to one of those valid intelligence targets, you're not of interest to us ..."

Congratulations! Now you are!