Hi all,
I've been sorting out certain anomalies with the primary parts of the model.
The details will be covered in the PDF build log, but as a heads up:
The resin locating pegs for the fuselage halves cause the assembly to be misaligned, as do those to locate the wings to the fuselage and upper wing centre section.
These pegs were removed and replaced with 0.8 mm diameter brass rod, which with the kit original steel pins provide a better joint and alignment.
Even so I found that with the wing leading edges aligned, the trailing edges were not. It seems the wing chords are slightly less than their mating faces.
Therefore some sanding of the trailing edges of the upper wing centre section and lower wing roots was required to align correctly to the wing sections.
Resin surface irregularities, such as blow holes, chips, edge delaminations and joint seams, needed to be either filled and/or sanded.
The two fuselage halves have pre-moulded external linen stitching, which is not very realistic. Also the stitching at the sides of the cockpit was not present on the aircraft.
In addition, the removable rear fuselage was attached to the forward fuselage at a joint to the rear of the cockpit.
This joint has been moulded on the fuselage halves as a thick ridge, but in reality did not look like this (see the following photograph).
The joint at the fuselage sides was covered with a strip.
These details were scraped and sanded away, in preparation for being replaced with photo-etch (‘Eduard’ WW1 Stitching (EDP32228).
Mike