Thanks Ian, Terri, Rick, and Stephen - not sure about the master modeller bit though!
In the buildup to attaching the tail a number of other tasks were required first so they were taken care of over the last couple of days. Mainly re the tail assembly. I had already painted the fin and rudder stripes but wasn't happy with the stripes as the paint was too dark. Does anyone have a good match for the RFC red and blue in Vallejo or Ammo acrylic?
The tail skid was added and painted, then I used a decal for the rudder stripes. When all was dry I attached the fins and rudder to the horizontal stabilizer and rigged it all.
Happy with that.
As I mentioned above I knocked off two of the four booms yesterday so had to reattach them and let them dry overnight.
This afternoon I started on trying to attach the tail assembly. I had a few possibilities as to how I was going to get it mounted correctly, hold the rigging wires in place, and glue it, all at the same time. All of those quickly failed the practical test.
I settled on adding the rigging wires first, then aligning the booms with the holes I'd drilled before applying a small piece of masking tape to hold it all in position The plan was then to simply add glue and leave it.
Ha!
The big problem is that the booms meet the tail assembly in the horizontal plane, so there is no rigidity until the tail is attached!
I put the plane on its nose on my turntable and the small pegs I used to tension the rigging obviously pulled the tail forward. I think it would have been easier to have added a small lip to the rear end of one of each pair of struts to stop the tail sliding forwards. That was my main issue, the other was trying to get it vertical, horizontal, and level in all 3 axes at the same time. One small adjustment in one plane put one or both others out, or made the tail slide forwards and I had to start again!
After about 3 hours of adjusting, readjusting, and re-re adjusting during which time I got it very nearly right many times then made one more little tweak and it all went pear shaped, I finally applied glue.
I'm definitely glad I finished rigging the tail before attaching it, and she will sit like that until my next session, tomorrow at the earliest.
Time for a beer!
Thanks for looking in, and stay safe!
Ian