What a brilliant scratch built Lewis gun. That will certainly pass on the finished model. Your ideas for the exhaust stacks and undercarriage legs are also excellent. This is indeed a log to follow if a modeller wants good ideas for scratch building parts.
Stephen.
Thanks Stephen, Ive mostly been experimenting with amking bits in order to avoid the more serious task of finishing the fuselage frame and dealing with mounting the cabane struts.
Richie, you and I have very different interpretations of "taking a break"! I love it!
Thanks Zac, I got up at the crack of dawn to get the Lewis finished before the less fun Xmas related tasks stole the rest of the day!
What a beautiful build and so many 'tricks' Richie!
Kent
Ah thanks Kent, that means so much coming from the master who built those awesome SE5a and DR1 dioramas. Now they were some very special modelling!
Well yesterday I finally made the next section of the fuselage frame and the engine controls, for me this was the scariest step so far because the cabane struts emerge directly above the last two uprights of the frame. I have line everything up with the plans and test fitted the sections to the fuselage (sorry no pictures yet) and all seems well. I have drilled 0.5mm holes into where the cabanes go and the will be built up around 0.5mm brass rods. I am praying that this will give me victory in the upcoming bout with the top wing but that is months away still.
1/32 BE2c engine controls and oil tank strap by
Richard Williams, on Flickr
The ball end handles of the controls are miniature ball bearings I bought online a couple of years ago in case they might be useful.
The strap is for the fuel tank cowling and is just Tamiya tape painted with oils and a little buckle made of copper wire bent over my steel ruler bashed flat and painted with Mr Metal Colour brass.
Today with many household tasks and so little time, I managed to squeeze in little pockets of modelling in between all the various highly unnecessary nonsense associated with this time of year, bah humbug!
A test fit of the new frame sections with the IP and firewall showed I needed to trim a bit off the firewall. The problem with having little time means things happen like this;
20221219_101930 by
Richard Williams, on Flickr
I couldn't face making a new firewall out of aluminium, I didn't much like it anyway so I made a replacement out of styrene.
20221219_145703 by
Richard Williams, on Flickr
Much better I think. The little cut outs are for where the rods from the engine controls pass through.
Another test fit suggests a good fit but not before one of the engine controls got pinged off. Luckily I recognised the sound of debris hitting a hollow carbon wheel on my old racing bike (so glad I no longer do that!) and I quickly found it and glued it back
20221219_150738 by
Richard Williams, on Flickr
There was much fiddling around and fettling involved in test fitting the cockpit coaming as the instrument panel was a smidge or two too tall but it looks like it will work now.
20221219_160235 by
Richard Williams, on Flickr
The final positioning and gluing of these parts needs to be absolutely precise to avoid top wing problems later. While time is limited mistakes are likely so I think I had better wish you all a happy Christmas and new year put this aside until next year.
Best Wishes everybody, no more updates for a while but I will be logging in to get my modelling fix from your work.
Richie
