Thanks all for your encouraging interest!
Busy times at work, but I found a few moments to spare at home and managed to progress with the fuselage. Next photos will show you that my working methods are not very cleanly engineered. It is more like sculpting and sanding to shape. And if some interior detail will not be visible in the final model, i will lazily skip it without any regrets….all you see is what you get:). Must be me getting old…
But anyway….firstly I heat-formed a couple of pieces of plasticard with very hot water. The other i clamped over a brush handle and the other I taped to a knife handle. I washed over them for 10 seconds with nearly boiling hot water and then immediately rinsed them with cold water. After that they stay nicely in shape.
9C01866F-0E31-411C-9485-6324A3BAA4CD by
Amiga Hassel, on Flickr
I then cut them near to the actual shape and glued them into place. After properly cured, I cut away the excess stuff and constructed the front end from small pieces of 1mm plasticard.
79F46C3A-C3DB-43F8-9FBD-816340A30078 by
Amiga Hassel, on Flickr
Then I drilled and cut the cockpit openings. Note the two strips of plastic in front of the fuselage, that look like cut fingernails. They will form the raised sides of the observer cockpit.
D8891E95-9CEF-4E20-BB2F-0169D4F73293 by
Amiga Hassel, on Flickr
Now they are glued to their place. I will make their shape more aerodynamic later with some putty and filework
E4E5D7C6-D93D-4D84-A60A-FCC51F790049 by
Amiga Hassel, on Flickr
Some guide painting and sanding has been done already and now I add the padding to the front cockpit. I simply glue some heat stretched sprue to the rim. The opening has to be cut slightly oversize to allow for the padding.
D7CD9433-964F-47AD-A231-63067A005D5A by
Amiga Hassel, on Flickr
More sanding, puttying and some base color to help to see the problems. Now it is clearly getting there…
7E3287FF-5DC3-4DFC-A83B-B1CD50EC61C4 by
Amiga Hassel, on Flickr
Here’s a sideview. You see that I made the front rather straight in horizontal plane. According to photos (courtesy of Joachim!) it really looks like to go that way. Most drawings show it more curved (but the actual drawing made for the Flight article in 1917 has similar side profile to what i am doing here). I will make the slope in the front a bit less angular, but I firstly have to decide from what kit i will appropriate the spinner from…possibly a spare from Roden or Revell Albatross fighter. Then i will finetune the shape. There’s some work also with some lines and edges on the sides. They are still a bit haphazard at this point.
B48CC925-96C5-40E6-960A-81D69611EBA9 by
Amiga Hassel, on Flickr
More later, cheers
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