Thanks Stephen, I am enjoying it (so far) though!
The last two days have been spent patiently poring over photos and drawings, trying to work out what goes where. I did manage to come up with a basic plan of the rigging from the king post and lower brace (not sure what its specific name is). This is what I've come up with:
That will help me plan the rigging a bit better as a lot of wires can be used both above and below the wings as one piece running through. I always try to minimize the number of separate pieces of rigging and will use one hole for multiple pieces when able.
The other tasks have been correcting the cockpits and working on the wings. The cockpits, as you may recall were not accurate for the aircraft I am modelling.
This is what we get in the kit - I have already made a start of raising the front edge of the rear cockpit here.
The front cockpit is too shallow and the rear needed to be more curved, and higher at the front. I started on the rear by cutting and bending the plastic to raise it slightly, then used Mr Dissolved Putty, dabbed on with a toothpick, to build up the rear edge.
After it had dried properly it was carefully filed down with a half round jewelers file. It needed two or three applications to get the right shape but eventually it got there. This stuff is really usufel for this type of work. I will also use it to re establish the cockpit edge padding which was too heavy anyway, but had to be removed.
This shows the final shape of the rear
and this one is after I had deepened the front cockpit. I also reduced the padding here too.
Some thought then had to be given to wing mounting. I decided to cut two slots into the inner edge of the wing and insert small lengths of .75 x 1mm rod to represent the spars. The slots would give extra strength to the joint as I don't think 2 butt joints (one to the wing and one to the fuselage) would work.
For the fuselage end, I carefully marked out where the spars were attached, (they were bolted on, and did not run through - at least the rear one was, as it is right in the middle of the pilot's cockpit). The King Post and mounting point for the "bridge" under the wings were both lined up with the front spar, so those were also marked out. Holes were drilled to mount the king post, and immediately below those I drilled for the spar holes. I started with .3mm, then .5mm and finally .75mm, carefully making sure between each enlargement that the holes were still lined up. Those holes were carefully enlarged with a no.11 blade to a rectangle of .75 x 1mm so the spars could pass through. Once the front ones were done, a spot of black marker on the end of the rear spar left a handy mark to show where I needed to drill the second hole.
Pegasus kindly added a moulded in shape on the fuselage where the wing was intended to be mounted - not useful for its intended purpose as the wing doesn't but against it, but useful for getting the angle of the wing and helping align the rear spar holes! You can see the marked out holes on the pic above.
This is the front marked up - you can see the filled dimple where the kit King Post was to be mounted - too far back!
I think that works! I will trim the spars to length later, I will be able to hide the joint in the rear cockpit as there will be a brace added from the cockpit side where the spar mounts down to the seat mounting.
Not too much to show physically for two days work although it was interspersed with visits to get PCR tests done. Yesterday's was negative, if today's is too, I can return to work on tomorrow, although I'm booked off. That will be very helpful as I'm due to fly to the US next Tuesday for training and haven't had a chance to get anything prepared yet!
As I say, not much physical advancement, but a huge step forward in the basic prep and planning and the most critical part - the wing mounting - is done.
Thanks for looking in!
Ian
