Carl, welcome to the show!
It may make sense to fasten your seatbelts NOW.
CowlingSome things are done in meantime.
I made a new tail skid from brass. The kit one was a flat PE part. A wooden one is not necessary because it will be painted.
With help of a drawing I created the mask layout in Inkscape, and with help of the electronic cutter I was able to apply the chars to the wings. There are a lot of different layout and position on different drawings and pictures. Sometimes the same was also applied on lower wing, but I decided to stick to the museums aircraft.
Tail skid and wings plugged on to get some impression.
Sometimes we try to paint shadows of markings on the opposite side. Here I do not spend effort for it and get most realistic shadows for free
The next task was the cowling. Here is a example that I sometimes fail to create parts.
I tried to turn the front of the cowling (turned from back), but it gets to thin and breaks on the chisel.
The next try works and I was even faster because I learned before how to do it. I'm still a newbie on the lathe.
The front is 0.3mm thin.
On the back there is a recess for a metal sheet.
For the rear sheet metal (brass 0.05mm) I made myself a tool and embossed depressions into the very thin sheet metal. Sorry, forgot to take pictures. Formed it to a ring and soldered the connection. On the backside there is also a small ring soldered in.
Here the turned front part is plugged in.
The front part is soldered on. Here also for comparison the kit cowling which is to small.
Which cowling should I use?
Long time ago I soldered a ring to the kit PE back plate. But I think now that this is wrong, because there should be a gap to the fuselage. Now I added the bearing for engine and airscrew. The embossed ring can be plugged on until the PE touched the inner ring. This has to be glued on later after mounting of the engine.
I like the result, very close to the original in Paris.
And the front view. The axle for the engine made from piano wire and the small ring in front of the PE backplate can be noticed.
I thought about a solution for this cowling for a long time, but now I am satisfied with the result.
Cheers,
Frank
