Evening all,
Thanks Rick for your kind comment - it is much appreciated.
I used epoxy resin to fix the lower front wings to the hull because I find it gives a more robust joint than CA in such locations. I had to fix one wing at a time, which meant two evenings. Then to strengthen the joint I drilled holes in the wing and hull and inserted small brass pins and filled the holes with filler:
Prior to fixing the wings to the hull I had glued the wing tip floats to the undersides:
Painting and decorating followed. The colour scheme is not known for certain but B & W photographs suggest that it was a variation on two-tone grey with a black stripe along the top sides of the hull. I used Revell acrylic Hellgrau (light grey 76), for the upper surfaces of the wings, tail unit, fins and rudders and hull, and the same mixed with approximately the same amount of white for the remainder. I mix the colours with water so that the paint is very thin: it then gives a very even coat which is as good as using a spray gun IMO. The one problem with this method is that it takes lots of coats to get a smooth and even finish - up to 15 in this case. The initial coat also looks positively awful and the modeller has to continue despite the very strong desire to give up and try another method! The black stripe was hand painted using black acrylic but not watered down in this case. Transfers might have given a cleaner edge but would have been a nightmare to cut and apply, and as I do not have any black block I did not have the option.
The markings were simple - Iron Crosses above and below the upper and lower wings respectively, and on both sides of the rudders, all on white squares. There was a pennant number on the hull in black: all of the markings were printed by Arctic Decals for me.
The next step will be to put the engines and propellor mountings into the hull and then the most difficult part - fitting the two upper wings. The struts on the wings sloped inwards and forwards at the same time: I am not looking forward to that stage and am thinking through different options as to how I might go about it. The rigging by contrast will I think be straightforward!
Thanks for looking.
Stephen.
