Okay gang, time for another one of my irregular updates. With all of the fiddly fuselage parts in place, it was time to rig the cabanes. First though, I installed some 0.25 mm (0.10") lead wire for the antenna leads that run up the cabanes and attach to the underside of the top wing. These may be a bit large in diameter, but when I used narrower gauge wire, every time I tried to add a bend, it would pop right off the cabane. For me at least, lead wire is very flexible and doesn't stress the glue joint when bending the free ends. More accomplished modellers here won't have the same difficulty as I do, but I know when to accept defeat.
As the Salmson's cabanes are double rigged, very stout, and therefore don't require the bracing strength of monofilament rigging, I decided to try EZ Line for this job. I've never used it before but I found that I was able to double thread it through 0.5 mm tubing turnbuckles, which was a major accomplishment for me. Two fine tweezers and an optivisor were indispensable for the task.
If I were ever to build this kit again, I wouldn't glue up the top wing before installation. Instead, I would rig the centre section to the cabanes first as it would allow for easier access and then I'd install the outer wings. Oh well, I'm used to doing things the hard way. I was more or less happy with the end result, although I found that in several instances I had applied too much tension to the line when making the final connection. That resulted in the first turnbuckle pulling away from its eyelet. I was also a bit sloppy with the CA on a couple of occasions and I ended up with several overly long tail end cuts.
The biggest problem I encountered with EZ Line though was that I couldn't paint it silver. I tried a silver Sharpie, thinned Tamiya Aluminum, and finally, thinned Mr. Color Silver and all I accomplished was a total mess. There was nothing for it but to remove the EZ Line and replace it with monofilament.
I used my standard Maxima Chameleon 0.12 mm monofilament and painted it with thinned Mr. Color Silver lacquer. As the cabanes are double rigged, and space to work is at a premium, I painted each line as I installed it. I also made the final connections of the antennas to the underside of the top wing. I need to clean them up a bit yet but right now, I'm fed up with them as all they do is break away from the cabanes.
Next in line is to add the lower wings and interplane struts. Each strut bears five blue fabric stripes and while WnW provides decals for them, I wasn't having any of that as I don't have the dexterity for it. Mark (MGunns) suggested using painter's tape and it was an excellent idea as the tape has a bit of a fabric texture. Once they were installed on all eight struts (40 strips of @#$% tape!) I touched each one with a drop of CA to fix them in place.
Thanks for looking in!
Cheers,
Chris
