I've now fitted the trailing edge parts, and the struts that make up the rigging structure inside the wing.
The kit has single metal bars for those struts which need drilling through to allow the rigging to be fitted, while the real aircraft has a wooden structure with metal tags to fit the rigging terminals to. So I ditched the kit parts completely, and cut the fittings out of brass, and made the struts from lime wood. I've also attached the turnbuckles, copying the method Des uses, just scaled up.
Along with the brass parts I used for the trailing edge, this needed over 70 parts to be cut, drilled and sanded, and now I'm looking at the fuselage, which will need much more... the rigging definately needs something better there too.
So, to save myself a lot of time, I decided to design a photo etch sheet, of all the parts I can think I'll need (instrument bezels, footplates, pulleys, there's plenty of white metal bits I'd like to improve). That's not proving to be much fun, and will take a bit of time, but I'm hoping it''ll be worth it! I won't make the photo etch myself though (with a 7 year old running around I don't want those chemicals in the house), so I've found a company that can do it for me at a reasonable price.
I will try to balance how much I change though; I'm finding there's a danger, when everything is visible, to get drawn into accuracy too much, and it stops being fun. So my aim is just to improve the bits I really don't like the look of, and leave the rest as it is.
