Evening All,
Thank you Cimmerman and Thumbs Up for for generous comments: I am pleased that this one is generating interest. I do try to select subjects which are less well known and frequently unavailable as kits in this scale.
Lance watch this space as I am about to demonstrate another of my "jigs" that I made-up-as-I-went-along earlier this week: this time for the undercarriage legs. Before that though I had other things to do.
Having fixed the top wing to the centre section struts I added the second pair of inner struts and the the fuel tank which was carried on a cross strut on the starboard (right) side. The tank was made from sprue filed and sanded to shape. The two bands around the tank were made from stretched sprue. With this in place I could then fit and paint the remaining wing struts - straightforward as the holes had been drilled in the wings and all I had to do was trim the struts to size and gently push them into place after I had put a drop of glue into the holes. The structure was left to dry out overnight simply to allow it to be handled freely when I came to put the undercarriage on.
The undercarriage skids and legs were cut from 20 x 30 thou Evergreen strip. The skids were shaped by pinning them to a block of wood and immersing them in boiling water for 10 seconds and then plunging into cold water also for 10 seconds. Holes were drilled into the tops of the skids where the struts would be attached later. The front pair of struts which extend from the nose, and the rear vertical pair to the wing, were measured from the plan and cemented into place on one side only to hold one skid. Now I made a very simple "jig". In order to make sure that the skid was correctly aligned parallel with the fuselage I laid a piece of paper on the wing with the cut edge where the skid would need to be: alignment by Mk 1 eyeball ensured that the skid was in the correct place. However because the skid leans outwards it needed support or it would sag too far so I used two pieces of plastic card off-cut to hold the struts while they set a little. (The image shows this technique being used on the second skid assembly).
When the struts had set sufficiently the rest of the undercarriage could be accurately measured from the model using a pair of dividers, cut and shaped, and glued into place. Just so that you can see clearly, here is the port (left) side u/c complete:
The process was then repeated for the other side.The axles are held in place by two pieces of 20thou card with holes drilled to represent the metal brackets on the original machine. The radius rods were made from thin rod.. The wheels were made by cutting discs from 20 thou clear acetate sheet for the centres which were scribed with the point of a pair of dividers to represent the spokes. Lengths of 20 thou rod were wound tightly around a paintbrush handle to make a series of loops which could be cut to size and put around the discs to represent the tyres. I held the tyres on the wheel centres with super-glue. The piece of copper wire has been coiled to represent the feed pipe from the fuel tank to the engine: this will be fitted shortly.
Thanks for looking.
Stephen (von Jigmeister).
