Hi guys - nice to hear from you all as usual. Sasho - nice to see you here and you too Nick. That was good meeting you and Nigel at Telford and putting faces to names. That was a really nice DVll you've done Nick but that tripe was looking even better to my eyes.
It's been a bit of a week kicking off with a funeral no sooner back from Telford and time wise the week seemed to go downhill from there. That said however there has been some progress ......
First up was to get some seat belts on before fitting the seat. I had bought some HGW fabric ones but after experimenting with the spare material found it extremely difficult to get it to 'mould' around the seat. I didn't want to use CA in case it wicked through the weave and made the material brittle so decided after a while it might be better to make the belts from 2 thou ali foil (ex food container) using the HGW belts as templates by taping them over it and cutting them out through the ali. In combination with the HGW etched parts the result wasn't too bad.
I see elsewhere on Lances SSW build that he mentions the fact that the Macro [lens] accentuates even the smallest default to often disappointingly gigantic proportions - couldn't agree more
These holes looked so neatly drilled to my eye before I saw the image
The seat support was built from evergreen strip and card and a representation of the fuel selector switch made from plastic rod etc. No attempt was made to 'grain' this as it virtually disappears beneath the seat
Now came the time to begin to fit the internals. A simple holding fixture was knocked up from particle board and balsa - the black tube rotating on a stub of ali bolted to the up right. In hindsight this should have been made sooner as it made a distinct improvement in 'handle-ability'
After quite a bit of very fiddly 'fiddling' the support finally found its home without damaging the cross wires in the frame work
The seat located in the square cut out and went in with ease ... followed by the dashboard which proved even more fiddly than the seat support
But after a bit of patience was exercised plus the odd mumble or too
it finally found its position.
The guns were fitted to the top cowling along with the oil filler cap. Also began to degrade the paint surface on the cowl and associated metal parts at this stage - quite a bit of further work on this to come once all together
I had installed the etched cocking levers at this point but on a trial fit to the fuselage realised they'd been installed upside down
They were quickly prised off without too much damage to the paintwork or the parts and will be re-fitted later
Final shot is of what I feel is the first major flaw with this kit. The under cowling is clearly meant to fit as shown but leaves the wing protruding well (as viewed) above. Taking a good look at various images of the full size I think this can be got round by installing this under cowl at a slight angle to meet the wing and adding a cover plate that overlaps the wing part but more on this later.
Well that's it for this stage - hope those pics are of interest. It's fast approaching that time of year when time available for modelling gets affected by 'seasonal interference' but I'll try to keep this on track.
Regards for now - Tug
