Thanks for continuing to look in Martin and for your encouragement
I've had a fairly intense day on it today and made a significant step forward - well significant that is, in that the bottom wing is on at last
I have to say I have learnt a lot throughout the day not least just how difficult it is to keep wayward pieces of rigging material (invisible thread) out of the way of each other, not to mention the inherent springiness of such stuff even though it's only 6 thou in diameter.
I'm afraid I was so engrossed in getting the lines through the fuselage and then getting the wing on followed by the front panel - all connected together - I forgot about taking pics early on.
First off was to fit the gun activating cables to the column using 0.2mm white coloured copper wire. Although painted dark grey I used white and left the ends unpainted so to be able to see their position better. The elevator control lines were threaded though the false guide set on the rear wing spar and through the small plate on the column. A minor disaster struck here when a touch of CA was applied to the small plate - it just disintegrated on the rear side - fortunately it remained intact on the fore side so the rear was reinforced with some Gator glue. With the cables threaded through their respective holes the column was added to the wing then the cables pulled through the fuse using a piece of copper wire. The lower cowling piece with the rudder bar hangs down the side.
The really difficult bit, believe it or not, proved to be the actual glueing of the wing on - I began by using Contacta but by the time the wing was in situ with all the cables out of the way that had gone off. The only way was to bend the end of a paint brush and use MEK from the inside.
Once that was well set the cables were then gently pulled and tweaked into place around the return pulleys with a piece of bent wire and pulled taught at the rear .....
....and finally glued into slits cut into the lower fuse at the tailskid opening with a scalpel. Once set a good splodge of Gator glue was worked over the inside to reinforce the join. The 'croc' clips proved to be just the right weight to give sufficient tension while the glue set
I've never had the 'pleasure' of putting a ship in a bottle but I'm sure this must be the closest I'll get. The problem of dealing with all those lines to raise masts etc whilst working from one spot suddenly came into focus
I feel this is a big stage accomplished. It was very fiddly but in truth went far better than I anticipated. Apart from the small plate on the control column breaking no other breakages occurred which considering all the poking around inside was surprising to say the least. Next off is to tidy up the gun cables and fit the guns then tackle the undercarriage.
Back soon - Tug
