After my sanity break, I got in a pretty intense two day run, including an old fashioned all nighter (not something I do much nowadays), and have gotten a great deal done,,,
Here is the thing pretty near where the last entry left off, but with the undercarriage painted and the wheels on:
The bit projecting from the upper wing are the start fo lugs to which the upper longerons attach.
I caught a break, finding wheels of appropriate sizes in the spares bin (as well as a properly sized and shaped propeller which I have put aside).
Here it is with the basic tail boom assembly on:
What you see is the second pass. I first tried using 30 thou rod, but it was just a hair too flimsy, and in any case, I wiped it out dropping the model (strictly speaking, I did not so much drop it as nudge it towards the tail setting it down, and it slid over the edge of the bench tail first). You will read comments saying elastic line adds no strength to a model, but they are wrong. Six or seven strut to wing joints popped (in the excitement I did not count), but all the rigging held, and at first glance it seemed hardly any damage had been done save to the tail boom. So what could have been a final disaster was held to merely a set-back by the well-set EZ-Line. Repair took no more than twenty minutes. I up-sized the longerons to 35 thou rod, and having all the dimensions known made replacing the boom assembly go much quicker than making it before had done, too.
The longeron structure is assembled to the model, lower longerons first. I used a length of 20 thou rod for a vertical (temporary) spacer at the rear, to support the upper longerons in assembling them. The struts were cut from 1mm x 0.5mm strip, and trimmed till they just fit without displacing the longerons. The temporary spacer popped out as I was fitting the last of the rear struts, which saved me the trouble of cutting it.
Here is the longeron assembly painted, wit basic rigging in and the rudder attached:
Here is the model with the tailplane in place, and all structural rigging in:
This was the last picture taken, but things have progressed a bit beyond it. Control rockers are on the nacelle, aileron horns and pulleys are on, and the long control runs to the rudder, elevators, and ailerons are complete.
What remains to be done is addition of about half a dozen short bits of wire to the tail (braces and bit of control wire), ten short bits and four loner bits of rigging associated with the ailerons, making a skid/ruder protector for the tail, making a windscreen, and adding the propeller, along with, of course, a bit of touching up in spots....
