It's been awhile since I've posted anything, so thanks for dropping by and leaving your comments gents. After building three German aeroplanes now, I have to admit to a developing fondness for their colourful schemes. That in turn has led me to building this machine.
I've been busy with the model on almost a daily basis but it's been small steps everyday. As for the struts I installed in my last update, they had no inherent strength, so I removed them. I installed the top wing relying only the outboard struts, and then I fitted the cabanes. That worked much better than the first go-round. After I got a handle on the rigging runs, I rigged the cabanes first, then the flying wires, and finally the landing wires. It was only when I got around to the landing wires that I realized just how important it is to ensure proper placement of all of the eyelets in the wings. Luckily for me, the flying and landing wires didn't interfere with each other. No planning skill there; just pure luck!
The rigging is all 2lb Maxima Chameleon with 0.5 mm brass tubing turnbuckles and connectors. The line is painted with Mr. Color Steel. Along the way, I only managed to pull out three eyelets when applying tension to the lines. I'm improving!
If you look closely at the trailing edge of the bottom wing, just left of the fuselage, you'll see a bit of a mark. After installing all of the lines, the left side cabane rigging had loosened up a bit so I needed to tighten them. Having read here about using a heat source to shrink the monofilament, I decided to try that myself. No one smokes in our family, we don't burn candles, and I have an electric start barbeque so there wasn't a match or lighter to be found in the house.
Hmmm . . . that soldering iron in my workshop looks like it's tailor made to do the job!
And it did . . . but I managed to touch the trailing edge of the wing with the shaft, leaving a 'lovely' scallop that needed to be fixed.
Looks like I'll need to touch that up a bit more.
The decals in this kit continue to give me fits. This time, while painting the rigging, I discovered that the red centre circle from the right side fuselage roundel was now firmly attached to my thumb.
This after the application of three clear coats to seal it! Luckily, I was able to find another red circle to repair the damage, but I've officially lost all patience with Roden decals. I like the kits, but I cringe at the thoughts of using any of their decals.
Next comes the tail and then the undercarriage. Thanks for stopping by and having a look. I'm still having a blast with 'Schweinhund' despite those decals!
Cheers,
Chris
