Hello Again. I'm glad to be back on the Forum with a few updates and some good news.
First off, I placed the fuselage and lower wing assembly in a storage box, jigged the wing sections so that they were horizontal, and left them in place for a little over a week. I'm happy to report that, when I took the alignment jig away (small piece of wood and a Lego block!), the assembly stood virtually aligned and horizontal. Looks as if there was a bit of a bend or stretch in one or both of the u/c members, and the jigging helped to realign the legs. Here's what it looks like now:
Next, I'm happy to say that the wing is now decaled on both sides and the ailerons have but one side left to do which will be done tomorrow. I'm not the best installer of Aviattic decals but the results were, IMHO, passable. Here are the upper wing and the almost done ailerons:
Next step will be the fitting of the large roundels to the wing. I've given a fair bit of thought as to just how I'll approach that task. I've come the the conclusion that it will take several steps involving such actions as
not initially fitting the aileron crank housing, lightly fitting the ailerons, applying the roundels, slicing the roundels at the aileron/wing joint, removing the ailerons, removing the portion of the decal that cover the slot for the aileron crank housings, dry-fitting the housings, identifying which portions of the housings are red and white, painting these areas plus the RLM02 underside, then gluing the housings into place (Warning: they only go into place one way properly and the two housings are
not interchangeable!), and finally gluing the ailerons into place. Dead simple, right? Right?? Of course right!
With any luck the roundels will be in place by Sunday or thereabouts. I hope to have the next update by then.
Good luck to you all with your current builds, and many thanks for visiting!