Onwards! Even if it is ever so slowly...
The front of the fuselage is glued and ready for more torture.
I started out with Tamiya ET, added a little bit of quarter-round Evergreen strip to add some strength to some of the seams... and then decided "Screw this..." and flowed in CA-glue and hit it with some kicker. That seam is NEVER getting loose!
Time to figure out just how much I need to lengthen that frame... Eyeball Mk.I and a scale profile again.
Something like that, I guess. 80mm looks like.
Time to get the pencils and rulers out and draw something up I can work with...
Not sure about the whole "stick a bit on"-idea. I might just cut a whole new frame out of a sheet of 2mm styrene. I want the whole frame to be as sturdy as I can get it.
Also had a brainwave about the skin, and did some experimenting with a scrap piece of 0.25mm styrene...
Looks pretty good, doesn't it? And very high tech too! If you think a pizza-cutter, a metal ruler and a scrap of leather is high-tech, that is...
Put the leather under the styrene, roll the pizza-cutter along the ruler with a fair bit of pressure and you get skin.
Speaking of skin; gave the forward bit of the fuselage a good sanding to get rid of the ribbed skin and start on toning down those panel canyons. In my whiffery this bit of the fuselage has normal plating.
Time to get rid of some panel lines. I decided that glueing in some styrene strips was the way to go for some of them. They melt in quite nicely with Tamiya ET, since the stuff just loooooooves the 70s Matchbox plastic...
And remember kids; don't be like Rob. Check your references
-before- you cut a hole in your parts. Just because the folks at Matchbox decide the exhaust vent for the oil cooler is in a certain place, that doesn't make it true...
Sooo... I scribed the new vents in the correct(ish) place (gotta keep the rivet-counters happy before they pop a bloodvessel...), ready for some cutting.
Drilled a few holes, and whittle out the rest with a nice fresh blade.
Once the new vents were done, I cut some pointy bits of 2mm styrene and forced them into the errand holes to plug them. A nice snug fit and some Extra Thin welded them in place.
Once dry I trimmed down the inside bit with my dremel tool and hit it with a bit of CA glue.
The outside was cut down, the worked closer to the fuselage with the dremel tool, and finally sanded smooth. Also made a start on filling the rest of the panel lines.
Now we wait. For putty to dry and for bits to come in. Need my turret to finish planning the interior frame, and I need my gunnery and other bits from Hannants to continue work on the wheel spats. Already shot Hannants an email if they know what's keeping my stuff...
More sooon!
Rob