<> 1/48 Arado Ar196A - WW1 / WW2 over Water.

Some fine surgery there Andy.

Thanks Terry. A cool, rainy day today, perfect for bench time!

Work continued with installation of the pilots floor, stepped higher as required. The floor is shaped to fit into the wing root area lower down so narrows at the front, leaving a gap. I decided to leave this alone since things will be pretty dark down where this gap is. Also seen below is the addition of some scratch details in the Birdfunker's office, including extension of his fold-away seat rails.



The pit was now painted with shadow areas receiving a good dose of darkened RLM 02. The radio set has been installed with spacers added to deepen the boxes a bit. The various knobs on the breaker panels have begun to be picked out on white with more work to come to add labels. Between the pilot's breaker panel and the IP can be seen a faired tube which I added from rod. This will eventually receive a red T handle representing the bomb release.



The tubes behind the seat represent the pipes into which the lifting cables were run.



I tried dolling up the pilot's seat a bit. The trim wheel was all wrong so I trimmed it back, added a lead solder rim and filed in some grip notches on the surfaces that will be seen from the top.



Here are the beginnings of the port side of the Bordfunker position with some electrical boxes added and the seat rails extended. This is ready for paint and installation.



Hope to see more progress tomorrow. Til then....

Office is looking more interesting with your scratch work Andy

always enjoy watching your scratch building andy, and learn heaps along the way

Nice work Andy, I particularly like the effect on the seat and trim wheel.
So, as there's a 'Birdfunker', that means communication is via pigeon - surely ?

Thanks guys. Terry, yes, the Birdfunker used the FuG WTF "Vogelscheisse" radio set, common to many maritime aircraft. They used it to vector, Victor.

Ah, yes. The well known KustenVogelscheissegerat - sends signals in white dots and dashes, with good coverage all over, over.

Roger!

Lovely work so far Andy!

Sporadic work on this bird on the weekend. Here is a snippet of the work done:

The control column has to be modified. At first it was for length, since the pilot's floor has been raised but then I looked at the rather silly shape of the yoke and decided that t needed fixing as well. I further noted the pulleys and chain for the aileron control so began adding those. The pic below shows the column already shortened and the two pulleys added. The rudder control, which is the diagonal stick poking out to the right, is a replacement of the much thicker kit part. The yoke is still silly.



Here you can see the chains added (not as tight as I would have liked) and the yoke modified by snipping off the ends and regluing them onto shortened handles. The bearing blocks and shaft on the bottom of the column have also been modified as seen here.



Here is the pilot's position ready for gluing the fuselage halves. The bomb release handle has been added and painted red and a panel light and wire has been installed.



On the opposite side, the moulded in throttle quadrant has been carved off and replaced with a scratch built unit. The levers are left over Eduard PE parts though the mixture control is bent to the horizontal and can't be easily seen. This side also has a light installed.



Below is a shot of the radio operator's position with the fold away seat installed and the floor well scuffed up. The port side wall is glued in place at the floor only. The sides going up the bulkheads are left free of glue at this stage so that the wall can be flexed to fit tightly to the fuselage sill once this is assembled.



With that done, the fuselage halves were wrestled together. I say wrestled as this took a bit of effort to line the sides up properly. One side was slightly warped and I had to adjust width of the the bulkhead that I made to allow this warp to be straightened and thus aligning the parts. The following pics were taken after some initial seam work has been completed and more is to come.



The build-up of the center console above the sill has started with the addition of the map table and a one of the structural tubes. I see now that the table is slightly crooked so I will remove it and straighten it. Note that it is supposed to be positioned slightly left of center as depicted above.

Thanks for looking in everyone.

More nice scratch detailing there Andy, looking good.

NICE..!

Great work so far Andy!

Wonderful work Andy

Nicely done Andy.

Thanks very much everyone! Not much new to show though I glued in the seat after painting the trim wheel. Also straightened the map table. More pics tomorrow hopefully.

Chugging along.....

With the fuselage halves together, I moved on to completing some of the cockpit details. With the exception of the replacement V-support for the instrument panel, shown below, most of the remaining work is now above the sill. I had to leave the IP support off until now so as to allow me to adjust the angle of the floor when gluing the halves together, making sure that the floor is horizontal. Also seen below is the build up of the Bordfunker's instruments and stowage box along with the support frame. The instrument panel is the only piece that I used from the kit - everyhting else is scratch built from card and, in the case of the support frame, solder.



It's critically important when building things up like this that everything is checked for squareness, level, and position in all 3 planes as it is very easy to get things lopsided. The map table has been straightened but left skewed a little to the left as depicted on the Revell pit.

Below is the forward portion of the same built up area. Behind the pilot's seat can be seen the box for stowing the lifting cables. At first I tried making this from brass sheet but it was too small to get sharp 90 degree corners bent and I was not satisfied with the outcome so I binned it. I went with Plan B and made a piece from two bits of square stock glued back-to-back then drilled and hollowed out with a square file.



At this point, I masked off the radio equipment and squirted the whole area with 02. Then I added the lift cables which are made of solder that was rolled with a file to create a rope pattern. Turned out pretty good. With those installed, I then set about making the pilot's headreast which I elected to leave in the folded position as shown.



The same area from the rear also shows the control column glued in place. I also see that I need to touch up the round black gizmo to the right of the radios as there's a spot of 02 on it.



Once the headrest is painted and the instruments picked out, this area will be done and I'll need to get on with the seat belts. I think I may need to either get a new set of PE ones or scratch these as I think I'm out.

Shame about the moulded in lift cable on the fuselage but it's something I will likely live with, though I'm not ruling out removing it and making my own - yet.

Looking very nice and I sense the "Yet" is moving into the plausible stage. Just a matter of keeping the area neat after the removal though easier said than done. Your scratch-built cables are a near match