It has been some weeks since my last update. Progress has been slow as my triathlon training program chews up more and more of my free time, but I am pleased to say that there is progress!
These first two shots show the styrene pins I added to help in locating and fastening the wheel spats to the undercarriage legs. I elected to use styrene rather than brass rod so that liquid cement would help strengthen the joint by melting the plastic across a much larger surface area. It kind of worked, but I don't think I would like to push too hard on the joints as they are still a weak point in the undercarriage structure.
I've also spent quite a bit of time sanding and re-scribing panel lines as necessary. I really wanted to keep the nice surface detail for the cloth covered areas but there were a lot of molding flaws that made this hard, so much so that I just ended up resurfacing the whole thing.
Whilst doing this I pondered the easiest way to ensure the alignment of the centre wing struts. I did see on another He.51 build thread in this forum (sorry cant recall who's thread this was, but the build was excellent) how a plastic sheet "jig" could be used to make sure the spacing of the top of the struts was correct. I ended up using this method as it seemed the most simple and effective method. These first two shots show how I went about making sure the joints had a "positive" way of being located to the fuselage and also allowing the use of a spacing template at the top.
For the fuselage join I again chose to use styrene rod and I've drilled all the way through the base of each strut mount so that I can slide them on and trim the rods back flush and finish them so they will not be seen. I liked the idea that fine plastic rods will allow me some flexibility to move/adjust the angle of the struts as necessary. For the top wing joint I wanted the locating pins to be a bit more robust so I used 0.5mm brass rod instead. These pins will need to withstand a bit more fussing about from both the alignment template and the final fit of the top wing.
These next few shots show the struts mocked up with the alignment template. With luck this set up will allow me to get the alignment correct at the same time as making the joints as strong as possible given the somewhat dodgy locating method with this kit.
The last two shots in the group above also show my efforts to make the undercarriage legs look nicely faired into the fuselage and wheel spats, just as shown in photos of the real aircraft. The curvatures are not quite right but I really don't want to fluff around with it any further! The other small detail I added was an outlet pipe just aft of the prop on the RHS of the nose. It is quite obvious on the real aircraft and I am surprised it was missed on the kit.
Finally, I have also been busy making sure some of the final "sticky-outy" bits can be mounted with as much strength as possible.
For the propeller I have also added a very small spacer ring as I noticed there is a small gap between the end of the nose fairing and the base of the prop on this aircraft. It might need a bit more shaving down to look correct.
I've probably done other bits and pieces that I've forgotten about already. Hoping to actually glue the centre struts in place later today and I need to check the length of the outer wing struts to make sure they are correct and the top wing will (*
hopefully*) fall into place.
As always - thanks for looking in on my ramblings...