**** DONE: 1/48 Ju88G-6 of 3/NJG 101 - Night War of WWII

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Thanks guys. The cockpit tub has now been mated to the rest of the fuselage and the small cover behind the canopy installed. The sequence was to first glue the flat surfaces at the wing roots using small spots of CA glue such that the surfaces lined up. There are no locating pins for any of this, making this a tricky job. Once that glue had set, the cockpit walls were pinched together with clamps to line up the sides (the V-notch cut earlier allowed this to happen) and Tamiya Extra Thin was run throughout the entire seam and the assembly was set aside to cure over night.

Next, the small cover was dry fitted and I found that some spacers were needed to raise the cover up so that the top surfaces lined up. Unfortunately, it turned out that I could have raised the part a tad more as there is now a slight step that I'm filing down.

 
Doing good Andy, lots of these parts need plenty of dry fitting and thought to get the best result, sometimes even when you decide on the best course of action you still get left with a small issue or two to deal with...
 
I'll definitely keep an eye out for this issue. I could swear that my fit situation is a bit better but it's hard to say when dry-fitting is so imprecise. In all likelihood, we are dealing with the exact same parts so I'll prepare for a similar outcome.
 
Uh oh... that sounds like some major renovation envisioned??? There is definitely a lot of detail in those wheel wells as evidenced by the restored Ju88 pictures but there was just a bit TOO much for me to process. Scratch-building isn't something that I feel completely comfortable with. I did some on my build but my confidence level is still pretty low. Perhaps you are willing (and able) to replicate those spaces in more detail... looking forward to how you tackle that area.
 
Thinking about it John and I would limit it to what can be seen through the small gear doors. There are some great references, shown below, from the Ju-188 manuals included in the Technical Section of our forum. They vary just slightly from the Ju88G but are good for the purpose. The main issue is that the horizontal surface that attaches to the firewall as provided by Dragon is not correctly placed. That surface is actually supposed to be the skin of the wing and so should follow the wing contour.

 
Those are great illustrations, which are more helpful than pictures at times. I don't know Andy... replicating the curve of that horizontal piece to match the airfoil seems like a lot of work for not much impact given the shortness of the piece and the limited view into the well. You could maybe keep the kit piece as a base to preserve the 4 mounting locations for the struts and put a curved piece of plastic or brass on top of it? But once you put the landing gear pieces on top and then box it with the nacelles, I don't know if it would even be noticeable.

How are you going to block off the view into the engine? I put a piece of sheet styrene in the back of the engine nacelle like Sergio but that leaves a lot of empty space in front of the landing gear bulkhead. Ideally, I think the landing gear bulkhead should be solid without any openings.
 
Thanks guys. Good pic John, thanks.

I've not thought things through on the wells yet and have not committed yet. Putting a curve in sheet styrene is not hard so that doesn't worry me much.
 
I've decided to tackle the wheel wells, at least the portions that are visible through the open doors. Here's the space in question:



I started by cutting a piece of card and curving it to the shape of the wing surface. I then glued it to the firewall. The angled cut was estimated to coincide with a mount for the brace arm. I only realized after that the wing surface went right tot he back of the well and that I probably should not have cut such a short piece. Not a major problem though as I can add more to the extent that it will be seen.




The hard part of this scratch build is all the crazy angles so there was a lot of estimation done and trial fits with paper templates that, once a fit was determined, were used to cut the plastic card pieces.



Once the wing surfaces had been set, the holes for the retraction jack were cut and the fire wall was detailed.



Next, the structural frames were fabricated of card, once again having to deal with angles. The part on the left has had strips of aluminum tape applied that had a riveting tool rolled across the strips. A new technique for me that's turning out not too bad.



Much more to do here yet and it's slow going so thanks for your patience.
 

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