I've decided to change the scheme for my subject as I was never really enamoured with the Belgian scheme - kinda boring. I like the Italian schemes more as they seem to have a bit more character and, after doing a bit of research, I found that one of the Italian schemes offered with the kit decals will still fit within the theme of this GB. The aircraft below was the mount for Maggiore Ferucci Vosilla who commanded the 18 Gruppo of 3 Stormo when, on June 15, 1940, the Gruppo participated in the strafing of air bases at Cuers Pierrefue and Cannet de Maures in Southern France. The CR.42s of 18 Gruppo, along with those of the 23rd, tangled with French D.520s and Bloch 152s in this action and both sides suffered losses.
Moving along with the build then, I tackled the major hurdle of getting the struts on the wings and fuselage for the reason given earlier. I started with the cabane struts, which I decided to secure to the fuselage and to use these to align the wings and all of the other struts on this complex Warren Truss style pattern. To accurately place the cabane struts, I ran a temporary nylon line down the center of the model and made sure that the pins on the struts were at the correct distance from the centerline to match the holes on the wing (sorry, no pics of this step). After I allowed the TET to dry for a while, I dry-fitted the fuselage to the wing to confirm that everything lined up, moved the cabane struts slightly to suit, and then applied some CA along the previously glued struts to "weld" them in place.
Once that was done, I inverted the model, lined up the cabane strut pins and taped them to the wing making sure that the wings were properly aligned and a consistent distance apart at both ends. With that done, I started adding the rest of the individual struts, this time gluing them to the upper wing only. Plasticine blobs held the struts at the proper angle so that the pins on the other end aligned with the holes on the lower wing.
This continued for each strut and was quite tedious and it helped to have one of my favourite radio shows on at the time! Below is the final result. The cabane struts are set on the fuselage and all the others are glued to the bottom surface of the upper wing.
It's my hope that doing things this way will allow me to paint the fuselage and bottom wing upper surfaces without having the upper wing in place to hamper access for my airbrush. I can only hope that I have minimal issues when it comes to gluing the painted wings together.
Thanks for checking in!