**** DONE: GB-49 1/48 Mosquito B.XVI - Favourite A/C of WWII

[Airframes]

Made quite a bit of progress, and almost ready to fit the resin cowlings to the kit nacelles.
As I suspected though, the cut line on the kit cowlings / nacelles is right up against the forward wheel bay bulkhead, which means that the "spines" in the lower sections of the resin cowlings did need to be cut back. Also, there are "flanges" on the rear faces of the resin upper sections, intended to help "seat" the parts against the kit nacelles. Strangely though, one side mates up nicely, whilst the other side creates a small gap, therefore, the "flanges" will be removed, and I'll have to rely on support against the ribs on the bulkhead, as shown in the pics below.

Pic 1. The first cowling separated from the kit nacelle.
Pic 2. The stiffening ribs on the forward bulkheads had to be rebated, in order to allow the resin parts to join accurately. These ribs will hopefully give some support to the resin cowling edges.
Pic 3. The resin spines in the lower cowlings have been cut back to clear the forward bulkhead.
Pic 4. The flanges shown arrowed need to be removed in order to allow an accurate joint between resin and kit parts.
Pic 5. Both kit nacelles have been assembled, and painted internally - silver on the side walls, and Cockpit Grey Green on front and rear bulkheads.
Pic 6. The landing lamps have been fitted, and then covered in chrome foil on the inside, to represent the lamp dish. Doesn't show up much in the photo, but looks very effective in "real life".
Pic 7. Wings assembled, and the "roof" of the wheel bays painted in Grey Green, with the details picked out in silver. No further detail will be added here, as it will never be seen, once the model is on the display base. The tape is just in place to hold the joints until set.
Pic 8. Kit nacelles fitted. I'll let these set-up overnight, to ensure a good, tight joint, before doing anymore work.

All being well, I hope to complete the adjustments and test fitting of the resin parts tomorrow ( later today ! ), and then assemble the resin cowls and fit them to the wings / nacelles.
Back sometime tomorrow ........................................

 

[Crimea_River]

Seems to be going well Terry.

 

[Jock Tamson]

A bit of hard graft undertaken there Terry, I'm looking forward to seeing it all come together.

 

[Wurger]

 

[rochie]

Good stuff

 

[Airframes]

Thanks chaps.
Think i might have overdone it yesterday, as it's taken all day today for my fingers and wrists to recover after gripping parts and using various saws.
But I'm hoping to get the resin parts sorted and fitted later this evening, and I'll post some pics when there's something to show.

 

[T Bolt]

Making good progress there Terry but don't over do it.

 

[Airframes]

Thanks Glenn.
Done a bit, preparing the jointing faces on both kit and resin parts, but my hands are still a little too tender and slightly stiff to tackle the accurate alignment of the joints, so I think I'll have a rest from the bench tonight, and get back to it tomorrow.

 

[Airframes]

I had a bit of a kip, which gave me a "second wind" and eased the tenderness in my hands and wrists, so I bashed on with the resin cowlings.

After further test-fitting, I decided to remove the flanges, on both sides, from the rear of the upper cowling sections and, after further trial-fitting, this indicated that the joints would be almost perfect, although still with a very slight discrepancy on the inboard side of each cowling part.
The kit nacelle edges, and the corresponding edges of the resin parts, were lightly sanded, and test-fitted again. This indicated that the slight gap on the inboard, vertical joints, was probably due to the resin castings, perhaps "flex" of the resin, or maybe slight warping but, being on the less visible inner edges, I wasn't too concerned about this, being already prepared for at least some filling of joints.
The instructions with the "Brengun" resin parts show that the upper and lower cowl sections should be assembled before attaching to the kit nacelles, but I reckoned that the weight of the complete assemblies would cause problems, possibly pulling the whole assembly away from the nacelle whilst setting.
Therefore, the upper cowling sections have been attached first, and the shallower, lower sections, will be attached once the main sections have fully set, and all joints filled and sanded as required, and any other remedial work carried out.
To allow some "wiggle time" for attaching and adjusting the parts, two-part epoxy adhesive was used initially, allowing this to part-cure for around 2 or 3 minutes, before locating and aligning the resin parts. Although this was possibly the correct course of action in this instance, I found it a bit messy, and couldn't really see any advantage, although the joints were also going to be reinforced with a bead of CA anyway.
As it turned out, the second ( port ) cowling was attached just using the CA, treating one surface at a time, aligning, and then repeating the process until all mating surfaces were done, and this worked just as well.

Although, as mentioned, the test-fitting showed almost perfect joints all round, when the adhesive was applied, and the parts joined, this was not quite the case, probably due to the aforementioned flexing or warping, and some adjustment, and extra adhesive, was needed until things looked at least reasonable.
So, the main extended cowlings are now in place, although, at the moment, the joints look a little messy, and will require some clean-up, a little filler here and there and some sanding, and possibly some re-engraving of the panel lines, but overall, I think they will pass, and I'm confident that the finished result will be fine.
Pics below show how things are so far, and I hope to get the clean-up done, and the lower sections fitted, sometime tomorrow, and then plan the construction of the fuselage, cockpit etc.

Thanks again for your interest and kind comments. and I'll be back with another up-date tomorrow ............... er, much later today ( doesn't tempus bl**dy fugit when you're modelling ?!!! ).

 

[Jock Tamson]

Looking good Terry

 

[rochie]

Don't look too bad even before you've cleaned them up

 

[Wurger]

 

[Crimea_River]

Definitely on the right track. CA is so very useful for stuff like this.

 

[Airframes]

Thanks chaps.
I was a little concerned that the CA would set before the parts could be accurately adjusted, but it seems to have worked out OK.
Initial clean-up of the joints has now been completed, and test-fitting of the lower nacelle sections suggests these should fit properly, although again, the application of the CA will need to be done in stages, to ensure alignment before it sets.
There's not a lot of contact area, between the resin and plastic parts, so I hope they stay bonded !
I should have another up-date and pics later tonight.

 

[Gnomey]

Lovely work so far Terry!

 

[Airframes]

Thanks Hugh.

The resin lower cowlings are now in place, and most clean-up work has been done, with those joints that needed attention have been filled, using CA, stretched sprue, or plastic card. There's still a little tidying to do, and then a thin primer coat will be applied, to check the work.
Overall, I'm fairly happy with the results so far - there will possibly be a few very small areas where things could be better, but I don't think these will be noticeable once the model is painted, as the joints are on panel lines.
The pics below show the resin parts in the process of clean-up and joint filling.

 

[Wurger]

 

[Crimea_River]

Looks good Terry. As a suggestion, you might want to take advantage of this assembly by finish painting the inboard nacelle areas and applying the exhaust stains before gluing the wings to the fuselage.

 

[rochie]

Looks good

 

[Wayne Little]

Doing a great job terry..