Thanks very much again everyone. The final inspection is done and it revealed a couple of things that I missed to put the icing on the cake. First off, I forgot to replace the tiny lugs for the earlier bomb carrier location. This took a bit of arthroscopic surgery to do but I set myself the challenge and got it done. Not as good as the originals which got knocked off but I'm happy I was able to get them into these tight spots.
Flipping over, you can see that I also added the cables that locked the nose pistol on the bomb in place. Gotta read up on some arming references but I suppose this was removed immediately before a mission? Would the arming vane on the back of the bomb have had some kind of pin and cable attached to the plane as well? I'm not a bomb expert.
And, with that, I'm calling her done. Here are some final shots:
The finished model next to my earlier build of I8_P:
And, just for giggles, a B&W comparison to the original:
Thanks to all who've followed along and offered comments and info. I appreciate it!
Regarding the bomb arming - the cables were anchored to the pylon and intended to remove the safety pin once the bomb was released. If the in was removed on the ground, the slipstream, once airborne, would cause the impellor to rotate, thus arming the bomb, not a desirable situation.
If a bomb had the nose fuse, as per your model, I'm not sure if a tail fuse would also be fitted, although this is very possible, especially if the tail fuse was delayed action.
Regarding the bomb arming - the cables were anchored to the pylon and intended to remove the safety pin once the bomb was released. If the in was removed on the ground, the slipstream, once airborne, would cause the impellor to rotate, thus arming the bomb, not a desirable situation.
If a bomb had the nose fuse, as per your model, I'm not sure if a tail fuse would also be fitted, although this is very possible, especially if the tail fuse was delayed action.
Thanks Terry, that makes sense. Not sure if/why both the nose vane and tail vane might have been used but I'll leave things as is. I suppose that there should also be a wire connected to the safety pin on the tail one as well though.
Probably, but don't bother, as it will never be seen.
Forgot to mention - that final B&W shot of the model is bang on !
If you're able to replicate the shot with a "grass" base, a bit of background tone, and maybe slightly alter the brightness/contrast, it would be very hard to tell the difference between the model and the original aircraft pic , apart from maybe the different bomb load.
Excellent work Andy!
How did you get the dust off the inside of the canopy? Thats a problem I often have and nothing I try short of popping the canopy off seems to work.
Excellent work Andy!
How did you get the dust off the inside of the canopy? Thats a problem I often have and nothing I try short of popping the canopy off seems to work.
Glenn, this was a very tricky operation and every step was planned and a risk assessment made before proceeding - I popped the canopy off, cleaned it, then glued it back k on.