fubar57
General
Really nice that they included the ball. I love that type of wing tip light
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This is quite a Work my friend. Glad that the trouble with the decals were worked and looks really nice.Thanks everyone. Moving on, I glued the tail wheel back in. It's better but still seems a tad low but I don't see it getting any better at this point.
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Whilst down there, I added the PE actuator for the radiator louvre.
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The main gear doors had to be finished off by masking and painting the YZC for the rub strip so I did that.
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While the lid for the paint was off, I brush painted the landing light. This comes as a clear part and the instructions call for it to be bent 90 degrees!
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I was a bit skeptical that such hard plastic would bend, but bend it did. I then glued it into place and, for good measure, I placed a small dab of CA on the bend line to give it a bit of strength. I also painted the little wooden roller brown.
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The gear doors were then glued in place. I had decided earlier to cut the actuators at the cylinder joint so that I could glue them in without having the rams protrude and break off. Once the gear doors were in place and still adjustable, I simply added the rams and allowed everything to set. A little brush paint touch up of the YZC will follow.
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Lastly, the tiny wing tip lights were stuck in. These also came as clear parts with long stems that I painted red and green. This gave a decent representation of the inner bulbs.
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The punch list is getting smaller now. The remaining challenge is to deal with the too-narrow canopy which also needs the structural cross brace to be glued in making things more rigid and complicating spreading the part over the rails.. That will be the subject of the next installment.
As always, thanks again for stopping by and for dropping your comments and likes.
Yes, I noted that in my rather long winded text. To get it to sit properly involves even more cutting and shaping than I had already done and I did not want to risk damage given my recent luck.Looking good although the hood should sit more down IMHO.
It still looks great.Thanks everyone, much appreciated. So, canopy....
Straight from the instruction sheet, this is what we are supposed to strive for:
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Problem is, you aren't going to get that without some hackery and butchery, at least on my kit. If one simply places the canopy with no glue onto the sill, here's what you get:
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In the last 2 pics, note how the bottom of the canopy at the front frame sits proud of the sill by a good millimeter. In the last pic, you can see a couple of things. One is that the arched frame inside the canopy is going to make it stiffer so that any attempt to squash the frame down onto the sill is going to cause the canopy to flex and break the joint where the arch meets the frame. Second is that you can see a contact point between the canopy and the sill right where the green and grey demarcation line is. The canopy is going to rock at this location no matter what you do and that can only be fixed by carving the bottom of the canopy paper thin or by taking material off the fuselage sill, or both, to allow the canopy to sit down. Touching the fuselage plastic at this location was off the table as any screw up here would be unsightly. What I ended up doing was to thin the canopy frame at the bottom like so:
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I won't bore you with all the pics I took of the three tries to get this right. Just believe me when I say that this is quite a stubborn part, being very hard and springy. I should mention that I also trimmed the rail off the fuselage where it tuck behind the upright canopy frame so that it would not be a factor. Bottom line is that I eventually got it to fit, more or less, with a cautious but essential use of CA glue.
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However, it's still not quite right as the back of the canopy floats above the fuselage spine whereas it should be resting on it.
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Yeah, I've got a lot of dust flying around my workshop and I really ought to give things a brush before taking such close-up pics.
The only other thing I did was to add the prop and the black exhaust stain was shot with the black used for the canopy frame parts so that is also ticked off the punch list.
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Thanks again for the looks and likes.