Meteor NF.12, 46 Sqn, RAF, 1/48th scale.

[Airframes]

Thanks Andy, Jan, and Wojtek, the well-known comedy trio !

A bit more to show, with all joints filled, and primer applied to the joints, seams and the added fin fillets, in order to check for flaws, and there are some, which will be rectified once the primer has fully dried and hardened.
Work has started on the outer wings, first cleaning up, removing sprue attachment points and mould seams etc, and I'm currently figuring out the best way to fit these, and attain, and retain, the correct dihedral, as explained below.

PICS 1 and 2. A rough, brushed on coat of primer has been applied to the fin area, to check the surface of the 'Milliput' and the joints between tail planes and fin, the latter being filled with PVA. Some further careful sanding is required to improve the surface of the fillets, and achieve a smoother curve to the leading edge of the upper fillet. The arrows indicate the curve of the rear joint of the fillet, as on the real aircraft, and this will be improved after the sanding, which will also 'cut back' and smooth out the rough primer coat.
PIC 3. Primer has also been applied to all of the joints around the nacelles and intakes, as well as the main wing roots. The nacelles are mainly OK, or as good as they can be, although one joint on the port intake needs a touch more light sanding, mainly to smooth-out the roughly applied primer, which, being fairly thick, is acting like a surface filler.
The wing root joints were filled with PVA, and although the port wing is acceptable, and the underside joints are as near perfect as possible, there's a slight 'step' at mid chord on the starboard wing root joint, which was only fully measurable after applying the primer - which, of course, was the reason for applying it - and appears to have been caused by the tight fit of the inner faces of the wing to fuselage joint, where he fuselage has refused to 'spring back' level in this area.
This will have a thin bead of 'Milliput' applied between the edge of the wing itself, and onto the wing root fillet, which will be sanded to blend in, once the primer has fully hardened. This will be done tomorrow, in order to make sure the primer is fully dry.
PIC 4. Onto the main wing outer sections, and this shows the underside of one in the process of 'clean-up'. The red arrows show the alternative locations of the landing lamp, and the white arrow the navigation lamp, all of which are represented by the engraved shape of the outline, and there are no transparent parts for these in the kit.
I would normally open these, and make the lenses / covers, but as that is quite time-consuming and a little fiddly, I'll leave the landing lamps alone, and just paint the nav lamps in the relevant colour, with a gloss finish, as I just can't afford the time if I'm to get this model finished by the unchangeable deadline of May 30th at the very latest. As most pics show the NF.12 without leading edge landing lamps, the lack of them on the model won't really be noticeable, even to those 'in the know'.
PICS 5 and 6. This is the potentially tricky bit when it comes to fitting the wings. The fit is not much short of a butt-joint, with that very small locating flange being only 0.75 mm wide. That might not be too much of a problem had the wings been 'straight', but they have to be set with a dihedral of about 5 degrees. The setting of the angle is helped by the 'offset' of the upper and lower edges of both the wing halves and the corresponding edges of the root at the nacelle, with the locating flanges set accordingly, but test-fitting shows that this is far from a perfect joint, and if the wing is positioned in such a way as to totally avoid any gap and make contact across the entire chord of the wing, on the upper surface at least, then the dihedral is too great. Consequently, setting at the correct angle causes a gap on both upper and lower surfaces, with only the narrow flange providing most of the contact and support !
I've played around with various ways of making some sort of spar or other reinforcement but, due to the angles, and the 'empty', open-ended wing and wing root, none of these would be worthwhile.
I'm going to leave it for now, and 'sleep on it', to tackle tomorrow, but my thinking is, to attach the wing at the correct angle, cementing it in place along the flange on top and bottom, with a couple of spots of CA adhesive to hold it at the correct dihedral whilst the cement sets, and then insert a plastic strip on the underside gap, cementing and 'supergluing' it in place, before trimming flush.
Any gap on the upper surface, including the small, double-angled area near the leading edge (seen to the left of the cannon muzzles in the first pic of the wing), can then be filled, possibly with another plastic strip, or maybe stretched sprue, and trimmed and sanded flush. Up to now, this is the only 'workable' solution I can think of that will both provide strength and support, and also fill the inevitable gaps - but I'm open to suggestions, as long as they don't involve physically impossible acts of indecency !

Apologies for this rather long and involved post, and thanks again to all for the continued interest in following my progress towards rapid ageing, grey hair and a nervous twitch, and I'll be back with another update, I hope, tomorrow.

 

[Wurger]

 

[Crimea_River]

Looks to me as though you have lots of gluing surface to work with on those wings but you might consider creating a key in the gap using some thick plastic card or the flat sprue tabs if there are any and making a corresponding slot on the nacelle side to reinforce the joint. Your solution does sound good though.

 

[Airframes]

The only gluing surface that actually makes contact when the wing is at the correct dihedral Andy, is that 0.75 mm wide locating strip.
I've tried test-fitting with various types and shapes of 'spars', flanges, ribs, and Hippocroccofrog de-scaling chambers, but none of them look to be successful, due to the angles concerned, and the yawning void in the nacelle wing root.
One thing I've thought of since last posting though, is to see if a 'telescopic' box or tubular section will work - one large box-section in the nacelle root, enclosing a smaller box-section beam, or spar, fitting into the narrower space between the upper and lower halves of the outer wing. I doubt it'll work, but I'll give it try tomorrow, and if it's a dead end, I'll probably revert to 'Plan A'.
I know the wings will fit, and can be glued, 'as is', then have the gaps filled, which is probably acceptable for a model in a cabinet. But this one has to be transported, and more than once too, and as the tendency is to pick up a model by the leading and trailing edges of the wings, I don't hold out much hope for the life expectancy of said wings - and even if not picked up as described, one jolt and they could fall off !
I'll let the remains of my brain cells have a rest, and see what I can do tomorrow.

 

[Gnomey]

Lovely work so far Terry!

 

[turbo]

Nice work Terry - you sure pick models with construction "challenges"!

 

[Wayne Little]

terry likes them challenges.....

If there is space in the fuselage a couple of brass rods or flat/ square sections all the way through wing to wing would help.

You remember that bigaS$$ BV222 i did a while back, that has a large bent brass tube all the way through from wing to wing to support that huge wingspan and ensure there would be no extra weight bearing pressure on the fuselage to wing joints.

 

[Airframes]

Thanks chaps.

Wayne, that's what I was intending, but due to the angle of the joints, the difference in the depth of the gaps in the wing root and wing, and the required dihedral, it's not working, and any sort of spar has no effect, apart from actually causing interference with the joint.
I'm going to fit the wings as per instructions, filling the gaps with plastic card or stretched sprue, which should also reinforce the joint, and hope that I can get somewhere close to the correct dihedral as the joints set.

But there are another a couple of jobs to do before fitting the wings. Thankfully, I jumped forward in the instructions, to check what was required next, and if any preparation would be required.
The main undercarriage locating tabs are not only too big, but they also 'run' in the wrong direction - across the gear leg, instead of fore and aft, to match the locating slots in the wheel wells, which are shallow and too small !
This needs to be attended to before fitting the wings, to avoid pressure on the wing joints when cutting and filing the wheel well slots.
Also, the locations for the drop tank pylons need to be marked on the wing underside, and masked, for fitting after painting the model, as again, there are no locating pins, and there's a gap between the halves of the pylons.


PIC 1 Shows the undercart leg locating pins, arrowed in red.
PIC 2. The leg in relation to the locating slots.
PIC 3. One half of a drop tank, showing the 'bowed' inner surface of the pylon.

Hopefully, this shouldn't be too difficult to correct, but it's another delay I could do without, in the time remaining.
Back soon with another up-date.

 

[Wurger]

 

[Crimea_River]

Wake up! Soon is over!

 

[Airframes]

Thanks Wojtek.

Those with sharp eyesight will have noticed I described the parts wrongly in my last post !
The locating tabs on the gear legs run fore and aft, instead of across the the legs, and the locating slots in the bays run across the bay.
However, I think I've sorted this small, but important problem, by cutting off the tabs, and filing flat the top of each gear leg. A shallow 'slot' has been filed into each locating hole, and the legs, when fitted, will now sit in the slots, with the forward link arms attaching in a similar manner. It looks like the joint can be reinforced, by resting the top of each leg against the wall of the wheel bay, which should provide a strong enough bond - I hope !
The wings have been prepared and fitted, as described below, and the locations for the drop tanks have been covered with masking tape, to allow a clean joint, on bare plastic, once the model has been painted.

PICS 1 and 2. The Starboard wing in place, with quite a large gap on the upper surface, and the port wing, showing less of a gap.
These were attached with poly cement, and then held at the desired dihedral, and small amounts of CA adhesive added in strategic places to reinforce the joint and hold it in place whilst the poly cement set.
PICS 3 and 4. The gaps on the underside of the port and starboard wings weren't too bad, and were filled later, along with the upper surface gaps. The masking tape is covering the areas where the drop tank pylons fit, so that there will be a 'clean' surface on which to attach the tanks, after the model has been painted.
PIC 5. How the model looks with both outer wing sections fitted. The fin fillets have been sanded further, and the curve of the upper fillet corrected, with the rear of each fillet joint scribed in.
PIC 6. The large ventral fuel tank has been cemented in place, and small gaps around the front section filled with CA.
PICS 7 and 8. The gap on the upper side of the starboard wing had lengths of stretched sprue laid in, and melted into the gap with Tamiya Extra Thin cement, before trimming off the excess sprue. The underside of the port wing only required a short length of stretched sprue, yet to be sanded in this shot, with the remainder of the gap being filled with CA adhesive. Once sanded, any remaining small gaps will be filled with PVA.
PIC. 9 First stage of sanding on the upper joint of the starboard wing. My hands and wrists were quite painful by this stage, so the final sanding and polishing will be done tomorrow.

The wing joints aren't perfect, although they should look much better once they've had more sanding and a polish, and a coat of surface primer, but I'm very relieved that the wings have been fitted, and without the problems or large gaps I expected, and the joints appear to be fairly robust too.
Next step is to fit the small tail bumper on the underside of the tail, and the resin support frame in the 'V' of the front cockpit, along with the resin gyro gun-sight, adding a reflector screen from clear sheet, and paint this assembly. The windscreen and canopy will then be masked and fitted, after first completing the final painting of the cockpit rear bulkhead etc. The frames of the screen and canopy will be painted in the interior colour, matt black, using 'straight' black, and the edges sealed with PVA once the parts have set..
First though, the canopy needs a slight repair, which I'll show when I'm ready to fit it, as there is a crack and and a small piece missing on the port lower rail, presumably where it was either removed from, or broken off from the sprue, before I received the kit.
This will be repaired by cementing a thin strip of plastic card along the inside of the frame, and then filling the small hole with 'Milliput' and sanding smooth.
Both the screen and canopy will also need a good polishing before masking, as they have a rather dull appearance, which I've also noticed on other Classic Airframes canopies. This will have to be done very carefully, as the material used seems to be rather brittle.
I might dip them both in Humbrol Gloss Clear after polishing, to improve the clarity, although I have a slight concern that this might be affected by the masking tape.
Given I can get this work completed tomorrow, then it'll be time for the first stage of painting, although I have a heating engineer coming tomorrow, to do the annual gas safety check, so the painting stage depends on how long he takes to complete his work !

Thanks again to all for following this build, and for the nice comments and compliments. As I'm more or less on target, if the painting and final stages go to plan, I might even get the smaller-scale Meteor NF.14 done, and at least that one's a 'normal' kit, which should go together fairly quickly., and will definitely be OOB - apart from home-made Squadron decals !
Back sometime tomorrow, all being well.

 

[Robert Porter]

 

[Crimea_River]

It's turning out well Terry. I'd think twice about trying to polish the canopy, given the purpose of the model. The sh!t-to-benefit ratio is not worth it in my opinion.

 

[Airframes]

Thanks Robert and Andy.

I agree about the canopy - I don't think I'll dip it in Clear, but it at least needs a light 'rub over' with a soft polishing cloth, to remove the 'cloudy' look, which is probably mould release agent residue, as seen in the pics below. That crack can also be seen on the bottom rail.

 

[Crimea_River]

Looks fine to me. Pass the brandy.

 

[Wurger]

 

[Airframes]

Thanks chaps.
Getting closer to the painting stage and, with luck, I might get the first stage done by tomorrow at the latest..
The wing joints are almost finished - they've had a coat of primer to check the filler - and just need a little more work to make them acceptable. The resin frame for under the windscreen has been fitted, along with the gun-sight, and the canopy and windscreen are in the process of being masked. A trial polish just using a micro-fiber polishing cloth, shows that the canopy will look a lot better once lightly polished. After masking, the inside will be cleaned and polished to remove grease and dust from handling, with the exterior being polished after removing the masks after painting and clear coats have been done.

PIC 1. The starboard wing joint after applying primer - just need to sand a little more at those two areas visible in the pic.The joint on the port wing is about as good as it's going to get, so that one can stay as is.
PIC 2. The resin frame and gyro gun-sight have been fitted in place. Parts of the frame were broken in the sealed bag, and the gun-sight had broken off from the frame, with part of the sight mount also missing. The damaged part of the frame won't be seen under the windscreen forward frame, but I just could not get the sight to sit 'squarely' in the damaged aperture in the frame, especially as CA adhesive had to be used to repair it, but again, this will hardly be noticeable once the windscreen is in place.
PIC 3. The frame and gun-sight have been painted, and a reflector screen added from clear sheet.
PIC 4. The canopy was first masked on the inside, to prevent cement damaging the clear areas, and then a thin piece of plastic strip was cemented behind the crack and small hole on the lower rail, and the masking tape removed when set. The hole will be filled and sanded flush once the canopy has been cemented in place.
PIC 5. Masking underway on the canopy, with the windscreen masked. When these are both fitted and sealed, and the hole repaired, the frames will be painted black, the internal colour, and will then be sprayed as part of the entire airframe, in the camouflage colours.

Once the final sanding has been completed, and the canopy and screen fitted, the model will be cleaned, those areas requiring it will be masked, and the first stage of painting will be done. This will be a white area around the mid part of the rear fuselage which, when dry, will be masked to cover the areas for the fuselage roundels on each side, and the 'fighter bars' on each side of the roundel, which carry the Squadron markings of a double arrow head in red, the latter being formed from thin red decal strips.
The reason this is to be painted white, rather than just using decals, is to eliminate the possibility of 'show through' of the camouflage colours on the white bars and the white of the roundels - the red strips will be applied to the white bars, and the decals for the roundels will be applied over white discs, all of which will, of course, be gloss-coated with the rest of the model.

Next post will hopefully show the first, and second stages of painting, the second stage being overall Medium Sea Grey.

 

[Wurger]

 

[Crimea_River]

Good stuff Terry.

 

[Gnomey]

Lovely work so far Terry!