Gentlemen,
Good evening. While I have been setting up the model for more photo-opts and working here and there, I did a lot of meauring and calculating on the cockpit interior. From the Internet, I managed to obtain some incredibly accurate CAD inboard profile drawings of the cockpit that includes the seat, the location of the control column, rudder pedals, and the instrument panel. Of course, there were many more details, but I was concentrating on the very basics of the interior to get a good idea of where to start.
It will be from these basic items that I can extrapolate the locations of the other items and use comparative analysis..... In another words, just eyeballing " what looks about right."
Good Lord! That freaking cockpit interior is small... !! By comparison, almost half of the interior is taken up by the radio stack sitting on the top of the rear decking. It's the other half of the interior that I have to figure out how to cram in all that stuff. I truly can appreciate that plastic model of the Mustang build thread. That guy even included springs for the rudder pedals. Who's gonna see that?
So, with all due respect to everyone reading this post, I truly desire to do as much as I reasonably can to fulfill the interior of the cockpit with as much detailing as practical. The key word here is, "practical." This will also give me a good excuse not to work so hard at creating details no one is going to notice anyway. So, having said all this, I'll proceed with where I left off and try a few more postings before turning in for the night. All comments are welcomed of course.
My experiments are mostly a physical manifestations of what has been brewing inside my mind. I'm trying to avoid using sand paper and sanding, filling, sanding more, priming and then sanding as much as possible. Thus, I have decided to employ some of the techniques I used on my previous Guillow's model, the S.E.5. Thus I chose to use glossy paper, some plastic sheets cut and bent to shape, and other materials in lieu of wood wherever possible. There are many areas that wood has to be employed and the fuselage, vertical and horzontal stabilizer as well as the basic framework of the wings are good examples.
This comes to where I left off with regards to my experiments on the wing section and to determine what works and what does not.
I'm using glossy paper that is somewhat thicker than the usual paper. This is primarily for the purpose of strength as well as maintaining integrity of the surface during handling of the model.