SPA Modeler

Stikpusher wrote:The cockpit looks great John. And that is a simple, yet very effective upgrade for the wheel wells!

- Kari

Thanks, guys. I'm forging ahead with this because it's still wet out, but I think I'll be able to work on the garage the next several days so production will slow down some on this.

John, the strips of plastic had sufficient clearance, but did not uniformly contact the upper wing skin, so I ended up scribing lines where the strips needed to be using my patterns. I taped the wing halves together and fitted and glued the strips. I made a plate to simulate whatever shape is above where the wheels go and cut away the strips in that area. There is a strip that runs perpendicular at the trunnion end of the well and I puzzled for awhile about how to do that. I didn't want to do it in short strips as I didn't see how I could keep them all straight with my shaky hands. I finally used a JLC saw after the first strips were pretty well glued, and cut a slot for the long perpendicular piece to fit in. I made somewhat of a glue mess while attaching all the strips so I flooded in a bunch of Mr Surfacer to smooth things up some. The wells have to be painted aluminum so roughness will show up. Hope it's not too noticeable.






The next task is to do something to make the landing gear legs more interesting. Sink marks abound! Hobbycraft didn't work very hard on them and they look pretty simple, while the real thing was certainly not.

Those bays look really good John.

Thanks, Stuart.

A little more progress. Looks like there will be some work to do getting the tailpipe to match the fuselage, but the wings and the turtledeck fit pretty well.

Don't worry, I stocked up on white paint recently!

Great stuff John, that's going to look the business.

That's starting to look really good

That's starting to look really good

It's looking so good John had to say it twice!

a glitch in the matrix

Youse a wizard! That’s what....