I went ahead and ordered some cool fake-fabric seatbelts from Eduard. While I’m waiting for them to arrive I decided to start on the tail. First came the rear decking. I tried to bend some super-thin plastic to shape, but I couldn’t quite get it round enough. Then I remembered that scoring the ribs into the side panels caused them to curl, and I had to straighten them out again. I scored the rib lines into the decking and sure enough, it curled up to exactly the shape I needed. I love it when that happens.
I tried mounting one side first, but I couldn’t get the ribs to line up properly, so I mounted it from the center and worked down toward both sides. This worked out well. Unfortunately the plastic is so thin that even the tiniest amount of cement made it sag. Filling it with putty will likely make it worse, but I remembered solving a similar problem a couple of years ago by hand-painting some thick paint, so that’s probably the way I’ll go.
I love scratch making/building things. This is great, and I would love to do something similar such as Sopwith Camel, or even a Fokker tri-plane in 1/32nd scale. It’s harder when you have to build something accurately than your own design of course. I love the challenge any way. You can also use fabric ribbon available at sewing stores, and at Jo Ann fabrics, and Michaels. You can cut this down to the thickness you need, then glue the edge to keep it from fraying. It also makes a more realistic looking seat belt/saftey belt than painted paper, or tape can. I use this for anything similar, and I also use it for figures, and other things where a slightly satin appearance is needed.
I hand-brushed some primer on the deck to see how it looked, and it looks like I have a lot of sanding ahead, and maybe even a strip-down and redo. Meanwhile I experimented with the stabilizer. I considered sanding down a thick piece of plastic to shape and then using a round sanding stick to shape the ribs. First I wanted to try the scribing method. I cut out two of the super-fine sheets and scribed the ribs into both of them. I was gentler this time since the ribs are fairly close together so there shouldn’t be as much sag, and even less so on the bottom. I then glued the two pieces together, being careful with the glue so the plastic wouldn’t melt. It worked just fine, but unfortunately I took the picture at the wrong angle so the ribs don’t show up! They will once it’s painted.
Got the rudder finished yesterday. Put the tail together today and gave it a primer coat in CDL (Testors Sand ANA 616 in this case). Needs a bit of cleaning up before moving to the next stage.
The seat belt set I ordered arrived Saturday. Sunday is “pizza-and-movie” day for me, so I just got them installed. It’s not PE, but a set from Eduard called “SuperFabric”, printed on paper like a very thick decal. You peel it off the paper with an X-Acto knife, use tweezers to place them and white glue to fix them down. Very flexible but strong, and it was easy to peel apart when I accidentally glued them to each other. A bit of work, but worth the time and the money.
The only bad part is that the close-ups reveal that I still have some more sanding to do.
This is getting really frustrating. I want to finish the nose, so I’ve spent the last five days trying to get the louvers right. Continuous failures, and the best one so far still looks lumpy and bad.
Never tried plastic before- I always used thin aluminum or copper, like roof flashing. Even a small roll of it is a lifetime supply. You might try that. Unhardened aluminum or copper is far more ductile than sheet styrene.
I ground a small screwdriver into a die, and backed it up with something hard with a beveled hole that the metal could move down into when I tapped the screwdriver. MDF is hard enough, and cheap.
That sounds fascinating, Don. I looked online and see a lot of options, and I’m not quite sure what I’m looking at. Can you advise me on brands, or exactly what I need?
Any brand of aluminum, any brand of small screwdriver. I went to Home Depot and got a roll of aluminum about 8 or 10 inches wide and many many feet long. Used for roof flashing under shingles at bottom edge of roof.
I grabbed a small screwdriver from my screwdriver collection, about 1/8 inch tip. I ground a bevel on edge, so one side was sharper, and sides were slanted and slightly rounded. Brand immaterial. I laid out the louvers on the sheet aluminum, and ran an X-acto blade over the side which is to be open. I took a piece of particle board and drew one louver on it, and made a little recess with an X-acto knife. Now, the aluminum has to be held over the louver recess in the particle board exactly. Hold the screwdriver over the laid out louver and tap gently with a small modeler’s hammer.
One way to register the aluminum exactly over the recess is to use two pins. Drill tiny holes on each end of the slit in the aluminum. Actually, I drill these holes first, and it helps to slit the aluminum. I also drill matching holes in the particle board at the ends of the recess.I drive pins into the holes, and cut off the top part, leaving about an eighth of an inch sticking up.
I then lay the aluminum over the pin holes so it nestles down onto the particle board. I then hold the ground screwdriver, which is now a punch, with the sharp edge along the slit, and tap away.
Well, I tried the aluminum as Don suggested, and I made a complete hash of it. I tried plastic again, as I have some super-thin stock, almost like paper. I just can’t seem to get it right. I’ll keep trying, but I think I might lay it aside for a bit and start on the wings. I’m fast running out of time.
At long last, love! Well, not love, exactly, but I think I can live with these. In a close-up picture like this one they’re still far from perfect, but I have to remind myself that each row is only 2mm tall and 14mm wide. Once the model is done I think they’ll look okay.
Spent the last two days cutting out the cockpit openings, getting it wrong, adding new plastic sheet and re-cutting. Today I did a test shot of the green nose, to see what changes I need to make in the color, and started work on the lower wing.
