OK, time for an update. Before going on to new stuff I'm going to rewind a bit. Although I was reasonably satisfied with the radiator material I had used, I decided to obtained some 100 x 100 mesh and decided to used it instead. I also cut it at a 45º angle to make the apertures look diamond shaped instead of square, the end result looks like this
Not my best photo but you get the idea, the pieces still needed trimmed at this point, once painted up it looked much more like a radiator and less like a screen.
With that out of the way it was on to mounting the armored shutters. The shaft I mounted these on was a piece of small diameter hypo tubing as none of the wire I had was stiff enough. My original thought was to cut the ends of the tubing to half the thickness of the side walls, slip it in place and glue it. Before I got to that point I decided on a different approach. The internal diameter of the tubing was smaller in diameter than a #80 drill, fortunately I had a .0105" diameter drill (#80 is .0135) so I cut the tubing flush with the ends of the shutters then used the drill to open the ends and drill a hole in each side wall. I then found some wire (a single strand from some stranded wire) and used it and a pivot point at each end, This turned out to be quite a test of patience but was pleased how it turned out and a side benefit was the shutters are now positionable.
In the last shot you can see how the radiator looks painted up.
The back shutters were done the same way. With that done the pit was assembled and detailed. I found that there were discrepancies both between the kit parts and the Eduard set that did not match either photos or diagrams that I had available. Some were just wrong like a first aid box on the starboard wall that didn't show up in any of my references and minor stuff like the throttle being mounted too far forward. I also came to the conclusion that some of the details were just over sized as they would not fit in the configuration shown in photos and diagrams. So I used a bit of creative gizmology and fit things in the best I could. In this scale one could go nuts with detail but hey, I've got a deadline to meet.
Also the pit itself tends to look a little plain but that's due to lack of ribs and structural detail and that is correct due to the armored tub that surrounded the pit. Anyway, here is my rendition.
The big lever that looks like the parking brake from a Mack truck is the emergency bomb release.
With the pit done it was on to fuselage assembly. I did not install the invisible radio rack in the rear fuselage and all in all the fuselage went together rather well, not Tamiya grade but no major issues either. In this photo I have primered the clear cowling parts to make it easier to see what seam work needs to be done and I also shot some down the center line seams. Nothing that a little Mr. Surfacer won't fix.
Next the outer wing panels were mated with the wing center section. The instructions would have you do this nearly at the end but I felt it would be easier to deal with any alignment issues without the fuselage getting in the way. I did need to do a little bit of filing and sanding here and there but nothing major and the fit was quite good and the spars added a lot of strength to the assembly.
Once the wings had overnight to cure I attached the wing to the fuselage. This was a bit of a hand full, more because of the size of everything and again some minor trimming done at the test fit stage allowed things to go together pretty well but I still did a progressive gluing, doing one side first and while it was curing, aligning and gluing the other side. Again, the fit was very good with no major work to do prior to painting. As that cured I went ahead and installed the tail feathers, leaving off only the rudder which has a mass balance molded on that I know will come to grief if I install it before completing the seam work. So far the landing gear has fared well, I have only knocked one side of one of them loose.
hmy:
Anyway, it's beginning to look like an airplane. I hope to have this ready for some color by next weekend if I can decipher what colors to use, Russian planes are so much fun in that respect.
Till next time, thanks for looking.
