A bit of a pic heavy update I'm afraid, mostly me fauning over Tamiya engineering...
Much of this detail on the radiator & oil coolers will never be seen without an endoscope but I painted it anyway (the blue isn't quite so vivid in real life!) :
This is how it all looks when fitted. Also note the brace that I'll come back to later:
However once the fuselage is fitted you'll never see the radiator!
Some of the oil cooler detail will be visible from underneath though, so I masked it up before gluing in place:
The upper & lower wings went together beautifully but I thought there was a strange gap around the gear bay:
Not to worry, once the centre belly section that ties the wings together is fitted, it all makes sense:
Now back to the brace I mentioned earlier. As well as strengthening the centre section it marries perfectly to the cockpit tub, and also the wing root, meaning alignment is pretty much guaranteed:
The root is also split into 3 sections along panel lines to disguise any joint, plus there are various slots, tabs and "hooks" to interconnect everything (hard to photograph):
All that clever engineering results in this, just clipped together dry for now:
The rear stabiliser have been fitted too. Again, as well as slotting into the fuselage they link across to each other within it, making it almost impossible to get their alignment wrong:
One thing I'm not keen on is that the main landing gear legs need to be fitted before these nacelles, so I can't see any choice other than to fit the gear before paint, leaving them vulnerable and making masking slightly harder.
I know I could drill & pin the legs for fitting after but why risk it? :smiling3:
Long update, thanks for bearing with me.
Much of this detail on the radiator & oil coolers will never be seen without an endoscope but I painted it anyway (the blue isn't quite so vivid in real life!) :
This is how it all looks when fitted. Also note the brace that I'll come back to later:
However once the fuselage is fitted you'll never see the radiator!
Some of the oil cooler detail will be visible from underneath though, so I masked it up before gluing in place:
The upper & lower wings went together beautifully but I thought there was a strange gap around the gear bay:
Not to worry, once the centre belly section that ties the wings together is fitted, it all makes sense:
Now back to the brace I mentioned earlier. As well as strengthening the centre section it marries perfectly to the cockpit tub, and also the wing root, meaning alignment is pretty much guaranteed:
The root is also split into 3 sections along panel lines to disguise any joint, plus there are various slots, tabs and "hooks" to interconnect everything (hard to photograph):
All that clever engineering results in this, just clipped together dry for now:
The rear stabiliser have been fitted too. Again, as well as slotting into the fuselage they link across to each other within it, making it almost impossible to get their alignment wrong:
One thing I'm not keen on is that the main landing gear legs need to be fitted before these nacelles, so I can't see any choice other than to fit the gear before paint, leaving them vulnerable and making masking slightly harder.
I know I could drill & pin the legs for fitting after but why risk it? :smiling3:
Long update, thanks for bearing with me.
Comment