I had to rework the joint for the seat to the tub assembly because I didn’t get it quite right and thus wasn’t fitting correctly.
Once this set I attached it to the left fuselage half. There are 3 large holes in the fuselage which mate with the corresponding plugs on the cockpit. This helps everything to line up but having the clear piece in place made this more difficult as there is a bit of flex on the cockpit piece. Some clamping was needed to keep things in place
Here is the tub mounted to the left hand side fuselage.
The next step was fitting the right hand side. I didn’t bother with gluing the clear parts until I got a good bond with the plastic fuselage parts. I’m not sure if that was the correct approach as I ended up with an alignment problem at the front – basically the right side sat slightly forward of the left. The fit of the clear parts to the fuselage halves is fine so I think fitting them after the fuselage is together (as per the instructions) would have been better, rather than gluing them at the front and working backwards.
I ended up with a bit of a step on the underside along with some little gaps. These were all easily dealt with CA and Talc.
Paul Bentham says
Hi Callum,
Firstly, congrats on a great build and thanks for the tips re the cockpit canopy assembly. One question re the aerial wire: what material did you use and how did you fix it? I’ve recently restarted the hobby after a 49 year May off and have a couple of kits on the bench that need both rigging lines and aerial wire and I’m having issues so any tips you can pass on would be appreciated.
Many thanks
Paul B
Calum Gibson says
HI Paul, thanks for the compliment, I’m happy with the build.
As for the aerial, it is ezy line . This is an elastic type thread which I think is for tying fishing flies. The advantage of this is that it being elastic means it won’t break when it’s bumped. It’s fixed with CA glue at one end, then stretched to the other end with another small drop of CA to hold it. You don’t need to stretch it to tight, just so it is taunt.
The Isolators were just blobs of white glue painted when they have dried.
Geoff has some info in the techniques bank on Aerials as well