Progressing to the engines now…
This has already taken a week and, as I have quite a bit of wiring painting and weathering to do, it is going to be another week at least. I am detailing one engine.
I constructed the other engine with little or no cleaning up so I could study it to see how and where to place the wires. A lot of work will be hidden by the exhausts but the exposed Mosquito engine does look quite busy and I will try to replicate this in some way. By the way the engine mounting frames (green in the pics) are very delicate and one was broken so I splinted that one and stuck it on the black engine. Then I broke off another one which had to be installed on the exposed engine. Once again I applied a splint and this time sanded it as flush as I could so it is nearly invisible. In any event, this has wiring along it so no great damage was done.
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The engines go together very well and it is fun to paint one – two would be too much, as I work so slowly.
I have not actually got any good close ups of a Mossie engine so I have adapted a Spitfire to match up to the best photo I have of one mounted in a Mossie. I guess there are some quite big differences, but I am working a little in the dark!
More work on the engine…
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Wiring to be joined to the bulkhead eventually, just started weathering it. The blue?! Well I saw it in some reference to a Mossie and just thought it would create visual interest! There is quite a bit more work to be done on it as yet and the starboard side is not properly underway. But I think it will look quite busy when finished.
I have done some work on the bomb bay, added some wiring etc. The first pic shows this – I have not cleaned the ejector marks below the cannons as they will be concealed when they are fitted (see second photo). There are so many ejector marks that I really am only going to remove the more obvious ones. Some of them are extremely fiddly to deal with.
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If you recall I am using Cammett’s etch on this (https://sslrelay.com/cammett.co.uk/html/). The first to be applied are the clips for the engine compartment. In order to place them correctly I drilled a small hole in the kit mouldings before sanding them off. I realised that once sanded I could not tell which way round they went so I marked the direction with a dab of paint.
Then using Blue Tac I positioned the larger end over the drilled hole. Then with the tip of a hot soldering iron I pushed it into the plastic. The result is that they are slightly flusher with the surface and with a bit of sanding to clean up will look sharper than the kit offering. Thank you Cammett!
Undercarriage
The undercarriage legs, these are missing the rollers for the u/c doors and the points to which they secure to the legs so I have manufactured these. In fact Paragon are making these and in due course they will be available – I tried to get the Paragon test set which seems to include undercarriage doors, engine exhausts, engine shrouds and a number of other tasty looking upgrades. Keep your eyes open for these!
This has a huge amount of space to add detail to and whereas I said I would not be doing this the temptation has got the better of me in certain areas.
Firstly however a couple of problems I encountered with the fuselage wing union. There is a bit of a gap between the wing leading edge and the fuselage by the radiator, nothing serious but I have not seen mention of it before so I think it must have been me. Anyhow gap filled.
Underneath the wing there is a bigger gap in the same place (in pic) I noticed when I was at Hendon that this is there but there is a bit of an extension on the side of the fuselage to plug it (so to speak) I put a piece of plasticard which has done the trick.
Two pics of the exhausts show some work I did on them to try to bring them more into line with the originals. I am using these exhausts as the aircraft I am building has shrouds on the outside of the panel and the other exhausts will not fit into this! The work was done with the foil surrounding the surgical blades I use. So far I have put only a quick coat of paint just to see how many coats of Mr Surfacer 500 I am going to need to smooth it out.