A Mig in bondage!!
However hard I tried to close the gaps, shown here, the problem would just not go away. The reason is probably down to how I installed the inlet tunnels way back in Stage 1. The positioning was rather chancy as the fixing points were not clearly defined. Also it was impossible to dry-fit any of the cockpit to judge the exact placing.
So, it has taken me the best part of 2 weeks to join it up, mind you this was only doing about an hour a day on it, at present.
The force be with you
The above photo shows the rather extreme measures that I took to bring the halves together. None of my clamps would hold it. The main part of the fuselage came together reasonably well leaving only a small gap.
The nose section was yawning !
Double-sided tape (much stronger than masking tape) brought the gap together as far as possible. Then a fillet of plastic sheet sanded into a slight wedge was placed in the widest part. This was then covered in superglue (thick), which was zapped to harden it quickly then sanded immediately.
After about three applications of superglue and sanding it was good enough to use Alclad’s filler grey base to cover the small abrasions.
This shows the same technique applied to the spine of the fuselage. I sprayed metallic on the surface to spot the faults. This is before the application of the Alclad primer. There are still a few “dents” and abrasions in the finish where rather hard sanding had dug into the surface. I levelled these with a slug or two of superglue.
I have also started to re rivet the spine but only as a guide for later.
This shows the Alclad base sprayed reasonably thickly to the spine gap. It took two applications to look satisfactory.
Superglue, silver paint and Alclad base later, all sanded to smooth the gap out. This just needs a coat of paint to see how good (or bad) it still is.
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Actually not too bad, at least not as bad as I thought it would be. Just a little more adjustment to the rivets and panel lines etc and it should be good to go.
The underside followed the same procedure and looks about the same, photo next time.
The intake is being worked on, and the gaps there are starting to disappear.
All in all a long process, probably as much as a result some early mistake by me leading to this headache!!
The instructions show the gap, but I am not certain that the fuselage is glued together in the pictures.
I think that this is the most bizarre page of the instructions. From stage 76 -82 show the installation of the jet outlet.
I could not see the relationship of the drawing at the bottom to the actual part, as correctly shown in the photos. The part is not remotely similar and the chances of inserting all but an infant’s finger to extract it is nil. I just glued it in place. In fact in 79 it does not appear to line up with the fuselage outlet in any case. I did not follow these stages at all.