Uncarina Posted April 15, 2018 Share Posted April 15, 2018 You are making excellent progress John! Your build looks really nice so far, and it's great to see the shark-body fuselage take shape. Cheers, Tom Thunnus 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thunnus Posted April 16, 2018 Author Share Posted April 16, 2018 Definitely some progress being made, Tom! Slow but definite! Now that the fuselage halves have been glued together, I can start working on getting the nose panels to fit. It's not the greatest fit here so I had to use some shims made of sheet styrene to close the gaps. I've not yet glued the panels in place as I want to make sure I do everything BEFORE the glue so that I can minimize the seam clean-up. Uncarina, daHeld, LSP_Kevin and 1 other 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Uncarina Posted April 16, 2018 Share Posted April 16, 2018 John, That was one of the poorest fitting areas of my build as well, but you're making it behave nicely! Cheers, Tom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thunnus Posted April 20, 2018 Author Share Posted April 20, 2018 Thank you Uncarina! I'm taking my sweet time on this to try and ensure good fit around the gun cowlings. To tighten things up, I added a final shim to the whole back of the forward gun cowling piece. My goal is to have the cowling pieces finished separately so that I won't have to do much corrective work after the wings go on. Although I think I added enough weight into the forward fuel tank container, I wanted the option of adding weight to the space in the nose and if I close up the nose now, I'd have to tear it apart to add weight. There are some overhangs and gaps here and there but I think it'll tighten up nicely once I get some glue on the joints. The biggest overhang occurs here at the joint between the front and rear gun cowlings on the starboard side. But adding just a little finger pressure eliminates it. From the photo, I see at least one previously glued joint that needs to be cleaned up! I will square off the edges of the gun cowling pieces, restore all of the rivets and panel lines and then set the pieces aside for assembly later. During this time, I've been cleaning up the fuselage joint and restoring the rivets, panel lines and hatches in preparation for the addition of the cockpit and eventual attachment of the wings. LSP_Kevin, Gazzas, Out2gtcha and 6 others 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thunnus Posted April 21, 2018 Author Share Posted April 21, 2018 (edited) I've started work on the engine nacelles. Since the engines will be hidden, I am only using the engine parts that will be seen at the two ends of the nacelles. The engine nacelle joints need lots of clean up due to the glue seam and also a rough pebbly texture along the joint area. The view into the back of the engine will be very limited so I'm not doing much work here except painting the area in a dark steel color. Here are the two nacelles with the seams cleaned up. I've done a lot of seam work on the fuselage so I'm ready to glue the cockpit tub into place. Before I do that, I attach my previously made wiring harnesses to the wheel well. These will be trimmed once I get the sidewalls in place. The sidewalls are glued onto the tub and the whole thing is glued into the fuselage halves. I used JB Quik Weld for this to allow for any positioning adjustments. There are some various bits and pieces to the Aires wheel well that need to be attached so I'll be taking a look at that next. Edited April 22, 2018 by Thunnus Uncarina, Victor K2, TorbenD and 11 others 14 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thunnus Posted April 22, 2018 Author Share Posted April 22, 2018 A bit of the seam clean-up on the fuselage. The engine nacelles are almost complete. I've been cleaning up the seams as I go... doing the main longitudinal seams first and then the joint between the rear cap and nacelle. Once the front cap is complete and glued into place, I will clean up that last seam. You can barely make them out but I've added semi-circular pieces of plastic into the handholds on the engine nacelles. Trumpeter molded them as depressions but they should be flush with the surface. I've added spreaders to the engine nacelles to help them fit the wing better. TorbenD, Chris Wimmer, Uncarina and 7 others 10 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dashotgun Posted April 23, 2018 Share Posted April 23, 2018 are you planning on getting rid of the panel lines( canyons)on the fuselage and wings. I have been following along as this model and scheme are next up in my building sched Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thunnus Posted April 23, 2018 Author Share Posted April 23, 2018 are you planning on getting rid of the panel lines( canyons)on the fuselage and wings. I have been following along as this model and scheme are next up in my building sched I am keeping the panel lines and rivets intact on this build. I understand that the panel lines and rivets on the 262 were treated with putty but the putty treatment was known to wear down over time. And since Yellow 3 was a older 262A-1a airframe, I thought the case could be made that the panel lines and rivets would be visible on this aircraft. Plus, I like the visual interest that the panel lines and rivets gives to to the surface of this model. alaninaustria and Azor 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monthebiff Posted April 25, 2018 Share Posted April 25, 2018 Man..... you are seriously excelling yourself here John, that cockpit tub (upper and lower) are just amazing. Coming together just beautifully!! Regards. Andy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thunnus Posted April 25, 2018 Author Share Posted April 25, 2018 Thank you for stopping by Andy! Things are going a bit slow on the 262 but I hope to make some more progress soon. I'm cleaning up the engine nacelles and still need to figure out how to install the various rods/actuators in the wheel bay as the Aires instructions are frustratingly vague. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark M Posted April 25, 2018 Share Posted April 25, 2018 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thunnus Posted April 26, 2018 Author Share Posted April 26, 2018 After some seam clean-up, I shot the engine nacelles with primer (Mr Surfacer 1200). There are some spots to clean up but largely, the engine pods are done. At this stage, I have all of the major components on hand to do a major dry-fitting. The big reason that I wanted to do this is to determine whether or not the weight I put in the forward fuel tank was sufficient to keep this model from tail sitting. I've confirmed that I have more than enough weight up front so I'm going to attach the nose panels and clean up that area before attaching the wings to the fuselage. One modification I performed was on the horizontal tail stabilizers. Trumpeter has tabs on the leading edge that causes them to be at a lowered angle. I wanted them in a neutral position, so I cut the tabs off and relocated to allow the neutral positioning. One question I'm debating is whether to glue the engine pods on the wings while they are separate from the fuselage or glued them into place after the wings are attached. I'm leaning towards gluing them on before to make it easier to address the joint between the engines and the wings. Victor K2, shadowmare, tucohoward and 9 others 12 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alaninaustria Posted April 26, 2018 Share Posted April 26, 2018 Looking good - just wondering why you didn't fill-in the sink marks that are found around the leading edge of the air intake? They are quite prominent unfortunately. Other than that - great work overall! Cheers Alan Thunnus 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thunnus Posted April 26, 2018 Author Share Posted April 26, 2018 (edited) Looking good - just wondering why you didn't fill-in the sink marks that are found around the leading edge of the air intake? They are quite prominent unfortunately. Other than that - great work overall! Cheers Alan Hi Alan! I was wondering about that. The sink mark depression around the jet intake was so uniform that I thought it might be a a feature of the real aircraft. Apparently not! The engines are not mounted yet so I can address it. Yay... more putty work! Edited April 26, 2018 by Thunnus Gerhard and alaninaustria 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alaninaustria Posted April 26, 2018 Share Posted April 26, 2018 Hi John, you'll be happy you did tackle it before mounting the nacelles!! Great work so far mate!! Cheers Alan Thunnus 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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