Simmo.b

Love it mate!!

Cheers Tom!! Saved me some scratchbuilding there!. I completely agree with you re the internal colours (or lack thereof!!) Some great builds are let down by incorrectly painting the insides. Cheers Brent

Having finished the wings I thought I would go more traditional and make a start on the interior. First up I couldn't live with the rear bulkhead to the radio room, the side of the bulkhead that faces the rear fusalage has the ammo boxes for the ball turret mounted to it which is incorrect (they really sit above the turret and turn with it) So the boxes had to go, even worse there are large hollows on the part resulting from the radios being mounted on the other side. My solution was to remove all detail, skin the part with Tamiya PLA paper then replace the lost detail with evergreen strip. The radio room floor has a step at its forward end, placed to allow the wing spar to pass through, incorrect in real life (HK have fixed this on the newer releases) I cut out the step saving a peice of the removed plastic to bridge the gap then added plastic strip for strength. The rubber matting was applied using Tamiya PLA paper and sprayed rubber black, the rest will eventually be woodgrained. More soon

Amazing work mate!

thanks for the kind comments guys!! MORE PROGRESS The engine mounts as supplied by HpH will leave the engine tilted to the rear as the rear legs are too short. looking at plans the forward leg should meet the fusalage at 90 degrees, to allow this the rear legs needed to be extended by about 4 millimeters. To achieve this i visited my local model engineering expert Eric G for advice! The solution was to rip out the wire HpH inserted into the resin peices and insert longer items into the castings, I then roughly formed some plastic stock into aerofoil shapes, drilled holes into them and slipped them over the extended wires, gluing them with super strength epoxy. Once dry (3 days). the plastic stock was sanded to shape and the peices painted MRP dark sea grey. The engine mounts were then joined to the fusalage with super strength epoxy (3 more days!) and music wire cross braces added making the whole structure very strong. Finally I offered up the engine, gluing with yep, super strength epoxy. I will let the pictures do the talking from here. Moving to the moment of truth, fitting the upper wing, which I don't expect to be easy seeing as how nothing has fit, but we will see!

Nice woodwork mate! The tanks can barely be seen on the finished kit so don't stress.....but having said that, I did mine up as nice as I could, couldn't help myself!

That's a shame as your models are outstanding!!

Thanks Bevan, when are you jumping on board? I see a Ju88 in your future!

Since I had completed one wheel bay I figured that I would re-start the build by finishing the other. Then I figured that I would complete the wings as doing this would remove a large swath of plastic from the sprues and at least give me the impression that I am making good progress!! The bays were painted MRP black followed by various shades of Alclad, I applied a wash using Flory dark dirt, I went with Flory as being clay based this wash negated the need to seal the Alclad with clear (I would have used Tamiya X22 not floor cleaner!) Fitting the bays required much thinning of plastic both on the completed bays and the inside of the wings, this may have been my fault as the fit tolerences are tight and any slight fit issues on the bays caused by errant paint on mating surfaces causes issues with joining the wing halves. I eventually got the wings together however the engine nacels required much shimming up and filling. I just need to re-scribe and rivet some lost detail and the wings are done. More soon, thanks for stopping in!

Driving down next year so spot on Bev!

Lol, I actually skipped on a fair bit of am, nothing for the wheel bays or engine's. I tried to keep it to a minium and still ended up with the pile that you see here!

There are 4 struts (2 each side) that support the lower wing, they run from the hull (fusalage) to under the lower wing. They support the lower wings as opposed to struts that support the top wing to the lower wing. Hth Brent

As far as length of spar goes I would make it as long as I could drill a straight hole, the longer the better, replacing key struts with brass or bronze items would be a great idea especially the struts that go from the hull to the lower wings

I think it's a case of the plastic struts not being able to bear the weight of the top wing, the struts under the lower wing are under huge strain, thats why the outrigger trestles are essential. Mono rigging may help (I used ezi-line) but I would consider inserting piano wire into the lower struts. Problem is that due to the nature of the interior a longitudinal spar is impractical but having said that, if I were to do another I would probably insert a spar and sacrifice internal detail that can't be seen anyway

Great project. Would you consider some kind of spar to ensure your wings don't droop? Even the regular Felix could use one. Would compromise interior detail but man that's a big wingspan!