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Birdcage Corsair the Hard Way!


LSP_Kevin

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So, despite not actually having a day job at the moment, I'm still really struggling to find any quality modelling time. However, I'm managing to plug away at this one, and work continues on both the fuselage turtle deck and the wheel bays. On the latter, I've now got them both glued in place, and have reinforced them with JB Weld:

 

 

 

I still don't know for sure if the upper wings now have sufficient clearance, but I can test it once the JB Weld has cured.

 

In the meantime, I've been working on getting the resin turtle deck faired in. A while back, Lee White generously sent me some Apoxie Sculpt to try, and even though it was probably overkill for this job, I really wanted to try this stuff out, and this seemed like an ideal opportunity:

 

 

 

It behaves similarly to the Milliput that I'm familiar with, but is much more convenient to mix and use. Here it is slathered on to the joins:

 

 

 

 

 

And after much sanding, this is what it looks like now under a coat of Mr. Surfacer:

 

 

 

 

 

Looking good, though not perfect. I managed to sand a bit of a trough into the port side, while the starboard side still has a noticeable hump. I'll keeping working on those, but I'm pretty happy with the way it's shaping up.

 

Thanks as always for looking in!

 

Kev

 

 

Mate that was awesome! :)

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So, time for an update with photos. I've realised that there's quite a bit of work to do before I can put the upper wings on over the wheel bays, so I thought I'd better start attending to those tasks, which mostly involve getting the remainder of the wings ready. Trumpeter provides a whole bunch of fiddly photo-etched hinges to make all the control surfaces work, and for the most part, they're no big deal, other than making those parts flop about like boobies in National Geographic. However, dealing with the wing flaps is a bit of a nightmare, and as I alluded to earlier, it's a system designed by a sadist. I'm still working on getting them to fit.

 

The other problem is that the sloppiness these PE hinges induce also doesn't give you a very tight or realistic fit, as evidenced by this aileron:

 

H94PFN.jpg

 

Note the huge gap between the aileron and the wing. It's a bit better on the top side, but this lower view simply wouldn't do, so I partially filled out the gap with styrene strip:

 

pLpXui.jpg

 

Not perfect, but a lot better. I'll have to tone down that ridiculous fabric effect, too.

 

The end of aileron cut-out on the upper wing was slight short-shot, so I filed it out straight and put some more styrene strip to work:

 

ZDbyNC.jpg

 

And again with that damned fabric effect! It looks more like corrugated roofing iron.

 

Oh, am I correct in remembering that these footholds in the flap didn't exist this early in the Corsair's development life?

 

jypoqq.jpg

 

More soon!

 

Kev

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Good to see that you have some time to get back to the forge. ;)

 

You keep beating that kit until it is into shape.  I like the J&B Weld on the gear inserts, those suckers aren't going anywhere in a hurry.

 

You wait and see, a little plastic card here, a bit of sanding there and before you know it you'll be shooting some paint.

 

 

Keep having fun and she'll end up a beauty, of that I am sure.

 

Dan 

 

Thanks, Dan. As it happens, the JB Weld now prevents the internal bulkheads from being fitted to the inner portions of the wings, so it was one step forward, one step back, though a net gain overall I believe. I'm pretty sure I can make the wing join work without that bulkhead, anyway.

 

Kev

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You're right, no foot step in the flap. Also to make life easier, glue the flaps up. You almost never see the early variants with the flaps down.

 

Allan

 

Thanks, Allan - as I suspected. I certainly plan to have the flaps up, but Trumpeter's engineering doesn't actually make that easy to achieve. Just another of this build's challenges!

 

Kev

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I've discovered, to my enormous frustration, that I've attached the reduction housing in the wrong orientation. :BANGHEAD2: It's weird that Trumpeter's engineering actually allows the assembly to fit perfectly in the wrong orientation. It should be one of the base goals of kit engineering to make sure that can't happen. Still, I should have been more aware of the possibility, and headed it off at the pass. It's not a show-stopper, but I will have to modify how the engine assembly mates with the fuselage, so that I can turn it into the correct orientation (at the front, at least).

 

I really thought it was too early in the build for my usual major screw-up, so it's good to know I'm still capable of setting new benchmarks, even now.

 

Kev

 


I built the engine wrong as well

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