ghodges Posted Friday at 09:52 PM Author Report Posted Friday at 09:52 PM (edited) Part of scratchbuilding is having to rework and rebuild things along the way. I wasn't satisfied with the original nose I built for the 1/48 T4M-1; so I started over from "scratch" and built what I think is a better one. The back plate matches the front of the vac fuselage, The front octagonal plate establishes the end of each section as well as gives the front measurement for each. Note the engine with tubing glued to its back that will fit into the nose when done. Shot of test fitting the engine.... there's some room to move the engine in or out to allow for the exhaust manifolding on the back to be built up later. As you can see, the original nose had a top panel that was much too wide and each of the other panels weren't as well defined. By building the new nose using flat panels cut to shape I could get the top center panel the correct size and make each one's "match" on the other side of the nose the same size until it was filled in all the way around. Note all of the air louvers on the drawing that will need to be added before I can call the nose "finished". Test fitting the nose to the fuselage. Although it is slightly larger in diameter where they meet, there's a thin "proud" strip that wraps around the nose just in front of the front cockpit that will help even out that difference. It can't be added until after the fuselage has been glued together. With some luck this will be the last major "build" job of this project and I can get the vacuform fuselage halves glued together and the nose added to complete the fuselage. Hopefully, after that, the rest will be simply a matter of normal parts detailing, gluing and aligning, and other such "mundane" work as done to complete any other model. We'll see! Gil Edited Friday at 09:54 PM by ghodges
ghodges Posted 1 hour ago Author Report Posted 1 hour ago 3 very mundane pics...... But they show a very MAJOR step forward in that the fuselage halves are together and the first coat of primer applied! It even sort of resembles an aircraft fuselage! The next steps are to finish applying most of the features that still need to be added to the fuselage, or at least get their areas ready. These are things like the the platform between the pilot and gunner's cockpits, tail plane brace brackets, elevator and rudder control wire holes, the reinforcing strip around the nose, making the windshields, tail wheel socket, etc. It doesn't look like much, but you can see how much work was needed JUST to make this step possible if you glance back to the beginning. Hopefully I'll make progress at a little better rate from here to the end. Gil
Recommended Posts