ALT 1977 1/400 [9]

Today was a good day.
The decision to start from the back to the front and do the middle part last has proven successful.
Today I closed up the main part of the midsection and it all fitted like a glove. I am happy about that. I have to accept the fact that the hull is not as tight as I hoped it would be, this is just not going to be one of my best models. Whatever. I now just keep on going with this one.
Here's the beginning of what I had on my cutting mat a couple of days ago and after the jump you can see the result of today.

From left to right the hindmost part of the midsection and two appendices, two newly designed middle parts (the parts were extended with the blue-white-red band over the fuselage - and actually could have been joined all together in the end but oh well..) and the front part, a bit with a lot of open spaces in it. The two wishbone shapes are the front ends of the wing roots.


Those wishbone parts were curves and shaped with this tool which made it more rounded as it should be. The rest of the parts of the wing root were added and these parts were glued on to the main hull.

Here the main part is attached to the front part of the fuselage. This is the seam I am most dissatisfied with. I think it's because of the bulkhead placement and the glue strip inside. It caused the outer skin to buckle, and thus making the seam a bit crumpled. Perhaps i will come up with a solution to this problem without having to tear the thing apart...

The main culprit for the ugly seam.

The midsection comes together. I added the cabin parts to the wing root. Note the red and white band over the curved part especially. This was not part of the original recolour and caused some confusion earlier on in the build. I had to figure out where the band ran and add a lot of colour to different pieces that were still just monochrome.

The SCA's belly. Four bigger parts, glued together. The main gear doors are at the bottom right. I cut them out after making this photo. The panel lines were carefully scribed into the paper.

The cut out doors were given a scribing themselves, too, this is the inside of the door, it later will be cut in two, the small rectangular appendix will be cut off and placed on the opposite side of the wheel well. The scribed side will be pointing inwards.

Extra identically shaped parts were cut out and a small 3mm strip was shaped to create the first wheel well. This was edge glued and placed inside the belly part.

... as such.
My scratch built wheel wells were a little 'deeper' than the original ones, i guess, and the bulkhead had indents that were too shallow. I just made them a little larger.

...and it fitted much better.

Both wheel wells finished. I scribed the insides of it, too, to give it a little more realism. The weels will be in the outermost corners of the wells.

Test fit! it looks good. I just have to bend the curved parts here and there just a little and it will all be very tight and snug fitting. Wonderful. This makes me happy. it is a tough little cookie, this model, in this size with this paper type. The needles you see are for the main gear struts. They will be glued inside as a sort of strengthening to prevent a possible break off off a wheel bogey.
 

The needles will be glued when the time is there.

...And this is where I am now. Almost there. Just the last piece of the hull awaiting glueing and constructing and adding to the fuselage parts and then it is time for the wings.

All in all I hope the affect of the finished diorama will take away some attention from that ugly seam and hopefully I will come up with an idea to get it more or less camouflaged. We'll see.
That's it for now, thanks for watching!
--PK