Space Shuttle Endeavour with ET and SRB's in 1/96 [Part 2]

And although I started off great and enjoyed myself a lot, I discovered the designer of the model made an error in the photographic skin. Endeavour should have had a small NASA meatball next to the "United States" sign on both of its sides. And since I also wasn't completely happy about the wings which showed just too much gap, it was first a visit to the Shop of Photos and then back to the cutting mat. Now I had two half-built shuttles laying on my desk. But the new wings were better. And today this is where I am: I glued the wing section to the payload bay and the cabin section!

Want to read and see more? Yes, you do. I know you do.

Apart from the wing and meatball issue, my biggest question was: What to do next? Glue the cabin to the wing section and shove the payload bay in and glue the wings? Glue the payload bay to the wings first and then attach the cabin? Glue the cabin to the payload bay and then add the wings? What to do? Aaargh! Let's sleep over that one a few nights.

I decided that if I glued the cabin to the wings, the belly could be made flush. Otherwise I would not be able to reach the seam where the cabin meets the wing section. So cabin to wing it was. Then I also had the issue of the chine roots. They were hard to attach to the cabin section and I really had some troubles there. I am not entirely happy with how that part of the construction turned out. The paper ripped at some point and when I worked it further after repair it also showed some creases. I managed to reduce that to a minimum but it is still visible. And to me it is a little eyesore. But I didn't want to make the cabin again and after all, it is still only paper and it has its limits. Besides, I am sure that when this is ready, it won't really be noticed by others. It is not a museum model, but I don't care. I planned to keep this one myself. And the belly will be mostly obscured by the SRB's and the ET anyway. On with the show.

So, Next I shoved the payload bay into the wings and cabin combination. Easy peasy, but I wanted some possibility to re-adjust after glueing the parts. And regular PVA is quite unforgiving in that sense. So I wanted Aleenes Clear Gel to do the trick but the contents of my bottle was a little old and had become somewhat thicker and had little lumps. I used some non-brand fluid office glue in the end and well, it worked. It had the right thickness and fluidity and I could get the payload bay super tight with the cabin. 

The only thing which wasn't that obvious before was the gap between the wing and the cabin on starboard side. Damn. Oh well. Let's go along with that. Time for glueing the wings to the payload bay. The original glue tabs were insufficient. To small and since there is a lot of tension on the wing section, it was better to make a larger glue strip over the small original tabs. That was a good idea.
Now then, glue. I postponed this a couple of times. But I had to do it, so there went nothing.

I used my new (golden) bottle of regular Aleenes tacky glue, not my regular PVA because I discovered with the grey Whirly which I used as a test, it was quite strong and bonding well immediately. I used a brush to spread it over the new broad glue strip. I took care the glue was spread out to the innermost edge, so the wing would become as flush as possible with the fuselage. And that worked well.

So we've overcome the first big obstacle. On forward then.

See you soon.
--PK