The Empire Boat -- ** DNF **

[JohnRatzenberger]

A few days working on & off and here we are.

I managed to hand sand the hull halves smooth. I think they will line up nicely when I get to gluing them together.

I most all my time working on the interior -- the kit provides a nice one even if it won't be very visible. I think the pilot/copilot seats lean back a bit too much but cannot see what I did wrong and the glue is dry anyway, so that's how they stay.



Next up will be to put all the glass in and get ready to mate the hull halves. I will try some 'Future' on the glass, see if that helps the clarity. I am concerned about fitting the cockpit floor -- it was not fun on testing and I'm afraid I'll have additional difficulty not snagging some of the detail photoetch on the side walls when I go to put it all together.

I am not as far along as I had hoped, but nothing to worry about - I should be past the hull this week.

[JohnRatzenberger]

Little has happened since last Friday, been on other things.

HOWEVER, I got a coat of Future on all the glass and it cleared right up. I could see the Future pulled some gunk off and I just brushed around until it was clear. YEA !!! Now I can start putting the ports in the fuselage halves and get going.

I'm happy ....

[VickersVandal]

Beautiful interior!
I think we can bring ourselves to forgive the minor indiscretion with the seat angle.......just don't let it happen again!

[JamesPerrin]

Have you worked out how you are going to glue those massive hull parts together? Like a vacform maybe some tabs will help alignment

[JohnRatzenberger]

Yes, I played with it quite a bit.

First, you are correct & I will use alternating tabs along the top seam - it is virtually flat. I have not put them on, pending one more look at flat sanding the joins.

Next, the big problem will be to get the halves together & taped so the cockpit is in correctly and undamaged.

Then I will start at the rear of the cockpit and glue along the top, working backwards to the tail a couple inches at a time, using thing CA that will flow easily and allow me to mostly use the MK.I fingerclamp. I do this with styrene & Tenax all the time.

Once I get the top done, back to the tail, I think I can then start at the front of the cockpit and work my way forward around the nose and back towards the tail. It seems that if I have the top right, the bottom of the hull will be easy to push into place.

Last, I'll run some CA to tack the tail together.

Of course all of this is subject to another dry run, after I get the tabs/tape on, just to be sure it will really work this way ....

It's a hobby, it's fun ...

[PaulBradley]

It's a hobby, it's fun ...

Since when...?

[JamesPerrin]

Sounds like a plan. I've made the mistake, more than once, of trying to CA whole fuselages together in one go. Either they end up misaligned or with an extra half millimetre wider as the glue has set and made a gap.

[JohnRatzenberger]

Today is not starting well.

The kit provides 20 clear round ports, but only needs 18. It provides 21 "rectangular" clear ports and needs 21. I use "rectangular" because some are rounded rectangular while others are more rounded rectangular.

So, which shape clear port do you think launched itself across the room at the mere sight of a blade approaching it to take it from the 'sprue'. Can I also say it was the next-to-last port, of any shape, that I had to separate ....

I will be making one from clear acetate, but for now I have stepped away from the bench.

[mightymikeD]

this GB is cursed, I'm telling you! Read through the build threads..it's one AAARGH!! after another! I've had another one too..

Hang in there, folks: we'll get some "Looks like a plane and a ship had a baby" models made

[JohnRatzenberger]

Well, I certainly let time slide by, got a bit busy on other things, to include my Lend-Lease GB build.



The portholes are in. In my last post, I noted that I had lost one big one and had two little ones spare. Well, I have exactly the right number of each!! How did that happen? Well, I was counting parts vs the instruction sheet. When it came to matching parts to holes in the hull, it came out just right. So the one I lost was a spare, I guess.

Whew!! Now it's not all that easy as I still had to fiddle the holes to get the ports in. They have had a tacking of Micro-Kleer to hold them, and a brief swipe with a wet Q-tip to clean them. Tomorrow I will go back and run a bead around the inside and do whatever repairs & gap fixing I need on the outside, then let them sit a day.

That should ensure they are in good and tight so I can put on the masks before I close the hull so none get inadvertently pushed into a closed up hull.

[JamesPerrin]

Sensible planning. I've done the planning before and then completely forgot about it and steamed ahead to my own folly

[JohnRatzenberger]

Ah yes, much like the military adage -- the first casualty of modelling is the plan ....

[JohnRatzenberger]

I sealed all the windows today. Not a great job, as it seems the drying Kleer pulled some of them back from the outside, or I just got sloppy. Anyway, I'm going to try another cleaning of the glass and then we'll move on to joining the hull ...

[mightymikeD]

Ah yes, much like the military adage -- the first casualty of modelling is the plan ....

I always thought Otto Von Bismarck would have made an excellent modeller.. he had the right attitude. Definitely not a 'Rivet Counter' though!

[JohnRatzenberger]

I cleaned windows, they are much better now, in most places. Then I applied the masks. Remember how the ports on the hull and the parts supplied and the instructions didn't match ? Well neither did the masks, but I made it work.



Next, I put alignment tabs, staggered on each side of top of hull - I discussed that earlier after test fitting. Then I got out the bulkhead and spar to verify they fit. Spar was easy. The instructions gave a location 160mm back of the cockpit rear wall and 5mm forward of the last triple window for the bulkhead. Cool, except the cockpit location isn't all that firm and the dimensions don't work regardless, 160mm taking you back somewhere in the middle of the window triplet. I used the 5mm as a base and slid it around to fit neatly.

Then I made another test fit, with cockpit and had more problems. The instructions seem to want you to work with the right fuselage half, but the better cockpit locator is on the left side, except the floor doesn't lay nicely along the wall. I did a bit of sanding to make that better, then taped in the floor, made the fit, and taped the hull together.



The IP doesn't fit. I went back to the instructions, this had bothered me before because the location of the throttle quadrant made no sense. If you care to look you'll see the instructions clearly show the cockpit assembly with the throttle quadrant against the forward wall and the IP attached somewhere at the fuselage join. After a bit of play, I determined what really should have happened is to attach the IP to the forward wall, then attach the quadrant to that, and have all of that as one assembly. There are some red-X and red-Arrows on the instructions that show all this …. (enjoy )

Once all the glue dries well, I'll go back and make all that work, and we can move on ….