John's Two-in-One Build -- * DNF *

[Sissel]

Excellent, looks superb to me.

[JohnRatzenberger]

Still crawling along, now into assembling the cockpit. Got virtually nothing done the last two days for one reason or another.

It is here, after I had reached this point, that I figured out the observer's seat was tucked under the pilot's seat ? I guess Airfix modeled it in the stored position, I'm not really sure. Anyway, I wasn't going to tear this apart to fix up everything, so I just yanked the seat off and put it back in the middle of the observer's area with a piece of plastic under to raise it up a bit. I like it better this way ….



Then I'll keep moving on from there ….

[MDT]

Adding PE to this lovely kit is really paying off (especially like the radio controls!) It looks great and unlike most aircraft you'll still see it when its finished.

[JohnRatzenberger]

Almost done the cockpit(s), a couple parts and some touch-up paint ...

Pix tomorrow ...

[Sissel]

Those cockpits look ace. Love the floor. Great work, John.

[JohnRatzenberger]

Still crawling ….

Here's the cockpits with all the details on the inside, ready to put on the deck and add details there ….



And here we are, complete less the gun mount, which seems to be drying slowly.



So, 9 whole steps are done …. ready to move along …. I'm going to try to get the fuselages closed up by Tuesday as we're off the AMPS show in Atlanta for the rest of the week. And, no, my two entries are not done although I was waving the airbrush at them today ….

[jssel]

Nice John. Good progress.

[JohnRatzenberger]

No pix, and I'm away from the bench until Monday.

Got the fuselage MGs in, got the cockpits test-fit into their respective fuselages. Had to do a bit of trimming of side-wall detail and a little sanding on the cockpit sides but it all worked out.

I was going to start gluing things together and just in time remembered I hadn't put in the glass, so I did that and let it dry.

Then I came back to glue things together and remembered I hadn't masked the glass and I should do that first just in case.

Sure enough I pushed out 3 of the 4 pieces while cutting the mask .... Sooooo I finished the masking, then reglued the clear parts and that's where we sit until I come back.

Could have been worse ....

Going to have to shift into high gear when I get back, running behind ....

[MDT]

Great work John, would'nt worry too much as once the office is done it goes together quite nicely.

[JohnRatzenberger]

I'm back, will hit the bench Monday morning ....

[Ian]

Welcome home!

[jssel]

Ok, John. Glad you are back.

[JohnRatzenberger]

I popped out the fuselage MGs, cut off the locator pin and moved them a bit more forward to bet the ammo feed chute under the IP like it should be. Now the stick actually looks like it could move forward.

After that, I glued the two fuselage halves onto the cockpit assembly and they are sitting, drying well. Tomorrow I'll start with the lower fuselage assembly. The floatplane one fits like a glove, the wheeled one not so well, my cockpit must be a tad wide -- I'm sure I can get past all that.

Took me a bit to get here as I spent half the day dithering around about wings folded or open, one of each, and every variation in between. I finally decide to do both full open and save do a folded one for later. My wheel-plane was land based, so it would look rather silly all/half folded and I the float-plane has cool markings and just looks cool on floats anyway. I can't change my mind, I just X-d out all the folded steps so I wouldn't confuse myself ....

[JohnRatzenberger]

Last few pieces of photoetch in the cockpit.
The fuselage undersides are on.

I have paint touchup in the cockpit, then seam fix-up on the fuselage.

I will do some pix tomorrow, ran out of time and light today.

And I may have changed my mind on wing-fold, I'm now thinking doing each one with one open, one folded. Fortunately because of the Eduard photoetc, I can just cover over the lower wing root holes if I leave it open. I can still read the instructions through the cross-outs.

[JamesPerrin]

Nice insight into the mind of a modeller, indecisions, indecisions, indecisions