The landing gear struts as supplied are simple tubular 'model' struts by 'HAWE' in Germany. These are far from scale in appearance, so they are to be built up to make them a little more convincing......same goes for the wheels. The 6 1/2" FEMA main wheels have a simple 2 part glass filled nylon hub, so to detail, a pattern has been produced allowing me to take a flexible silicone rubber mould and cast 4 scale hub covers.............
Work now concentrated on internal detailing of the front cockpit tub. Chemiwood, styrene sheet & tube + various bits & pieces from the scraps box. Though the 335 was produced in very low numbers, it's very well documented, especially the interior, so this work is proving relatively straight forward if time consuming.
The back face of both instrument panels are visible through the front glazing, so the rear sections of all the dials has been added along with dummy wiring. Both cockpit tubs are also painted (Warbirdcolors RLM 66) and clear coated (Klass Kote matt clear)
Front cockpit seat complete & ready for distressing & clear coat. As far as I know, the hinged arm rests were stored in the up position when in fight, only being hinged down for seat ejection (the full-size had an ejector seat in the front cockpit)
The resin cast main wheel hub covers have been machined down to fit the glass filled nylon hubs of the FEMA wheels. Now bonded in, painted & distressed, the are also ready for final clear coat.
Phil your model making skills are a pleasure to see and learn from, it is unbelievable how far model making has come over the years, and this fine detail is amazing, looking forward to seeing the model come together. Chris.
Almost there now.........soon be time to fit the cockpit tubs to the fuz the it's just the completion of exterior detail & it'll be painting time (once the weather cheers up!!)
Front cockpit tub permanently fitted and hinged canopies in progress. All surface detail now complete on the wings, stabs & control surfaces, so these are now ready for paint.
Slow process as ending up with something bonded to something I don't want it bonded to would be 1 step forwards, 10 steps back, but after a couple of days of bonding a bit at a time, the 2 canopies are now attached and the hinged sections have been split & are opening & closing freely. Exterior moulded epoxy glass frames next................
Onto some painting whilst the final detailing jobs are completed on the fuselage.
As can be seen in this shot, the 335 we're modelling was unpainted on the underside leaving a patchwork natural aluminium finish created by the different thicknesses & grades of aluminium skin. Not wanting a 1/2 and 1/2 paint & aluminium foil (Flitemetal) finish (difficult to hide the edges of the foil), it has to be paint all over. To achieve this, I'm using a Platinum paint over the top of a multi-coloured base coat. The colour base coat is solvent based acrylic which will eventually be polished to a gloss finish. Once done, the various colours will give different shades & tins of silver to produce the patchwork effect.
Work is now 99% complete on the hinged canopy areas. Canopy frames that had been laid up over the vac-formed canopies were cut, painted internally then bonded externally with ZAP canopy glue. Time consuming & slow work to ensure everything is lined up and all openings have minimal hinge gap, but we're now ready for riveting to begin on the fuz then it's final painting time.
