Silverbird
Cockpit completed. Forward landing gear bay top must be filed.
Note the reinforcement for the instrument panel top shroud. I have added safety belts made from strips of masking tape.
Steering wheels are very flimsy. Instrument panels and side panels are represented in 3D decal form. Adhesive reacts instantaneously yet I suggest applying some decal glue or white glue, since these do not stay in place by themselves. Also side console decals are about 0,5 mm too long.
Note the sinkmark in the extreme nose.
Reinforcing tabs.
Side walls need to be thinned.
Polistyrene is flexible, so needs to be reinforced.
There are no locating tabs, so I glued pieces of square rod insides.
Constant fitting is necessary
Some force still will be needed (take a look at the starboard side).
Leading and trailing edges are appropriately sharp...
yet the inserts must be dilligently sanded.
Main undercarriage bays consist of four panels, level of detail (though totally speculative...) is satisfactory. Some flash must be removed beforehand.
Reinforced with pieces of L-shaped polistyrene beam. The model seems quite heavy, and the main undercarriage legs will be installed to the "ceiling" of these boxes.
I tried to make these surfaces flat, but some putty will be necessary here...
The nose section glued together, the resulting joint line needs to be puttied too - the polistyrene is quite soft, so the edges of the parts are soft too.
More locating tabs added. Vinyl masks applied. These are put on either flat surface or not very compound curvature, so should work well. Some attention is needed to keep them symmetrically. First layer of putty added too...
As much as 30 grams of weight seems necessary to avoid tailsitting. I suppose the front gear leg will need strenghtening..
The fuselage closed. You have guessed - some putty is necessary to keep the lines smooth...
Trying to sand the cockpit flush with the main body. In a hindsight it would be better to apply the cockpit masks after sanding. Much attention is necessary even if these are secured with a tape.
Bottom is not much better. Fortunately, it is supposed to be perfectly flat, with no complicated curvatures...
Yet there are some moulding "surprises" on the top of the main body
Same with respect to the leading edges of the wings. Many panel lines will need o be restored.
Location of the wings is a bit troublesome...
since these have a pronounced dihedral and are supposed to be joined by side surface and these locating tabs. Surely the joint needs to be reinforced, but there is not much space due to main wheel wells. I wonder where there would be main spars in the real thing...
Panel lines restored. I hope these pieces of wire will add enough strenght here.
Some filler will be necessary again
Keeping the symmetry of the dihedral of the wings.
Some progress here: installed the empennage reinforcing it with pieces of soft wire. In the kit these are designed to be butt-joined...
Underside sanded and rescribed - taking into account that it consists of flat surfaces the amount of putty is surprising (or have I done something wrong?...)
Due to my too enthusiastic sanding I had to reconstruct the fragment of one of the leading edges next to the fuselage - soft and flexible polistyrene made it quite a challenge...
Looks like the silverbird is ready for priming (metallic patches are the traces of my trials with AK "True metal" paints...
Priming and "preshading" done. This is my favourite method - gives subtle differences and lets to avoid masking metallizers...
Normally I would use light gray or white, but this time I used Tamiya silver leaf, since I want to mask off the control surfaces.
AK Extreme Metal steel applied, control surfaces and cockpit windows unmasked...
protective gloss varnish coat given...
the areas that are to remain black still masked - ready for decals
Quite a simplified decalling scheme and decals strip. Some are printed sparingly, what I find very useful.
Ready for decalling
Top surfaces and port side of the plane decalled
Decalling completed...
and the areas that are to remain black unmasked.
Perhaps it would be easier to go for the "in-flight" mode. I don't really understand the idea of undercarriage legs' parts breakdown here...
Panel lines highlighted with graphite pencil. Some dusted graphite rubbed to represent the surface exposed to high temperatures...
Rocket engines nozzles painted and installed
Since it was beyond my limits (and patience) to remove from the sprue and clean the polistyrene scissor links' parts as offered in the kit (did I mention that the polistyrene is soft?...) I just purchased the PE fret dedicated to Roden's Boeing 720 kit and installed the photo-etched links... and the rest of the fret will simply serve me (one day in the distant future) to spice up Roden's B-36 Peacemaker kit 😉
Some unexpected work on undercarriage parts - apart for PE scissor links I decided to add brake PE discs and lines (that I made from black coloured lead wire). Also I manufactured new doors' actuators from pieces of wire and adequately thick hypodermic needle (in the centre of photo). Insides of the doors there is perhaps too much dirt...
I decided NOT to add strenght to the undercarriage legs by drilling through them and inserting pieces of wire, because... I am too lazy 😉
At last on her own legs...
...wobbly a bit, but I presume these are strong enough.
Work on the underside completed.
I suppose after several landings on cement stripe there would be much dirt 😉
I call her finished (finally...)
Now I have to wait for better weather to take some better photos (here in Poland it may be like few months' waiting...)
Comments
28 July 2024, 04:40 -
Album info
Some final remarks: 30 grams of weight behind the cockpit seems too much - she is standing on her own legs but wobblying a bit when touched. IMHO she would look better in the "in-flight" mode, but the underside would need to be much more reinforced. The polistyrene is soft and flexible. Empennage joins need to be reinforced with pieces of wire, wings-to-fuselage similarly... The flat piece in the front of the instrument panel cover is ca. 3 mm too short - after unmasking the windshield, one can see the front undercarriage bay's top there... And be prepared for a lot of puttying and sanding... Happy modelling, Mates!
