Week 5- Starting on the Details

Last week I covered the assembly of the aft most portions of the fuselage, and the mounting points for the mid-upper and rear turrets.

This week, I started (as ever) by unpacking this week’s set of parts.

The first step was to take the aluminium sheets at the left of the above photograph and trim them to fit the proper positions.

  

Next I used a thin marker and a ruler to mark out the rivet lines.

Once this was done I used a pinwheel and the same ruler to inscribe rivet lines into the metal.

Which had this result.

And once you turn the plate over:

I then set these aside to be painted later.

I then took these parts:

Plus a wooden dowel, and a short length of metal wire.

First I shortened the dowel to the required length, and assembled the pieces in the fret above to make a box like structure to fit around the base.  Then I assembled the whole structure, adding a thin metal sheet part way up the dowel.

I then added a piece of masking tape over the metal to protect it during painting.

I then set this piece aside for later.

The next issue focused on the Flares, and the flare-racks to be placed in the fuselage directly aft of the wings.

 

First I painted the flares black:

Before adding red paint to the tips, and to replicate the text on the sides.  I then secured them in groups to the flare racks, make sure to get the distance between the racks correct.

Before touching up the paintwork.

Lastly, I glued the racks into the fuselage section:

Following all of this I added stringers to the aft-most fuselage section:

Before starting on the construction of the starboard wing trailing edge.

This involved these parts, pretty similar to the same structure last week:

The main difference lies in the rectangular section at the right of the above image, which form the recess for the life raft to fit into as shown in this image:

Leading us to this week’s conclusion:

 

Next week I’ll be working on the leading edge of one of the wings and some more of the trailing edge completed this week.