Last week we started on the undercarriage.
This week we finish off the undercarriage and prepare some parts of the interior.
First Step as always is to get out and unpackage the parts for this week’s work, some parts of which are instantly recognisable.
The next thing I did was prepare all of the parts to be painted. The most obvious of these were the parts for the interior of the model. These had to be assembled as shown.
Then I primed everything that needed painting. I put aside anything that wasn’t part of the under carriage for later.
Then I painted the parts of the undercarriage black.
Then I removed any paint that wasn’t necessary to reveal the metal beneath.
Before adding a number of “Bolt heads” to some of the pieces.
Then came adding some wire to mimic the cables, the hardest part of which was tying the wire to the main assembly.
Then some black wire was added to mimic brake cables.
Next I had to attach the two short arms to the main assembly with a pair of screws.
Before connecting the whole thing to the arms installed last week.
Then I bolted the short arms from this week to the longer arms from last week.
Next, I put the smaller cross-brace into the two hollow arms installed last week, and then connected them to the main assembly with another pair of screws.
At the same time I added the square frame into the back of the undercarriage bay.
Then I added the “locks” at the corners of the main hinges to prevent the joints from over-extending.
Following this came the time consuming and delicate task of adding the cabling in the undercarriage bay.
The final stages of the undercarriage assembly involved putting a metal collar onto the axle bearing arms, and adding “bolt-heads” to the sides.
Before assembling the wheel, by inserting the hub, and then gluing on the two hub caps.
Next I took the two springs and bolts shown in this photograph:
And used them to secure the wheel.
Finally, I returned to the interior parts I set aside at the beginning of this diary, starting with a divider and a stand/bench.
First I removed them from their fret.
Before applying the green paint. The wing training edge appearing here is a replacement for the original one, which the instructions told me to build back-to-front. This new one actually matches up with the frames in the port wing.
And then added black, white and silver paint to the relevant sections.
Bringing us to this week’s conclusion.
Next week I’ll be building a second engine, the port-side wing leading edge, installing the pieces put together in this diary, and putting the first piece of skin on the model.