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Canopy time
Goodday gents, and thank you Olo, rmks2000, Pepo, Ricardo, Sergio, RagnarTT, Don, Mor, Rata and MrConk! Your compliments make me feel shy...
Alright, I can't postpone it any longer, the canopy needs to be made. Not really my favorite cup of tea. Didn't buy any pre-molded canopy (not sure if there's any) so need to make one. First, copied the parts concerned and built a mock-up with the sliding part of the canopy and windscreen together. It appeared that the windscreen is too big and needs to be trimmed at the bottom side but then still the black anti-glare panel is too small once the windscreen is in place. Not a problem, can be touched up easily with black paint.
Actually, I never use pure black but always rubber black, which is not as bright (is there something as bright black anyway??), and with a tone of grey in it.
Building a canopy is quite a lot of work and glue spills need to be rubbed away with the sharp tip of a tooth pick before the glue is completely dry. The sliding part of the canopy has a lot of framework. Acetate (clear) based glue like UHU works best for this purpose. The inside frames are a bit too big as well and also need trimming.
Eventually, not a bad result. Nice details like rear mirror and grips on the sliding part are included. I added sliding rails as found on actual pictures at the cockpit (made from plastic rod dia 0.5mm and painted metal grey) and highlighted the rails on the fuselage behind the sliding hood.
With the windscreen in place I finally added the head-up display to the instrument panel. The picture is blown up considerably, explaining the grainy result. Had to put the model nose down to keep the instrument in place during drying of the glue.
All in all, one step further towards completion.
Cheers,
Erik
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