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The propeller
Good day PM's, thank you so much again for your reactions! Canopies certainly seem to spark off a lot of thoughts and emotions....
Just to come back on the subject and to respond to Ricardo's and Tonino's questions: Basis for the canopy is the template provided with the kit. The foil that I used is not thicker than normal printing paper (0.1mm). Strong but still flexible.
After cutting out the foil of the sliding part, I pre-shaped it over a dowel and by gently shaping it in between my fingers. Then I glued the outside frame over it, first one side and then the other. I applied glue to the entire frame, which is essential for holding shape. This approach inevitably requires quite a bit of cleaning up of excess glue with a tooth pick but, so be it.
Then I put clothing pegs on all corners, at the same time maintaining the approximate required shape of the canopy and let it dry for a couple of hours. By doing so the firmly glued frame sort of holds the shape of the acetate (foil) quite well after drying and removal of the pegs.
Same procedure for the internal frame. The resulting sandwiched assembly is surprisingly strong and maintains it shape even better.
Of course, with a pre-molded canopy this elaborate procedure is not a necessity, but for a canopy built from scratch it's a different story.
The windscreen was prepared in a similar way.
A bit of new progress - the propeller is finished now and this changes the appearance of the model significantly (or not??). I used wooden sticks to reinforce the propeller blades (strictly not required but these are vulnerable protruding parts) and pieces of a pin to fix the blades on the already assembled hub.
Lining out of the blades at the proper 120 degrees angle interval is simple by drawing the center lines on a piece of board and to glue the blades on the hub accordingly.
Cheers,
Erik
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