Friends
It has been a long time since I showed a construction in real time here, and for these weeks I had the opportunity to test a very complex model, where I can demonstrate some assembly techniques.
The model is the Sikorsky S-40, a large passenger hydroplane designed in the USA in the 1930s, a beta test commissioned by Aaron Murphy's (Murph's Models).
Speaking a little about the aircraft itself, this large hydroplane was designed in the first half of the 1930s at the request of Pan American Airways, to be its first hydroplane, it was basically an extrapolation of the Sikorsky S-38, with capacity for 38 passengers as well as being one of the first aircraft to have refrigerated kitchen for meals on board.
Three units were produced that were used on the PAA routes linking the United States with Central and South America. They were very safe aircraft that flew more than ten million miles between 1931 and 1941, during the war they were incorporated into the US Navy, being retired in 1943 and becoming scrap that same year.
The S40 were the first large seaplanes of the PAA and the first to be called the "Cliper", although large and safe, their tail-end arrangement was soon obsolete and the PAA replaced them with the large S- 41 and S-42 also from Sikorsky with more modern structure and even greater capacity.
Having introduced the subject, let's take a quick and succinct analysis of the model in question. In the 1/63 scale the model has 14 pages with segmented fuselage in five forms, it has relatively complex forms with integrated keel and fuselage, auxiliary floats also present formers, the greater difficulty and the challenge of this model lies in the construction of the tail and of the wings that connect the fuselage to the wings besides the installation of the flight and support cables.
The model has a new arrangement that Aaron has begun to attach to its biplane models since the launch of Salson-Moreau SM-1: a construction jig, the S-40 has 4 pages and allows the segmented construction of the main sets of the model your connection without error of alignment, the tool to be effective need to laminate hard cardboard paper in some of its parts and others that are folded like pillars laminated to paper 180g or 240g.
I chose to assemble the model by sub assemblies and then join these in the jig, we started by the fuselage laminating the formers in 4 mm cardboard paper, note that the at least one hole in each center of the formers has the function of inserting a tweezers to help fix in the segment of the fuselage the same (a good idea of the friend Michael Stanley that I ended up adopting)...
Coming soon...