Geli SR-71 Blackbird

[BigGiraffe]

I'm having some alignment problems with the skins. Part of the problem is caused by my errors on the other skins. But I think it would have been good to have a "spine" or "backbone" for the fuselage in the kit. This is because the height of the frames is very small compared to the width of the skin sections, and so slight changes in overlapping the gluing tabs easily alters the angle of the fuselage sections relative to each other.

For assembly technique for the fuselage sections, it seems better to first glue the upper skin into place because it has the most curvature and is the most difficult to align with the previous section. After that, I am gluing the frame onto the back section (Parts 13, 18, 23 in the photos), then the lower skin. Any misalignment results in wrinkles in the skins, sometimes in the previous skins as you pull the parts together.

Also, I see I should have reinforced the area between the two wheelwells. The photo shows the bulge there.

For Part 29, which is an upper skin, I noticed the kit does not mark a fold line for each end that is needed to match the previous skin. Also, no glue tab is marked, so I lengthened each side to include a glue tab, as shown.


Thank you all for your words of encouragement!
Kurt

[BigGiraffe]

The aft end of the fuselage is complete. Two parts make the end: a top piece as shown in the photo, and a corresponding bottom piece. They were harder to match up, top-to-bottom, than they probably should have been, but I've been dealing with a cascading fit problem since my mistakes with the large skin panel that has the main wheelwells. I had to cut the side triangles off of the bottom piece and fit them after gluing the middle portion.

Next on the assembly sequence is resuming work toward the front of the airplane.

[jagolden01]

Nice and clean.

[BigGiraffe]

Thanks, the back sections went together pretty well with few wrinkles.

The nose landing gear well went together nicely. The inner and outer doors come as one piece with the rest of the well, but I cut the outer part (black) loose since I don't want the bulge from the fold to show along the lower edge of the door. Their is a cardboard backing to the well, glued on the backside of what will be the "roof". (You can sort of see the edge in the photo; the well is sitting on it).

Next session, this well has to be fit into the main portion of the fuselage.

[BigGiraffe]

The nose landing gear well went in easier than I expected. First I glued the narrow end into the rest of the model. The kit design has the black exterior sections of the wheelwell doors printed as one part with the silver inner door, intended to be folded over and glued together. Instead, I cut off the black section. Then, on the lower fuselage skin, I folded the black doors outward instead of completely cutting out their outlines, as can be seen in Photo 18a. After gluing the lower skin panel along its aft edge, I glued the silver and black landing gear door sections to each other. This firmly joined the wheelwell with the lower skin and made the area stronger.


Next comes the upper skin panel.
Kurt

[MichaelS]

I thought you had given up on this after some printing good. Nice to see it hasn't beaten you.

[BigGiraffe]

I did set it aside for a month or so, then was able to correct things that I had glued backwards. There are some scars, but I think the size of the kit with the surrounding details will help hide my goofs.

Kurt

[BigGiraffe]

To avoid the "empty" look inside the rear windows, I fashioned a backdrop from dark-colored paper to run between them. You can still search and fine the empty interior, but this made a good overall effect.

And, it occurred to me that now is a good time to add some nose weight so the model will stand on its landing gear, so I cut a hole in the bulkhead behind the cockpit and screwed a bolt into place. There will be room for another bolt on the next bulkhead forward of this one, if I find this is not enough.

Kurt

[BigGiraffe]

The cockpit is made of two parts -- the seat and the walls. I cut the opening in the "H" pattern per instructions, then bent the two flaps down for attaching the cockpit assembly. I attached the cockpit prior to gluing the skin section to the model.

Also, on this section and the last section (with the nose wheelwell and aft windows), the upper and lower fuselage skins do not have any tabs that attach to each other. This lends itself to making a joint with ripples and waves. I used a long plastic "beam" as a backing so I could press the joint together and keep it even. It worked pretty well.

Kurt

[MichaelS]

Sure was a flying fuel tank wasn't it!!