Halberstadt Cl.IV

[rmks2000]

Somehow I missed this thread but glad I finally found it. Always enjoy your build threads.

[DrLaser]

Thank you all for you kind words. It is motivation for me to keep at it, despite 12 hour work-days at times.

Now, I'll finish the the fuselage seam. This is not at trivial as it sounds, if you want a tight build. I take my time an proceed in a methodical way, which I'll demonstrate.

Okay, I want to continue from the back to the front to close up the seam. Notice that I left a bit of unspliced area on the rear section of the fuselage. This is so I can place a splice over that section and part of the next section. This produces a good joint of manageable size to easily work with.

I'll work my way up, a bit at a time so I can keep the seam tight and overlap the joints with splices as I work the different fuselage segments. The sequence is shown in detail:

Okay, that's as far as I'll go for now. Notice I left some room for the next splice to join up the forward fuselage part. Here is the underside of the fuselage:

Now is a good time to insert the rigging wire for the langing gear strut bracing. I won't be able to do it once the cockpit is installed. I punch a tiny hole for the rigging with my #12 needle tool and tape it secure.

Next is inserting that spiffy cockpit and adding the front fuselage, which has a bunch of internal parts to figure out.

[Don Boose]

Excellent instructions on how to achieve the Laserization of a fuselage.

Looking forward to the additon of the spiffy cockpit.

Don

[DrLaser]

Well Don, wait no longer!

First I start by dry fittinng the cockpit and looking things over. I discover a very tight fit - too perfect. So I sandpaper the cockpit sides a bit to give a little room. I believe the tight fit is because this is 1/72 scale. I bet at the original 1/48 scale it would fit like a glove.

But no worries. I decide I need to close out the fuselage around the cockpit first. Since I have a tight fit, I'll thin out where I'll apply a cardstock splice (by the way I'm using 65-lb cardstock) then glue to one side.

It's an easy glue up. Then I use a piece of regular paper on the rear cockpit as a splice and use fine tweezers to help position the small fuselage sections to close out the fuselage.

Now I stuff, and I do mean stuff, the cockpit into the fuselage. I have to really apply a bit of force and work it with some tooling to position it correctly. I do this dry - it would be impossible with glue because of too much friction and the setting of the glue wouldn't give enough time to work. Once pressed into place, I first glue the inside front top secure, then the back, then the sides. I use a pin tool to work the glue between the dry surfaces letting capillary action draw the glue into the joint, and the pin to push some glue in. Then I use a smooth surface tool to work the sides while the glue dries. Then I add some tabs to go between the fuselage front sides and the cockpit front sides, by applying glue to both sides of the tab and slide it in. Then I add the rest of the tabs needed for when I add the front fuselage.

I think it came out okay. The designer did good.
Next time I'll add the front fuselage.

[jagolden01]

Looks wonderfull. Beautiful job on fitting that fine cockpit into the fuselage. The edge coloring around the opening really gives it a solid look.

[Don Boose]

Allow me to piggy-back on Joe's laudatory comments.

The cockpit insertion has aspects of building a ship in a bottle. Final result is beautiful and you have provided some excellent construction technique tips.

Don

[Paperwarrior]

Amazing work and attention to detail. Your techniques provide for a very clean build. I look forward to attempting to duplicate them.

Jeff

[DrLaser]

I though it would be a good idea to recap where we are, and the path forward. Next is the forward fuselage. Only then can the lower wing support be inserted. Then the lower wings and tail feathers.

Need to say we are having an absolutely perfect weekend weather-wise in the Washington DC area, so I 'm not sure how much progress I'll make.

[Don Boose]

It looks great, John. Like a butterfly spread out on a table. I'm eager to see this one next month.

Great weather and lots of flowering trees here in Carlisle, too, where Don Weeks (RockpaperScissors), Rick Steffers, Kevin Stephens, Karl Warner, and I missed you as we gathered to plan for next months' Paper Modeler's at Army Heritage Days event.

Don

[DrLaser]

Before the aches of working on the garden set in, I was able to add the forward fuselage section - so here we go.

First I cut out the part and form it. There are cut-out notches on the underside, and the underside has 90-deg folds at the rear blending to a curve to the front.

I think it is best to glue one flat side first.

Then the other flat side. This way I can register the lower corners precisely. Hard to make up for errors there.

Now with the sides fixed, I start to glue up the front - starting from the outside in. I will glue the center tab last.

By leaving the center tab last, I can make up for errors that I noticed earlier. The error is either from design flaw at this scale or builder error. I suspect it is more a builder error than a design error. You can see the bulge between the parts.

This is easy to fix. I cut the front fuselage part along the camo line, cut out a tiny wedge of material, then glue it down. Easy-Peezy.

Now that the top is finished, I turn my attention to the bottom. First I need to add a glue tab.

Then I glue down one side at a time, carefully trimming material as needed for a tight fit. When done, I add a splice to join the two parts along the centerline, then add a splice tab to join the next sections.

You'll notice I darken the joint line. If there is a gap, the white paper underneath the gap will not be noticed if it's dark (it's all about contrast). Before I glue up the other side, I add the centerline splice. This is a large part, so it is easier to add it now to one side.

After dry fitting the remaining side, I noticed a small overlap error on the where the two pieces join to the rear. So I'll join the remaining side panel from the front to the back and take out the error last. I start by joining about half of the part. This creates a solid foundation to work from.

It's the rear of the part that has a tiny overlap. I trim a sliver with my small Fiskars sissors, then use an emery board to thin out and taper the thickness of the rear area. Dry fit it and work it until I'm satisfied - then glue it down. DONE!

As you can see, the fuselage is much more involved than the wings, and I like to take it in very small increments to insure the best precision and accuracy possible. I really enjoy the process of the build and trouble shooting. After all, it's a hobby, not a race.