|
Day 5: Son has laminated the wheels, dad has most of the fuselage done (pic 1).
The fuselage is going together generally okay. One issue is that on some of the sections, the bottom edge where the paper is supposed to join to make a tube is not straight (pic 2). If built as drawn this involves warping the paper into a compound curve to make the section. Can't say whether this was a layout error or an intentional flouting of the laws of physics, but either way it's a hassle for the builder.
Fuselage shape seems not too bad, but there is very little panel detail and the markings are in inaccurate locations, both clearly to avoid aligning graphics across part joins as much as possible. The positions of the horizontal stabilizer and cylinder bank bulges are wrong. The wing is okay but no spar is provided to set the right dihedral.
I'm keeping a running tally of mods that would have to be made to do a proper build of this kit, only some of which I'm implementing on this one. So far it includes:
- add spar to wing
- delete wing leading edge stiffeners
- straighten fuselage joins
- repaint:
--- add/correct panel detail
--- correct markings
--- color joining strips to match adjacent parts
- lower position of cylinder covers
- raise position of horiz stabs
- revise wing fairings, add fairings for tail feathers
- move tailwheel aft, add doors
If after the build, the basic shapes show enough promise, maybe I'll revise the kit and rebuild if the list doesn't grow too much longer.
Finally here's a pic dad once took of a similarly configured Spit that he's using for reference/inspiration (pic 3).
August
|