Zioprudenzio P51D in 1/72 scale - Page 2

**rockpaperscissor** · #11 05-27-2011, 02:40 PM

I finally have something to share. The fuselage is formed. Came out nice and straight, but Zio's unique double tab assembly method took some getting used to.

In order to get the paper to bend in more than one direction, it's necessary to remove small wedges of paper, or darts, which go across the part. These are supposed to close up during assembly. When forming the front section of the fuselage, I closed up the darts first. Doing this really distorts the part into a curve, and I wondered how these formed parts were ever going to straighten out when trying to mate up the glue tabs. As you can see in photos 2 and 3, everything came out very straight. There must be a lot of pressure on those darts, but they are holding together.

To form the underside mid-fuselage region I decided to reverse the gluing order to see what worked better. Method 1 definitely works better. I wasn't able to close up the darts after gluing the paired tabs together. To repair this failed experiment, I made a new one piece mid-fuselage belly skin. I printed it on lightweight paper, and glued it place to cover all the gaps. It worked out pretty well - see photo 4.

So, the lesson of the day when building a Zio fuselage: close up the darts first, then glue the paired tabs together.

**cjwalas** · #12 05-27-2011, 03:26 PM

Looks like you are mastering the challenges of Zio's design style! I know what you mean about the pressure on certain sections, Zio's style does seem to have a lot of "forcing paper to do something it doesn't want to do" about it. Yours is turning out beautiful!
Chris

**RyanShort** · #13 05-27-2011, 03:52 PM

Honestly, with all of Zio's models that I ended up happy with, I ended up cutting the fuselage join tabs off and using a join strip. You just have to be careful not to cut off join strips for things like the wings.

Ryan

**jobeaux** · #14 05-27-2011, 09:02 PM

Coming together very nicely Don!

**Don Boose** · #15 05-28-2011, 11:37 AM

Looks good, Don. These simultaneous Zio builds and inputs from kibbitzers are certainly providing a lot of very useful information. By the time I try one of the airplanes, I will have absorbed a lot of valuable advice.

The Other Don

**RyanShort** · #16 05-28-2011, 10:55 PM

Here's the base I used for that Israeli P-51 repaint (Yes, I had permission) and another that I never quite finished up. It was going to be for a museum that almost opened here in San Antonio, then moved for political reasons. I was hoping to have a template, and to make a ton of P-51 "options" that one could print out the Mustang of their favorite ace...

Ryan