Marek Marathon: Heinkel He-51W (1/33)

[redhorse]

Nice floats! I'm really enjoying this build.

[Yu Gyokubun]

Floats look flawless!!!

[ccoyle]

Originally Posted by YuG

Floats look flawless!!!

Thanks, Yu-san, but that is really a photographer's trick. On both floats, I had real difficulty with two areas -- the step between the front and rear halves of the floats, and the front tips where multiple curved surfaces meet. There are, unfortunately, some fair-size gaps here and there, but they happen to be on the black portions of the floats, so they can be hidden effectively with some flat black paint. Overall, I found the floats to be rather a trickier bit than one might expect.

Cheers!

[ccoyle]

As you will all recall, my previous attempts at this model were beset by fit problems -- some frames too small, others too large. In an attempt to correct these problems, ron0909 reformatted the kit parts to fit on 8 1/2 x 11 paper to eliminate potential scaling issues.

And here is the result:



Frames are pretty loose, as you can see. Well, I'm just going to roll with it this time. I'm going to add some scrap paper joiner strips to join fuselage sections and go from there -- we'll see how this works.

The cockpit skins are a real labor of love. Numerous darts are used to pull the basic cylinder into its not-really-a-cylinder shape.



As I did before, I cut the inner skin into two halves, making one half longer than the other, so that the longer half overlaps the outer skin's seam. I used some joiner strips on the darts that will be hidden by the cockpit floor, and I affixed the inner skin with 3M 77 spray adhesive.



The good news is, the old cockpit assembly fits into the new cockpit frames, so I do not have to rebuild the entire cockpit. I will resist shouting out "Yea!" until after I've seen how the whole thing goes together.

Cheers!

[ccoyle]

More progress...

Here's a shot showing two fuselage sections joined with a bit of scrap joiner. There is some graphics misalignment between the two sections.



The two sections are designed to be butt joined. The two bulkheads that meet at the joint are identical in size; however, the one for the cockpit section was loose, while the one in the front of the aft fuselage section was tight. Once glued together, the two needed a fair amount of sanding to fit properly inside the fuselage cylinder.



I had to do some chopping here and there to actually get all of the cockpit guts to fit within the allotted space. My advice is to test fit, test fit, test fit -- and postpone gluing stuff as long as the assembly process will allow. The bulkhead immediately behind the seat also required a healthy dose of sanding. There are locator spots for the shoulder belts printed on that bulkhead, but actually gluing the belts there would require an awkward up-and-over the seat laying of the belts. That didn't seem quite right. On-line photos seemed to indicate that the actual He-51 seat had two slots cut in to pass the belts through. I just went ahead and glued the belts directly to the seat. Works for me.



Cheers!

[cgutzmer]

Great update and thanks for the tips!
Chris

[ccoyle]

More stuff...

As far as I can tell, there is no part #29 -- can't find it on the parts sheets or diagrams.

In spite of my resolve to add joiner strips everywhere, for reasons I can't fathom I left one off for the joint between the cockpit and forward fuselage. This may be problematic later...

The design calls for the removal of part of frame E so that later the lower wing can be inserted. This makes things kinda dicey for properly forming the fuselage sections. Here's how I went about it. First, I scored the frame part way through at the section to be removed, then I glued the frame in, but only along the top portion. I then partially removed the part of the fuselage where the wing will be located, so that the paper will have some wiggle, allowing it to conform correctly to the lower section. After everything dries, I will finish the removal process.



While that section was drying, I started cutting parts for the rear fuselage. Part #31b has a large white portion that would ordinarily be cut out; however, I believe that is some kind of locator for the tail skid assembly of the land-based version. There doesn't appear to be any reason for removing it for the float plane.



Cheers for now!

[Don Boose]

Lots of challenges with this kit, but you are obviously overcoming them, Chris.

You are providing some really valuable information and advice for anyone else who attempts this model.

Impressive work!

Don

[ccoyle]

The tail assembly has a particularly hefty set of formers.



Attached the lower tail skin...so far, so good.



Notice the vertical stabilizer skin is comprised of five separate pieces (and two joiner strips). I'm not a designer, but it seems like a kind of awkward way of doing it.



And here's where we run into trouble, as might be expected where six separate skins are supposed to come together neatly. There's ultimately going to be some gaps somewhere.



I decided to get the seams between the upper and lower halves as nice as possible. This resulted in the aft portion of the upper surfaces slightly overlapping the lower surfaces. I found this acceptable, since the overlap will be partially hidden by the horizontal stabilizers. There remained a few minor gaps elsewhere. Oh, well.

[ccoyle]

A shot of the fuselage thus far...



Next, the fuselage forward of the cockpit. It is butt joined, and I'm not real happy with the result, but honestly, I just want to get this model DONE! :p



Notice anything in this shot?


Yep...there is no inner skin for this fuselage section, and it IS visible through the cockpit. I didn't feel like painting it. Anyone who wishes to view the finished model will be restricted to a viewing distance of two feet or more.

Cheers!