So I managed to get around to glueing the forward and central fuselage parts together. Although I have used a fast-drying two-part epoxy glue I am taking my time over this as I do not want it to go wrong. I got it wrong once, I don't want to do that a second time.



Looking at the above picture I am having to think about how it's going to be transported. I may need to put it in it's own box. I will start sanding the joint smooth tomorrow, which will have given the glue a good twenty-four hours to fully cure. In the meantime, I should get on and get some painting done.

Gondor

PSR is underway on the forward fuselage joint









Obviously the joint needs some more filler. I am using the same epoxy that I used for the joint as filler because it will not only help hold the parts together, it sanded nicely and has a reasonable finish as well.

Gondor

While the glue is curing, I tend to give such things excessive amounts of time to do so after a similar fuselage joint came loose, time to get on with other things such as painting the ejector seats.



Lovely little things. I had previously painted the straps in Blue, I wish I could remember which one as I had missed a bit and also got a little careless painting the cushions and ended up with some green on the straps 

Oh well, still lots to do. I will probably drill and file out the crotch eject leaver, now that and the top eject leaver are going to be fun painting as yellow/black striped items.

Gondor

Coming along nicely.  For the ejector handles I usually paint the full yellow and once dry go back with the black and dab where I want the stripes and finally finish painting them around the full handle.  Never a perfect job but life is too short to wrap them with thin tape.

Quote from: philp on March 31, 2024, 11:46:43 AMComing along nicely.  For the ejector handles I usually paint the full yellow and once dry go back with the black and dab where I want the stripes and finally finish painting them around the full handle.  Never a perfect job but life is too short to wrap them with thin tape.

A good solution I have discovered is to use two lines of thread, one yellow and another black.  Coat them in PVA glue and twist until they assume the correct amount of spiral and allow to dry. Saves painting.  Then attach to the seats in the correct positions.

Quote from: rickshaw on April 01, 2024, 07:21:54 PM

Quote from: philp on March 31, 2024, 11:46:43 AMComing along nicely.  For the ejector handles I usually paint the full yellow and once dry go back with the black and dab where I want the stripes and finally finish painting them around the full handle.  Never a perfect job but life is too short to wrap them with thin tape.

A good solution I have discovered is to use two lines of thread, one yellow and another black.  Coat them in PVA glue and twist until they assume the correct amount of spiral and allow to dry. Saves painting.  Then attach to the seats in the correct positions.

That's genius!

Thread or wire.

I was going to suggest using a fine black felt pen, but some are not happy going over paint, and even when they are, they tend to fade badly. 

Quote from: Rick Lowe on April 01, 2024, 09:17:59 PMThread or wire.

I was going to suggest using a fine black felt pen, but some are not happy going over paint, and even when they are, they tend to fade badly. 

I have a fine enough paintbrush to give stripes a go with paint.

The build is still moving forwards, admittedly slowly as I am having to do a fair amount of PSR to satisfy myself. So while the filler I am using is cuering I did a little work on the seats.



And the picture shows that when I touched up the seat belts I missed where some of the green found its way onto one of them 

The difference is that I drilled and filed open the seat pan ejector handle. The main part of the seat will get painted tomorrow as well as hopefully moving onto glueing more parts to the fuselage.

Gondor

 

So some of what I have been doing this weekend is very visible. Fore handles! Yellow ones.



Then splash a bit of black around a bit and you get this....



It was only when I was painting the left side of the sets I remembered something.



That little black lump above the blue belt is a handle too. So that will need opened up and painted with yellow stripes.

I will be adding black stripes to the overhead and seat-pan handles, but later, not today. The rest of the time has been spent fixing seams and adding the wings. Not finished with the seams so not showing any pictures of it yet. You're going to have to put up with just the pictures of the seats, which need lots of touching up 

Gondor

There's always that "Something you missed"... don't ask, etc    (C) & TM zenrat Industries...

An update!

Been a while but that didn't mean there was no work on the build. I can say that it's big and pointy. This of a 1/32 F-104 with delta wings and a squarer fuselage and for size you would not be far off. I will take pictures later to show its relative size if I can find a large flat space big enough

First paint has been applied directly to the model. Possibly a bad move but we shall see how it goes. I am using Hataka Blue Line paint. Light Aircraft Grey B217, Dark Sea Grey B 144 and Dark Green B143. The Hataka Blue Line paint is for brushes so that is what I am using, and because it is an acrylic paint I can put several coats on in fairly quick succession.

So a picture for everyone to squint at.



Just the one picture at the moment as I wanted to show that there was progress and to get everything in the one picture at the same time.

Gondor

Progress is progress 

I came to the conclusion that trying to paint the undercarriage bay doors while holding them was a bit of a mugs game. All of their external surface were going to be Light Aircraft Grey so why not glue them into place? So I did!



Also means I can paint the inside of each door where necessary as well.

Being on a roll I decided to have a go at the handles on the sides of the ejector seats.



Result, though not without casualties



My 0.4mm drill bit broke. So that's a pack of ten replacements ordered as spares.

So far so good 



I spoke too soon. That's the top of the handle go somewhere, no idea if the carpet monster got it or the workbench.

No problem, make a new part.



Those are 1mm divisions on the cutting mat, the numbers are for each centimetre so the part is not very large.

And in place!





It needs a little fetteling to get it right but as this will be the pilot's chair and that side is up against the cockpit side it should be ok when finished.

Gondor

Quote from: Gondor on April 14, 2024, 10:40:11 AMMy 0.4mm drill bit broke. So that's a pack of ten replacements ordered as spares.

So far so good 

Gondor

Where do you order your drill bits from Alastair ?