Re: The AW52 Arundel PR2

[NARSES2]

I think this kit has been sent to try you Kit. What you are being tested for I have no idea though 

I did that already, and it didn't seem to work at first, so I did it again and now it has. Both of your last posts have the amended title.

Had exactly the same thing happen to me the other day

[PR19_Kit]

Let's make one thing clear, this is NOT a plastic kit of an AW52, it's a collection of plastic parts that just may, if you're lucky, be placed near enough to one another to resemble an AW52.

So far I've only found four parts of the entire collection that fit together with any degree of accuracy, those are the upper and lower outer wing halves. The rest have needed VAST amounts of trimming, filing, sanding and even sawing in order to get them to fit the adjacent parts. I've had to dis-assemble the cockpit THREE times now to produce something that even vaguely looks as it should. 

Onto the successful bits, I've glued the tip fins onto the extended wing tips now,l as as you see they're too thick of course, but I anticipated that and have further plans for that area.



Now back to the cockpit. I'd intended to slide the cockpit floor into the right hand half of the cockpit that I'd already glued to the upper wing centre section, as in this pic.



Having done that I found that the other half of the nose was maybe 2-3 mm too wide to match the upper half! So I un-glued that right hand cockpit half, and glued it to the left hand half independent of the upper cockpit part, planning to slide the floor and panel into the rear as before.



It's 'designed' to fit up against the rub (blue arrow) but when it is the lower half of the nose wheel bay is maybe 3 mm clear of the bottom of the nose! So I did a lot of filing of the floor sides (red arrows) and had to remove the small control panel on the left hand half first (green arrow). When it was all assembled it wasn't quite so bad as before, but the nose wheel bay still didn't reach the lower side of the nose. See the gaps (red arrow)



Note the two holes on the rear of the nosewheel bay (blue arrow) they're important  in the next stage....



The rear cockpit bulkhead (red arrow) should have been  glued into the lower centre wing half by now, but the instruction sheet doesn't say how far aft of the front face it goes, and there's no location ribs at all! I found out the hard way that it goes quite a long way aft, deep into the wing section, so I had to UN-glue it. 

It has two small pegs on its front face that are meant to fit into those two holes I mentioned earlier, but firstly they're not large enough and secondly the rear of the cockpit/nose wheel bay assembly has to be filed heavily to get the bulkhead anywhere near the holes. Having done that it goes nicely together, but checking the fit of the upper centre wing section showed that it didn't fit worth a damn.....................

The main landing gear bays, the starboard engine and that rear bulkhead are too tall to allow the two halves to fit so it needed a LOT of heavy filing where I've indicated with the blue lines before they were were low enough for the top wing half to sit down properly.

Having done all that the pilot's ejection seat needs packing up quite a few mm before the poor soul would be able to see out of the cockpit. As it sits now the top of the seat is below the cockpit coaming..............

I hope you're making notes Chrisonord, or have I put you off the whole idea of getting one of these yet? 

[loupgarou]

Have you planned sending your  notes to Micro-Mir? With a choice of curses, of course!

[PR19_Kit]

Have you planned sending your  notes to Micro-Mir? With a choice of curses, of course!

I hadn't, no. In my experience most manufacturers take very little notice of their end users and carry on as before. Do you think they'd take any notice?

[kitbasher]

Have you planned sending your  notes to Micro-Mir? With a choice of curses, of course!

I hadn't, no. In my experience most manufacturers take very little notice of their end users and carry on as before. Do you think they'd take any notice?

Worth a try.

[chrisonord]

I certainly am taking note Kit, and I have  been stocking up on the relevant tools sanding sticks and bottles of rum  to help me build it.  I  have ordered one from the Ukraine, for the slightly  more sensible price of 31 quid  including  postage. It will be something I  will just  do little bits of every now and again I think, much like  the Kittleton. 
Thankyou for the  heads up Kit
Chris

[PR19_Kit]

Glad you're taking notes Chris. 

They supply some weird looking curved bits (red arrows) to go either side of the intakes, presumably to simulate the ducts, and naturally they don't fit............

But it doesn't matter all that much as you have to be very low to look through the downward pointing intakes to see the ducts. There are also two similarly ill fitting, but smaller bits, to fill in the gaps either side of the rear of the cockpit. Why not mould them IN with the cockpit and then they'd not have to fit?



I've also bitten the bullet and decided to include the single engine that you can build with this kit, and as it's hardly worth installing it and NOT being able to see it, I've cut an access hatch in the upper wing. The hatch may or may not be glued alongside, or maybe just lying  on the wing, like the SM-77.



I'll have to fit some scratched side firewalls as they're not included in the kit, but at least mine will fit. 

[chrisonord]

Short run or not, I can not see how a model company can justify releasing what is in reality an expensive kit, without making sure you can actually build it properly in this day and age. Even the country of manufacture will have access to relevant computers and machinery that will produce a buildable kit. You are working wonders with it Kit and I will be taking note of every hurdle you come across.
Chris

[NARSES2]

and I will be taking note of every hurdle you come across.
Chris

Hope you've got a lot of paper Chris ? 

Seriously I admire your persistence Kit, I'd have given up eons ago 

[JayBee]

Seriously I admire your persistence Kit, I'd have given up eons ago 

Ditto to that! 

I have certainly given up any thoughts of getting that kit! However I am watching this with a great deal of anticipation. 

[PR19_Kit]

I'm getting there, albeit slowly, but the more 'orrible bits I find, the more I'm determined to finish the damned thing!

There's two parts of the intake ducts, that are meant to fill in the gap on the top, that are NOwhere near the right size or shape! They're so bad I just left them off as you can't see them without your eye level being at ground level to the model.

I'm home for a day or two now, to sort out some legal and medical things, so progress on the Arundel has halted for a while, but the putty is still setting. 

[frank2056]

I thought this kit was designed in a CAD program. Maybe the CAD images were "inspirational" while the ill fitting parts are the reality. I keep looking at the parts and wonder what Huma could have done with the same technology Micro Mir is using.

[NARSES2]

I keep looking at the parts and wonder what Huma could have done with the same technology Micro Mir is using.

Produce some stunning kits I would have thought 

[PR19_Kit]

Having assessed the two different instrument panel systems, the PE stuff and the new 3D printed decals, I came to the conclusion that I'm not going to use either of them.

The fact is that neither panel would be visible anyway as the canopy is SO small, and much of it is filled with the top of the ejector seat, that you couldn't see the panels anyway, lovely though they are, so I think I'll save them for a future Whiff. As a result I've just painted the entire interior satin black and I'll leave it at that.

I've also started to paint up the port engine, which does look pretty goof in various NM shades, and I did the interior of the engine bay in Interior Green, as that seemed the most likely colour of that period. That colour doesn't cover very well, so it'll need 3-4 coats I think.

The port wingtip and fin/rudder have had all their structural 'padding' glued in place and it's now on the 2nd or 3rd PSR session. There's always a lot of PSR needed for fairing in the layered styrene that I use for this sort of work, and I'm quite used to it now after the mammoth session I had on the SM-77!

I've got some De Luxe 'Liquid Gravity' on the way as I reckon this is going to need a LOT of nose weight, and I'll have to fit it into any spaces I can find. 

[NARSES2]

I've got some De Luxe 'Liquid Gravity' on the way as I reckon this is going to need a LOT of nose weight, and I'll have to fit it into any spaces I can find. 

At least you should/might have some space in this kit, there was none to speak of in the resin one.