The recent spell of fine weather has produced a lull in the building schedule; not that I’m complaining, it’s nice to have a few good flying sessions this late in the season. Especially as this would have been my first week back at work after the summer break, being 60 has its advantages!
Whilst not being able to get on with any substantial building I’ve contented myself with a couple of instruments: radiator temperature and air pressure. The housings for these are identical, just the dials are different, so once one was done it was a case of “cut and paste”.
The unit consists of the dial and back plate printed as one unit on glossy photo paper and glued onto 1/64th ply, a plastic ring and a disc of acetate. It’s easier to finish the “rounding” of the back plate after everything is glued together.
Without the ring the unit looks like this.
With the ring added the unit looks so much more realistic! The photo doesn’t really show the difference to its full effect.
The instrument labels are simply cut out and glued in place, the wording is quite easy to read. Here’s a photo of the instrument panel so far, you can get a good idea of the size of the individual instruments from this shot
The panel fixers are made using a variation of the “glue drop rivet” system; in this case the glue is mixed with brass paint with a little matt black to tarnish it. With only one more instrument to make for this half of the panel it’s time to glue the instruments in place.