Morning guys,
Been quite a while since my last post. I had moved on to the wings which took an entire week to complete. As usual there were no locating pins, but the biggest issue is it seems that the mold halves were off by a millimetre or so when the kit was made. None of the cut-outs or panel lines matched when the wing tips were level with each other, so I had to line them up as best as possible and sand and fill the wing tips. Even then the holes for the MG's and landing lights were different sizes so had to be shaved and sanded to match. This of course then left them too big for the parts that had to be glued in.
The MG covers were not too bad, a bit of filler sorted the gap. However the clear parts for the landing lights were a joke. After fixing the wings they were obviously too narrow, but the parts were way too thick and protruded from the rest of the wing. After a couple of failed attempts at making new lenses from clear packaging plastic I eventually glued the kit parts in making sure to keep the excess even all round, filled the gaps then sanded the clear parts flush with the wings. I managed to polish them back up fairly well, there are still a few scratches that I couldnt get out but I was worried about dislodging the glue and filler and also concerned about how thin they had become after all the sanding. I'm sure that the lenses on actual BoB Hurricanes weren't pristine, so I can live with that.
The wings now look like this.
I was feeling pretty happy and this point, but it was short lived. While dry fitting one of the wings I dropped the fuselage on to my bench. It was only about 2 inches, but it was enough to shock the CA glue holding the IP, which promptly fell out. Now bear in mind the fuselage was buttoned up at this point, and I had no idea how I was going to get the IP back in. I was pretty despondent and even thought about binning the whole kit, so I did the sensible thing and walked away.
Fast forward two weeks later and I sat back down at by bench for the first time since the accident. I had found myself actively avoiding modelling but knew I had to resolve this problem or move on. I fiddled around for an hour trying to feed the IP back in through the cockpit, but due to the shape of the opening and the cockpit internals it just wouldn't go. Even if I could have located it there was no way of getting glue in without making a huge mess. So, I bit the bullet and cut the underside of the fuselage off.
I then found that the tube cockpit was also loose, as well as the seat (more CA) so the whole lot came out and was re-glued with copious amounts of Gorilla gel before reassembly. I left it to dry overnight and will get back to fixing it tonight.
So despite this severe setback, as Winston Churchill said, we shall never surrender.