Time to tackle some brass!!!!
Before I cut off the perfectly detailed and moulded fenders and mudguards to be replaced with brass ones, I decided to make up the brass parts first. That way, if anything went pear shaped, I would be able to bin the brass and pretend I had not bothered with it......... as if I would
First up, I realised that the only way I could do this with any form of strength would be to solder. I could not see how this can be done using superglue, it just would not have the desired strength. That decided, let's get on with it.
First up, the very nice PE that comes with this kit.
As you can see, plenty of bits. The ones I will be using for the fenders are nicely etched with a chequered none slip pattern.
First up is the long inner sections of the centre part. These have a 90º bend on a narrow section which is how it will be attached to the main hull so this part is simple if you have a decent bending tool. I use the superb 'Hold & Fold 5 speed'. I got the 5" one as I do mainly armour and needed the length. So, a quick bend and they are done.
Next up is a bit more complicated as we have to construct the front mudguards. First of all, the mudguard is bent with a narrow strip which will be on the outer edge. The shaped flat part has to be fastened to this to form the inner side where it attaches to the hull. After bending the shape of the mudguard to the shape of the flat plate, we have this.
As the flat plate is a simple butt joint under and along the inner edge of the mudguard, there is little support and I doubt superglue would be appropriate for this so a small amount of solder paste is applied to the edge with Blue Tac holding it all together, a touch with the soldering torch flame and job done. Here you can see the solder paste.
I didn't take a picture straight after soldering but it virtually disappears leaving a clean joint, the lumpiness is simply the raw paste. Here are the two mudguards next to the plastic originals.
Next up is the rear section including the rear mudguards. These have a bend along both edges, one to attach to hull and the other on the outside. oddly the centre section does not have this outer bend as can be seen in the box art. Here you can see it being bent along the long edges, the marks for where it will be bent to 'curve' over the idler wheel can be seen also.
And here, after all the bending.
The bent ends to form the 'curve' would not be very resilient though, they would easily bend up if caught so a small bit of solder paste in each joint where the narrow bent edges butt up to each other creates a rigid joint.
Here we have all the components and the next problem. As you can see, the centre section is in two pieces, not sure why they did this as it creates an issue as to joining them. Such a long butt joint would never hold with superglue and even solder would struggle.
Even though the joint is covered by four hinge pieces in brass, I did not think that this would be strong enough so I cheated and put three thin pieces of brass cut from the photo etch fret underneath to support the joint. These were soldered on as were the brass hinge plates on the top.
And there we have it, the three sections for each side. Good and strong, these will be joined with solder and then epoxy resin will be used to attach them to the hull after the plastic ones have been removed and the hull top has been glued to the hull bottom.
And the final picture showing them against the plastic parts they will replace.
There is nothing complicated abut doing something like this, you just need to take your time, work out the correct order of doing things and relax. Having said that, I can breath again now it has worked......
