Amodel I-207

[yak face]

Have you fitted the fuselage top piece yet pete? If not maybe you can drop in a plastic card bulkhead at the rear of the wheel well opening and fasten the back of no10 to that ? As you say its just going to be floating in mid air and leave the undercarriage in danger of collapsing.

 

[stillp]

No Tony, I haven't fitted it ye, for just that reason. I'm thinking I might make a support for each end of number 10 and glue them down to the wing and the bottom of the engine cowling. If there's enough room I might see if I can hang it from the top, which will perhaps look better.
Pete

 

[yak face]

Good idea pete , its going to be a bit of keyhole surgery though!

 

[stillp]

Right, let the keyhole surgery commence!
I started by gluing the main legs together at the top, let that dry a bit, then glued them to that part 10.

Then stuck the triangular braces to the fuselage sides with blu-tack (alright, white tack) so they could move:
Put a drop of cement on the tips of those and added the main legs:

As you can see, this plane is too small for my assembly jig, so two Tamiya jars and more white tack to the rescue. Let that set for a bit, then cut a bit of sprue, filed a notch in it to fir over the ridge on part 10, and glued it to the back of the engine:

You can just make out another bit of sprue at the top of the gear bay, which I just filed to fit between the top of the wing and 10, dropped in place and dripped some cement on it.
That's it for tonight, I'm going to quit while I'm ahead! The top panel can wait until tomorrow.
Thanks for watching,
Pete

 

[Mini Me]

Well done!

 

[HAWKERHUNTER]

Great work Pete.

 

[Jim R]

Hi Pete
All credit to you. You're getting this sorted when many would have winged it into the bin. Well done with that under carriage.
Jim

 

[Jakko]

All it takes is some ingenuity and perseverance

 

[stillp]

Thanks for the kind comments folks.
The next scary bit will be the framework that holds the upper wing - six struts, which will probably be all the wrong length.
Pete

 

[yak face]

Excellent work Pete ,that should make for a strong assembly . In a sadistic kind of way I love tackling kits like this as it’s great to be able to get over the (many) hurdles that you come up against , in fact I’ve got a 1/72 Amodel polikarpov I-16 typ 5 in the stash that I’m wanting to get out now and start !
good luck with the struts ! Cheers tony

 

[stillp]

Top of the fuselage is in:

Those two little dimples are to locate the struts for the upper wing. I tried gluing the struts to the wing, leaving it until the glue was set but not fully hardened
before lowering the wing into place and trying to locate all four struts into the dimples while keeping the wing square and level. After about the fourth re-gluing of the struts, and the addition of some white tack, I got this:
which doesn't look too bad. There are two diagonal braces between those struts, but I'll leave the glue to set overnight before risking any more effort.
Thanks for watching
Pete

 

[Archetype]

I just noticed this is a biplane.

 

[adt70hk]

Well done Peter for sticking with it!! Remind me never to buy this kit if I see it!

ATB

Andrew

 

[stillp]

I just noticed this is a biplane.

It very nearly wasn't!

Well done Peter for sticking with it!! Remind me never to buy this kit if I see it!

ATB

Andrew

Remind me never to buy another Amodel kit, or another biplane!

Pete

 

[Archetype]

It very nearly wasn't!

You’re doing a great job! Keep at it!

 

[colin m]

Great work Peter. At least all your problems will be small ones. No, doesn't help does it.

 

[stillp]

Now this is odd. one of the photos of the sprues shows a brown stain near the back edge of the rudder, that I thought must be a residue of mould release agent. It didn't wash off with soapy water or with IPA on a cotton bud, so I didn't worry about it. However, after painting with Tamiya XF80, it looked OK last night, but overnight the brown has bled through the paint!

Now what could cause that? I'll put another coat of XF80 on it later. Shame, it's nearly finished.
Pete

 

[Archetype]

Weird. I can’t imagine what’s done that, only that it’s obviously contaminated.
Do you think a coat of spirit based paint / varnish might stop it coming through?

 

[Mini Me]

That would be my suggestion as well. Rick H.

 

[stillp]

Thanks for the suggestions chaps.
If it was resin or bitumen bleeding through gloss paint on wood, then I'd give it a coat of aluminium primer, or shellac, but I can't see shellac (is that what you meant by spirit-based?) being any more resistant to whatever's happening than the Tamiya paint, which is already an alcohol-based paint. Maybe a coat of enamel?
Looking at it in sunlight, I'm not sure if it is actually bleed-through or if I just applied the paint very thinly there. I'll try a heavier coat of Tamiya first I think.
Pete