(no subject)
something was bugging me about the gear wells supplied by White Ensign Models. apart from the fact that they did not fit exactly because they were again aimed at the Airfix kit, something seemed wrong. A few weeks ago I had a real 'aha' moment when I realized that the forward 'bulkhead' of the gear well in reality is the main spar of the wing, but that WEM places it far to much forward. I immediately proceeded to break off the parts in question so that they could be relocated.
on the left is a well with the wing main spar still in its original location, on the right I've snapped it off.
this photo shows the main spar in approximately the right position (on the right)
to give it a bit more strengh, I glued the main spar bit onto some styrene.
... and cut it out again
I also glued the rest of the gear wells into the matchbox nacelles:
with the wing bomb bay in place too, you can see how the photo etched parts line up to form the visible parts of the wing main spar - don't worry, the gear well part of the spar has not been glued in place in this photo and has been moved forward about 1 mm to actually line up.
from 2 old rocket heads (from an Airfix Mosquito in 1/72) I made 2 tanks which are attached to the main spar in the gear well.
I attached them like so:
the last step of this was to make a suspension system for the actual landing gear legs. it was also made out of stock styrene.
the landing gear wil be fitted like this:
I had been wanting to use an actual part of the plane I'm building and I figured out a way how to do it. I cut off a small piece of this part:
... cutting...
then, I cleaned and polished one side of it until it was very shiny
I glued it into the wing...
so that it will be visible as the back part of one of the aircraft's lights :-)
