The fuselage sides came together well at the rear. That tailwheel could do with a fairing but I'll wait and see how the model balances - I'm a bit concerned that the addition of the fuselage sheeting may necessitate a bit of noseweight.
This first attempt at a lens for the landing light was really just a feasibility test. As you can see, it was moulded over a nylon spinner which was not quite the right shape so I'll probably have another go later.
Setting those 6mm angled strips of balsa at just the right angle so that they would bend around the formers took quite a lot of fiddling. However the result is that the underside can be sheeted in 1/16in balsa whilst still allowing the corners to be well rounded off.
The wing trailing edge fairing extends nearly to the nacelles. Initially I planned to make the wing fillet extend all the way out but it was clear that a large part of it would simply be laying flat on the top of the wing so plan B was for the fillet to be cut back as shown in the second picture and the 'missing' bit of trailing edge fairing would be simply glued to the trailing edge of the wing.
First step was to fit the 1/64in ply fillet baseplates, followed by 3/32in balsa formers.
The rear fillet itself is from 1/32in balsa. The front secion is from four laminations of 1/16in balsa with a small piece of 6mm block right at the leading edge.
Finally the underside was tidied up at both the trailing edge and leading edge.
In planking the nose section, my main concern was to try to maintain a consistent curvature down to the nose light. The hatch was moved one bay forward compared with the plan in anticipation of a more forward battery location being needed.
I hope to form the canopy from four fore-and-aft strips of plastic. They will need to be accurately cut though if the joint lines are to run down the centre of the 1/16in ply frame members!
The other worry is whether the framework will be strong enough to withstand the forces of wrestling the plastic panels into position.
This trial assembly also highlighted the need to lower the pilots a touch.
Last act of the month was to draw up a list of the 'must do before covering' tasks. This is a (probably doomed) attempt to avoid that situation where I reach the end of each day believing the model is just about ready for covering only to go into the workshop the next morning and realise that it isn't quite. . .
