It’s already the middle of April. We are three weeks into turnaround, and it hasn’t really left much time for modelling. It’s been work, supper, walk the dogs, work a bit more and then go to bed. I managed to get my taxes done, and even got the summer tires on the Volvo yesterday. That should guarantee poor weather for the next week.
Guess what I found a week ago? Yup, the missing canopy window for the Avenger. It was just lying there on the floor. There is no way I didn’t see it while crawling around on the floor on my hands and knees. Equally no idea why it was suddenly just lying there. Oh, well.
CRJ200
The CRJ has progressed thru decalling. The Nazca decal sheet has a dizzying number of decals, covering practically everything on the real thing - and it seems even some things that aren’t. I left about half of the little decals on the sheet.
After a thorough cleaning to remove all the bits of fuzz, the gear was added and a final gloss coat applied. The pictures below show it fresh out of the spray booth. All that’s left is to add the wheels and all the antenna. Oh, and fix the nose gear. Somehow during the final cleaning, I broke off the axle. Shouldn’t be too hard to fabricate a replacement. I am really happy how this had turned out.
CL44
The CL44 continues to be a process of sand, fill, sand some more, prime. The fuselage has now gone thru 4 coats cycles of primer, while the flying surfaces have gone thru three. It is finally starting to look like a CL44.
Here is an example of the process. Photo 1 is the wing before the 3rd round of sanding and scribing. You can see some of the previous scribing errors that need to be fixed, and areas that still aren’t smooth. Photo 2 is the wing after sanding, filling flaws and more sanding, and final rescribing. Photo 3 shows the wing after another coat of primer.
I was having a difficult time rescribing the fuselage. I normally use Dymo tape, but I couldn’t get it to wrap around the fuselage circumference. It wouldn’t lay flat and I couldn’t get a straight line. I needed something more flexible that allowed my to make adjustments. I had read about people using vinyl tape, but I couldn’t see how it would provide a hard enough edge to guide the scriber. In desperation, I got out some electrical tape, wrapped it around the fuselage, and very gently and slowly scribed the new line. To my amazement, it worked! The key was to apply very little force, allowing the scribed tool to do the work. It is obvious that I have been applying too much force in the past. The light touch also gave a cleaner, smoother line. A great learning to carry forward.
I dry fit the wings and horizonatal stabilizers and was not surprised to discover that fit was poor. After more sanding, I got a fit that should work.
A quick wipe down with alcohol to remove dust and everything was ready for more primer. The pictures below show how everything looks now. The primer highlighted a few more repairs that I will have to tackle once the primer is dry.
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