It’s Canada Day. I am taking Friday off as well, so it is a 4 day weekend. It was 23C this morning at 5 am. It is currently 10:30 am, and the weather network is showing 34C, on its way to a forecast high of 37C. The West has been experiencing record breaking high temperatures, with more to come. Let’s see what progress I can make, hiding in the basement for 4 days.
I am somewhat surprised that it has been more than 2 months since the last blog entry. Turnaround, and the Covid challenges we had to deal with, consumed all my time. I got a little time at the bench every now and then, but not much progress was made on anything. Turnaround is essentially finished for another year, so I am hopeful that I will now get more model building time.
Day 1 July 1
CRJ200
The CRJ was finished in late April, but I hadn't the time or desire to take and post pictures. It turned out well, and I am happy with the result.
CL-44
Progress has been very slow. I have attempted to rescribe/add panel lines to replace/augment the weak lines in the kit. It has been a learning experience! I have struggled to get straight lines with even depth. A round, small diameter fuselage is not the easiest thing to work with. Horizontal lines can be managed using a steel straight edge or Dymo tape as a scribing guide, but the circumferential lines have been much more difficult. I have not figured out a good way to wrap a stiff edge around the fuselage without it kinking or wandering out of plane. After several Google searches, I saw examples of people that had tried using electrical tape as a scribing guide. The tape is sufficiently flexible to wrap around the fuselage, with the end aligning to the start. But it is also flexible enough that it moves if you push against it too hard, resulting in a wavy line. It is compounded by a tendency for my scriber to “dig” in to the plastic, causing uneven line depths. This has meant a lot of repairs, using CA, as it fills the line nicely, and is hard enough to rescribe cleanly. It got gotten to be a bit of a rhythm - mark the line, scribe, screw up, apply CA with a toothpick to fix the mistake, sand, rescribe. Unfortunately, this has been an iterative process, often being done multiple times for a clean line.
The scribing is now finally done, but frankly, I am not happy with the result. There has been so much effort, correcting and recorrecting mistakes, then sanding and priming in what feels like a never ending circle, but the lines don't seem to be getting straighter or crisper. Perhaps the final straw was the doors. The kit doesn’t show any of the various doors, either through scribing or decals. Obviously, a panel line doesn’t pass thru a door, so I needed a way for the panel line scribing to come up to, but not past the door edge. I initially tried to scribe the door outlines, but struggled with the rounded corners. I simply couldn’t scribe decent rounded corners. After some experimentation, I successfully created door outlines on my computer, with the intent of printing decals. But how do you then mark the door outlines so the panel line scribing ends at the right place? I tried several ways without much success, before hitting on the idea of simply printing the door outlines on paper, cutting them out, and sticking them on the fuselage. Now I had a physical indication of where the door was, and where to stop the scribed panel line. It worked, at least in theory. The scribed lines kept filling with sanding dust, and the multiple primings started to fill them in, so that the door areas started to become indistinct. I was becoming less sure that the combination of scribed lines and the door outline decals would look right. After much pondering, I decided to fill in my scribed lines and simply paint a smooth fuselage. Here is a selection of pictures from the long scribing journey.
Not much happened on Friday or Saturday. Nicholas and I tried sailing on Saturday, but it was too windy and we capsize about 5 minutes after launching. Everyone was okay and nothing lost.
Got back to the model on Sunday. Sanding, more filling, and more sanding.
I got bold and added the wings. The wing to fuselage joint was terrible, needing three rounds of filler and sanding to get a smooth joint. That was when I noticed that the bottom fuselage seam, between the wings, had cracked. More glue and more filler.
The horizontal stabilizer to fuselage joint was worse than the wing to fuselage joint. Much trimming, sanding and test fitting got the two sides more or less even, but I couldn't improve the joint. That was when I noticed that the little bumps on the trailing edge of the elevator - counterweights perhaps - were moulded on the top on the starboard stabilizer, but on the bottom of the port stabilizer! This, after I had spend so much time and effort sanding around the little bumps so they wouldn't be lost! I decided to try and make new ones using sections of plastic strip. I cut small triangular pieces, applied them to the stabilizer, sanded to the right height, and then blended it in with filler. They ended up a little too low when compared to the other side but they look okay for now. The first filler application has been applied to the stabilizers and is now drying. I can see at least one more layer of filler will be needed.
I knew this kit would be a challenge, and it is proving that out every step of the way. I will need to make sure that the next model has better fit to protect my sanity.
Comments