TOPIC: New Models for 2020

Looking very nice. I have had trouble many times with aligning the slot so that both wing roots are spot on either side, tricky stuff. good luck with that!!!

Roger adds:

Hi Howard, thanks for your approval. As too getting the wings (and tailplane) aligned properly, I shall make a jig, which is how they did it with the old Jetex 'Tailored' models:



Takes time, but it's worth doing!

Why didn't I think of that! I usually do it all by eye and have found I made a goof of it from time to time, this is clever stuff indeed. What we need is universal jig like this for all the KK Flying Scale Series type models, ha ha, can you imagine?

Roger adds:

Hi Howard,
no need for a full cardboard jig, the sort made of thick cardboard that came in the old Jetex 'Tailored' kits, but something like this (below, with the Cutlass on the stocks makes accuracy of assembly relatively easy:







Were I to do it 'by eye' it would definitely end in tears and a broken untrimmable model!

(I speak, alas, from experience!

This is all good stuff, thank you. I shall have to remember this when I come to assembling the F86 Sabre, have just done the underside silver today, a step forward at last.

Roger adds:

Hurrah !!!!

I've been vac-forming a canopy for the Tiger today. Had to make several attempts as the 0.5 mm PETG plastic sheet, bought especially at great expense tended to bubble if heated incautiously.

Howard adds:
Canopies can be such a pain, I often have to do a few before I am happy.

Finally finished the Firebee Rog!!! Trimming session very soon I'm due some time off!!

Wow, looks terrific.

Roger adds:

I concur, and love the 'shark teeth' motif, in fact, it's one of the reasons I'm building an F-11 Tiger! Did you have decals?

Having added and carved the F-11 Tiger's nose block, I've trimmed the canopy:



Above: Not wishing to repeat the mistake I made with the fuselage, I carefully drew up my own accurate rendition of the canopy ... but then neglected to allow for the 0.5 mm thickness of the plastic sheet! Doh!

The vacuum box is attached to a domestic vacuum cleaner: it works very well, but so tightly does the heated plastic conform to the plug that every little blemish shows up. I finish my canopy plugs with two coats of epoxy rubbed down with 1200 'wet and dry', and still the inside of the canopy needs a coat of 'Valejo' varnish.

The end result, however, is not too bad:





I can now move on to the wings and tail - my rate of new model production, like Howard's, is approx 0.03 'Rackstraws',

[see: Definition of the 'Rackstraw' ]