Grateful thanks as always to Tony and Al! There's certainly a hell of a lot of detail in these old planes I never knew about Tony! In fact, I've got an idea brewing for a return to the Pup in a couple of years time for another build using all the reference material I've got together- not a bigger version but the same size with considerably more attention to detail and considerably less paper and card!
Anyhow, that's way down the line so here's the new set of wheels...(By the way, the attic work room is beginning to get a little chilly in the evenings now, to quote a favourite tv series: "Winter is coming!"

The first task in the design of the resin wheel replacement was to cut out the central disk or hub of the wheel using a section of 1mm plasticard to correspond to the 1mm card used in the original. I decided that the easiest way to cut out the true circle for the disk was to go back to the Mantua Mini Lathe together with the rotary tool arbour shaft. I cut a square of plasticard a little bigger than the diameter of the hub and using the paper parts as a template, I drew in the shape of the hub using a compass circle drawer. After drilling a central hole for the arbour the square was mounted on to the lathe jaws and with the sheet spinning around I proceeded to carve out the edge of the circle using the wood turning chisel tool as shown in Photo 1. I carried on cutting down through the plasticard until the first score lines began to appear on the reverse and then removed the piece from the lathe, finishing off the cut by hand with the craft knife leaving me with a disk as illustrated in Photo 2. The disk was then returned to the lathe and spun with various grades of sandpaper used to smooth off the edges. Once that was done I then used a diamond dust semi-circular and round rat tail file to carefully hollow out the rim ready to receive the rubber tyre, this is shown completed in Photo 3. The rubber tyre is actually a rubber tap washer or ‘O’ Ring as seen in Photo 4. This was one of the larger sized ones from a set of 165 O Rings off Ebay (only a couple of pounds or so!) I did (just) manage to get the ring to fit in one go but found it was then stretched too much and looked too thin so I got around that by slitting the O Ring, super gluing it to the rim and then cutting a second ring and slicing that one down to fit the gap, you can just make out the join in the photo. Also shown here is the paper cone from the original kit and a length of aluminium tubing to fabricate the axle hub. The finished Master is shown in Photo 5, the glossy sheen is from a couple thick coats of varnish to protect the paper from the next stage which was to make up a silicone rubber mould as shown in Photo 6 along with the first casting from the mould. This one is just the ‘new master’ however, and has to be cleaned up removing the paper cone join line and the rubber tyre joint as well. Note that I also made a small hole in the paper cone to mark the position of the tyre inner tube valve access hole which was drilled out from the resin. The cleaned up version, along with a new aluminium axle hub and the inner tube valve is shown next in Photo 7. The construction of the final wheel mould is shown in Photo 8 with the wheel now glued to a plasticard ‘sprue’ and pushed down half way into the softened blue plasticene ready to pour in the first half of the silicone rubber. The completed mould is being used in Photo 9. Although the mould was designed to be filled vertically, I later found it was more efficient to have both halves laying flat, fill the circular wheel impression with resin on both and then quickly pick up the rear mould, place it on top of the front one and stand the joined mould up, pouring a little more resin in the original filling hole – I found this almost entirely eliminated any air pockets! Note also that the mould halves don’t need any rubber bands or clamps to keep them together – just as well as I also found that too tight a rubber band leads to oval shaped wheels! The two moulds in the foreground are the whicker chair and another, smaller one for Lewis Gun Magazines – I use these for using up any left over resin before it goes off – hence why I now have a shop load of whicker chairs and magazines! (Can’t abide wastage, especially when I’ve paid for the materials!) Finally for this instalment, in Photo 10 we have the new wheel design line – plasticard, rubber and paper original (with a dash of aluminium) on the left, cleaned up second master original with a new bit of aluminium in the middle and the final finished casting on the right.
In the next instalment I’ll show how the original kit parts were transformed into decals to finish off the resin wheels and how an item of sewing kit was used to complete the undercarriage!

Until then, Happy Modelling to you All!

Robin.

Many thanks for those kind words Tony! It may look easy when the diary pics come together but I'm basically making this resin casting lark up as I go! For the most part its all going quite well but there are the occasional mistakes (mainly in trying to make up too complicated moulds when in the end simple is best!) As I'm writing this, the wings are coming along nicely, even No.2's with its ridiculously small internal add ons!(More on them later of course.)
So here's the final section (minus an extra bit of bracing to come) of No.2's undercarriage...

Returning to the main No.2 undercarriage section, (I made those resin wheels much earlier in the build) we have the ‘raw material’ for the final effect on the wheel hubs – a set of water slide decals created from the original kit parts. I made a trial set on the last of my inkjet decal sheets to try the technique but that sheet was the clear variety which wouldn’t look good applied to the black undercoated hubs so I’ve had to wait for a pack of white decal sheet to arrive. Of course I could have just painted the hubs white but that would be an extra job requiring a very steady hand around the tyres! The decal sheet is shown in Photo 29 and as you can see, I printed a few spares ‘just in case’! This is what I mean about designing the decals all in a line across the top of the A4 page – I’ve got six full sets on the page but only used a couple of inches of the decal sheet. For some strange reason I have to print these at 104% to get an exact match to the originals, it pays to print the first trials on plain paper until the match is just right! Once the printed sheet was dry I then gave them three light sprays of clear aerosol lacquer to seal the print. The cones were cut out free hand but the inner hub disks were cut out with a craft knife using a metal die-stamping sheet as a template (I think the die stamps work best on thicker greetings card type cardboard, not so good on thin decal sheets, plus it tended to tear the lacquer varnish a bit too! The first two acceptable inner disks are shown in Photo 30, the ‘real’ first two got a little rough around the edges trying the different cutting techniques unfortunately, (at least you can see why I printed lots of spares!) On the right is one of those leather punches (the 2mm I think), which was used to remove the printed axle from the decal to allow it to sit tightly over the resin hub. If you look closely at the painted wheels behind you might notice they are actually two tone in colour. On the card wheels for No.1 I painted the tyres black with Citadel Chaos Black Acrylic, this was fine for the basic version but I’ve seen some other models of the Pup (plastics I mean) where the tyres were painted a more realistic dark grey instead of full on black. I bought a bottle of Vallejo Dark Blue Grey (70.867) and painted the tyres with that after priming the whole wheel with matt black Poundland Car Aerosol. When the Vallejo dried the tyres were almost exactly the same grey shade as the steel undercarriage struts, which I didn’t like at all. I therefore made a mix of the Vallejo Dark Blue Grey with some Citadel Chaos Black to create the ‘almost black but not quite’ shade shown here. This will receive a coat of matt varnish later on to dull down the slight sheen. Wouldn’t you know it though, soon after painting the tyres I came across a colour photo of a real restored Pup and it’s ruddy tyres looked the same colour as the undercarriage struts!
The inner disk decal was applied using Humbrol Decalfix and after a little pushing and prodding with the little soft paintbrush eventually laid itself down nice and flat, fitting the hub perfectly as shown in Photo 31. The cone decals were a little more delicate to fit, first I had to use another of the leather punches to remove both the central axle representation and also the printed on tyre valve before then soaking in Decalfix and sliding the decal off the carrier backing and lining the first section up with that valve hole. Then I had to carefully coax the decal to slide around the cone, eventually butting up against the first edge by the valve. The first one took a little time, re-applying the Decalfix now and again until all fitted in nicely. The second one however was brilliant – the hole in the decal lined up as I applied it and I simply moved the paintbrush around the circumference of the decal and the whole thing slid straight into alignment first time! The one shown here has just been given a thick coat of Rowney’s Soluble Matt Varnish, a spirit based varnish designed to protect watercolour paintings (bought by mistake when I was varnishing the Spitfires in Scramble!) When the decals were completely dry the next task was to measure and fit the split axles made from Albion Alloys 1mm Aluminium tubing. These were cut to length and super glued into the pre-drilled 1mm holes in the resin hubs as illustrated in Photo 32. Now comes the sewing kit! As mentioned earlier, the shock-absorbing undercarriage on the Pup is provided by the simple technique of winding bungie cord around the axle and undercarriage frame and the easiest way to simulate this was by using miniature bungie cord! In this case a roll of 0.5mm white elastic thread found in the craft section on Ebay and shown unpacked in Photo 33.
Before adding on the elastic cord I first had to glue on the wheels and axles. This is shown in Photo 34 with No.2 balanced on a convenient pose-able magnifying glass (No.1 is currently poised on the magnifying glass of the ‘Helping Hands’ tool alongside!) The tips of the axles were super glued into the central tube and once set, a drop of super glue was added where the axles come through the struts to secure them in place there. Once that was firm I could attach the elastic thread by tying it to the axle and then winding it round and round and eventually securing the end underneath the axle with another drop of super glue (Photo 35) When all was set firm I could then gently stretch the thread away from the axle and snip off the excess (just like applying the rigging thread). The final effect with both axles corded is shown in Photo 36. I do have one more set of turnbuckled bracing wires to add yet – there’s one which runs right across the front of the cross beam! And finally in Photo 37, another comparison shot with both Pups, No.1 behind, and No.2 showing off in front!
In the next instalment, back to No.1 again as she gets her tail section added on.

Until then, Happy Modelling to you All!


Robin.

Robin

Another really interesting update.

I do enjoy reading your "how to" details and that elasticated thread was a good find for the suspension.

Hope it all continues well.

Grateful thanks again to Mark, Tony, Alan, Mr T and Phil! The deadline is approaching fast and there's still much to do - somehow I just can't resist adding in far more than I intended (never learn!) Anyway, finally the two models are beginning to look like actual aircraft (well, No.1 is anyway!)

The tail unit begins with the main components as shown in Photo 1. In the centre we have the one-piece tail plane, above that is the tail fin and the rudder and below are the port and starboard elevators. All of these parts are the external skin sections, and they are all glued over a thicker internal ‘skeleton’. The first part of this is shown in Photo 2, Part 82, which is first glued onto the 1mm backing card before cutting out also has a thin strip of paper glued along the top with a corresponding strip also glued underneath as well. Not so easily seen here is a central forward end of a rib, which is used to wrap the tail plane skin around at the front edge. The skin also has a thin strip at the rear which is bent up at right angles, the bend lines are just visible in Photo 1 if you look closely! Before gluing the skin in place, the 1mm card inner has to be carefully sanded down at the outer edges (marked by a little drawing on one side). As you can make out in Photo 3 which shows the skin being glued down, there is a slight overlap at the outer edges, sanding down the card at this point allows the paper skin to bend up into the card where the skins are then glued together, creating the feather edge to the tail plane. The tail plane is glued together in Photo 4, laying alongside the rear fuselage. You can just make out the faint pencil lines I drew on the underside of the tail plane whilst holding the piece in place. I used these as a guide to apply the Roket Card Glue to the inside of these lines and to the raised sides of the fuselage skins. The tail plane is only fully glued to the fuselage at the extreme rear, (the area right above the tail skid). The tail plane is shown fixed in place in Photo 5, note that I also punched tiny holes through the tail plane with a small sewing needle before attaching it on the fuselage to take the Uschi Rigging Thread later on. With the tail plane fixed on it was time to concentrate on the tail-fin and rudder. The component parts are shown again in Photo 6, this time with the inner card parts as well. You can see that little ‘sand off’ symbol on these parts too, this time the tail-fin is sanded along the upper edge whilst the rudder is sanded all the way around. The rudder skin is seen cut out with the inner piece all sanded around in Photo 7 – note the pair of tiny cut outs in the paper skin, these marry up with the cut out slot in the card inner and will take the control horns for the rudder wires later. Again the paper skin overlaps the inner card and the sanding down allows for the thin feather edge. The tail-fin is in the process of being glued together in Photo 8. Unlike most later aircraft after the war, the fin is not actually joined to the fuselage! It sits on two aluminium tubes which are in turn bolted into the fuselage frame. On No.1 these are provided by a pair of brass rods as shown here – No.2 however will be using some ‘proper’ aluminium tubing. In actual fact, the instructions have the rear longer rod glued onto the card projections at the rear of the fuselage and a shorter rod simply resting on the top of the fuselage up front. I decided to break with the directions here though and had a longer rod up front with a corresponding hole drilled into the card fuselage framework to provide a stronger bond. As you might just make out in this pic, the rear rod is flat at the bottom but the forward one is chamfered to make pushing it through the card fuselage a little easier. The pair of Elevators parts are shown in Photo 9, just like the rudder, the elevator card inners are also sanded off right around the edge, so that when they are glued together as in Photo 10, the slight overlap of the skin bends up around the sanded part to give that feather joint again. The glued elevators are shown together with the parts for the control horns in Photo 11. The edges of the elevators have already been touched in to remove the white paper edges – Vallejo Oxford Blue, and a mix of Vallejo Red and Citadel Blazing Orange for the red stripes. The white stripes being ‘um white, didn’t need any touch up! The control horns are simply folded over and glued, once dry the horns are cut out and inserted into the slots in the elevators with a tiny drop of Roket Card Glue to secure them in place. Once dry again, they were also touched in with the Oxford Blue. The elevators are joined to the tailplane via two microscopic hinges, the instructions say to form these from wire rod – I found it far easier however to cut these tiny pieces from stretched sprue, trying to get a clean flat end to such a small piece of wire would be next to impossible! You can just make out the sprue hinges on the left side of the tailplane in Photo 12. Note the four holes pierced through the tailplane in this shot, as mentioned earlier these will take the elastic rigging thread later which joins the tailplane to the tailfin. Before fixing the elevators in place I first needed to drill a tiny hole through their rear edge in line with the horn in order to thread a length of the Uschi Rigging through, as shown in Photo 13.. This will provide the upper and lower control wires for the elevators which emerges from the top and upper side of the fuselage, passes to the horn and back through the elevator to the other end of the horn. The tiny size of the Uschi bobbin with its 150 feet of thread can be clearly seen here! The elevators are in the process of being glued on to those hinges in Photo 14, the round supports holding them in place are the MDF disks which were removed from my new Citadel Paint Rack – one hundred and twenty of the ruddy things to be exact – but they’ve come in extremely handy since for playing a supporting role as I’m gluing separate parts together. (The rack wasn’t made by Citadel though – I got a far cheaper one designed for that size of paint pot on Ebay!) Now, because I began the rigging thread from the back edge of the elevators with both threads then going forward, I ended up with a slight problem of how to attach the ends of the threads where they ‘emerge’ from the fuselage. No.2 doesn’t have this problem because the threads start there (on the fuselage) and work back to the various turnbuckles, ie, its not a single straight run! After trying repeatedly to glue the ends of the threads in the tiny holes made in the fuselage card I had to give up on that method. I’m only giving the thread the bare minimum of stretch to avoid stressing the card formers but that was enough to keep springing the thread off the glue joint – even super glue wouldn’t hold it quickly enough although it seems when super gluing the thread to the brass turnbuckle tubes its almost instant! Its just not quick enough on a thread to paper joint. In the end I came up with a solution which involves super gluing the end of the thread to a short length of the 0.2mm wire, bending the wire into a ‘V’ shaped hook and then inserting the end into the fuselage and securing with a drop of Roket card glue. I still had to physically hold each one in place for a few minutes for the glue to grip but once it had gone sticky the wire hook would then hold it in place. The hook for the lower port elevator cable is shown in Photo 15 (it looks like the upper one is already in on this shot) and that one and the starboard upper cable are being glued in place in Photo 16. With the elevator cables all in place I then proceeded with the tailplane bracing wires. In actual fact I should have then done the rudder controls – but I learnt my lesson on this more basic version and did it in the right order on the far more complicated No.2! The bracing wires begin on the lower fuselage just forward of the tail skid as shown in Photo 17. This is simply a case of making a small hole in the fuselage card with a tiny drill followed by a needle and then adding a miniscule drop of card glue and ‘poking’ the end of the thread into the glued hole. Once it was holding, another small drop of glue was added to lock it in. After a few minutes the thread is secure and can be threaded down through the pre-drilled holes in the tailplane seen earlier. I then applied a spring tweezer to the end of the thread (now dangling underneath the tailplane out of shot) and the tension on that was enough to keep the thread taut whilst another drop of glue was added in the hole to fix it in place. Once that was dry, the model was turned right way up again, the thread was passed through the tailfin and a clamp used to grip the end, keeping it taut again so a drop of glue could be applied to both sides of the fin as shown in Photo 18. Finally, the thread was put back through the tailplane hole and glued under tension as before. The last task was to cut the thread just short of the return to the fuselage hole and carefully glue it into place. This time I had no choice but to glue the thread straight into the hole – no opportunity for hooks here but, fortunately being a shorter run of stretched thread the card glue was able to hold it in place (actually, I had to do the holding – for a good five minutes or so but eventually the card glue did fix it down securely). And again, finally, the last Photo 19 illustrates the rudder being glued into place on the tailfin. Just out of shot are those helpful MDF disks holding up the sprung tweezer, which is, in turn holding up the rudder. After it was glued in position I suddenly realised all those bracing wires were in the way of adding the rudder’s control cables – hence the altered procedure on No.2!
In the next instalment, adding the same bits on for No.2 with a few changes and a whole lot more work!

Until then, Happy Modelling to you All!

Robin.

Yet another great update Robin looking really good.

Al

Many thanks to Tony, Al and Phil! Funny you should mention putting the glue in the wrong place Tony - that's exactly what happened when I began to construct No.1's wings! The attempts to rectify the mistake nearly led to a complete disaster but I managed to (just) avoid a complete wing re-build - more on that less than glorious episode coming soon!

No.2’s tail section involves a lot of extra work and much more in the way of planning everything out. As this involves a lot of detailed explanation I’ve made this a two-part installment, and part two will follow in a day or two.
Before commencing with No.2’s tail section however, here’s a quick shot of a couple of the new tools I bought during this build. Photo 1 shows the set of six high quality tweezers, which I bought to aid with the rigging process. That Uschi thread is so darned fine that any ‘defect’ in the tweezers being used to grip it means it just falls out of the jaws! This set came from Ebay (where else) and cost about seven or eight pounds. Below them is my new pin vice drill. I’ve got a set of four different sized drills plus the old original, which has four different chucks in the handle, but all of them have trouble gripping any drill bit less than 0.4mm diameter. This one however is a completely different design with a sliding chuck rather than a twisting one. It will happily grip any drill bit right down to the 0.3mm, which is the smallest one in my little box set. This is ideal for starting the holes through the card, which are then enlarged via sewing needle to take the turnbuckles for the rigging, any larger sized drill tends to rough up the paper skin during the drilling!(Also off Ebay, about the same price I think). Secondly in Photo 2 we have the upgraded tail skid which I’d forgotten to mention earlier. The one thing I’d found building No.1 was that the integral tail skid which forms part of the central box girder fuselage core is very delicate and extremely prone to getting damaged during the consequent building process. I decided during No.2’s early stages therefore to cut away her tail skid, making two parallel cuts so that the skid could be slid back in after all the pushing and shoving work was completed. After I’d done that I decided to go the whole hog and make the skid out of wood like the original. Instead of the printed paper add on parts for the iron re-enforcements I used the good old DecraLed lead sheet as shown here. I also decided to replace the 1mm card tailplane core with a 1mm plasticard version as shown in Photo 3. I have no idea what the life expectancy of these card and paper models is but suspect that a damp atmosphere over time might induce a little ‘sag’ here and there. No.1 will be the guinea pig in that respect, but I’d rather not take the risk after putting all the extra work into No.2! (More changes to the wings will be coming later). As you can see here, the paper strips are still added on and I’ve also increased the width of the projecting central spar – sanding the edges is easier on this stuff too! And finally, before starting the main tasks, here’s the other form of Turnbuckle, which I’ll need for later. The first sort you might remember is the copper wire ring bolt inserted through the 0.5mm brass tube. That is the ‘ending’ type of Turnbuckle where the rigging thread ‘ends up’ and is secured around the ring. This kind however is the ‘starting’ type where the rigging thread actually begins from. The series of pics in Photo 4 illustrates the technique – from top left to bottom left, we have the Uschi thread and the brass tube, the thread is passed through the tube and then through the copper wire ringbolt. Top right – the thread is passed back through the tube again creating a loop around the bolt. Using those nifty tweezers, the brass tube is slid back to touch the bolt and then held fast while the longer of the two ends of rigging thread is slowly and gently pulled to the right causing the shorter thread to pass back through the tube. When the end of the thread just goes into the tube (its only 3mm long so great care is needed), the tube is given a small drop of liquid super glue, fixing the thread in position therefore requiring no further trimming as shown in the bottom right pic. When the turnbuckle is ready to be fitted on, the copper tail is trimmed right back of course.
So on with the construction: In Photo 5 the tailplane has been glued together, exactly like the earlier one except for that plasticard core which means the turnbuckle attachment points have to be ‘properly’ drilled through on this one. The very first of those ‘starting’ turnbuckles can be seen here having been trimmed to size and Roket Card glued in place. Photo 6 shows the underside of the tailplane with all eight turnbuckles now fitted on with their rigging threads (four each side). Those four threads shown here attach to the bottom of the fuselage, but unlike No.1 who had the continuous run of thread from one side to the other, these are individuals which run to another set of turnbuckles, this time the ‘ending’ variety which are shown glued in position in Photo 7.
The next step was to glue the tailplane onto the fuselage followed by the completed tailfin as shown in Photo 8. Apparently I didn’t take any photos of the tailfin under construction but its identical to No.1’s apart from using 1mm aluminium tubing instead of the brass rod. Another pair of ending turnbuckles are fitted to the rear of the fin and in this shot the thread is being looped through the ring before being gently stretched back over the first run and a drop of super glue applied to bond the two bits of the same thread together. Once set the excess is slightly stretched out and snipped off. The turnbuckle at the front of the fin is slightly different, as you can see in Photo 9, consisting of a double ended version. A 6mm length of the tube is fitted with a ring bolt at each end and then slightly ‘kinked’ in the middle. A small depression was filed into the card fin leading edge and, as shown here, the tube was glued in place with the Roket glue. You might also notice that the first bracing wire at the back has been chromed – but more on that in the second part of this section coming shortly in which the elevators and rudder get the full treatment too.

Until then, Happy Modelling to you All!

Robin.

Many thanks for that Tony! The 'repair' job isn't exactly invisible but I'll be pointing it out in the diary just to warn others! Those tweezers are incredibly sharp at the points and they certainly need those safety caps, they are proving indispensable with that rigging though, well worth the money as was that new pin drill (except I've just snapped my only 0.3mm drill bit going through brass strip - a pack of ten is on its way!) Ok then on with the second part of No.2's tail!

Carrying on from last time, the first upgrade required for the rudder was a replacement of the folded paper control horns with a plasticard version which could take the extra weight and ‘pull’ of the brass and wire turnbuckles. This is seen in Photo 10 together with the paper originals below. As you can see here, the plasticard horn was drilled out on both sides to accept the pair of turnbuckles shown in Photo 11. These are the end variety ones with the twisted wire tails pushed through the holes in the horns and bent flat against the underside before securing with a drop of super glue (the white plasticard has already been painted blue by now of course!) Photo 12 illustrates the rudder glued onto the tailfin and those turnbuckles connected to the control cables emerging from the rear sides of the fuselage. The Uschi thread was cut to size and simply poked into the pre-drilled and needled holes in the cardboard sides securing in place with the Roket card glue. Once the dangling threads were dry, the thread was passed through the rings in the turnbuckles and bonded back on itself, slightly stretching during the gluing as usual. The thread has been chromed in this shot, also note that I’ve covered the wooden frame at the extreme rear of the fuselage with wood veneer strips. In Photo 13, the upper bracing wires have been similarly added on to the forward ‘kinked’ turnbuckle and also chromed. Just as with the rudder, the elevators also had their paper control horns replaced with plastic, the first one is being test fitted in Photo 14, the edges of the paper joins along the elevator haven’t yet been touched in with paint, compare those edges with the same part in Photo 15 after the ‘treatment’. This photo shows the first of the ‘in situ’ rigging going on, this is the only part of the rigging which, like No.1, goes through a hole in the paper part to produce both the upper and lower sections in one. This is a variation of the starting turnbuckle but without any copper wire. The Uschi thread is simply tied onto the horn through the drilled hole, (the excess thread is snipped off later) and a 3mm length of brass tube just slid down the thread and super glued up against the horn. The rigging is then threaded down through the hole in the back of the elevator, pulled taut and fixed in place with the Roket (Photo 16). Once dry, a second 3mm brass tube is slid down the thread and the end of the thread is tied off at the other end of the horn, keeping it under tension all the time before securing with a drop of super glue. To finish it off, once dry the second turnbuckle is slid up to meet the horn and glued in place. The finished section is shown in Photo 17 and being glued into place with the help of those handy disks again in Photo 18. With the elevators in place it was now time to add the lengths of Uschi thread to the holes in the rear fuselage, two on each side, which will run back to the upper and lower elevator horns. These were again just secured with Roket, as this is the ‘starting point’ they are under no tension yet to pull away from the glue. No.2’s hairy back is shown in Photo 19 . Once the fuselage points were dry it was then simply a case of stretching the thread back to the turnbuckle rings, looping it through the rings and super gluing it back on itself as before. After snipping off the excess the elevator wires were chromed and I could finally get back to the lower tailplane bracing wires, which had been dangling away all this time. They were attached to the four turnbuckles sticking out from the under fuselage and all then chromed as illustrated in Photo 20.(This was the part I did too early on No.1 and had a tight fit getting the rudder controls in underneath). You can also see that wooden tailskid a little clearer here and the wood veneer strips on the frame. And, finally in Photo 21, the same area seen the right way up! What I forgot to mention earlier (I think) was the two tiny strips of veneer glued onto the leading edge of the tailplane visible here. These were little wooden sections screwed to the tailplane frame to protect the fabric covering from the movement of the elevator control cables.
In the next instalment, we finally make a start on the wings! No.1’s set will go together as per the instructions – as usual No.2’s will be getting all the ‘extras’ thrown in for good measure (and as a result take far longer to both plan out and build!)
But until then, Happy Modelling to you All!

Robin.

Some lovely but intricate detail there Robin a great update.

Al

Can`t wait to see the wings going on Robin super update as usual regards Phil