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FM Lockheed PV1 Ventura
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by Laurent
“Angus” Beauvais |
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Step
3: Assembling the Aircraft and Transparent parts
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The
fuselage has to be glued in 3 steps to correct the shape defaults: first the
bottom, one day after the top, and one day after the rear.
The
horizontal implementation is definitively wro ng, it has to be corrected.
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Foward
shape does not make a step as on the kit, it evolves smoothly from the fuselage
as shown on the drawing. A kilogram of mastic will help for this.
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Rear
shape is wrong too, you must cut it as drawn on the images.
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Added
to this, you must erase a flat area on the rear tip, drill in it a hole and fix
bellow a tube
ALIGNMENTS
take
care to all alignment. As shown on this picture, once I had finished the
rear stabilizer, I have discovered that it was definitively not
perpendicular to the fuselage, so I had to unglue all this, destroying all
the mastic work, and rebuilt it.
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Click on
image below to see larger image
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Take
care also to the wing angle that is very important for the aspect of the model.
When glued without the wheels, the yellow arrow must be about 49.5mm
length, the landing gears verticals. A good way to control this is to draw a
fictive line between the 2 wing tips, it must pass through the middle of the
fuselage glass.
Click on
images below to see larger images
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Other
important detail, the carburator air intakes must be on a vertical line.
So first glue the engine hood, and then only the oil radiator that are
then not centered according to the gear boxes as they should be (well, this
is m believe, to be verified). |
Click on
image below to see larger image
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When
positioning the wings, suppress the rectangle supposed to help you position the
wings, they are too thick. Erase the wing interior so that it will be well flat,
and same thing on the fuselage. You will see that the wing is much thicker than
their receiver on the fuselage, just some more necessary putty. Observe too the
boss below the cockpit that is not horizontal, to be corrected.
Assembling
the wing
Engine
spindle (? not sure of the english word) do not have the same diameter on
the upper and lower pieces, easy to correct.
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Click on
image below to see larger image
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Landing
gear boxes are detailed with various electric cables. The oil tank should be
turned at 90°, but this implies destroying the resin part.
Landing
gear boxes have to be glued so that 1mm mm remains in front of the landing gear.
Well, this is an estimation, as this does not leave enough space to position the
gear trapmechanism. All this has to be positioned so that the landing gear are
verticals at the end.
Trailing
edge is much too thick. The Ventura is not a X15 and a lot of erasing work is
necessary to obtain a realistic trailing edge. This kind of details very
important on a plastic model.
Air
"passage" are hollowed on the wing extremities, and corrected
with putty. |
Click on
image below to see larger image
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Of
course when all this will be done, you will have to re-engrave the
structure lines that have disappeared. |
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At
this
stage, you may be lost regarding the quality of your model. So I brush
paint a bright Humbrol grey all over the model. The paint must be a brand
new one to have a clean result. Then using a light you can see the
defaults and correct them with putty. |
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last
detail, the door: 3 reinforcement lines are made thanks to electric wire,
and the clutch is created. |
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Transparent
parts
The
easy things being finished, let's start the real difficulty of this kit, send
all the kit transparent parts to the waste basket and recreate them.
First
thing, the transparent part below the cockpit is not large enough. It is
replaced by a cut cd box, painted on its back face with the 3 yellow/red/green
colors, and once in plane the light shapes being defined thanks to a "patafix"
bullet.
Click on
images below to see larger images
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Now
let's thermoform the cockpit. The original part is not big enough on the
rear |
Click on
image below to see larger image
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So
first, using aluminium tape on the kit parts, create moulds. |
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Then
fill this with plaster, not a standard plaster, but an artist one that is
hard as a rock when dry (stolen from my wife again). A screw is inserted in
each tool for fixing purpose later on. |
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Here
is the result just unmoulded. |
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You
must now erase the external shape if you want to be able to thermoform
correctly later on. |
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Now
it's thermoforming time. I have retrieved from a contest a lot of lunch plate
cover (the hostess definitively think I'm crazy), you need a lot of them because
you will have to make a lot of try before success, believe me.
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So
fix the plaster shape in a clamp
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Heat
the plastic with a candle by making rotating movements. The plastic must be
soft enough to be defrormed, but not too much or it will be to thin.
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Then
in a firm motion, emboss the plastic on the punch.
Click on
images below to see larger images
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Now
comes the delicate stage of cutting the part. It makes a lot of effort for a
small thing, but the model will look much more realistic with this.
Click on
images below to see larger images
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Now
you just have to put aluminium tape on these parts to figure the cockpit posts
and
then glue it with white wood glue
Take
care to the rear turret, the kit part is much too large, 21mm diameter instaed
of 19 necessary to fit in the fuselage. So I reduced the mold part to a 18,2mm
diameter, with a draft angle to allow molding.
For
the inferior part, I did hollow the original part (take care, make several test
not to open too much), change its rear shape to make it vertical, then I glued
inside my transparent part.
On
the real airplane, this part comes perfectly tangent to the fuselage, putty
will be again necessary. |
Click on
image below to see larger image
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All
lateral windows have been cut in a cd box (5 rectangular ones, 1 circular) |
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It
is then inserted by force, the inevitable gaps filled with white wood
glue. On this picture the part looks less transparent than when looking
with my eyes (flash effect I guess) |
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Take
care, cd box transparent parts are very fragile, at the end I have applied on
them a layer of Klir.
Next Step : Painting and weathering.
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Photos and text © by Laurent “Angus” Beauvais
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