Wednesday, October 10, 2012

One Gannet down, one to go!

I have decided that I must finally finish the other resin Gannet. Now this is an interesting one. The reason that I have a resin version is that I need to build a COD Mk4 (COD = Carrier Onboard Delivery) and the plastic kits only do standard versions - the COD didn't have a dustbin radar and a few other changes.

Now we come to my 'friend' Ken - who was kind enough to get me the kit free and gratis courtesy of his links with CMR. However, he did me a real disservice by also getting me the wing fold! Now a plastic kit with a wing fold tends to give you some support buts that will hold the wing in - roughly - the right angle so you can stick it together. No such luck with this resin kit. You get a complete new set of wings with all the fold details beautifully provided - but no means of getting everything held in place securely or at the right angle. This has held me up for nearly a year but I have now, in a flush of enthusiasm, decided that if I can finish the AEW3 then I can finish the COD as well.

Plan A (there is no plan B - heard that before?). Drill some holes through both parts of the wing - insert some brass rod and super glue it. These will then act as hinges so that I can bend the brass rod to get the right angle and the rods will give everything some structural integrity.

This is where I am so far - and so far so good!

This is where the model stands at the moment
 This is the type of fitting you get in the kit - nicely to scale
but not much good for holding anything in place
 So now we have some brass rods in place
 Here are the holes in the bottom wing that will receive them

I have also drilled up the end of the wing which sits on top of all this and fitted rods into that as well.

I now need to glue it all together and then bend until the angles are right. All that will be left to do then is to fit the nice little detail bits and to fill in the holes. Oh, I forgot, I have lost my little supply of the Vallejo paint mix that I used for the basic colour. I do have some Xtracolor enamel that is the correct shade so I am hoping that this will cover up the filler.

Just so you know, this is what the wing fold has to look like at the end:

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