Well, well here it is, I finally chosen the superb AAR Eagle Weslake!
It changes from red, but orange and green were not that far away .. the red (s) either either!
The kit is not more complicated than that, but the installation of the rivets promises to be... sporty and time-consuming.
I started by cleaning the parts of the bathtub / chassis, the interior of which is almost invisible once the tub is in place.
Only a small part on each side is polished.
The assembly is, as often, carried out by welding.
The main parts of the V12 are also assembled
And we start to put a little color
The body parts are prepared, adjusted and the locations of the threaded fasteners for solid fastening.
And then, we had to get there, the hull is pierced (0.35) in anticipation of riveting ...
Resin rivets with semi-round head of 0.5 for a tail of 0.3.
There are many!!
Riveting is ... DONE !!
I decided to use rivets of different sizes for different reasons.
For the lateral parts, rivets of 0.5 for the most part, of 0.4 for the outline of the hatches and of 0.8 in aluminum for closing them.
for the upper part of the hull, 0.4 convex / flat head.
These are used for:
- appearance / aesthetics, a kind of scale effect as with painting,
- ease of applying decals.
FYI, there are 1620 ... rivets.
The body parts have been primed and, for some, painted or partially painted
The engine has progressed well
I took the opportunity to work a little on the exhausts and their pronounced traces of heating.
Temporary assembly.
The gearbox is fitted with pretty accessories which I decided to modify: The filter holder, one of the fuel pumps and its filter.
The oil filter covers are redone in aluminum, as is the crankcase of the fuel pump motor.
Machined aluminum and brass hardware is added to provide a little detail to these subsets.
As with the exhaust manifolds, the filters are chemically burnished, then polished and slightly "worn".
Here is the set with the gearbox, painted with a mixture of Gun Metal and semi Gloss Black, 53 and 85 Humbrol.
Make way for the dashboard.
It is primed and painted in my beloved Humbrol 85, a little more diluted than usual and applied in thin coats a little more diffuse to make it slightly less satin.
The counters have their strapping polished.
The decals installed will be covered with "glass" cut to the punch for more realism.
Small machined switches from Top Studio and a few instructions complete the package.
The steering wheel is prepared in the same way as the dashboard.
The original mold is removed and the Allen hardware and its washers installed instead.
A passage of oil allows to shade the colors.
Finally, the tank connection pipe is polished and painted with Candy Electric Blue ZP.
More soon,
Pascal
