Front wing assembly help

[PJE]

I am thinking of starting a rather simple little project, and then I got anal when I started looking at how best to attach the front wing assembly of my Provence Moulage Ferrari 637 Indy car. I am looking for suggestions on how best to assemble and attach the front wing to the car. As you can see, the nose has a scribed line to slip the two wing elements into and then you have to glue the endplate to those same two elements. How would you do this and have some strength where if you touch it, the whole wing just does not fall apart. Paint first or last?
I appreciate all the feedback I can get on this one.

Thanks,

Paul Erlendson

[jaykay]

Yep, that's a bit tricky to get nice and clean....especially in 1:43:-)
It looks like the front wing is made from resin as well, right? I don't know how thick the material is, but i guess there should be enough volume to drill one or two holes somewhere around 0,3 to 0,5mm ( the bigger the better, depends on what you can do ) in the sides of the wing elements using a pin vise and also drill corresponding holes in the monocoque. After that you can glue in metal rods to mount them with improved strength. They'll also help to position the wings once everything is painted. For a white metal wing or photoetched ones you'd best solder bits of brass or nickle silver rods to those.
The same can be done for the etched wing endplates but i think that's not really necessary. You don't lie on the floor and play with the model afterwards....eh!? Some epoxy glue should do there.

[PJE]

The front wing elements and end plates are all photoetch (stainless or nickel, not brass). The major rear wing element is resin.

Paul Erlendson

[jaykay]

Ah, right.....my mistake:-(
Well in that case i'd recommend soldering some brass or nickle silver wire onto the wing elements for reinforcement like i wrote before.

[43rdMichael]

Paul,

With this arrangement, I'd suggest building the wing fully before painting. Perhaps try the following sequence:
1) glue the end plate to the main element. That way you can get a good strong bondon that joint.
2) tack the main element to the body with a small amount of super glue.
3) position the flap and glue well to the endplate (but not the body). this way you can file the flap to ensure that its the right size, is square and fits well to the main body.
4) snap the main plane from the body and mount it on a piece of sprue (perhaps glued to the bottom of the wing) for painting
5) clean away any remnants from the superglue 'tacking'
6) paint everything
7) use two part glue to re-attached the painted wing to the painted body.

Jaykay's suggestion for pins is a good one (and probably stronger then the above approach), but might be difficult if the p/e parts are too thin.?

BTW - great project. I never knew there was a kit of this car, but will be very keen to see it progress!

[PJE]

Thanks for the thoughts guys. You've given me some ideas to try out. Michael, PM also did a second kit of the car (which I have too) with engine detail as you can see in the photos below. I've also thought about doing a curb side of this car in 1/25 scale using an AMT Lola and a Protar F1 87 as the basis.

Paul Erlendson