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The ruddervators are done. I won't glue their roots yet because there are plenty of sharp delicate edges. So I used this kind of a jig and a flat piece of sandpaper to smoothen the tops of the inner facets on both sides of the ruddervators, trying to make a more romboid shape of their tops.

 

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The yare still not in the perfect romboid shape but I won't go any further.... at least for now 🙂 And I did many other edits as well... the trailing/leading edges were thinned down, the bevels near the rotating surfaces are deepened and sharpened, and that's just about it. I was also worried about how straight will the trailing/ leading edges become although the rotation on the hinges, but all is just fine I think. Those are the leading edges:

 

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And only a testfit + a quick video... they rotate that smooth:

 

 

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Edited by my favs are F`s
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  • 2 weeks later...

MLG adventures...

 

The journey started by making the mounts for the white metal pylons on some special quite modified slots on their bays, with 2 strong magnets per pylon:

 

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Then I made the doors to open and close. This time I think I used the best (easy to make and very effective) hinge mechanism so far. Here are the doors open and the hinge from inside:

 

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Now the tires, the diagonal struts and other preps.

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  • 2 years later...

Howdy 🙂 I missed this topic so much, and I'm finally resuming it! So, throughout that year or two I actually did some things every once in a while. I'll try to summrize these edits in a couple of posts.

 

Firslty - edits of the flaperons and the control surfaces. Check out how sharp their faceted edges look like in original photos. So other than the sharpening of these edges, I also changed/added new facets along the innermost flaperons (towards the fuselage), highlighted in some of the pics below...

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and here is how they look like, in comparison - the upper flaperon is not ''sharpened'' yet, while the bottom is ready... way way better looking facets now:

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This is backwards - the upper piece on the pics is finished, while the bottom is as it is original OOB:

 

IMG-20211008-121100.jpg

 

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You have probably noticed the holes for their hinges... 🙂 So yeah, I'll make them moveable - for two displays of the model - one in parked position (gear down, flaperons down, canopy open, etc...) and in in-flight mode with everything retracted. These are the ''hinges'':

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And testfitted inside the flaperons. There were quite some modifications from the flaperon side as well:

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The thing is... they don't work perfectly... Still quite a bit of adjustments are required, but I'm optimistic I can make them move as they should.

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Then, at one moment throughout these months, I started editing the bomb bays also to be open-able. For this, the doors should open and close, the launchers should extend and retract... and, those little ''airflow brakers'' (or I'm not sure about their exact names) should also move together with the doors. Their entire mechanisms were molded at once with the front walls of the bomb bays, so I deleted them, and will have to make them moveable as well. 

 

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Meanwhile, the ''airflow brakers/disturbers...'' are improved by making them separate pices and making them with larger holes - the ready part is on the left, and the original on the right. The difference is quite noticeable with some backlight.

 

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Besides, I fixed some issues with the exhaust plates, and glued the vertical baffles with a new rearanging, spacing, etc.:

 

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Lastly - the pilot figure/seat assembly. It is not 100% ready yet, there are small things left to do, like adding the hose and the control sticks. Anyway, here is the seat before the painting.

 

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And together with the pilot figure:

 

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and a testfit with the cockpit:

 

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Cheerio guys! All this was done quite some time ago... Now I started with the adding of the zig-zag PE patterms along the front edge of the canopy. A few days of drying and sanding, and hopefully updates are coming soon. 🙂 🍻

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10x all!

I can't believe it's being so long, but I'm so happy to resume this build. ☺️ So here are the most recent upgrades:

 

1) The zig-zag patterms along the front canopy edge are mounted:

 

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2) the intake/exhaust ducts also:

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The engine faces are partially visible through the intake relieve doors when open:

 

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and 3) the air refueling doors are glued and sanded flush:

 

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Next I plan to finish the cockpit/nose gear bay assembly... 

 

Happy holidays y'all! 🎄

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 5 weeks later...

Hi Mr.Happy and 10x for the kind words. 🙂 Here is the update... the cockpit and NLG are finally ready (only a few minor add-ons are remaining, but I'll do them after the main assembly of the fuselage). Check it out:

 

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The IR provision on the bottom side is also ready, nothing much is visible, as I hope it will look nicely contrasting with the flat black surface of the fuselage once painted...

IMG-20230206-153758.jpg

 

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Here is the nose landing gear retraction:

 

 

The door is closed with just a pressfit, it fits flawlessly.

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And a few pix of the NLG extended:


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...with a flashlight pointed at the bay:

 

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The MLGs are on the go. 🙂 Cheers!

Edited by my favs are F`s
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10x Mr.Happy & All! 

 

So the MLG is basically done (only a few tiny decals have to be added to the wheels), but the retraction is far from realistic... 🙂 so no video of it. The wheel wells went through a major ''renovation'' mainly to accept the larger tires (aftermarket resin, a bit larger than the original rubber ones) - here they are before:

 

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And after. The still open/visible areas will be covered by the upper fuselage itself. It was a fairytale the whole fitting process and it's not pretty, but at least it works good. Note the doors are also closed and everything is in retracted position:

 

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That's how they look from the other side - the doors fit flawlessly, this time with the help of megnets though.

 

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And extended - sry about the low-quality of the pix, they are quite zoomed, yet, the silhouettes alone look nice.

 

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