This is another project creeping forward - occasionally slipping back slightly - for months now, looking for a good place to summarize progress:



Some significant damage, sustained long before, was first addressed:


Click on Image to Enlarge
--FULL RES-----FULL RES-------On the starboard engine (left, at top), the kit OOB shaft - made out of that black, gummier type of (propylene?) plastic - had either fused over time or I had (and then forgot) glued it to the prop, so that both were damaged when I (obviously, too forcibly) removed the latter. After the failure of attempted shaft repairs in-place, the cowl and entire engine were carefully broken free, and an entire replacement shaft (light gray, at left-top) fabricated and installed.

The above also damaged the starboard prop - followed in short order by the port prop, during molding to provide a resin replacement(s) - fortunately, not before enabling the casting of a few "copper-rebar"-reinforced duplicates (left, at bottom, and right, purple), now with (a choice of) separate hubs, attached subsequently (right). This time both cowlings and props were friction-fitted, and remain detachable.

With both engines once again easily accessible, I took the opportunity to improve their paint jobs a bit:


Click on Image to Enlarge
----FULL RES--------FULL RES-Originally painted all-silver, the engines were just "too much" visually, and so - after unexpectedly difficult masking (left, at top) - the crankcase covers were repainted in a neutral, glossy engine-type gray - no doubt much more accurate, as well. Even with cowlings replaced (left, at bottom), the engines remain plenty visible, and their features distinct.

By this point - as so often happens with builds that are taking a long time, with a lot of handling - the nose gear had been accidentally broken - and repaired - twice. The original fork having broken beyond repair the second time, a replacement from the spares box was fitted with a brass tube (right, at top), to mate with the brass peg already set, in the first repair, into the gear leg. This time, the shock compression spring was rotated to point forward (right, at bottom): the accurate orientation, which was missed the first time around.

Note also by now the nose (painted a slightly different green) had been resurface flush with the edges of the clear dome, fastened temporarily with water-soluble (white-type) glue. This could have been its final installation, had the Boston's greenhouse actually extended down to a horizontal edge, as on this replacement clear dome - however the edge on the real thing angled diagonally down towards the nose, and it was realized the excess clear plastic would seriously impede this depiction, as 1) it is too thin to accept scribed panel lines, and 2) it is very flexible, and would probably reject and/or produce a different paint finish from the surrounding area. Thus it was concluded that the underlying nose had to be built up, and the clear dome trimmed back accordingly, to make the resulting joint follow the true path as on the real thing.

That work is now in progress - before which the last appearance of the build was this:


Click on Image for FULL RESPropellers now painted black - with this horizontal-edged greenhouse, she looks rather more like a B-25 than a Boston (A-20), however corrections to the nose (and pilot, it also turns out) are now well in progress.

Updates on those, soon to come...

Cheers,

-Matty