SPA Modeler

Beautiful, beautiful work!!!

I'm sure you're aware, but some other may not be.....here's a tidbit on the 190 canopy. Not sure on the later versions, but I do know that on the earlier versions, the "frame" that runs a short distance back (top/center) is actually a hinge, to allow for the "squeezing" of the canopy as it slides back.

jkim wrote:Woohoo! What we manic modelers go through for just a few milimeters!

Fractions of a millimeter, John. Fractions! But it's worth every micrometer.

Ok... it's a wrap! I draped an aerial on. Two materials actually... stretched sprue for the main line and thin wire for the intermediate line running up from the fuselage. All that was left was to attach the two little landing gear indicators to the top of the wings and pop in the prop. I've posted a first round of finished pictures in the Completed Works forum. Check it out...

http://www.spamodeler.com/forum/viewtop ... =21&t=3178

Black One is back. And not in a good way. The last thing you want to hear if you've sent your model to a far-off destination is to hear that the model was broken during the shipping process. That is what happened with Black One. Luckily, the recipient has been very understanding and has expressed his confidence that it can be restored. So it was shipped back to me for me to assess and, hopefully, repair.

This is the box that I received today. The outer box, which has seen two transits across the Atlantic Ocean, was a bit beat up. Not a good sign but fingers are crossed.


However, the inner box was in good condition, suspended in packing material. That's a relief.


The model is held within the inner box with a custom frame made of foam core board. You can see the main damage... the tail has come off. Also note, the position of the joint in relation to the rear frame... it left the tail unit unsupported. More on that later.


Upon careful removal of the model from the inner framing, we can see the total damage. In addition to the tail assembly, other bits and pieces have come off including the radiator cowling, the sliding canopy, the drop tank, one of the brass flaps, the tail wheel, the landing gear retraction links and the loop antenna. The fine wire on the whip antenna under the wing was bent out of shape and I plucked the whole antenna out.


It looks bad but I was quite optimistic upon this cursory review of the damage. There was minimal cracking or snapping of plastic... all of the separations have occurred on existing glue joins. One exception was the snapped locating pins on the radiator cowling and that is a hidden join. LOL... note the white frosting on the inside of the cowling flaps... remnants of the salt fading process.


I am quite lucky where the tail joint is. The black/white ID band will be much easier to restore than the camo pattern and hopefully, I can confine the repair to the limits of this band. The only tricky thing is the wave marking that traverses the joint. Luckily, I made copies of the decal sheet in order to do the spiral so I have perfect templates for cutting masks for the wave markings. One of the horizontal stabilizers was loose so I pulled it off.


I started the repair process by removing the wave decal. I simply used masking tape to pull the decal off.




The fuselage joint has separated near the tail and will have to be restored. Lucky again since it occurs where the color is solid... shouldn't be too hard to repair.


Not your typical Work In Progress but I thought the repair attempt would be of interest.

Ouch! Buy I suppose one could easily expect that from international shipping... I don’t see any obvious irreparable damage.

I feel your pain. I hate seeing a kit fall apart during shipping. Breaks my heart to see so much time and work put into it and find damage after all the rough handling via shipping.

The framing looks pretty solid but I often wondered if adding packing peanuts would have added more security from further damage inside that second box. Something to think about.

Ouch!

Has it broken even more during the return to you, or has all the distruction we see happened when it was sent first overseas?

- Kari

Stikpusher wrote:Ouch! Buy I suppose one could easily expect that from international shipping... I don’t see any obvious irreparable damage.

Yeah, seeing it in person was less traumatic than hearing about it via email. It seems to be repairable. The touchy part will be to the painting/weathering... needs to match the rest of the aircraft.

speedgraflex wrote:John,

So much has happened from the earliest stages of the build until now... this moment. I have to ask about the join to the tail first since I am finessing cowling seams... since this join is essentially flat, do you intend to prepare the area by removing old glue then adding something a bit more exotic as a compound? How will you prepare the seam leading from the tail with the partial split? I must admit I never expected to see Black 1 like this, but things will happen... especially with shipping. You suspended the plane with foam core, did you also create a kind of shock absorbing effect with foam? I have to admit I was feeling sad when I saw the first photographs! Poor bird!! I know you will return her to health once more, and she will be beautiful again! Look forward to how you resolve these issues!!!

The attachment points on the foam board frame are padded with strips of soft packing foam.

For styrene-to-styrene connections, I use Tamiya Extra Thin cement 99% of the time and the tail unit of Black 1 was attached this way. No old glue to remove since TET works by melting plastic. The excess simply evaporates. To facilitate the necessary fusion of melted plastic, the two parts need to be pushed together and held for a period of time. I think I failed to exert enough pressure and only achieved a superficial bond. Remember the relative location of the broken joint to the frame? Since the tail + joint was left outside of the frame, I think the movement during shipping was enough to break that superficial bond. My game plan for reattachment is to use JB Weld 2-part epoxy on the big tab/tongue on the tail. Before the JB Weld sets, I will use TET around the joint. When I re-fabricate the frame, I'll situate the rear frame so that the the tail is supported and the joint is on the inside of the frame.

The seam split is easier. I just have to run TET along the joint, apply enough pressure along the joint (you'll see melted plastic start to seep up from the joint) and hold the two parts for a few minutes as the parts fuse. Just curious Bruce... what are you using to glue styrene plastic parts together?

The trickiest repair, I think, will be the radiator cowling. I didn't notice this on my first inspection but the connection between the resin radiator cowling and the plastic cowling flaps broke. Due to the dissimilar materials involved (resin, plastic, CA glue and Milliput), more work will be required to re-attach the parts and clean the joint.

BlackSheep214 wrote:I feel your pain. I hate seeing a kit fall apart during shipping. Breaks my heart to see so much time and work put into it and find damage after all the rough handling via shipping.

The framing looks pretty solid but I often wondered if adding packing peanuts would have added more security from further damage inside that second box. Something to think about.

Due to the fragility of the items attached to the exterior of the aircraft such as the aerial and the antennae, I don't want ANYTHING moving around in the inner box. A packing peanut is more than enough to break the aerial. I just need to ensure that the model is totally immobile in the frame.

KSaarni wrote:Ouch!

Has it broken even more during the return to you, or has all the distruction we see happened when it was sent first overseas?

- Kari

I believe that the damage was limited to the first trip overseas. My friend packed the broken pieces in little plastic baggies. The only thing that was not in a plastic baggie was one of the landing gear retraction arms... that one piece must've fallen off on the second journey.

I've already started on the repairs and will report a bit more later today.