The back feels a little better but I didn't spend any great quantity of time on the work bench this Sunday. When I did a get a chance to spend some time on the Dora, I focused on the tail wheel to see if I could get to a point where I would be comfortable using the Eagle Editions resin tail wheel replacement. Eagle sells two versions of the 190 tailwheel. One with the treaded tire that was used on 190A's and early Doras and the other with the smooth tire that was used on later Doras. Since Black 1 is an early Dora, I went with the former.
This tail wheel is comprised of multiple parts. Which is nice because it gives the modeler some posing options. However, I am concerned with the strength of the tail wheel assembly once it goes together.
I am going to use brass tubing to increase rigidity and to provide a more solid connection between the components.
Similar to the fitment of the resin cockpit into the fuselage sides, the insides of the tail wheel need to be modified to accommodate the new pieces. The mounting tabs for the kit tail wheel need to be removed.
Here is a look at the tail wheel opening showing the tabs that need to be removed. The sides of the opening could be thinned as well.
A quick check of the kit tail wheel in position. It's good to compare the resin parts with the kit parts. Sometimes I like to make use of the good fit of the kit parts and may graft resin components onto the kit parts to take advantage of that.
Once the tabs have been removed and the open sides trimmed down, I take a look at how the resin parts fit. The tail wheel base fits nicely within the tail wheel halves so I'm going to use this set to fully replace the kit tail wheel.
I am going to revise the position of the tail wheel so that it sits up a little further into the opening.
Once that adjustment has been made, I add another brass pin to strengthen the connection. I will glue the strut and the brace to the base prior to any paint so that I can get maximum glue adhesion. There is some minor putty work on the strut so I'll put this aside for now.
The question was asked about the ejector chute openings. Right now they are represented as deep depressions in the bottom of the wing. I have decided to open these up and replace the solid plastic chutes with appropriately hollow ones made from brass sheeting.
First, I cut out the ejector chute openings in the bottom of the wing.
I've made a form for the brass chutes using a thick piece of sheet styrene. It is slightly smaller than the openings I've cut out. I am planning on folding the brass sheet over this form and hopefully, they'll fit right into the openings. The form can also be used to gauge how long the brass chutes need to be.
I need to get on the rear engine assembly. I don't have a clear game plan for the additional wiring and hoses I want to add so a bit of procrastination has set in. To avoid the real work, I spent a few minutes cobbling together the pilot figure that comes with the Hasegawa kit. I have no intention of using the figure for this build but I was curious to see what it looked like assembled.
