As anticipated, I'm a couple days late getting started, but I'm finally underway!
It was bit awkward using my razor saw and miter box (first time) but did the appropriate cuts to the two sets of fuselage halves. It turned out a bit wonky and I had to use my big file to get everything back in alignment. It wasn't bad, however, so it didn't take long and it now looks really nice!! I've eyeballed it from multiple angles; down the nose, from the bottom, top, all sides, etc. and it is nearly dead on. There will be slight gaps where the cuts were made but easily filled and sanded over.
After that, I cut out some sprue rods and glued a couple into the forward and a couple more into the rear sections of the halves on either side to serve as alignment, reinforcement, and "slides" to allow me to make fine adjustments once I join the front and rear fuselage pieces.
Here's a bit of what the extra length will look like.
It's not a huge extension. I don't know anything about the engines that were on the Caravelle that are represented with this kit, but I imagine with 4 of them, she'll be overengined.
Perhaps in my background story, one reason why this thing was made was in order to do over ocean flights, despite having a surplus of engines making it heavier and more expensive (although slightly offset by the additional seats of course!
). Or whatever.. I'm not too good at background stories and all that.
I came up with a solution to the windows problem of having to deal with decals that are clear where the windows are, and meant to overlap the clear windows that I glued in. Well, in order to avoid all KINDS of problems (spacing, aligment, accuracy, etc. ) I'm going to go ahead and fill them all in and later on paint a black stripe down the fuselage like a cheatline (
which it really is in this instance!! ) and when I put the decals on, the clear window holes will sit on the black strip and I will have avoided all the drama.
So that's that I guess. Here's one of the cut fuselage halves, windows in, and with the alignment posts.
