The Little World

With my clothes on, I hasten to add…

There comes a time in any modeller’s life when they are faced with the difficult decision; do I build a biplane with cabanes and inter-plane struts or do I run amok with a dagger in the mall? I can’t tell you how many times I have faced this, though the local police records are a guide.

The business is not so much not being able to cement things – we all have cement – it is whether we want to make the result look straight, even, and neat. Or two out of three. Or one…

I have done the easy ones and the hard ones and they are all hard ones. You have at least two cabanes per side and up to four interplanes to add to port and starboard. You must get them at the right and the same angles, but these may not be 90º. The ends of the struts need to fit into holes in the wings and fuselage, but in many cases the short-run makers don’t provide them. You are lucky to have a plastic dot to indicate the position.

The better manufacturers provide jigs and slots to start the process right, but you still need many fingers to juggle all the elements together at the same time. I’ve discovered:

a. You need to get the cabanes on the fuselage first in nearly all cases and find some way to get them set hard in the right position before anything else. If all else fails, make a cardboard or foam board jig for the front two and do them before the back two. I favour regular Mr. Cement for this task as it provides wiggle time and a strong bond.

b. Once the cabanes are in, get the upper wing onto them and square it up. This may involve trimming the things slightly, but remember that they are likely to be very nearly correct straight off the sprue tree.

d. Then the interplanes – this may involve slight distortion of the cabanes, but that’s why you needed to let them set and cure before proceeding.

e. Once the interplanes are on tape the wings with thin masking strips and leave the thing overnight.

This also applies to spindly WW1 landing gear – I find it pays to not cement on the wheels and tyres before the actual legs and axle.

I would also suggest swallowing your pride and re-enforcing the strut cement with discrete dabs of PVA.