Work continues on the CR.42.
The engine assembles into a decent little unit right out of the box. I dry assembled it for the photos, but actually assembly requires mixing cowling parts into the process. Once the cowl is on, very little will be seen of the engine.
I also finished assembly and sanding of the main fuselage. The CR.42 is not actually a biplane, but a sesquiplane. That’s a $64 word that means “the lower wings are short and stubby compared to the upper wings”. There weren’t any problems with fuselage assembly- no complaints at all.
And then come the struts.
The instructions call for gluing them ALL on the upper wing, and then joining it to the lower wing. As with most biplanes… sorry…. sesquiplanes…. the struts don’t really have anything in the way of proper alignment pins. So it will be a process of gluing a few on, trying to get it all straight, being satisfied it is, setting it aside to dry, and returning later to realize it’s all wrong and horribly misaligned.
I do plan to get the bulk of the painting completed prior to adding the wings. This plane will have the “smoke ring” camo scheme, so having the upper wing off will be essential in getting it done.
In the meantime, I cleaned up the mold seams on the struts, and labeled them for easy identification.
So I’ve got that going for me, which is nice. (Gunga galunga… gunga, gunga-lagunga)
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