Henschel HS-132 - Part 1

Back in 2008, I started started designing my model of the Henschel HS-132 dive bomber.
All was going well, and I was able to do the prototype build.
Unfortunately, an HDD crash wiped all my files.
All I have left is the prototype build.

Here are some pictures:



Anyway, I thought I'd revisit this model and bring it back to life!

Stay tuned.

Messerschmitt P.1106 R - DONE!

I'm happy to announce the diagrams are now available!
If you wish to download the diagrams, please visit the download section of www.papermodelers.com or www.zealot.com.

You may need to register to gain access rights to the downloads section though.  But don't fret, the registration is free!

Eric

Messerschmitt P.1106 R - Part 17

Finally!

The first ME P.1106R rolls out of the production lines!

I actually finished building this last night, but I waited till morning to take photos under natural light. 
I also experimented a bit with the wing farings.  On the left side, you'll see the wing farings fairly flush with the fuselage.  On the right, bulky.  I had a hard time assembling the left side wing farings.  So for the right side farings - I used joining strips.  Assembly was far easier, but it left really ugly gaps caused by the added bulk of the joining strips.  I guess wing farings aren't meant to have joining strips. :)

Design notes:

• There was some fitting problems with the fuselage formers.  I made two sizes of fuselage formers.  And unfortunately, one set was too big, while the other set was too small!  I made a third set which is roughly mid way between the first two sets.  They should be just right. :)
• Those wings and tail fins were just too thin for formers.  I eventually ditched the wing and tail formers.
• Arguably the hardest part of the model were the rear wheel wells.  I have to find a way to design fuselage wheel wells that are easier to build. :(

TO DO:

• Make two extra sets of tail fins - one with the Hakenkreuz on both sides, and one with out any Hakenkreuz.
• Re-layout in Pepakura and make PDF.
• Come up with some quick diagrams for building.

Messerschmitt P.1106 R - Part 16

A little progress.

After the small trouble with the rear wheel wells, the rest of the fuselage assembly went through without any headaches.

Wings went on quite well.  There's a little misalignment between the edges of the left wing and the fuselage.  I'll hide that later when I put on the wing farings.

That's all for this weekend.

Messerschmitt P.1106 R - Part 15

And so the build begins!

Drawing from the painful lessons learned from my previous P.1106R revision, I sought to reduce the number of fuselage formers to a minimum.

So far so good!

As shown in the photo above, I was still able to achieve that shark nose shape of the fuselage (or at least the front half of it) with just three fuselage formers.

Now the problem:

As seen on the picture above, the rear wheel wells were a pain to assemble.  I anticipated this in the original P.1106R design.  And it was this part of the model that made me go overboard with the fuselage formers.
I'll need to re-think this part and improve its internal structure...
Nevertheless, this setback is not a showstopper.  So I'll continue with the build.

Oh, I also handcrafted those joining/glue strips.  I did this by printing the PDO pattern into a PDF file.  I then imported the PDF file into Inkscape.  From there, it was easy to edit the vector lines to produce the glue strips.  It worked out pretty well!

More tomorrow, I hope.