Rob's Meteor salvage *Finished*

[rob_van_riel]

The resulting horrid mixture seems to be drying up as a very dirty windscreen. Even if I manage to salvage the canopy, it will set me back days, which I don't have.

The mess was as bad as expected. Cleanup, fortunately, seems to be less of a hassle than feared; leaving the canopy sitting in a cup of 96% alchol completely wipes it back to bare plastic. The F8 part is now drying, and will get a new coat of Humbrol Clear later today, and the frame will be glued in place this evening. Effective loss of a day, which I can probably schedule around.
Getting ambitious about cleaning, I've now dunked the Mk4 canopy in the same cup of alcohol; I was willing to put up with the less then perfect result of the Future to avoid the risks inherent in cleaning and starting over, but with the cleaning process tested on the F8 I'm no longer willing to put up with any nonsense there.

[rob_van_riel]

Both fuselages have been joined to their wing, and the seam blobbed over with filler. Tomorrow, the dust will fly as I clean off the excess filler and sand the lower fuselage join into shape.

[splash]

Bad luck with the canopy I hope it all goes well.

Regards Splash

[rob_van_riel]

Alerted to the issue by Splash's build, I decided to check the alingment of the wings and fuselages. The Mk4 was ok, the F8 was skewed in every way possible. Not only was the wing-fuselage join messed up, the whole fuselage has torqued, as seen in the top picture. Annoyingly, the torque is counter clockwise seen from the front, while the join is skewed clockwise. That means the skewed tail will be even more pronounced when I straigthen out the join.

I've cut loose the port side of the wing-fuselage join, and pushed in some plastic wedges I made from Evergreen strips. These corrected the fuselage to wing alignment sufficiently.

I'm still trying to figure out how to get the torque out of the fuselage; with that huge tail it stands out like a sore thumb. Fortunately, I have time to think while the wedges recover from the glue I hit them with.

Clearly, the F8 is not the luckiest plane out there

[rob_van_riel]

Bananas? What bananas?
More wedgery on the tail, before and after pics speak for themselves I think..

[Kitaholic]

Well thought out and great recovery on that

[fredk]

Lots of very different techniques being expertly used on these Meteors.

[rob_van_riel]

While the F8 recovers from a flood of chemicals, I've been working on the Mk4 wing join. This was much cleaner than the one on the F8 (I'm going to clain superior plastic chopping skills compared to the original owner ), but still had the nasty shape problem at the front of the wingroot. Before, and after (more likely halfway through) pics below.




The dark grey area is the epoxy putty plug I put into the inside of the wing assembly. As predicted, I ended up sanding and filing right through the original plastic. The thin green stripe between the putty and the plastic is spillover from the engine nacelle repair; the resin was just a bit more mobile than I'd like, and put a thin coat over most of the inside on the wing, and with the sanding going through the plastic, it's peeping around the corner.
The entire area has become such a mess of colours and structures that it's becoming hard to see whats going on. To improve matters, I'll shoot a coat of primer over it all as soon as the model has dried from it's bath, just to get a good look of where things stand.

[rob_van_riel]

Lots of very different techniques being expertly used on these Meteors.

Thanks, although I shudder to think what a real expert would think of all this. The only thing I dare claim expertise at is muddling along and sort of improvising along the way (which, fortunately, often works nicely )

[Muttzley]

Given the choice of hurtling towards the ground in an uncontrollable, disintegrating hulk of metal, or being propelled upwards by an explosive charge under my derrière through the canopy and hopefully avoiding the tail fin I know what one I'd...
scratch that, they both sound like a lot less then fun.

[rob_van_riel]

Given the choice of hurtling towards the ground in an uncontrollable, disintegrating hulk of metal, or being propelled upwards by an explosive charge under my derrière through the canopy and hopefully avoiding the tail fin I know what one I'd...
scratch that, they both sound like a lot less then fun.

"Ejections are like old age - no fun and not for sissies, but clearly preferable to the alternative"

[rob_van_riel]

I swear this thing hates me.

I'd been wondering what that big thing was that was bouncing around inside the F8. Now I know. It's the expoxy plug that was supposed to sit behind the overly wide wingroot. It's not doing it's job, I'm sorry to say, which I discovered when I sanded right through the plastic and found a gap, rather than a plug behind it. Let me assure you some very uncharitable thoughts occurred around this time

Still, the show must go on, and that requires a wingroot. I cut away the parts most likely to vanish in further sanding, and stuffed a wad of tissuepaper through the hole, holding on to part of it with a pair of tweezers. I then rather unceremoniously dribbled CA all over it. Hopefully, this will stick the paper to the edges, and at the same time harden the soaked paper to the point where I can sand any bits sticking out smooth, and use it as a base to throw more filler at.

[rob_van_riel]

Ha! Gotcha. The trick with the CA-drenched paper worked. Sanded off, stuffed with filler, sanded smooth. In the picture it can still be seen, but I'll bet you'll never know it's there after a shot of primer. Certainly feels smooth

[lancfan]

Brilliant work Rob.

David.

[rob_van_riel]

I think I managed to lick the F8 canopy into shape, next question is how well it will fit the fuselage. If any amount of fitting is required, it's going to be nervous work, since the bond between the canopy and the Clearfix used to mount the framing is shaky at best.
Makes me wonder, what does everyone else use to glue vacform canopies. Solvent based glues and CA seem like very bad ideas, Clearfix is only so-so in this case. What else is there?

Both vacforms have been through the first primer and inspection cycle. To my immense relief, this didn't show any nasty surprises. I'm feeling rather smug about the fact that the wings are now almost impossible to tell apart, except by the colours still shining through here and there, and the fact that I just happen to know which wing is sitting under which fuselage.