In the days when all aeroplanes had propellers and many didn’t have a closed cockpit, plastic kits meant vacuum forming. You opened the box or bag to be presented with some lumps in plastic. The modeller would carefully cut these from the sheet trying to work out where the part finished and the waste material began. Then he or she would stick them together with glue derived from the bones of old horses.
The glue has changed but you still get vac-formed parts. The funnel for this boat was one. Three parts with indistinct lines indicating where you might wish to cut. Go too far and you have to ring the manufacturer to try and buy another.
All I can say is, you realise what a joy it must have been to buy your first injection moulded kit.
Trouble is this funnel is curved, needs a big chunk cut out for the bridge and has to have a flat top and bottom. Challenging isn’t the word. Of course I made it even harder when I decided I was fitting working navigation lights. This means the roof and therefore funnel has to be removable for bulb changing. This means get it right as you can’t bodge it up with filler later.
Well I did it. Not sure how but it’s there. The base needs a little packing for a perfect fit and the roofline has been helped by a little bit of microstrip. I still need to make the roof hook onto a crossmember at the front and bolt the funnel down but this particular tunnel has light at the end of it.
Pity the prototype builder didn’t think of the poor modeller. This funnel is fake. On the real thing it contains a water tank. Wouldn’t a square one have been just as good ?
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