As mentioned elsewhere I bought one of George's last ASR launches at Ellesmere Port last weekend, and this will the start of a very lengthy build I'm sure. (I just have too many things on my plate to build it in a big hurry sadly)
As posted on the original thread I started with the 20 mm Oerlikon cannon that's mounted on the stern of the launch. (This is in line with the philosphy of building an R/C model Spitfire and starting with the propeller
) In this case it's because the Oerlikon is a splendid little model in its own right and I can work my way into George's system of modelling with it.
I've re-posted the piccie of all the components and as you can see they are very well cast, and cleaning up the castings took very little time or effort, just a quick swipe with a small needle file and 320 grit paper did a good job. Some of the white metal parts needed a little more effort, but nothing in the way of heavy engineering. I used both thick and thin super-glue to put the model together, in some cases both types of glue, the thick first with a 'wash' of thin brushed over the joint area to make sure it was well secured. Some of the parts, notably the shoulder pads and the sights, are quite small and delicate and need careful handling and glueing, more later on this.
The model is designed to be assembled trained either fore and aft or athwartships, and aimed horizontally. If you want to change this it'll need some extra work, and as I've never built any kit 'out of the box' yet I wanted my Oerlikon trained over one quarter and elevated slightly, giving myself difficulties before I'd even started! There is a large resin stud cast on the centre-line of the turntable which is the main attachment for the breech/barrel assembly, for strength purposes I presume, and it's important that this engages in the corresponding hole in the breech/barrel. The hole is large enough to enable some change in elevation, but that means the pivot points of the side turnnions move downward and then won't fit properly on their mounting platforms. Accordingly I filed the platforms down a little so that the trunnions fitted horizontally again. I also re-drilled the turntable to accomnodate the large training wheel, because not having it aligned fore and aft meant the original hole was unable to be used as the shield was in the way. Having found some photos of Oerlikons on the web makes me think this was a mistake however, as the real world training wheels seem to be fixed to the mounting and do not traverse with the gun. It's stuck now though, so there's not a lot I can do about it.
The shield mounts to the front of the side trunnions, and it should lean back a trifle as you can see in the second pic. If you decide to make a radical change in the gun's elevation it's important to note that shield does not move with the gun, it stays at a fixed angle to the deck. That sort of mod will make the assembly more fragile though as the side trunnions will be the only attachment that the gun has to the turntable.
The spent cartridge bag is a nice easy fit under the breech and just needs a little flattening on it's mounting face before glueing.
The magazine however does need a little work. As can be seen in the second pic it should tilt forward at the top a little, presumably to accomodate the flanged 20 mm rounds. It also leans over to the right considerably, from the gunner's point of view, and try as I might I could not get it to fit as supplied. This may have been a by-product of my changing the gun's elevation however. I had to file quite a hefty angled slot in the bottom of the magazine to align it, but eventually all went well. It's worth while filing the top of the breech flat in this area as it increases the usable gluing area too.
The shoulder pads need careful handling and a little re-alignment, but this is best done after assembly as too much work on the finely cast mounts will fatigue them. The pad assembly has a small mounting stud on its base, but there is no corresponding hole in the breech so I filed the mounting area flat and drilled a hole to suit. After assembly I gently bent the curved pads downward to match the real world situation. Apparently the gunner not only leant into the pads but also had a waist strap attaching him to the gun so he couldn't escape! I may add this later from some photo-etch sprue.
The sight is probably the most difficult part of the build as it is very small and needs to be mounted at an angle as well. Looking from the rear the shoulder pads are offset to the left of the barrel, and the sight must align with them as well, so needs to be angled left slightly. I did this with some smooth faced instrument pliers before I glued the sights, which seemed to work well. The sights also have a stud cast on the base, but I found it easier to cut this off and smooth off the base as well as the top face of the breech. After three attempts I managed to get it glued in place, a large lunp of Blu-Tack on my bench helping no end! The third photo shows the offset of the shoulder pads and sights, just. It's quite difficult to get the thing in focus and not blast out the detail with the flash.
There's a very small photo-etched ring fore-sight supplied as part of the main fret, but as mine pinged off into the carpet about 5 secs. after I'd cut it off I can't report on how well it aligns as yet. It'll probably come to light about a week after the model is launched!
You can see the complete assembly in the fourth photo, along with a diagram of the real thing. I'll post a few more after I've painted it. All in all I'm well pleased with it, very satisfying to build and looks just like the real thing in miniature, which is of course what it's all about.