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The Meteor takes shape...


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I've been hammering along on my Tamiya Meteor build and took a few progress pics yesterday.   My first attempt at scratch-building a seat belt/harness was awful.  I recalled a tutorial on Philip Flory's website that showed his technique for simple belts and buckles but alas, it's now in the paid subscriber section, which I am not unfortunately.  But I did find a YouTube video in which a gentleman uses the exact same method and that really refreshed my memory about the technique.   Well, I still have a long way to go in getting them to look just like I want.   They are too much out of scale.  But, they are an improvement and they were cheap.  Made from masking tape and fuse wire, I'm hoping they'll be passable under a closed canopy.  I still need to do a bit of tweaking on the buckles and adjusters, trimming,  shaping and squeezing a little more.  

The two lap belts:

 

lap%20belts%202%20better.jpg

 

Shoulder harness:

 

shoulder%20harness.jpg

 

cockpit%20above.jpg

 

The seat is merely sitting in place in these pics.  Once the lap belts are on, it will be glued into the cockpit tub and the shoulder straps glued to the seat back.  The rear of the bulkhead will get a small cover plate to conceal the back of the shoulder harness.  I cut a slot through said bulkhead and glued a tiny bit of fuse wire across it.  My plan was the thread the shoulder belts over and through that wire, draping them down the seat front.  That proved too ambitious; the wire broke away as I fiddled with the ends of the straps and finally they were pulled down and taped in place against the rear of the bulkhead.    Speaking of "fiddly"; dicking around with those tiny wire buckles and strips of tape was damned fiddly even working beneath the magnifier light!   I know they're "out of scale" but they are just about at the limit of my eyesight and hand dexterity.

 

The landing gear is finished and ready.   

 

landing%20gear.jpg

 

LG%20braces.jpg

 

Gear doors are done as well:

 

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LG%20doors%202.jpg

 

One wheel is separate from each tire and the other side requires careful painting.  I used masks from a Maketar wheel masking set for the first time and they seemed to work well.  I have used a circle template when the rim was raised enough from the tire and I've also used very thin paint to fill the edge between wheel and tire, running the paint around the wheel and then filling in with multiple coats, with thicker paint.   But this time I tried something new and it actually worked.   The wheels are painted Testor's flat steel (little 1/4 oz. square bottle) mixed with silver and the tires are Humbrol dark grey 32.  It's the closest "out of the bottle" color for tires that I've found.

 

wheels%201.jpg

 

Tamiya provides a ballast weight for the Meteor that neatly fits into a space on the fuselage belly.  I've read that that was barely enough weight to prevent tail sitting so I looked for space for additional weight.  I found it beneath the cockpit "cowling".  I mixed lead shotgun pellets into two-part epoxy and spread that paste under the cowl part.  In the pic, there's a gap between that cowl and the fuselage.  Well, with just a tiny press, that cowl almost snaps in place flush as can be.  An impressive bit of Tamya engineering:

 

ballast%20beneath%20cockpit%20cowl.jpg

 

cowl%20in%20place.jpg

 

fuselage%20ballast%20installed.jpg

 

The fuselage, together and awaiting priming and final seam filling:

 

fuselage.jpg

 

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I'm hoping I'll have time to finish the cockpit today and get it installed.  Then, I'll be ready to assemble the wings and get them attached.   At this point, there's still a lot of work left to do but progress has been made at last!  Thanks for looking in, having a peek, and yes, comments are welcomed!

 

 

Edited by Gary Brantley
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Nice work on your Meteor Gary 👍

 

I like your home made belts. Tricky to do in any scale.

 

As for lack of comments, a lot of the time it just depends on when you post but usually it's just a reflection of how much is going on in this site! 

 

Keep up the good work,

 

Cheers Greg 😁

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Well done Gary. I have just obtained two Meteor kits from a good friend. So when the dust dies down on the latest GBs I'm involved in

I will build them as a pair. The F.3 he sent me was an old built model that didn't go well. Seen as I had a F.1 kit that had the F.3 wings all I had

to do was remove the top of the cockpit and the belly tank add them to my F.1 and I had a complete F.3 kit. 

The new F.1 kits is the correct one. Happy days. So as you may have guessed I will be watching your build closely. 

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13 hours ago, GREG DESTEC said:

Nice work on your Meteor Gary 👍

 

I like your home made belts. Tricky to do in any scale.

 

As for lack of comments, a lot of the time it just depends on when you post but usually it's just a reflection of how much is going on in this site! 

 

Keep up the good work,

 

Cheers Greg 😁

Thank you Greg!  I really appreciate that you took time to comment.   Yes, this is a very busy site.  That reminds me of a firearms forum on which I'm an active member (heh, heh, he said "member😁), threads fall off the front page with alarming regularity there too.   Cheers to you as well Greg! 

11 hours ago, Lord Riot said:

Cracking start! Love that cockpit and seat too.

Thanks Lord Riot!  I scribed some fine lines into the seat bottom, hoping that with light colored wash, it would look like black leather.  It did work to some degree but it's barely noticeable now.    When will I learn to stop spending time on details no one will ever see??!?!  Arrggh!  Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time...😉

10 hours ago, Greg Law said:

Well done Gary. I have just obtained two Meteor kits from a good friend. So when the dust dies dow🥰n on the latest GBs I'm involved in

I will build them as a pair. The F.3 he sent me was an old built model that didn't go well. Seen as I had a F.1 kit that had the F.3 wings all I had

to do was remove the top of the cockpit and the belly tank add them to my F.1 and I had a complete F.3 kit. 

The new F.1 kits is the correct one. Happy days. So as you may have guessed I will be watching your build closely. 

Thank you Greg.  It's a good start on a really simple, well-designed kit.  I finished getting the belts on to the seat, and the seat glued into the 'pit.  I put the lap belts on first and found that a tiny dot of Aleene's Tacky Glue worked best to secure those to the seat bottom.   After giving both lap belts plenty of time to cure, I glued the seat down with Faller cement.  Finally, used more Aleene's to glue down the shoulder harnesses.   I've got to finish up the IP and get it glued in as well as a couple other details (that may or not be noticeable😉).   I'll try to post a pic of the finished cockpit soon. 

 

Thanks for the wonderful, encouraging comments my friends!   They do really help motivate an old modeler.   After such a long hiatus from the hobby, it did feel good working on this Meteor.   As an aside, my Classic Airframes Whirlwind arrived yesterday in the mail.   Just what I needed, another unbuilt kit! 😀😎🥰

Edited by Gary Brantley
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