Roden construction notes - Strutter

[cduckworth]

I reached the point on my 1/48 Roden French Strutter where the turtle deck behind the cockpit has been mated to it's counterpart - as Matt stated in a previous review it's not the best joint ever designed. Putty'd the seams and have it pretty well hidden but now notice the top stringers aren't all that straight - anyone have any 'easy' suggestion on correcting these without a full Harry Woodman approach (I remember he cut out the Eduard Pup deck and added a new one in one article in Windsock).

Also spend considerable time filing and sanding away plastic in front of the cockpit opening were the deck had a pronounced angle sloping towards the cowling (where it attaches to the rear of the top cowling); in all the photos and general arrangement drawings show this area to be fairly straight. Just a comment for those who haven't got to this kit as yet. Added a false bomb bay interior not to get the details but to push out the sides where they would meet up with the top fuselage deck - mine kits sides sloped in around the cockpit and bomb bay areas almost 1/8" due to the soft plastic. Maybe the clear plastic kits don't have this problem.

Charlie

[StephenLawson]

Greetings Cduckworth; I remember seeing Messer Fraser do his Eduard Camel with a piece of internally scribed copper. I did my Sop.Camel and Triplane turtledecks in two steps. The bay stations were represented by curved slices of .040 thou sheet stock. I cut into the kit spine areas with a motor tool and simply filled the cuts with these curved slices. Then I flex filed them down a bit. the stringers were done with .010, .020 & .030. thou rod from Plastruct. Then Flex file them down a bit.