With the fuselage cut and split, apart, I now had a model aeroplane in many pieces! A nose section, a mid wing section and a tail section. The 7mm segment cut from the aft, was of no use, so out it went. To move the wings "back" meant the nose section had to be extended, so using scrap plastic I crafted 'extenders 'that I glued to the inside of the fuselage.
For the 'middle' section the top had to be widened so I glued a 3 mm strip of styrene along the top seam, to fatten it out. Once all dry, the nose section went on leaving a 7mm gap for extension. Next the tail section was glued on.
Now with the KC-135, being a tanker the boom underneath had to go. I carved it off leaving a gaping hole in the underside. Using more scrap plastic I filled as much as I could cram in, and once dry, used epoxy resin to fill it in. Once the epoxy was dry, on went milliput.
Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures of all of this, but this is what it looked like after the milliput had been applied and the main wings glued back.
Probably not the most elegant way of doing things! She's a bit or a mess that's for sure! The strip along the top is to help beef up the top seam. It will be filled with milliput and filed/sanded down to profile.
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Below shows where the aft section has been glued. Again milliput to fill the hole where the boom housing was, and to profile the fairing.
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Notice the crack in the fuselage, running from the wing/body fairing up? When pulling the model apart, I ended up cracking the whole thing in half. The result of this means that the model is pretty badly out of shape and there is some serious misalignment. (I warned you this conversion was an experiment). It's not going to be perfect, but if anything I'm learning a few things.
Below is the underside of front section extension filled with milliput. On the wing root, I hollowed out the vent as there are one each side on the 707s, whereas the KC-135 only has one.
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More soon!
