The improved access to the lower hull with the waterline cut has made a huge difference. The WTC drops in much easier and the access to the forward and aft sections is much improved. Considering now a fully bonded together lower hull like the above waterline assembly. Will need to modify the forward torpedo tube unit if I do decide to go this route but it looks fairly simple to do.
The staggered tabbing worked well to keep the forward and aft sections aligned great. The area around the saddle tanks because of the angle the tabs had to be mounted at proved more of a hassle for getting the upper and lower halves to click into place, so I removed them. I will be making a different connection/alignment system for that section of the hull. Should be super simple and straightforward from what I’m seeing so far.
One side note. The orange label plastruct solvent cement I’ve been using to bond the styrene strips to the hull is garbage in this application. Parts have very little bonded strength. The white label plastruct bonding cement to bond the the kit’s parts together has been working well.
The staggered tabbing worked well to keep the forward and aft sections aligned great. The area around the saddle tanks because of the angle the tabs had to be mounted at proved more of a hassle for getting the upper and lower halves to click into place, so I removed them. I will be making a different connection/alignment system for that section of the hull. Should be super simple and straightforward from what I’m seeing so far.
One side note. The orange label plastruct solvent cement I’ve been using to bond the styrene strips to the hull is garbage in this application. Parts have very little bonded strength. The white label plastruct bonding cement to bond the the kit’s parts together has been working well.
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