RE: Charlie Kellogg's TBM Avenger Build
Back at it...
Hope everyone had a good holiday.
This past weekend was perfect for spraying primer outside, but I got totally side-tracked on other odds and ends. Most of the time was spent on cleaning up the wing joints. I originally thought they look fine, but the longer I stared at the joints, the more unsatisfied I grew. So, I monokoted the outer panel roots, "buttered" the outer edges of the center section caps with Evercoat Easy Sand polyester filler, then quickly slid the panels on and tightened them in place with the nylon set screws. When the filler was set (~20 minutes), I removed the panels and then wet sanded away the excess filler that was squeezed out from between the panels. Looks perfect now! Sorry I didn't bother to take any pictures of that. Pretty standard stuff.
I then tackled the intake vent that supplies fresh air to the bombardier's compartment. I indicated above that the last thing I wanted to do was carve this part from a blob of bondo, but that's exactly what I ended up doing. Actually it wasn't too bad. Just mixed up some bondo and made a blob that was slightly larger than the part. After about 3-4 minutes, the bondo had set up enough so that I could carve it into the basic size and shape. Once fully cured, I did some sanding to finalize the shape and contour (so that it matched the contour of the fuse). Once it was finished, I glued it to a piece of 0.010" styrene and then glued the whole deal to the fuse. A little putty finished off the blending. Still need to shoot some primer on it before I call it finished, but based on what I can see it's very close to being done.