Dear all,
I’ve been able to progress further with the current projects, and finally been able to start putting together all the pieces I worked with on the FWD cargo hold for the B787-9.
Note that the lip around the door is not placed at the floor base
I had lots of issues to figure out how this was going to be made and assembled by the modeler.
At first, I thought that I would make a shell consisting of the two side walls and the floor together, which could be incorporated inside the fuselage. But, upon construction, I realized that the section where the side walls rested on the floor, were way too thin to hold themselves together with the floor. This is due to the particular shape of the wall to allocate the LD3 containers.
So then I thought, well, maybe the set can consist of the three elements separate from each other; the two side walls and the floor, but another construction problem arised.
What would happen with the other side wall? For example, one goes and installs the floor at the door level, then places the side wall, however, the fuselage is glued in a way that it would make it impossible for the other wall to be glued since the other fuselage half is closing the space, there is no way to reach the inside and place the wall.
This made me think of something I was already thinking, make the shell a whole unit with the fuselage. There was another issue, concerning the construction of this, and this was regarding the opening of the cargo door.
The cargo door opening has a lot of detail on the real model, it has a kind of lip for the door to sit on once closed, there are the latches of course, and the hinges.
So I thought, ok, if the modeler has to open the cargo door, there are many factors depending on it, the platform for instance is at the close edge, then there is this border around the door opening, the latches that would need to be on the bottom…
In the end, the idea of making a unit shell with the fuselage was gaining weight, I thought that it would be easier to just make four cuts and insert the shell with the already built in cargo hold.
This way the modeler can paint, decal and detail the cargo holds and once done, these could be glued together with the aircraft fuselage.
I do not think it is a very difficult operation to do as long as it is stated carefully in the instructions where the cut has to be done at (which I took note of) in fact, there are aftermarket plugs to make the fuselages shorter/longer so this is more or less something similar, also, the cargo holds will have some sort of extensions that will aid on the positioning with the rest of the fuselage.
Lastly, another issue that I found and that I had to avoid were the galleys. The galleys were going to interfere with the cargo holds, so I had to measure where the galleys ended up in order to make sure that everything could be together. This limited the space of the cargo holds, which are longer in real life, but, considering that the whole length is not visible from the outside, it was a part that needed to be sacrificed.
At the moment all is going well, I tried to replicate the cargo holds and its platform as close as possible to the real aircraft, and there is still some more work to do; the ceiling, the door details and the door itself.
Personally, I want to do a full build with all the galleys and both cargo holds, this way it will show much clearer the whole progress and see the final result. I will plan to add lighting to the aircraft.
In regards to the catering truck, all the parts are done and first tests are being done. I believe that these projects still require a bit of time, I still have to make the AFT cargo hold, make their decals, make the stock, and for the catering, it is basically the same, I will have a first version assembled (without paint), but decals need to be made as well as the instructions.
It may still take me some time, but if everything goes well, I may have these projects ready at the end of October at the latest.
That is all so far, my next update will feature the first 1/144 catering model assembled.
Wish everyone is doing well,
Guillem