World War II Project - Horsa Glider - Part VI

This is my attempt to try and do away with the very evident scoring on the cardboard pieces. I'm not sure how successful it really was. I'm not going to go back at this point though, in the end this is just a piece of terrain and I think the average gamer is not going to notice the flaws. I decided to "skin" the aircraft skin as it were using Liquitex modeling paste. A choice made mostly because its what I had on hand. What I discovered is that this stuff drys very hard and its hard to sand down to a smooth finish. This was exacerbated by the fact that I was using a very fine sandpaper as I didn't want to introduce scratches (800 grit).

You must be very careful when you are sanding this as the cardboard doesn't like to be sanded and will fuzz up and/or layers will peel off. I'm still not happy with Sarissa's choice on the cardboard, something even thinner and more flexible would have been better in my estimation. I'm also of the opinion that more ribs would have been nice in the tail section.

The extra effort is certainly worth it though and if I do another one I think I would use a wall filler of some kind, something that is designed to be sanded down quickly and easily. Tragically there are three tubs of the stuff at the other house where all the remodeling is taking place.

Here is where things ended up:

The idea; fill the score lines in the cardboard with the modeling paste and try and feather everything else so its a gradual transition and not an abrupt 90 degree change.

The sanding was tougher than I expected it to be the modeling paste formed a tougher shell than I had anticipated it would. I suspect a higher grit sandpaper would have worked better but then I would probably have really ripped up the cardboard, the same thing would probably occur if you used files on it.

To get rid of those obvious gaps in the fuselage I took scrap cardboard and wrapped it around the tail section (as seen here) and the cockpit section. I then trimmed off the overhanging cardboard from the main fuselage which for some reason was not actually long enough to cover the gap which was Sarissa's intention. Make sure you use a very sharp knife blade for this, I would recommend a new one. I thought mine was sharp enough and I still ended up with a bad edge on the ends of the main cabin. 

Here she is ready to be "skinned".

Cockpit section, "skinned" and ready for sanding.

The tail, "skinned" and ready for sanding. This was the easiest of the three sections to do and I just didn't bother to try and feather in between the cardboard and the MDF.

"Skinning" the main body

Everything sanded and ready to paint at this point. Its not nearly as smooth as I want it to be.