Hi, a few updates:
Spent january researching on the tools bonnet. Identified two variants of it, thanks to several Royal Navy declassified pictures that a generous friend sent me. Brought to a late-style status the bonnet i had crafted, detached the sloping section at the "headboard" and glued a horizontal bar instead of it (
c, in the first picture). More in line with the late-war SLC version i am trying to represent. Easier said than done, anyways
The following month and a half was spent trying to complete the preliminary work on the instrument cluster. The plan was to shape the main body of it and then to add the top frame. The area within the frame should be painted black and then filled with a droplet of Kristal Klear or brushed with some gloss varnish to simulate the glass of the instrument box, at a later stage.
I shaped the cluster base from a 0.5mm-thick styrene panel, drilling a 1.3 cm hole at the edge of it. I left some 0.15 mm distance from the edge of the panel, matching with the height of the cluster and then detached the main body from the carrier.
For the frame, I had originally thought to use a rectangular section from a superfine 1/700 brass ladder/railing PE fret in my stash. But although the PE thickness was fine, the frame didn't look as thin as it would be needed. Opted for a 4-component frame instead, made of 0.046 mm metal (?nitinol) wire sections, assembled with CA.
Did a few feasibility studies on drilling out the various gauges in the box base (2x0.3, and 4x0.15 mm holes
) to improve detailing, but achieving a convincing result proved to be beyond my capacity. I finally prepared two versions of the cluster: a "full bodied" one which is probably the one i will choose (less is more in this case i think), and another version sporting the central compass (a section of 0.3 mm brass tubing), basing on the assumption that the brass detail would stand-out somehow, just like it did for the real thing (the brass compass was usually left unpainted and sticked-out pretty much, as photos showed).
A few pics illustrating the progress and showing bonnet and instrument boxes dry-fitting the SLC. Suggestions on what version of instrument cluster to use are most welcome.
Cheers,
SG
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