October 17 2008 | That crane..

I have got SO many visits on this site since I posted the Galilée dio pics this site feels like a lady surprised naked in the bathroom: indeed there was leekings  everywhere and stuff that didn't work that well. So I have been putting a bit of cork on the most evident flaws, changed a bit the bio (I should update the liks soonish too) and let it roll..
So I have been busy all week trying to work on this:

October 17 2008 | Adjusting the elements

You picture that? that's one of the 2 blacks spots of the Massena, the places that will be the most demanding.
I've got 6 big photoetch pieces to tie together so that it makes the shape, hundreds of rivets to put..
First adjusting the 2 parts of the sides of the crane before soldering them..

October 17 2008 | Adjucting the crane #2

Best is to insert those Scale Hardware rivets in the "provided" holes and solder the 2 parts from the inside..

October 17 2008 | Soldering rivets

Once this first part is done, the restof the rivets go rather smoothly

October 17 2008 | The place where there is a lot of rivets!

Indeed there is one place where there is a good 20 rivets in a small amount of place.. I couldn't do much solder there as setting one rivet could have wipe another close one away.
So i used some Magic Sculp to tie them all..

October 17 2008 | At least the 2 sides finished

2 evenings to get this..

October 17 2008 | The sides

Now I have to solder the top metal pieces and the bottom one to one of the sides..I used my third hand to manage this

October 17 2008 | The worse is yet to come

Indeed there is another inner piece of metal to fix as there is some big relief on the top and bottom parts! So i had to do this piece big enough to cover a bit of each part  and yet thin enough not to block the holes for rivets!