Hunter's hobbies: The end of the beginning for my Williams FW14B

RADIATOR DUCTS, RADIATORS AND ENGINE FIX.

Things have moved on relatively quickly since my last post, so I thought it might be a good idea to bring you up to date. After fixing the front brakes, which was very straight forward I moved onto the radiator ducts. The instructions are very clear and the parts easy to fix. Attaching the ducts to the body was OK. I found it a little difficult to get the electric cable into the hole on the left side and was glad that I had tried a dry run before using adhesive. It might also have been worthwhile leaving out the wire inserts, but the inserts make the cables mould better to the bodywork with the inserts. I also checked out the Paul Smith, Dan Parrat and modelersite photographs for extra cable detail. I found these both helpful and confusing at the same time. For some of this detail I concluded that I simply dont have the tools to construct some of the parts and the detail on the modelersite and Paul Smith sites is so brilliant that I have to admit my 52 year old eyes simply can't recreate no matter how strong my glasses are and my pockets are empty for buying more tools and parts, which I am sure could be found in some resin kit sites, hey ho such is life. I attached the ducts carefully to make sure the body work was not damaged. I used some super glue on the front left duct as the cable kept pushing the duct out of line. I then added some extra detail to the ducts and decided that I may come back to this detail at a later date when I have completed the majority of the build, as it is an easily accessible area to work on. I then measured up the metal foil part so that I could feed through the green cable before attaching it to the bodywork. I pushed the cable pegs through the foil and it would be advisable to make sure the foil is clear of the pegs as the cable will not fit on easily at the engine mount stage, some thing I neglected to do and cost me more time at that point. The next stage, fitting the radiators was quite easy, the only thing I did extra was give the radiators a wash with some matt black to highlight the detail. I may also add the red cable from the engine kill switch to the engine block. Here again I am confused as the box detail shows the cable ending before the engine block, but the other sites seem to show that this may not be the case, however the photographs are not clear, FRUSTRATION !

Fixing the engine was OK, but take care with the two top screws as I felt the screw holes should either be smaller or better designed, as the difference in size between the screw head and the hole is almost nil. I put a little super glue onto the top hose connection with the radiator to fill the tiny gap and painted it when dry. Tying of the green cable was next on the list. Where to cut the cable as there was at least 4 or 5 cm spare. I gave myself about 2 cm to play with for tying off. I found this very fiddly as the peg to is only 1 or 2 mm long and I didn't want to be to forceful and end up snapping the peg off. I managed it after a few attempts and ended up putting a tiny drop of glue on the cable to secure it, I used the same technique when fixing the rigging to the Vosper MTB and the Schnellboot. Well that's as much as I have done.

I feel that I have completed most of the build now which is a bit of a shame as I have really enjoyed this project and cannot afford to start another one. It is also a problem to find spaces to display the finished results and dusting them is a real pain in the. Anyway moving swiftly on I am sure there are more little problems to solve with this one. Here are some photographs of the kit as it is now and I hope they are of interest.

On this side I added cable detail to the small small radiator on the top of the duct and an extra cable and tie to the rear.

On this side I have only added one extra cable to the front and painted the top assembly slightly differently refering to the box art and other web sites. There are many other details that can be added here at a later date.