well progress has been made,,
heres a couple snaps of the exhaust stacks, the blower "intake" and the cooling air exit on the belly,,
not much beyond that,,
I got the exhaust stacks done, well built and finished,,(I posted pictures of the parts earlier in the thread, they were drawn in CAD and then laser cut) they did not line up perfectly since I assume the wood density varied slightly in the ply, and so they were all just a tick different when I stacked the parts. Sanding between each of the stacks was difficult at best so I did what I could, then I mixed a batch of finishing epoxy with micro-balloons,, a very runny mixture,, and brushed a light coat on top of each stack,, then sanded them to even out the surface of the stack. assembled the rest of the parts, and then after some sanding, ( ply sands hard just for the record) I coated them with a light coat of finish epoxy to seal the grain . Now to attach them to the nose,,
the other part is the simulated blower intake. regrettably for it to look right, it is to far back on the fuse to act as a cooling intake, on this model anyway, on future versions it could prove to be useful
It is also a trick to size things so that they remain proportional enough to capture the feel of the prototype,, the exhaust stacks are longer and wider,, slightly,, but the blower intake is actually skinnier, and shorter or it looked strange,,
I also had to close off the openings for the muffler exit, the engine head, and a couple other little openings,, (these were all done with balsa plugs sanded to fit the opening)