Do it again, Do it better (day 46)

Numerous times in the previous posts about the waist joint I said things like “I could have made this so much easier and better if I had the two polycaps stuck together with a styrene tube and built up the torso around it”… Sometimes it’s important to resist the urge to re-do work that’s already done, but I decided in this case it’d actually be worth it.


The issue that justifies this re-work in my opinion is that it helps make the two polycaps coaxial as they should be. The down-side (apart from more work) is that this work requires cutting through the guide-plate used to establish the position and shape of the cockpit frame. I decided it was worth the cost as alignment on this joint has been a problem.

The new installation for the polycap joint seems to have worked out well. I think it improved the function of the joint a little, despite the fact that the connecting rods on the midriff part are still misaligned.

I will need to follow-up on this work by reinstalling (again!) and realigning the connecting rods in the midriff. Apart from the midriff joint work I also took some time to check and tweak the chest block. I felt that the right side of the chest was sitting a little higher than the left, and angled a little farther out. Making this kind of determination is a little difficult with an ill-defined midline (in fact you could say the error exists because I built part of the assembly with one midline, then added more work with a new midline). I feel like I’ve maybe opened a can of worms here but after adjustment I think it lines up with the backpack better, at least.

Apart from lowering the chest block’s right side, I also adjusted its angle to hopefully better match the other side, and the contour of the cockpit canopy. Looking at it after the work, I feel like the top level and the angle of the chest block are better, but lowering it made the chest blocks forward edge and lower edge, and the detail I added to the upper surface recently all noticeably lower than the other side. This piece of work may have been a mistake, the wrong way to correct this problem.