Finally some progress, and finally blue!
I started out with a few layers of dope and a lot of sanding in between, and the decided to try Tamiya acrylic paint, even though limited in blue nuances. Being a trained chemist I started out the scientific way, one part of this and two parts of that, until I got he right nuance, and after painting the model and letting it dry it came out completely wrong, so change of method. Pour in all the white there is, and se how it looks after drying.
So I don't know if it is Nordic blue, but from now on it is Gnat blue in my book, and close enough to what I had in mind.
Here is the final result with the canopy mounted, only missing some details and the decals.
Meanwhile I have been playing with the 3D-cad to see if it would be possible to recreate the molds and make new fuselage halves.
Starting from the jig formers I can get the outer profile of the fuselage, and the result came out like this:
Bottom half
and top.
I have made the shells 1mm thick, and the cad program has a nice "Create mold" function that I will try eventually, but first I will start experimenting with a mold for an incomplete Skyrocket kit that I found recently, se my new topic here under the Building section. If I succeed, the next Gnat will be Red Arrows red!
It seems that I did not fully meet my expectations on weight. While I hoped to end up under 30g with empty motor, it seems to be more like 31,5g painted and with canopy. Now with spring finally here i hope to start the flight tests soon.
Gunnar