The Little World

Well fresh from the debacle of a failed paint job and the recovery of spirit when the paint job was partially saved, I decided to launch out on a voyage to the New World of Mach 2 kits – I finally hauled the Convair 440 out of the stash and started to work on the kit. And I have come to the conclusion that Mach 2 has not deserved a bad reputation.

Oh, sure, they are not quite the pinnacle…but they’re not the pit that they are depicted. The first work on the parts has shown the plastic to be both soft and crumbly, but approachable. You must just not expect to clip or knife it off the sprue with the same abandon that you might give to harder styrene. It sands well, and the surface cracks and flash disappear quite quickly.

The basic shape is actually fitting together well, though there are ejection pin leftovers everywhere and the occasional sink-hole. But the wing and tail components can be joined quite well. Just sand flat, glue, and clamp.

The horrible windows and canopy may yield to a spray of Humbrol clear or not – if they are going to be recalcitrant I will adopt a back-up plan that fills the fuselage openings with painted curtains behind the plastic panels. Goodness knows, there is no interior to look at anyway.

Other modellers who have come direct from a modern injection kit from Trumpeter or Tamiya may snort at the level of sophistication that doesn’t exist here, but then size-for-price is also a factor, and if it paints up at all well, I shall be proud of it and myself.

I plan to learn several new skills:

a. Joining a new plastic and filling it with a new form of putty.

b. Rescribing panel lines.

c. Bare-metal painting.

d. False glazing.

e. Internal bracing.

Any one of these skills added to the set would more than justify the cost and effort. You can’t be taught but you can learn.