The Little World

Well, the final rush to finish the SAAF Junkers 52 went as expected. The only hindrances were integral to the design of the plane.

a. The corrugated nature of the external cladding meant that a flat paint would never have accepted decals without showing silvering or separation. Each roundel or fin flash position, therefore, needed a spray of gloss varnish as a base for the waterslide. The decals are home-printed and not that bad. I am dependent upon the fact that roundels and flash are simple solid shapes.

b. Subsequent final coating was done with a semi-matt varnish but discretely rather than a flood.

c. The indicators above each engine nacelle – can’t say if they are fuel gauges or manifold pressure – are provided on a sprue tree but are illustrated wrongly in the instruction sheets. After watching a YouTube video of the flight of a Swiss Ju 52, I decided to throw out the plastic parts, drill a couple of micro-holes, and glue in pieces of wire.

d. Thank you to Junkers for such a cubic canopy. Bow pen and thinned paint.

e. The plastic pitot tube is inserted but I do not hold much hope for its continued life under service condition. Ah, well, I may have to eventually replace half the museums’ tubes with thin wire…

f. We need more service personnel around the planes. Time to troll the internet ( in a good way…) to find more Air Force types in 1:72 scale. I just hope they do not turn out to be $ 10 a pop.

Ah jus’ lubs dem spats. Yassah, I does…