The Little World

And I’m definitely not gonna make it home tonight. Not riding the Potez 540.

The heading image is three days later. Not hectic days, mind, but steady use of my evening modelling time. I think we are making progress and I hope it is in a forward direction.

The engine nacelles or housings for the Potez are models in themselves…no wonder – they are going to be attached to the rest of the bird by sticks. They are reasonably detailed in themselves and have responded well to a metallic treatment. And surprise of surprises – the propellers spin freely and are handed. I need to look closely at Potez photos on the net to see which side is which. The moulders of the kit were good enough to engrave ” droite ” and ” gauche ‘ inside the housings to enable you to get them on the correct sides.

I did not realise droite and gauche were Polish words…but I learn something every day.

The fuselage is a concern – it is not two halves – more like four quarters. The saving grace is good ledges to glue to and the fact that the facets need to be 90º to each other. I shall take it in sections and cement slowly to preserve the geometry. Good news is they do not apear to be warped.

The windows are also pleasing in that they fit well and have large lands on the inner faces to mate with the fuselage. Had I thought of a different assembly method I would have cemented them in with extra-thin before painting the inside of the fuselage and just masked them before spraying. I’ll remember this idea for another kit. As it is, the outside window surfaces will be masked with tape as they are primarily bounded by straight lines. The experience of tape masking on the Caudron Simoun has shown this to give much superior margins for this sort of window.

This is actually a very fine value kit in terms of the occupation it provides – it’s good enough to somewhat redeem Mister Craft.