The Little World

The Potez bomber that Mister Craft boxed up from a Heller mould had a distinctive four-sided fuselage that lent itself to IKEA construction. So does the Junkers 52 – as long as you get the elements in registration it all goes very well.

But that doesn’t mean that you can wipe round the edges, clap the bits together, and go make a sandwich. Like many single-surface parts, the top, bottom and sides can adopt a warp while on the sprue trees. I carefully dry fitted, but then only cemented a section at a time. You are better to limit your potential disasters.

Now I like a bit of a reward as I build. Either a view of something I have never seen before, or an exact fit and easy assembly. The Heller mould provided this second blessing. There is no scrap of filler on the fuselage, though there may be later in the wing roots. I am not dismayed by that – the Vallejo acrylic putty or good old Zap-A-Gap can deal with most wing-root gaps. Or I can stick my fingers in them…

Once filled, cemented, and set to rights on the rather good landing gear struts ( Junkers knew what they were doing, unlike Heinkel and Supermarine. ), it was time to go haunt the local hobby shop for Mr. Color RLM 02 gray lacquer paint. The original airliner was painted this colour because that was what the French factory that turned it out had a lot of. They did have enough red to paint the leading edges and the tail, so that made an attractive scheme. Masking on a corrugated wing edge is a nervous procedure but eventually you just don’t care what happens and go ahead and do it anyway. This is probably just what the original builders experienced.

Kudos to the Heller/Czech Sneeze people for making the landing gear so easy to attach – they beat Italeri by a mile. Their design of the engine cowlings, however, is something to discuss with your therapist. Or the designer round the back of the bike sheds with a 2 x 4…