The Little World

When Only The Best Will Do.

This aircraft – DIXIE CLIPPER – flew Franklin D. Roosevelt to the Casablanca Conference in 1943. He maintained a Douglas for Continental flights – the SACRED COW.

This build fell together but as usual it also started to fall apart as it progressed. The Mr Color 2028 Duraluminium went on over a white base but did not seem to provide the depth of coverage that it had on a previous build – the Cuban P-47. I think it is time to review the basics of bare-metal finish and experiment with the oft-advised gloss black undercoat. There will be a test-bed…

After the 208 went on the red wing panel was easy, as was the black under the hull. I streaked some weed under there as it would have spent most of its life bobbing about on salt water . Note that there are several images of 314’s on beaching dollies – in some cases all the way up onto a hardstand. If I build the BOAC version of this I will try to get more detail of this stand.

The final disappointment was of my own making – I sprayed it with a can of Vallejo that is perfect for WW1 matte finish but too dull for this flying boat. I have finished it as well as could be but really would have preferred a shinier surface.

Ah, well, there are more kits in the shops and there is nothing to stop another Clipper from being attempted. I count 10 that were in Pan Am service and 3 in BOAC. One even named ANZAC Clipper, which would be easy to make up a decal for.

A couple of workflow changes I’d make: leave the windows bare until the end and glaze them with Micro Kristal Klear, and leave the sponsons off until the end of the build. They make hull painting harder.