Category: subassembly

• Yak 3 – Part Two – There’s An Hour Of My Life…

  

  Well-spent, as it happens. The Yak 3 basic structure is cemented together with the cockpit painted already. You can see why I like Hobby Boss products – particularly in a case where there is a time constraint. I don’t want to turn out a shoddy model, but I don’t have time for Boola-Boolavarde stops, as…

  Dick Stein

  March 2, 2022

  1:72 scale, Chinese models, Model Airplane, Scale Models, Soviet aircraft, subassembly

  easy build, Hobby Boss, Yak

• North American Yale – Part Three – Canadian Peculiarities

  

  It’s a nation that pours tree sap on its food. That eats strawberry jam pies. That considers chips in gravy and cheese to be healthy. Peculiarity is in the air. This also extended to the products of Canadian Car Foundry and the training airfields. Hence the odd hole in the side of the engine cover…

  Dick Stein

  February 24, 2022

  1:72 scale, Canadian aircraft, design, Model Airplane, Scale Models, subassembly, Uncategorized

  Canada, Canadian Car Foundry, cold weather, design

• North American Yale – Part Two – Cage Fighting

  

  Or fighting with a cage, if you prefer. The business of welding together a plastic cockpit frame inside a plastic fuselage. Faint hearts need not apply. I have served my cage apprenticeship on a Special Hobby Avro Anson with a resin tubing structure and as a result I have been excused several centuries of Purgatory.…

  Dick Stein

  February 23, 2022

  1:72 scale, Canadian aircraft, Colour Schemes, Czech models, Model Airplane, Painting, subassembly

  cockpit, North American, RCAF, trainer

• Hillson Praga Air Baby – Part Three – See What You Get When You Listen To Yourself

  

  Particularly when it is the voice of experience and has arrived at wisdom through previous bad decisions. The Australian civil registration code on this plane is on clear decal film – the sort that the Czechs do well. The sheet is finely-printed and seems to be in register, but I know from past jobs that…

  Dick Stein

  February 17, 2022

  1:72 scale, Australian aircraft, Civil aircraft, Czech models, Decals, Model Airplane, Painting, subassembly

  Decals, jigs, Organisation

• North American F-100 – Part Three – Dry Fit For The Win

  

  I have taken to adding a new stage to my regular builds – I try to get a mock-up of the basic flying aircraft fitted dry before I reach for the cement bottle. This means taping parts together or even using the Micro Scale temporary adhesive. The benefit of doing it is I catch incipient…

  Dick Stein

  February 2, 2022

  1:72 scale, American aircraft, design, Model Airplane, Scale Models, subassembly

  dry fit, Italeri, North American

• North American F-100 – Part Two – Even The Little Bits Are Nice

  

  The long slog of a kit build always seems to start with a cockpit. And some are slower starters than others. I particularly dread the PE and resin confections that the Czech small run makers mould up. They sometimes look good when completed but nearly always are an indefinite Tinker Toy as you try to…

  Dick Stein

  January 31, 2022

  1:72 scale, American aircraft, Miniature Philosophy, Model Airplane, Scale Models, subassembly

  cockpit, Decals, Italeri

• Jet Jig Jive

  

  I’ve just used the second of my new Slovakian assembly jigs for a jet. It is the Tornado GR.1 from Italeri – a perfect testing piece for the tool. There are square fuselage panels to rest upon. The geometry is markedly different from the WW2 small jig – though the construction materials are just the…

  Dick Stein

  January 30, 2022

  1:72 scale, British aircraft, design, Model Airplane, Scale Models, subassembly, Tools, Uncategorized, Workshop

  jigs, Tornado, Workshop

• Morane-Saulnier MS 500 – Part Two – Le Criquet

  

  If you started reading this build as a Fieseler Storch you can be forgiven for wondering what happened. The end of the war happened and the French and Czech aviation industries needed to get started – and there were plans and parts for ex-German aircraft galore. The French army and the Aeronavale needed small liaison…

  Dick Stein

  January 24, 2022

  1:72 scale, design, French aircraft, Model Airplane, Painting, subassembly

  Criquet, Indo-China, Morane-Saulnier, Painting

• Mind The Gap

  

  I started my search for the perfect gap filler to make my plastic models seemingly seamless a long time ago. Well six years or so, anyway. When there was still Stanbridges – Elvis and dinosaurs having passed away. The first tube I bought was from Tamiya, and unlike most of their products, was far from…

  Dick Stein

  January 23, 2022

  1:72 scale, adhesives, Model Airplane, Modelling materials, research, Scale Models, subassembly, Uncategorized, Workshop

  fillers, seams, workflow, Workshop

• Handley Page Jetstream – Part Two – Saturday Build

  

  I have three divisions of kits; Tuesday Mens Shed builds, home Little Workshop builds, and Saturday Historic Modelling Friends builds. I keep them as separate as painting requirements permit so that my pleasure in building them comes undiluted. The HP Jetstream is the Saturday Historic Modelling Friends kit. I enjoy an invitation once a fortnight…

  Dick Stein

  January 17, 2022

  1:72 scale, British aircraft, Civil aircraft, design, Model Airplane, Scale Models, subassembly

  air ambulance, Airfix, Club build