Category: subassembly
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Martin B10 Bomber – Part Four – If I Want A Pretzel…
…I’ll go to the bakery. The production of a complex fuselage is…well…complex. And sometimes the strange shape must cause the final product to come out of the mould a little distorted. I suspect this was the case with the Martin B 10. There was enough of a warp to render it impossible to set all…
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Martin B10 Bomber – Part Three – A Split Personality
And split on the horizontal plane, not the vertical. This form of model design is not as common as the vertical, but in this case I think it is perfectly logical. The Martin B10 has a sinuous body – and the proportions remind you of the Handley Page Hampden or the Dornier Do 17-K. The…
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Curtiss Helldiver – Part Four – Euclid Was Never A Scale Modeller
Because he could never get the geometry right… I look fondly on equilateral triangles and acute angles – many of my friends can best be described as angular and obtuse – and I like to see the geometry of the model airplane come out well. I wish this was the case with every short-run kit.…
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Petlyakov Pe-2 – Part Two – The Greyhound
This Petlyakov light bomber reminds me of a greyhound. I’ve had to attach the landing gear early in the build – the plates that hold the legs drop in from the top of the nacelle before the wing halves close. Not my procedure of choice, but it is the only way to get really sturdy…
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Lockheed Rt 33 – Part Three – Lockup Stage
The point of time when we have an airplane. One that encloses a well fitted wheel well complex, a nose weight, and a cockpit tub. Wings on, tail on, tip tanks on. It went surprisingly fast as the day wore on. The Sword kits are basically quite good – they are square and plumb. This…
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Kawanishi George – Part Two – No Colour Known To Man
I am always intrigued by the colours of the styrene plastic that kit makers choose to mould their little fighter airplanes. I’ve seen silver in early Revell kits, red, blue, oliveish-green from Aurora, and a vile yellow from Monogram. Matchbox outdid them all choosing greens, browns, and greys for their kits. And even went so…
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Landing Gear
I’ve just re-glued some landing gear on a Grumman Guardian. It was cemented yesterday but I guess i put weight on it before it was entirely set – the joints gave way. it’s a Ukrainian kit and the fitting surfaces are Soviet-era. To be fair, Grumman asked the gear legs to do a lot with…
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Douglas Boston MkIII – Part Two – The Multi-kit
I remember the AMT model car kits of the 1960’s with fondness – particularly the 3-in-1 kits that allowed you to build a stock vehicle, a hot rod, or a custom car. I never met anyone who ever built a stock model… The kits seemed to give a lot more value than the dedicated one-car…
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Republic Thunderflash – Part Three – The Czechpit
A czechpit is similar to a cockpit except it doesn’t fit. This is not surprising – after all you would hardly expect a cockpit tub from a Republic RF-84 to fit – say – a Boeing 747. Or a Stinson Reliant. Or a Spitfire Mk XIV. You would, however, think it would fit a Republic…
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Republic Thunderflash – Part Two – I Know That Shape…
It’s a codfish. The Republic F-84 fuselage is a codfish – particularly when it is the Recon version with side intakes instead of an open nose. Not that this is a bad thing – fish swim through water well and the Thunderflash swam through the air just fine. If something looks like is should fly,…
The Little World 