Canadair Argus

A work in progress. This is the 1/144 Welsh Models Canadair CP-107 Argus Mk.I kit. Fit and finish overall was good, but there was a lot of sanding to blend the engines to the nacelles.

The delivery paint scheme was all natural metal. This was soon after replaced with a white upper fuselage and the familiar red and white lightning stripe down the fuselage. The bare metal lower fuselage was later painted in 1-GP-12c, a bluish green gray colour, for corrosion protection. The fleet stayed in some version of this scheme for most of their service life.

The kit decals are for a natural metal finish version, aircraft 723. The kit shows an aircraft with red wing and horizontal stabilizer panels. This is a very attractive scheme, but appears to have only been applied to 723, as I couldn’t find any photos of any other Argus aircraft in this scheme. As far as I can tell from references, 723 was actually a Mk.II. After some debate, I decided on a new leaf era finish, with the white upper and gray lower fuselage, representing an aircraft between June 1964 to the end of 1967.

The kit’s lightening bolt decals were printed on a white decal film, with a silver/grey border underneath. This might have worked for a natural metal fuselage, but certainly wouldn’t work for a gray lower fuselage. So I very carefully trimmed the strips to remove the lower silver border. A clear coat was then oversprayed to protect the water based ink. It took forever to get the decals to release from the carrier paper, but eventually they were applied. To my disappointment, the black borders cracked and flaked. This will take some effort to fix!