It has been three weeks since the last post and I have surprisingly little to show for it. At least from a modelling perspective. I have certainly been busy - first ski outing of the year, my first winter biking experience, and I certainly can't forget that I retired on December 9th. Even when retired, life gets in the way.
Amazingly, Christmas is now just 2 weeks away. I am really looking forward to Daniel and Nicholas coming home for Christmas over the next couple weeks.
Dakota
Airfix includes nice cockpit and reasonable internal detail. Very little of it is visible, even with the various passenger and cargo doors open. Internal work was limited to careful painting, the addition of tape seatbelts to to cockpit, and a dark wash on the bulkheads and fuselage framing.
The fuselage joint was pretty good, with only a little filler required to manage seams. A test fit of the wings suggested an equally good fit. Reality was a little different. Airfix used an unusual approach, with each wing consisting of three parts - a wing root, top section, and bottom section. The suggest adding the wing roots first, then the top wing sections, and finally the bottom wing section. The wing roots fit to the fuselage well, but it is apparent that there is going to be either a step or gap between the root and the wing. I chose the gap, and installed the top section in stages, gluing slowly to try and get the best fit possible. I would glue a couple centimetres, let it sit for a day, and then glue a couple more centimetres. This was a slow process that took 3 days per wing, but I got a reasonable fit between the wing and the root. Fit of the top and bottom wing sections was not as good. It could have been the result of the stresses added by closing the wing root gap, but the top ended up slightly ahead of the bottom, causing steps that needed to be filled and sanded.
Photos 1 - 4. Internal detail painted and washed. Never to be seen again.
Photo 5 - test fitting the wings.
Photo 6 - center wing section added to the fuselage.
Photo 7 & 8 - the centre wing section was slightly narrower than the fuselage, requiring filling. Photo 7 shows the gap, while photo 8 shows the gap filled, sanded and described.
Photos 9 & 10 - top and bottom wing sections added. Let the sanding begin!
RCAF Jeep
The jeep was initially sprayed with Olive Drab, but it was too dark for my liking. I mixed a "greener" colour and was happier with the result. The jeep was then gloss coated, ready for decals. The roundel on the hood is too "perfect". It looks more like a current RCAF roundel than a crude, hand painted maple leaf. I debated trying to hand paint it before deciding that I likely couldn't do better. I also repainted the seats a light khaki colour. It is not clear if this is correct but it looks a lot better. A flat clear coat has been applied in preparation for some light weathering.
Photo 1 - the olive drab version
Photo 2 - the custom green version
Photo 3 - glossed and decals applied
Photo 4 - flat coat applied and ready for weathering
CL-52
The kit cockpit is very basic. I was thinking it would be necessary to add some extra detail until sandwiching the cockpit between the fuselage halves to test fit. The cockpit opening is soooo small that you can barely see the seat, let alone anything else inside. No point in building something that can't be seen, and the fuselage was glued up. Fit was good, with only a little sanding and describing required.
The kit is an E model, while Canadair used a B model. The big difference seems to be some details around the nose, and the much bigger tail radome for the radar controlled tail guns. Out came the motor tool to grind away the extra plastic. A rough plastic section was added to support the addition of filler.
Photo 1 - the rather basic cockpit painted
Photo 2 & 3 - fuselage glued up. Pretty much nothing of the cockpit is visible
Photo 4 - the actual CL-52 tail area
Photo 5 - the kit tail area
Photo 6 - surgery in progress. The radome has been removed, a plastic shim inserted, and filler galore added to fill the hole.
That's it for this time out. Thanks for looking.
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