CL-44
I was happy with the natural metal finish but not the colour. It seemed too dark and too yellow. I had used Alclad Airframe Aluminum, only after realizing that this was a high shine coating. I decided to repaint using Alclad Aluminum, and was much happier with the resulting colour. It was more “silver” and wasn’t so shiny. It looked more appropriate for a plane that had been in service for a few years. Next was to mask for the very distinct darker metal tone on the engines. I was worried that the masking would pull up or affect the paint but I had no problems. I used Alclad Steel to get the darker tone.
The kit decals went on well. I started with the anti glare panel, as I could paint this if the decal disintegrated or didn’t apply well. I had no issues so I moved on the the rest of the decals. I struggled a little getting the stripes lined up, and ended up tearing one of the stripes. I will need to do a little touch up later. The tail logos needed to be slit before they would settle into rudder/panel lines. I will need to do a little paint touch up later.
I had tried a number of ways to represent the doors. I wasn’t happy with my initial attempt to scribe them. A little copy and paste determined I could trace a set of door outlines from a Yukon kit. I have successfully used my inkjet printer to make decals but I doubted that it would be able to achieve crisp, thin door outlines. Our laser printer was able to create crisp lines, so I got some laser printer decal film and was able to successfully print the outlines. A little experimenting showed that the lines were rather fragile, so I coated the remaining decals with Microsoft Decal Saver and they went on without any problem. A few touch ups and then it will be time for a clear coat.
Not in the pictures are the wheels and landing gear. Round would be a generous description for the wheels. It looked like the two mold parts were misaligned, so there was a noticeable lip around most of the wheel. It required a lot of sanding to get something mostly round, The hubs were indistinct, and even though the axle holes went thru the hub, the hole was also stepped. Filling in the axle hole on one side took care of that problem. That left one last issue. The top of the wheel was noticeable thicker than the bottom. I tried sanding the wheel to even things out but was only partly successful. I painted the wheels and decided they looked good enough. I will reassess once the wheels are mounted onto the landing gear.
Photo 1 - Shows the new Aluminum paint. Masked up and the dark engine panel sprayed.
Photo 2 - Decals applied to the port side
Photo 3 - the laser printed decals compared to the kit door decals. The kit provides 2 door outline, vs the 5 doors, 4 emergency window outlines, and cargo loading door.
Photo 4 - Port side decals finished. Door outlines in place
Photo 5 - Starboard side decals finished. Door outlines in place.
Northstar
I started messing around with the Northstar while the paint or decals dried on the CL-44. The first step was to separate and clean up the pieces. The castings were pretty clean - a nice change after the CL-44. The instructions indicated nose weight is required to prevent a tail sitter but it didn’t indicate how much. I taped the major pieces together and tested the balance point. It became immediately obvious that a lot of weight was going to be needed. The instructions suggest drilling a hole into the fuselage along the horizontal axis to add weight. A hole was dutifully drilled into the fuselage and a 1 inch long, 1/2” bolt was inserted. It proved a good start but more weight was needed. I packed lead fishing weights into the space around the bolt head, thinking that had to be enough weight. It was better but still more weight was needed. It didn’t seem like I could drill any more holes into the fuselage, so instead the nose cone was hollowed out and filled with Iron pellets. Retesting shows that it was now close to balancing but more weight was still needed. I was running out of space to add weight. There wasn’t enough space left in the nose cone, so I tried draping the metal propellers and landing gear over the fuselage. This proved sufficient and the plane finally balanced!
Photos
Photo 1 - the parts taped together and weight added onto the top of the fuselage. It needed 8 pennies to balance.
Photo 2 - a bole in the fuselage - on the bottom - and iron pellets into the nose. The nose wheel well prevented drilling into the bottom any further - the area to the left in the picture
Photo 3 - Placing the metal props and gear parts over the fuselage. It worked!
Photo 4 - nose glued and the wings test fit. Some filler was required at spots along the fuselage and at several spots on the wings.
Photo 5 - the filler has been sanded, the fuselage has been sanded smooth, and the panel lines re-stablished.
Comentários