FIAT cr42 n nightfighter in 1/40 scale

[Jim R]

Hi Tony
Late to the party - sorry. Just had a catch up. Strange scale, geriatric kit, poor detail, flash everywhere - most would take one look and then put the lid back on the box.
You however are turning it into a worthwhile model. Superb scratching skills, patience and lateral thinking are paying dividends. Really interesting to follow although what you have planned for that pilot?? :rolling:
Jim

[Neil Merryweather]

Love those guns, Tony :hungry: :tongue-out3:

[spanner570]

After much sideways thinking i came up with the idea of using wine foil ,

At least it wasn't the cork from a 'Harris Gin' bottle!

All looking good, mucker!

[yak face]

Been having a bash at the cowling tonight . The cowling has had another plastic card strip attached and the cooling flaps scribed on . After much studying of photographs i finally got the locations of the bumps mapped out and applied them all . The bumps are nail art jewels sanded to about half their original thickness by rubbing them with my fingertip on an emery board, a laborious job and also removing most of my fingerprint ! My i phone fingerprint recognition wont work now!!! The bumps are going to be knocked back a bit more after the glue has gone off then its ready for a coat of primer to see how it looks.

[Neil Merryweather]

Ingenious!

[yak face]

The cowling has had a coat of primer and looks tons better for it . I’ll probably give the bumps a light sanding to knock them back a bit further then I reckon it should be fine. I’ve been adding more details to the cockpit in the form of knobs and levers , using stretched sprue and my trusty nail art caviar balls! I’ve also been attaching the control cables to the rudder bar and making and fitting the charging handles for the guns using fuse wire and brass tube. The control column has been painted and I used a TINY bit of fibre optic filament (which I had held near a flame to mushroom the end over )for the gun trigger which sticks out of the top of the column. All that’s left to do in the pit now is to make the compass and gunsight , make the seat belts and fit the seat . There’s also the leather padding round the cockpit and windscreen edges and the area behind the pilots head to make . Cheers tony

[scottie3158]

Tony,
the additions you are adding are superb the cowling looks the nuts as does the office.

[flyjoe180]

Wow, stunning scratch work Tony, loving the progress. Fantastic use of the wine foil.

[Neil Merryweather]

Blimey!

[Mickc1440]

More great work, love the use of the nail art stuff on the cowling, its amazing what other totally unrelated products we find useful in our hobby.

[yak face]

More great work, love the use of the nail art stuff on the cowling, its amazing what other totally unrelated products we find useful in our hobby.

Cheers mick , theres a thread devoted to all the weird stuff thats useful for our hobby https://www.scale-models.co.uk/threa...als-list.6491/

[yak face]

The cowling has had the bumps sanded down a bit and I made a template and marked the access panel fasteners using a small drill ,all 24 of them! It’s now had another coat of Halfords primer and looks tons better than the original . Next job up is the seat harness , not an easy task as the early Italian style set up is very strange , with chains holding the lap belts to the seat . How I’m going to scratch this I’m not sure yet but I’ll figure something out. The belts themselves are going to be made using Bias binding tape , something that is used in sewing that is a woven tape about 1” in width that has the advantage of not fraying when cut into small strips.( 99p and free postage on EBay , it even comes in about 40 different colours ) The open weave will look better once painted and the buckles and loops will be made from fuse wire. Here’s some pics including a before and after of the cowling, cheers tony

[papa 695]

Wow Tony, some stunning work going into this

[colin m]

Well the miracles of Tony's makeup box. Just remind us all what you do for a living again ?
But anyway, the build, simply marvellous. Proper modelling.

[yak face]

Started on the belts tonight . Ive been looking at the excellent walkaround on the stockholm ipms site which has a cr42 with an original unrestored cockpit , conplete with period harness . This has been invaluable during the scratch building of the cockpit and now the belts.Ive cut the shoulder belts from the bias tape and attached some triangular fuse wire fittings. The buckle at the bottom is wine foil with a hole drilled through itand cut to shape. The problem of the lap belts chain took some pondering . I wrapped some 5 amp fuse wire round a brass tube then removed the tube and opened out the spiral a touch , then flattened it with the steel rule. It gives a passing resemblance to a small chain so itll do . Ive also cut out the oil cooler intakes at the wing roots and fitted a flap and backed the hole with a piece of cough lozenge packet , painted and dry brushed to give the impression of a radiator. . Next its more work on the harness