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Here's my latest. It's been a long time in the building, though holidays have accounted for some of that time. It's the standard Airfix 1/72 Mk.II, though I've added seatbelts, and a gun sight (all but invisible), and replaced the very thick folded-down cockpit side piece with one made from plastic sheet and strip - the original looks like a piece of Tiger tank armour. The aerial mast arrangement is slightly different too.
The markings are as per an SBS sheet I picked up at Cosford in April. I opted for the simple scheme of white/black/silver/yellow/light earth/light green/dark earth/dark green(!) That was a lot of masking and we can expect to see a significant upturn in sales of white tack and Tamiya tape this year. The decals themselves stick very well, but are not really dense enough in colour. My references show this plane with wheels, but I'm afraid I couldn't resist the skis, and reckoned it was probably fitted with skis at some time. If I'm wrong, please don't disillusion me.
I started off rigging the plane with Uschi elastic thread and superglue, but had to stop before I'd finished one wire, as the air had mysteriously turned blue and I couldn't see any more. If anyone has a tried and trusted method of using this, I'd love to know it. The main problem was when gluing the second end having fixed the first - keeping my hand still enough to hold it until the glue dried, thus stopping it 'pinging' off and sticking itself somewhere else. Some accelerator might have helped, but with only two hands, I didn't fancy my chances. In the end, just to get the thing finished, I opted for stretched sprue and PVA glue - somewhat overscale and not the best colour, but better than nothing. If there's another biplane project, I'll think more carefully about rigging during the build - this might be better than leaving it all to the end.
The markings are as per an SBS sheet I picked up at Cosford in April. I opted for the simple scheme of white/black/silver/yellow/light earth/light green/dark earth/dark green(!) That was a lot of masking and we can expect to see a significant upturn in sales of white tack and Tamiya tape this year. The decals themselves stick very well, but are not really dense enough in colour. My references show this plane with wheels, but I'm afraid I couldn't resist the skis, and reckoned it was probably fitted with skis at some time. If I'm wrong, please don't disillusion me.
I started off rigging the plane with Uschi elastic thread and superglue, but had to stop before I'd finished one wire, as the air had mysteriously turned blue and I couldn't see any more. If anyone has a tried and trusted method of using this, I'd love to know it. The main problem was when gluing the second end having fixed the first - keeping my hand still enough to hold it until the glue dried, thus stopping it 'pinging' off and sticking itself somewhere else. Some accelerator might have helped, but with only two hands, I didn't fancy my chances. In the end, just to get the thing finished, I opted for stretched sprue and PVA glue - somewhat overscale and not the best colour, but better than nothing. If there's another biplane project, I'll think more carefully about rigging during the build - this might be better than leaving it all to the end.
