1/144 Hamp update

After a couple weeks of hardly any workbench time, I found some opportunities over the weekend to get back to this build.  Got the cockpit base-coated with an oil wash, and started trying to figure out what to do with the engine.


Scratchbuilding radial engine cylinders in 1/144 turns out to be no Hawaiian vacation, and after several attempts I still haven’t gotten it quite right.  There’s a brief mention of how to approach this on page 63 of Brian Criner’s excellent “Modelling the Mitsubishi A6M Zero”, though he does it in 1/72.  He describes using a punch and die to create “over 500” (hey, no problem!) tiny discs, which he then stacks with smaller diameter spacers to create the impression of cooling fins.  Should work just the same at half the size, right?  Well, not quite.

First of all, for an even remotely to-scale appearance I decided it had to be .005 styrene sheet.  This is paper-thin, and the biggest problem is just physically dealing with the discs once they’re punched.  Sized at .038, they’re semi-microscopic and display a stubborn static-cling tendency with tweezers, cocktail stick, fingertips, etc.  Even more than most incredibly tiny parts they love to fly off into space at the slightest provocation.  Keeping them aligned while gluing becomes a very fine balancing act involving intuition, trial and error, and luck. 

Between having a couple dozen of these lying around plus dozens of other minuscule bits, one sneeze at the workbench these days would do as much damage as a Kansas tornado.

At least I don’t need 500 discs, as I quickly found out that even such small bits rapidly fill the available space.  .038 is the smallest punch size I have so smaller spacers were out of the question, but there’s no room anyhow.  First thing was to mark out the seven axes of the front row, spaced about 51.5 degrees apart, on some styrene sheet.  Then using a compass for a circle cutter I marked out a 3/8” circle to use for a backing plate.  Once I got a piece that fit OK inside the cowling I drilled the center hole for the propeller shaft and started gluing.  My first effort went awry when I discovered fit problems after about the 3^rd cylinder, and they didn’t look right anyhow. 

I was slicing a sliver off the discs to make a straighter gluing surface, but this combined with less-than-perfect alignment to give a distinctly uneven appearance.  After some thought I decided it would be better to make the cylinders as standalone pieces that could be sanded flat on the back and maybe narrowed at the bottom for fit.  Starting with the bottom disc stuck in some Blu-TacTM on a flat toothpick clamped in the jaws of Mr. Helping Hands, I tried stacking using superglue applied with a short, slender piece of wire in an Xacto knife handle. 

This was fine til the superglue started to tack up, making first placement the final placement.  After ruining a couple this way, I tried using white glue and found the opposite problem, not enough adhesion even when dried.  Guess I’ll try liquid cement next, if it doesn’t melt these tiny styrene flakes.  Luckily by now I’ve got kind of a production method down so it’s becoming less time consuming, and no doubt at some point I’ll actually figure this out and end up with fourteen (or at least the front seven) passable cylinders glued to the backing plate.  Then I need to get back to crash molding a decent canopy…              

Arii 1/144 A6M3 Model 32 “Hamp”

Alert readers may have noticed a tiny white airplane in pieces behind the Corsair in one of the photos from last time.  That would be the Arii “Hamp” kit (misidentified as a “Zeke” in previous post - duh), which I recently picked off the top of the pile and proceeded to get fearlessly stuck into, despite the number of already unfinished planes lying around.

It’s some challenge too, I mean they give you decent-looking (raised) panel lines (considered rescribing, decided to live with it as is) and a generally OK shape to the thing, but…there’s no cockpit AT ALL (faired over just like the Corsair – what, no half-pilot figure?)

No attempt at engine detail, the canopy is just all wrong…so clearly this is no weekend build, though that’s exactly what I tried to tell myself it was whilst spending a couple hours cleaning up the rather extensive flash on virtually every part.  I’m guessing Nixon was president when this tooling was new…however, I enjoy this type of modelling, taking an old outdated kit and doing the utmost to overcome its flaws and build something better.

First thing was to open up the nonexistent cockpit and build in a floor.  I decided to try something I haven’t seen anybody do in 1/144 (though I’m sure it’s done all the time) and put in some sidewall framing as a background to the cockpit detail. 

Then I put in the turnover truss behind the seat, built the seat (second attempt – first one looked a bit too much like the ol’ porcelain throne), and started detailing the port sidewall with the electrical box, upper throttle quadrant, and elevator trim wheel.  At this scale I’m happy with any kind of halfway decent representation of components like this, and also happy if they don’t launch off the tweezers into a void before I can glue them down.  I’ve learned to use superglue instead of styrene cement, so these semi-microscopic parts don’t melt or distort when glued in place.

Next was the dashboard, some rudder pedals, and on to the starboard sidewall.  Looks a bit rough here, but should paint up nicely.  I used some mighty slender stretched sprue for wiring detail, which of course will be invisible once the fuselage halves are glued together.  Hey, I know it’s there…

Things got more complicated as I realized how lacking the cowling piece was, soon remedied by sanding down the cowl flap section and thinning its edges to a more believable “scale” thickness, then scribing in the cowl flaps.  Had to freehand this as Dymo tape wouldn’t stick in such tiny lengths, and it shows, but I’ll have to live with it and try to figure out a better method.  Also scribed in the fuselage-mounted machine gun channels, which didn’t turn out so hot either, but better than nothing.  I used the cowl from the Sweet kit to mark the exhaust pipe locations, having got rid of the stock “exhausts” which are way out of scale and better described as “exhaust horns”.  Then after drilling out a pair of #80 holes, I glued in a couple short bits of styrene rod that looked about the right diameter and after trimming to length drilled them out, with fairly credible-looking results.  Things are looking up!

Might add a few more cockpit details before painting the interior.  Meanwhile there's some fairly tedious work with the punch and die making discs for the engine cylinders, and a major learning curve crash molding a canopy since the kit canopy is just dire.  Too late to stop now!

  

Testors F4U1 Corsair 1/72 WIP

This is it, the earth-shattering launch of my new blog about whatever's happening on my rather cluttered, yet "precisely organized" workbench.  Got back into building model aircraft 10 months ago and despite continuing efforts & preoccupation have yet to completely finish one plane (sad, I know).  On the other hand considering my ever-wandering interests as well as some of the demands on my time it's amazing I've gotten as far as I have. 

Kits in progress:

- 1/48 Tamiya J2M3 Raiden (first kit started, now finally on the painting table, albeit minus a cockpit and some exterior detail that got removed w/ lacquer thinner, plus other gaffes - truly a sacrificial learning-curve build)
- 1/72 Testors F4U1 Corsair (second kit started, furthest along paintwise, starting to look not half bad - another sacrificial learning-curve kit)
- 1/72 Hasegawa J2M3 Raiden (haven't thought about this one for a while, but do recall making some progress before moving on to something else, as usual)
- 1/72 Hasegawa J7W1 Shinden (got hung up on scratchbuilding cockpit detail, but should build up into a nice model at some point)
- 1/144 Sweet A6M2-N Rufe (2 kits, just at the point of masking canopies prior to paint prep - some OK cockpit detail added)
- 1/144 Sweet GM-FM3 Hellcat (built up just one of the two kits so far, stalled at the enhanced cockpit stage)
- 1/72 Hasegawa F86F Sabre (ancient JASDF boxing w/ raised panel lines, etc - scratchbuilding cockpit detail, planning wheel well detail and maybe a crash moulded canopy)
- 1/144 Arii A6M3 Model 32 Zeke (serious upgrade challenge build of ancient tooling - scratchbuilding entire cockpit, planning engine and wheel well detail and well as crash moulded canopy - my current preoccupation)

So things have gotten a bit involved.  Anyhow, might as well start with the Corsair since it's looking the most like an actual model airplane as opposed to a bunch of parts.

Started this cheap kit ($6 at Michael's) about 9 months ago – I think it's an old Hawk tooling or something like that, probably from the 1960’s, complete with faired-over cockpit and half-pilot figure.  Panel lines a mix of raised & recessed, possibly the kit’s best feature.  Some of the detail is nice, but a lot of it is just missing – engine exhausts, air intake grilles, etc – anyway, it was a learning build and learn I did, mainly a whole lot about compensating for poor fit with filling, sanding, filling, sanding…more filling...there was also a pretty rough first attempt at wiring up an engine and giving it a black oil wash, all of which was prelude to several months spent stuffed in a plastic box back in the shadows.  But then without warning this raggedy, half-forgotten old airframe reappeared for a quick dustoff, assembly, painting prep and overall try for the finish line.  Got the canopy masked and glued (forgot to include the pilot figure though – all painted up and no place to go)

Drilled out gunports, scratched up a few radio antennae on top and a pitot tube (got broken off, natch), and even learned how to repair a raised panel line (!), before finally an all-over polish with 10000 grit and some Testors grey primer sprayed from a can.  Used Tamiya XF-16 Flat Aluminum for a metal undercoat, which I don’t recommend as it left a very pebbly finish that continues to show through the upper colour coats.  I’d read about that too and still went ahead and tried it anyway.  Yep!…anyhow, the underside colour is Tamiya XF-19 Sky Grey with a drop of X-2 White, while the top is X-4 Blue darkened to more of a navy blue using X-1 Black.  During unmasking of the lower half the forward wheel covers somehow disappeared without trace, so I’ll be scratchbuilding a pair of those.

 

Spindly landing gear still masked off with Parafilm, but coming in handy to prop up the model during painting.  Next is masking random panels on the underside and respraying to cover up Tamiya tape marks, bits of navy blue overspray and two thumbprints (one on each wing).  Then chipping the paint a bit to show the aluminum underneath, before a coat of Future, decals, washes, and weathering.