The SAAF Forum

Now with the airshow season over, there it is at last time again to do some serious modelling. Most probably thought this build will not continue anymore.
I have at last completed the instrument panel.



I decided to scratch build the whole thing as the instrument bezels of the kit part don't look convincing.
For the bezels I turned small rings of 2 and 3 millimeters diameter on the lathe and added the corners by splitting a 0,5 mm rod. The decals for the instrument faces I had created many years ago but never used. In order to be able to place them accurately I punched some disks and applied the decals to them.
The disks were then inserted trough the holes of the panel and glued to the backing plate.
As per original the The main flight instruments are a separate part.
The most surprising thing about the original panel was that it had a jet like in modern airliners for the pilot to get some cool air. Who would expect that in a German warplane? In my part this is the pipe next to the gun sight.



I also modified the rudder pedals a bit and and had them set so I can pose the rudder at an angle



Now I can at last glue together the fuselage and continue, as the seats can be inserted afterwards.

Good to see this build up and running again.

Hard to believe its more than a month since the last post.

I have been working on the cowlings. They are not a good fit. The lower cowling was badly moulded inmy example.

I had to repair it and at the same time replace the unconvincing and inaccurate radiator outlet flapw with something more realistic.

I want to display the model with the engine exposed. It will be fitted when the whole model is complete. As there would be a chance of overspray entering the engine bay, I built a jig from cardboard to hold the different cowling panels in place for painting.

You can also see the new radiator flaps temporarily in place and the re-riveting of all parts
Once everything is painted, I just need to remove the panels, mask the outside and can then spray the internal colours.

A little more progress to report.

I replaced the bomb crutch as the Airfix item is rather crude and too wide in order to fit into the firewall holes.


The real item has a claw at the end where it is attached to the bomb.
Of course this change let to some others. I had to modify the lower fairing to accomodate the new part.

Having a new bomb crutch of course made the next modification necessary, the bomb.

On the real thing there are two pins attached to a steelband which is the thicker part of the bomb in the model. These pins then are eld by the claws of the bomb crutch



I also replaced the unconvincing ring on the bomb with something more accurate that attaches to the ETC500 on the fuselage.
This of course led to a modified fuselage....

Now for the last bigger item in the cockpit which is the pilots seat.
This armoured Schmittner seat as it is called looks quite different to the kit item.



The most difficult was to get the 3-dimensional seatpan to look convincing.



The sear can be elevated with the leven on the right side. All that is needed now are the seat straps.

Some short update.
Now all the major parts are together and the model is ready for painting.

All other parts will be fitted after painting is complete. As the Stuka had all moveable tailplanes this is not a problem. Alos the likelyhood of nocking something off is less. I already broke off both engine bearers.
The beast is so big, I can only spray it outdoors. As I presently stay in the northern hemisphere this means you have to wait a while until temperatures are suitable. At present they would freeze the paints (and me) before spraying is complete.
So in the meantime I will do all the other parts,

The next thing are the exhausts.

As you can see the exhausts don't match with the outlets of the engine if you fir it as per Airfix. The strange thing is that this is only true for one side. I haven't seen this mentioned anywhere.
Anyway, this was a good reason to separate and hollow the exhausts.
At the same time I made a new and more accurate exhaust tub

At the end of the build everything should fit together as per the original.

Looking good. Can't wait for the painting and masking!

After I broke off the tailwheel attachment, I took the chance to strenghten the whole thing a bit by inserting a steelrod. At the same time I also added some flats to the main tires and took away their glossy appearance.



For the tailwheel I added a new steel axle so I can insert it after the whole model is painted.

The front part of the Airfix canopy didn't look right when compared with pictures. the front cross member seemed to be a bit too low.
I therefore polished out all the framing and created new frames from Evergreen strip.



At the same time I added the missing handholds at the top and cut out the small side window. A new window was then made including the actuating handle and hinges.

Beautiful work.

_________________
How come every time my ship comes in, I'm at the airport?

Here a view of the painted cowlings. I painted them on a special jig I made.
For the snake design I created my own masks.



There is no weathering yet as I still need to spray the inside of the parts and for that I have to mask them. Masking does not go well overe weathering, especially as I use only pastels for that work.

Nice

Do you seal your pastels ? I think washes are overrated and pastels are the way to go - much more subtle...