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Ar 65, Erg. Gr (S), LLG 1 Winter 1942-1943


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Entering this GB with RS Models 72nd scale Arado 65 built mostly stock.

Nice kit. It's hard to believe it's short run from the quality of the molding. Pictures to follow.

John

Edited by johnsan
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Here are shots of the box and of the sprue.

box1.jpg

box2.jpg

sprue.jpg

The sprue is sharply molded with delicately scribed lines and subtle fabric on the wings and fuselage. Two vac windscreens are included.

My kit came from a mark down box in a hobby shop in Tokyo. It was complete but has the markings for the Bulgarian issue and lacks the external tanks used in this front.

If this kit interests you, HLJ has them on sale right now at 80% off, roughly 5 bucks.

More to come soon as this one interests me.

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I ordered one of those extremely cheap HLJ Ar 65s. They're just too cheap to pass up. Hopefully it will arrive in the next few weeks. Otherwise, it will be scratched.

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I've been following the builds and occasionally making comments. Finally my household goods arrived. I hate building without being able to use the airbrush.

This kit was in transit as well. Otherwise, I would have been forced to build another of those Fine Molds 109s. :thumbsup:

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RS includes a small photoetch sheet in this kit. But the sidewall pieces don't seem 3 dimensional enough. Evergreen rod to the rescue.

interior.jpg

I'm trusting that the sidewalls are accurate. Unfortunately, Monogram Publications German Fighter Interiors, V1 starts with the Ar 68. The only photo of the Ar 65's interior I was able to find was this:

ar65-3.jpg

from www.airwar.ru. This confirms the shape of the instrument panel, it's layout and the tube support below. All these are present on the etch sheet. So... who knows?

I'm not going to add much more to it. The cockpit opening is small and I don't think much else will show. And I am getting impatient to paint something.

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I've had visitors and wasn't been able to get to the bench last week.

I've spent about an hour cleaning and trueing up parts. The time was well spent as I've had to use very little filler. It still needs a little filler at the wing roots and at the nose.

underside.jpg

The tail struts required cleaning with a sanding stick and trimming to fit properly. Took about 5 minutes per side.

top.jpg

The fabric surfaces in particular are very nice. They are very delicate, but unfortunately the photos don't show this well.

side.jpg

The fuselage is very deep chested and I think I have located the cabin floor too low. The instructions would have you place it at the very bottom of the fuselage. The seat folds into a nice shaped seat. I added masking tape lapbelts here.

cockpit.jpg

I'm really very enthused about this kit. Its detailing is very restrained. The resin radiator provided is nicely sculpted and the pe instrument panel looks detailed but still delicate.

The next step will be building the jig for adding the upper wing.

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Thanks for the kind comments.

I've added the mlg, tail skid, and cabane struts. Still need to add the wing struts, but this will wait until after the decals and winter camouflage has been added. I'm afraid that this step may be a little too hard on the struts.

The 02 coat is a little thin. I'll be adding another light coat before going much farther. I thought the coverage was fine, but in daylight, the patchiness is just too great. I also need to clean the joint at the front of the radiator.

SideColor.jpg

MLGColor.jpg

The color balance is off in both of these photos.

More later.

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stickerside.jpg

Applied kit decals, printed by Aviprint. They were really good decals with good opacity, very thin, but tough. The registration was just a bit off. Didn't care for the split swastikas, but I guess that is a good compromise for the German anti-swastika laws.

stickerside1.jpg

Other side showing more of the thinned Tamiya black & orange mixture grime coat. Its a bit heavy, but should appear about right after the white distemper coat.

wing.jpg

Upper wing ready for the white.

whitewing.jpg

The white coat, heavily thinned with alcohol Tamiya white was freehanded and deliberately patchy.

whitewing1.jpg

The white coat was distressed to simulate the white distemper wearing away. Oh, hell, the Tamiya paint was worn off. The fuselage and lower wings will get the same treatment this evening.

The last 3 photos were taken within a space of about 5 minutes.

Edited by johnsan
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Very effective distemper. I would appreciate more details as I have an He177 that could use it.

The technique is pretty simple. Finish the model to the point that you want to apply the distemper. In this case, the model was gloss coated, decaled, and flat coated. Now this is the simple and I think ingenious step. (I can say this because it is not my technique, but I think it really works well & is so simple). Spray the areas that are to be covered with a water based hair spray. I used Aqua Net sprayed straight from the can. When dry, spray your white coat. I used heavily thinned Tamiya, also sprayed lightly. I like Tamiya for this as it is opaque and doesn't aggressively stick to the model. When dry to the touch, within a minute or two, scrub the paint with a paint brush wetted with water. The idea is to get the hair spray to partially dissolve taking the top coat with it. You can vary your result with the brush's wetness and stiffness. I like to use a horse hair brush. You can also vary the effect with the amount of hair spray used and distance from the model from which it is sprayed.

The technique is very simple. It takes much more time to describe than to do.

fusewhite1.jpg

fusewhite2.jpg

fusewhite3.jpg

The fuselage is done now. Still need to add struts, windscreen, exhaust pipes, and wheels. Oh and rigging. It's getting close.

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I enjoyed a little quality time this weekend at the modeling bench.

Cleaned up the mounting racks for the the fuel tanks (I assume that is what they are), added the resin tanks and the pe straps. The added fuel lines are from evergreen rod stock. Then I mounted the upperwing, & added the struts. The struts were the one shortcoming to this kit, but that is not all that unusual for a biplane. The struts are too long and the 'N' was too wide at the top and at the bottom. I separated each strut into 3 basically vertical components, trimmed them to fit, and glued them in separately. I'll have to watch this area more carefully when I make the next one. Rigging was done using 1lb nylon tippet secured with super glue and carefully tightened with a bit of heat. The prop needed cleanup & 2 sinkholes filled, but was basically accurate in shape. It's attached using a long shaft made from evergreen rod as it doesn't come with any shaft. The instructions suggest gluing it on.

arDone.jpg

arDone1.jpg

arDone2.jpg

arDone3.jpg

arDone4.jpg

arDone5.jpg

So, I'm calling this one done. I think I need to invest in better lighting for the photos and make a better display on which to mount it. The shipping paper looks a tad tacky. :yahoo:

Thanks for looking and for your encouragement while building. It was really a fun build.

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