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Curtiss Hawk III, '2503', 25 Pursuit Squadron, Nationalist Chi


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Hello Old Man

Very nice prrogress.

Patrick

Thank you, Sir!

I am reasonably happy with it. There is not much left to do on the tail-plane: trim-tab actuators, and an odd sort of 'quadrant' arrangement that actuates the elevators, and of course a bit of rigging. I expect to get through the motor and cowling this weekend, and perhaps even press on to the canopy pieces and ventral detailing.

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Hello Old Man,

Watching you work is like seeing; well I don't want to call it Yankee ingenuity, because I don't know where you're writing from, but it is certainly seeing ingenuity (of whatever flavor) in action!

This has been a most informative thread. If I ever drum up the courage to build a biplane, I'll have to go through all of your work and save it as a general guide.

Great work!

Thank you, Sir! I appreciate your kind words very much.

And 'Yankee' will do just fine: I am an un-reconstructed Federal when the topic of Yanks and rebs arises....

Biplanes are not so hard as people think, though certainly practice helps, and I make a better job of them now than I did some years ago. Probably the best point of entry for them are the old Matchbox and Monogram kits of inter-war subjects (things like the Fury and Gladiator and P-12E, and the F4B-4, P-6E, and Goshawk), which can still be got readily enough from dealers and on E-bay. These are all engineered in ways that set up the center struts for you, and practically ensure a proper alignment of the wings. For World War One subjects, I would recommend starting with Eduard's Nieuport 17 offering: it fits well, and there is less rigging and it is easy to get at (I like Roden kits very much, but their strut attachments usually need a bit of help). The Fokker D7, of course, has no rigging at all, and there are many kits of it available.

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A pictureless up-date, gentlemen: wife has been very busy, which is a good thing, but means no pictures, as she does the camera work.

I have made a new cowling, detailed the engine, and attached cowling and engine to the nose; detailing of the tail-plane, including rigging, is complete; the 'venturi' loop at the front of the ventral channel is in place, as are two cross-braces there that support the landing gear; the little wheel well doors are prepared (ie.: scraped and shaved down to little wisps of plastic from the bulky kit parts) and ready for installation in future.

This coming weekend I expect to be the big push that gets the upper wing on and rigged, so I am still pretty confident of being on schedule to complete this with time in hand before the deadline.

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I'm familiar with your biplane work from previous builds, and know you're a master of the finer details.

However, what really strikes me just now (with this thread) is the paint application itself!!!

It looks like an expert blend of oil paints on a 1/32 or larger kit, let alone a 1/72nd kit!

The blending and mixing of colors.... How do you do it?

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I'm familiar with your biplane work from previous builds, and know you're a master of the finer details.

However, what really strikes me just now (with this thread) is the paint application itself!!!

It looks like an expert blend of oil paints on a 1/32 or larger kit, let alone a 1/72nd kit!

The blending and mixing of colors.... How do you do it?

Thank you, Sir! I am glad you like the painting, as I consider it my weakest point by far. The results, such as they are, come from at least trying to make the limitations of my tools and materials work for me rather than against me.

I brush paint with Pollyscale acrylics, though I will occassionally use small amounts of wife's old craft acrylics for tinting. I try and use thin paint in thin coats, to avoid brush marks, and do not use colors straight out of the bottle, but mix a small batch for each coat. Since the thin coats never cover on the first pass, even over white, and since the small batches never exactly match, there always remains some random variation, though no stark lines, at least, in the overall color of an area. A matte top-coat or two fuzzes things up considerably as well, and gives a sort of final blending and smoothing.

I use a thin wash with a bit of soap for panel lines, of black mixed with the basic color, but occassionally veering into pure black or a black brown. I have never had much luck with capillary action. I try and apply the wash directly to the line with a very, very small brush. This generally does not really work, and I rub it off with my fingers or a scrap of paper towel, and repeat. Eventually some stays in the line, and as time goes on, the wash gets thicker and the accumulation increases. If the smear is too prominent in the vicinity of the line, I will touch-up with the base color, thinned a bit extra, painting along the line with the tiny brush. Sometimes I will scrape, very gently, with the edge of an Exacto blade, usually a No. 10, to remove an errant layer of paint, or a bit that has lapped obviously over a demarcation line.

I may start taking up masking, however, in future. I have never had much success with removing tape from acrylics, but for some time now I have been getting good mileage out of the accidental discovery that my CA accellerator dissolves the adhesive on cello-tape in short order when lavishly applied. I have used this mostly for assembling small parts, drawing their pattern on a bit of scrap sheet, covering the pattern with double-faced tape, assembling them on this, and then destroying the adhesive with accellerator so the little pieces lift off without strain. It has finally penetrated my old brain that this would probably work to remove tape used as a mask, and subject the underlying layer of paint to no strain at all. It would not work on enamels, as the accellerator tends to dissolve them, but it does not seem to faze acrylics in the slightest, at least the Pollyscales that I use.

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Not so much progress as I had hoped, Gentlemen, but still on track to complete by the end of the month. There were a couple more speed bumps, but I am ready to attach the upper wing: it will be the first thing done at the start of the next session. Once that is on and rigged, this should be pretty much a mopping-up operation.

First, some catching up....

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Here are the components of the cowling, from a couple of weeks ago. I finally figured out the difficulty I had with the appearance of the kit cowling: it is not that it is too short, but that it has the wrong contour, with its greatest diameter around the middle rather than near the front. It could probably be cleaned up to correct contour, but I did a bad job of cleaning its mating faces, and so made my own. The body of the cowling is a laminate. I put a hole of the right interior diameter in a square of 2mm sheet, glued this onto another such sheet, continued the hole, and then did it a third time. A certain interior taper is the natural tendency of the process, and I took no steps to correct it, as it worked for me. I then cut and filed the outside down to meet the hole. The front piece is 1mm sheet, prepared in a similar fashion, with interior curvature put in by scraping with a No. 10 blade.

The engine is from an old ICM I-15bis kit, with a bit of work done on the crankcase front. The resin casting in the MPM kit is a beautiful thing, but its crankcase front does not match the pictures of the motor in the Export Hawk, and the push-rods do not allow placing of part of the ignition harness.

Here are some pictures of the model at the start of the most recent session....

IMG_4214.jpg

This shows the venturi ring, and two braces across the ventral tunnel that re-inforced the landing gear. The kit pieces for the venturi ring are useable, though they need thinning, and a little correction in their mating to the fuselage. They match the curve there quite well, but as they are the ring would pitch out forward, and so the rear needs to be trimmed down a little. The braces are .8mm rod.

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The exhaust stubs are 'load-bearing': those at the top and bottom of the cowling are what attaches that assembly to the fuselage. The small white bits at the wing root are a fitting from which the flight wires will rise to the upper wing.

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Here are pictures from mid-way through the most recent session.

IMG_4239.jpg

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The major speed bump I encountered was the transparencies. I had had high hopes for the kit pieces, but they proved unsuitable. The half-canopy piece is too high by far, and trimming it down would ruin the contour of the forward edge. The windscreen piece has a sort of groove across its center pane, and this seems to be a flaw in the manufacture, as it is present in this piece on another kit of this I have. I had to make my own transparencies accordingly. It was not fun, and took several passes to get right.

The material used is .005" clear sheet. The half-canopy is a strip a hair less than 14mm long, and 4mm wide. The scalloping was cut out to measure while still a flat strip. The strip was then rolled over a tooth-pick till it held its curve. It was glued down at the ends with tiny bits of CA, and then its rear edge was similarly tacked to the turtleback. The windscreen is made of three pieces, assembled on the model. The center pane is a bit over 3mm wide and a bit less then 4mm high, and its dimensions come from matching to the cockpit front itself. When it was attached, the two triangular side-pieces were cut to match it, about 4mm high and a bit over 5mm long. I placed these down on double-face tape over a straight line so the the line ran from the upper corner of the mating edge to a bit above the other corned, and cut on the line with a razor knife. The windscreen does not follow the line of cockpit front completely; its lower corners are supposed to project below the line of the cockpit rim.

The second speed bump was cabane struts. These are provided in two pieces a side, a forward 'V' element and a rear strip. The location indicators on this kit are well placed generally, but that for the forward cabane attachment to the upper wing does not line up with the forward attachment point for the interplane struts, which it should do. When this is corrected, and the 'V' element placed to meet it, the rear strip is too short. I made a replacement one half inch long from 1mm square rod, sanded down on one side to about .75mm, to match the other pieces. I could not get them to line up quite right in frontal view, and would up assembling them into a unit, and the attaching them to the fuselage.

Edited by Old Man
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Here is the state of play at present, Gentlemen....

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The gun-sight gave me fits. The rod assembly is from .25mm rod. The ring is after-market, from an Eduard set. The bead is a bit of fine copper wire, and took over a dozen tries to get on more or less right, in the course of which the first rod assembly was destroyed.

The framing on the transparencies is painted clear decal film (first silver, then mixed olive in metal surface shade), cut in strip, except for the forward edge of the half-canopy, which is painted free-hand (again first silver, then olive). The decal strips are tacked down with dilute white glue, as I find when thickly painted the decal material does not stick reliably on it own.

I have done the cabane rigging in advance, as I can see no way I could reliably do it once the upper wing was attached, given the width of the wing and narrowness of the gap, and the converge on centerline attachments of the lower ends of the wires.

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Hi Old Man

This is a very nice job at detailling this old kit.

For this type of aircraft (radial engine rigged biplane) I prefer making holes in the fuselage for the rigging and pulling the wires through a hole in the front before gluing the engine.

That way :

m_77267512_0.jpg

Patrick

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OldMan, I've noticed a pattern in several of your builds.

Don't take this as a critique, as it's a compliment in my book, but you seem to be able to work entirely on one subassembly (paint and finish and all), complete it, and the continue assembly of all other parts around that one part without ever hurting said part.

Meaning you can build and paint a fuselage (like in this build) then attach wings, engines, rigging points, and never once mar your lovely finish, gouge something with an errant exacto mark, or jostle/bump your tail plane rigging struts, or anything.

I have a hard time simply not breaking my radio masts off repeatedly, even though they are the LAST thing I put on.

Any thoughts on your general assembly/building philosophy, that might benefit somebody who really isn't clumsy but ends up with clumsy mistakes? (me, I mean!)

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Hi Old Man

This is a very nice job at detailling this old kit.

For this type of aircraft (radial engine rigged biplane) I prefer making holes in the fuselage for the rigging and pulling the wires through a hole in the front before gluing the engine.

That way :

m_77267512_0.jpg

Patrick

Thank you, Sir!

I have read descriptions of that technique for rigging, and it looks interesting, and very apt for monofilament use.

I have always been leery of putting holes through, because even the smallest bits are much wider than the lines, and I have only a hand drill, which snaps them more rapidly than I can acquire them. Most holes I do are with a needle point and then rotating the tip of an Exacto blade, and between a quarter and a half millimeter is about the limit of the technique.

I use elastic in part because it is not necessary to run the stuff through holes to get it tautened.

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OldMan, I've noticed a pattern in several of your builds.

Don't take this as a critique, as it's a compliment in my book, but you seem to be able to work entirely on one subassembly (paint and finish and all), complete it, and the continue assembly of all other parts around that one part without ever hurting said part.

Meaning you can build and paint a fuselage (like in this build) then attach wings, engines, rigging points, and never once mar your lovely finish, gouge something with an errant exacto mark, or jostle/bump your tail plane rigging struts, or anything.

I have a hard time simply not breaking my radio masts off repeatedly, even though they are the LAST thing I put on.

Any thoughts on your general assembly/building philosophy, that might benefit somebody who really isn't clumsy but ends up with clumsy mistakes? (me, I mean!)

Thank you, Sir!

I only wish things actually went so smoothly as they appear. I do not trouble to list all disasters or difficulties usually, only the entertaining ones, or those where I feel I learned something. On this build for instance, I have had to re-attach the starboard tail-plane twice and the port tail-plane once, had to do extensive clean-up in the course of removing early half-canopy attempts, to the point of having to replace the slide-rail on the port side, and clear paint down to bare plastic on the first quarter inch or so of the turtle-back on both sides, and had to do a good deal of glue removal where the upper starboard exhaust stubs engage the fuselage (you can see a bare patch there in one of the pictures above which hints at the sordid tale...), and these are just the ones I remember off-hand.

I do try and be careful. The scratch-builds I do are very fragile, and this has taught me to be very circumspect in holding a model and applying any tool to it. I make very sure I am holding near to where the tool will go, and that the tool will move directly towards or away from my grip. I try always to use an absolute minimum of force, both in holding the model and behind the tool: most slips that scratch or gouge come when the tool is applied too forcefully, and has oomph behind it still when it has done what you wanted, or has gotten a little out of position. One of the few advantages brush-painting offers over air-brushing is greater ease and flexibility in repairing damage to painted areas. Touch-ups do stand out so much, and the consistency of the paint can be manipulated a little to obscure small roughnesses.

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Old Man,

I truely enjoy watching this thread. Thanks for sharing your current build with us. What you do and the size of your subject just fills me with awe.

Thanks,

Ken

Thank you very much, Sir! You are very kind to say so.

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Another pictureless up-date, Gentlemen, as wife has again been to busy to spare time for the camera. But completion before the deadline is as certain now as these things can be. This past session was indeed the big push: I have got the upper wing on and rigged, the landing gear on, including the tail-wheel, and the ventral and under-wing bomb racks completed. All that remains is the propellor, a few stray bits of detailing, and some touch-up painting.

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:rolleyes: I really wish to see your progress pictures.

Thanks for the link with the chinese Hawk video, superb!

Cya.

Thank you, Sir!

And thank you again for the pictures you sent: they were a tremendous help.

Here are some pictures of how it was at the start of the final session:

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The only kit parts used on the undercarriage were the main struts and the doors, the latter thinned down considerably. All the rest is .5mm rod, assembled onto the kit once the main struts were attached. I scratch-built wheels, because the rear of the kit wheels give no indication of where the tire ends and the hubs begin. The 'Y in V' members in the kit are not only poorly formed, but not really accurate: the V does not end in a point, but at a cross-bar across the main strut, and its rear leg goes up parallel to the main strut, while it forward leg slants forward. The pattern should match the triangular depression in the wheel wells.

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Finished up this past weekend, Gentlemen!

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The propellor hub is scratch-built, and was the last major element. The blades are from the kit propellor, but the hub was just too chunky.

The rigging was 'interesting': all flight and landing wires are doubled, and the landing and rear flight wires interweave. The vibration damping rods are .4mm rod.

The aileron actuating struts are .5mm rod.

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Here are a couple of close-up shots:

IMG_4367.jpg

IMG_4320.jpg

This last large shot shows the center-line rack in the ventral tunnel, and I have put it up because this area of the machine is poorly documented. I was given a copyrighted photograph showing this area, and have been guided by it in modeling this region of the machine. Note the release chord running forward from the center-line rack, and the brake chord running just behind the landing gear struts.

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Very nice build of an a/c I've always wanted to do.

Thank you, Sir!

It is a very interesting airplane; there is certainly nothing that looks quite like it in profile, and the major campaign it participated in a fascinating one, that deserves to be better known than it is.

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