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Seagull from HMAS Australia 1/72


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Our daughter got me a book called ''Flagship'' about HMAS Australia which had some interesting snippets about the Supermarine Seagull (Walrus) rescue aircraft which were housed on this ship.  I thought this would be an interesting subject & had a duplicate kit in my Matchbox stash.  I'll add a little cockpit detail (will be almost invisible unless I decide to cut the canopy so the window is slid open) & some rigging.

 

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A bit more cockpit scritching & scratching. As per usual, I told my self I'd only add a few basic details, but then found all these great ref pics, and you know how it goes....I'll just add that bit, and that bit, and that bit, and maybe that bit....

 

Consequently, I'll now have to scratch some cockpit side windows in an open position, to justify all that stuffing around inside the pit :rolleyes:

 

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4 minutes ago, Trojan Thunder said:

Wow, looks even better painted.

 

Thanks mate.  It's not quite as smooth as I'd aimed for when you really zoom in with the camera, but with the naked eye it looks fine. Definitely going to have to cut the main canopy, use the Matchbox front half as the windscreen, and scratch build the side and top sliding windows and pose them open.

 

Might even make a little dio and build the catapult and have it flying as per the pic above.

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The rigging on the wings seems to emerge from some small bulges so I've added those, and also the bulges which I assume are related to the engine fuel feed.  There is a lot of rigging on this puppy (wing struts, engine struts, floats underneath).  I think I'll go for the partial hole one end, full hole the other end method for the rigging.  Also, the wing rigging wires are different diameters on the wings.

 

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The kit engine needs to have some detail added as the real thing has a lot of extra piping etc.

 

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I'm also adding some detail to the engine pod which is completely devoid of anything .  Interestingly, on the real a/c, this pod is twisted to the port side, which it seems they have captured in the kit as the upper struts from the pod which attach to the underside of the upper wing are very asymmetrical.  At first I thought I'd glued it all together wrong cos it looked way out of whack, but after triple checking, it's been done as the instructions say, so fingers crossed   I'll not really know until it all has to go together between the two wings I suspect.

 

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What I find with scratch detailing in 1/72 is that it fools the naked eye, but not the camera!

Edited by Thommo
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11 hours ago, Trojan Thunder said:

Powering along with this one Thommo. Nice bits of detailing going on here.

 

Yeah mate, I cut down to 4 days/week at work last year.  It is bloody magic having a long weekend every week! The weather was horrendous here today blowing a gale, so I just sat at the table all day working on detailing the engine and the engine pod.  I've got some good  1/1 walkaround  and1/32 & 1/48 scale build refs, but bringing that detail all back down to 1/72 is a challenge.

 

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Got the engine painted.

 

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After building the engine pod, there was large variation in the angle of the front upper struts & a test fit to the upper central wing section revealed much pressure required to line the struts up with the holes.  I thought I'd got the instructions wrong for sure, but a quadruple check said not.  Then I Googled some online builds of this kit, which revealed others had this problem too & some ended up scratching many new stryts.  Then I broke the forward port upper strut which solved all my problems as I was able to scratch another one on a better alignment 😁.  I'm still expecting fun & games when it comes to putting it all together with the wings.

 

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You really have to think carefully about this little beast, esp. the rigging.  The engine pod fit & rigging seems to be a real hurdle on all Walrus kits, even expensive 1/32 scale versions.

I figured out a way I could rig the lower pod struts with just 2 pieces of invisible thread and was very chuffed when it worked like a treat.....UNTIL I then did a test fit of the pod on the upper fuselage.  The  struts needed to be forced into their locating positions, and of course that meant sagging & snapped rigging :doh:

 

So Plan B was to start the rigging again, and build a little jig to hold the lower struts in a position identical to how they would go on the fuselage.  This worked out OK.

 

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The lower rigging could all be done via drilling tiny holes in the struts.  The upper rigging required some half holes to glue the lower ends  and full holes in the upper ends, then threading the upper ends through the holes and pulling them back out the wing join slots in the upper wing piece, pulling them tight and gluing  My tiny little dentists root canal file was invaluable here for fishing out the ends to pull the ends through those slots, but it was a long slow fiddly process.

 

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I'm still not sure how it will all go when I attempt to fit this pod to the fuselage.  I think I'll had to drill some holes and build some lugs on the pod struts to get a good solid fit.

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And then sh*t hit the fan due to this stuff.....

 

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The bloke in the hobby shop loves this as a primer so I decided to try it, but he uses it with Testors enamel thinner.  I asked him will it work with Tamyia or Humbrol enamel thinner and he said 'sure'.  But it does not.  It sprays like a dream with both of them,  but does not dry & was still tacky after 2 days.

 

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And so ensued numerous hours of sanding it off as best I could (I tried brushing on lacquer thinner, which removed the paint, but also ,made the plastic very rough), followed by numerous applications/sanding/reapply......of what I normally prime with - Tamiya spraycan primer (which has never let me down).  It's getting there, only one more spot I'm not quite happy with.  Some of the oroginal tacky primer is still there, but hopefully eventually it will all harden up.

 

Thank Christ I only used the MM on the fuselage.  Straight back to the Tamiya for the wings etc.

 

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I really should stick to that old adage - 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'. 

Edited by Thommo
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I've cut lots of canopies over the years to display them open & it's never ended in tears, but it was always going to happen one day :crying2:

 

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I've ordered an aftermarket one on Ebay for only $6.50 as a backup, but in the meantime, figured I'd have a crack at scratching one. Here is the frame.  Next paint, then send myself blind cutting out tiny bits of clear plastic to make each window.  If I can crack this tricky curved bit, the remaining flat top & side windows will be a doddle.

 

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Edited by Thommo
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Thommo

Yikes, what a mess but a good recovery and glad you're back on track. For stripping paint from models, I only use: Mr Color Leveling Thinner (my standard thinner for both Mr Color and MR paints) and with a brush and care, it will strip the paint without damaging the plastic. I've long left enamels behind for both the smell and long drying times and am now a lacquer paint fanatic.

First the primer then the canopy ... framing looks good and fingers crossed.

Keep 'em comin

Peter :thumbsup:

Edited by Peterpools
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On a spare wing, I experimented with a range of silvers to replicate aluminium dope including:

 

Floquil Old Silver, Alclads, Tamyia acrylics, MM enamel, mixed with various types of thinners (but no thinning of the Alclad).

 

The overwhelming conclusion is you just can't beat Alclad for smoothness & consistency.  HOWEVER, some Alclad colours are much better than others.  Dull Alum dries with quite a sparkly/graining look, while alum and dark alum dry smooth as anything.  So I opted for the straight aluminium.  Some panels were then sprayed with very thin Tamiya acrylic flat white, because these a/c when weathered almost look more white/light grey than aluminium colour.  I'll finish it all with a flat coat to take the sheen off the Alclad.

 

The  wing rigging was planned like a military campaign, but still evoked a storm of swearing during the 3 hours process :explode:, mostly trying to get the wing struts & wings lined up.  Because of the bulges I'd built near the strut hole locations, the struts required a little surgery to bed down in the holes neatly.  And the top wing had to be held in place under pressure with tape while the glue set to get it right.

 

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Next, lots of Alclad touch ups due to scratches etc. during the rigging process :rolleyes: 

 

 

 

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More progress.  The rigging of the floats was another challenge as I did not want to drill any more holes all the way through for those, so used the old stretched sprue method, then tighten them up with a heated needle.  Always fraught & a few will snap & have to be redone.  I reckon 3hrs to do the float rigging.  Then I managed to crack my aftermarket canopy as well on a side window, but cut that window out and have built another that will replace it and be displayed open, as that window actually opens 3/4 of the way down the glass.

 

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I've put the decals on too, another challenge with the Matchbox decals splitting a bit when I applied MicroSol.  I'm waiting to see how they bed down, then will decide if I have to remove some and replace with spares.

 

Once I get decals sorted, a flat coat to dull down this Alclad which is gloss coated.

Edited by Thommo
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Thommo

WOW ... awesome work on the rigging and attaching the wing and floats.

Not sure if I missed it but what did you use for the wing rigging, as the floats were done with stretch sprue?

Keep 'em comin

Peter

 

 

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