Boneheadedness (a tale of the Airfix Blenheim)

It seems that the Bonehead Virus has taken root here in 72 Land. I'm - ahem - not the most fastidious of modellers at the best of times, and at the worst? Let's just say the results can get ugly. But today's construction session didn't just make me feel all thumbs. It made me feel like I was building with two deformed pinkies and a big toe.

The first disaster was on a model that hasn't been coming along too badly, an Airfix Short Tucano. There is a Memorial Day (Remembrance Day?) special marking set on the same decal sheet along with one of the two Eurofighters I am doing (Xtradecal 72-216). It is a black Tucano with lots of poppies and a slogan along the lower surfaces. The body of the model has been coming along fine. But the prop... This is a piece about an inch square with teeny blades and requires no less than three paints, and some masking to boot. Black and white sections on the front, black with yellow tips on the back. Of course I broke it early on, so I'm also now dealing with one blade that isn't connected well. No matter how I tried to mask it the paint bled under. The yellow didn't want to cover when I sprayed it. Even when I got paint in the right place, the consistency was gooey and awful. The result is something that looks like an abstract work of the Ape Men of the Indus. But I am done with dealing with it. Hopefully the vivid artwork on the body of the model will draw the eye away.

The second disaster I'm more bummed about. This involves the Airfix Blenheim. Things were going swimmingly; the fuselage and wings were together and awaited the cockpit module. But oy. If you learn nothing from this post, know that this structure is a complex entity just waiting to feast on the despair of any modeller that doesn't have an advanced engineering degree. Airfix doesn't help things by making three of the five sides of the cockpit surround out of clear parts, which makes gluing treacherous for the ham-fisted. That there are five parts at all means that it is hard to get a solid bond. And there is a lot of furniture to stuff into this small space. I made the bad situation worse by misunderstanding how the pilot seat was supposed to go together, which meant it was too wide for the space allotted. The assembled module resolutely did not want to fit into its spot in the front of the fuselage, which meant that, although I gave it some tape support during the time the glue was drying - the way it is positioned clamps do no good - the module slipped out of place and is now both fragile and misglued. Where the two clear bits in front meet is thoroughly misaligned. I can probably cover up the plastic joins with putty/surfacer, but I'm still vexed about how to get the transparencies lined up. Maybe a tiny sliver of plastic sheet that both can be glued to, assuming I can wiggle them around enough to reposition them.

Honestly, if I wasn't a fan of the type (and of Airfix) I would probably bin this and take my learnings into the Mk 4 that I will eventually buy. Plus there is that blasted core theory of this blog, that everything gets displayed, even the disasters. Still, these two have had me tearing my thankfully still abundant hair out.

Though I am glad to report that this was followed by a pretty successful airbrushing session (with added thunderstorm to boot!) More on this later. 

Huma Messerschmitt P-1106

As some of you may know, I have always been a big fan of Huma kits. Although they are out of production now, for their time they were the epitome of short run engineering. So much so, in fact, that even now, most of them look and fit better than some modern short run kits. They pioneered the super tiny plastic detail sprue, which provided the modeller with pieces that seemed more like a gluable form of photoetch. And their choices were adventurous: prototypes, civil, general aviation, Luft 46, all with a distinctly German flavor. I have completed probably 80% of the entire range, and will be working to finish them all within the next couple of years. Next up is the Ju-287.

But today's completion is one of their Luftwaffe 1946 prototypes. It is the Messerschmitt P-1106, a development of the 1101 experimental fighter. I also have a DML kit of the 1101 in the upstairs construction queue waiting for my current fascination with Airfix kits to moderate. The 1106's primary new design element, along with changing the tail configuration, was moving the cockpit far to the rear of the airframe, almost in amongst the twin tails. That must have made the view forward pretty minimal during takeoff and landing. The designers couldn't project any performance improvements from the P-1101 design, so the work was suspended in the final days of the war.

The kit is typical Huma, with some test fitting necessary, and fairly little gluing surface for some bits (like landing gear doors). The main gear doors made a break for it at least once during the building process and still don't look quite as solid as I would like. Plus some of the glue fumes appear to have clouded the front edges of the canopy. And if you add the landing gear early, be prepared from them to try and escape periodically too. A few things to be careful of if you decide to add this one to your collection.

Decals were from an Aeromaster Bf-109 desert set. I had seen a sideview of the P-1106 in desert markings and knew that is what I wanted to do on my example. I think I have tracked down the original drawing to a French fellow named Vincent Bourguinon, who hosts a site called Military Drawings. Spend an hour or two cruising through his artwork sometime.

This is completed aircraft #445 (#9 for the year), finished in February of 2016.

Italeri Lockheed D-21 drone

Another in the series of drone aircraft comes up in today's completion. This is the Lockheed D-21, a pure recon drone that most of us will have seen as part of the Italeri kit of the SR-71. It had a rather troubled history. First off, each D-21 was considered expendable; once the film was shot, the cartridge ejected from the drone and the aircraft blown up while the film was recovered. If that wasn't bad enough, the fourth test launch separation struck the SR-71's tail fins, crashing both aircraft and killing the Launch Control Officer. The rest of the testing was rather sensibly done from a B-52, where the drone could be dropped from under the wing rather than from over the fuselage.

The kit is very simple, with only a few parts to put together. And the paint job is pretty simple too. In fact, this one have been a truly short job if I hadn't spilled part of a bottle of Tenax on my workbench that caught one part of the lower wing surface. I had just been reading about a fellow modeller on 72nd Scale Aircraft who had experienced this particular disaster, so I am well and truly empathetic. Nothing to do except wait for it to cure, sand off the damaged section as thoroughly as possible, apply a coat of thick black paint, and move on.

This is completed aircraft #444 (#8 for the year), finished in February of 2016.

Platz Raytheon GBU-27 Paveway 3

Just a quick addition to the completed column today. This is the Raytheon GBU-27 Paveway 3 missile, a part of my ongoing ordnance project.

The GBU-27 is probably most noted for being dropped repeatedly from F-117s in the first Gulf War. It is laser-guided and known for packing a pretty serious punch. If you want to mount one under your Cessna 172, they run approximately $55k apiece.

The plastic came from the Platz kit of the X-47B that I recently completed. It was painted an Olive Green, and the decals came from the kit. The yellow stripes absolutely did not want to curve around the small circumference of the missile throat, and lots of setting solution only led to the decal tearing. That's why you're only seeing one view of the completed model. That and, y'know, it's a missile.

This is completed ordnance  #3 (#7 of the year), completed in February of 2016.

Heller Fieseler Fi-103R5

Today's completion has something of an odd history. Well, don't they all around this place? In 2009, I built the Bachem Ba-349 that was in a Heller two-kit boxing, along with a Fieseler Fi-103 manned V1. The Fi-103 sat around long enough that I decided to go ahead and finish it so that it would stop staring at me from the workbench. The problem was that, somewhere in the intervening years, the canopy had been devoured by the Carpet Monster. I rummaged through the spares box and found a strange little clear fragment that was quite pointy. No idea what the donor kit was. But the rear of the clear bit, once trimmed, was fairly close to the dimensions of the back wall of the Fi-103's cockpit space. And thus the Fi-103R5 was born.

This is of course a whif, since the Fi-103 series only got to an R4 version before the new owners came calling in Berlin. It is a high-speed streamlined version of the manned V1, a weird concept no matter how you look at it.

If you're looking for information on the other versions of the Fi-103, there is always the Schiffer book by David Myhra. It's not long on text, but it does outline the looks of the various manned versions, mostly by way of digital art.

This is completed aircraft #443 (#6 of the year), completed in February of 2016.

Painted prop day (Spitfire, Hurricane, XP-56, Blenheim, B-36)

Here is the promised view of the recent airbrushing session. You can see that prop tips dominate the proceedings. There are something like 8 aircraft types that were given the treatment. Unfortunately, I'm not yet sure how many will need repair and thickening of the color coat. In order to go through the airbrush, the paint had to be thinned, and although coverage wasn't awful, it is always challenging with gloss versions of light colors like Yellow and White. I'll wait until the tips are fully cured before deciding whether they need a surface coat.

I also got matte top coats on two items that are cruising into the completed column: Lockheed D-21 and Messerschmitt P-1106. Greater details as those get their day in the spotlight shortly.

Finally, I had to do a repair job on the underside of one of the Hurricanes. A bit of overspray found its way on to the lower surfaces, so I had to give it a light coat of Azure Blue to even out the colors. Some of this found its way into a wheel well, so some touchup will be required there as well. But that is the majority of painting on this model, excepting the red prop spinner, which I will likely do by this weekend.

My neck was complaining by the time I finished this work (insufficient napping, I say!) so I decided to conclude this airbrushing session at a later time. It was generally a successful bit of paint work, and you have to celebrate those when you get them. 

More construction (Blenheim, XP-56)

Just a quick update tonight on some construction progress. I didn't feel quite up to an airbrush session this evening, although that is holding up a lot of work. But I did get some bits glued together and some edges sanded down.

The items in the following photo - lots of grey plastic there - are the opening stages of the relatively new Airfix Blenheim, the Airfix ragwing Hurricane (now with canopy masks in place) and a partially constructed MPM XP-56 Black Bullet. The XP-56 has its wing leading edge intakes in resin, which did mean I had to wait for some additional superglue to come in the recent Sprue Bros box before I could finish the wings. But they fit quite well, and the wings are now ready to get stuck to the fuselage.

Both the Blenheim and Hurricane are prime examples of new Airfix. Excellent fit, lots of detail, but a bit fiddly in some of the smaller bits. I have their Do-17 waiting in queue for some workbench space. It's pretty crowded at the moment, so I will wait for some of the items that are far along to move out before bringing more in.

That's why I end up with things on the Shelf of Shame sometimes - overambitious project beginnings which lead to frustration and despair. But they usually find their way back into the work stream eventually.