Trumpeter's 1/48 C-47 Skytrain "D-Day Mini Whiskey 7" Completed.

Should be a big model in that scale.  Tiny tiny PE is so frustrating - sometimes I just say nope!

I've always wanted to build that kit.  Yes some P/E is absurd.

 Some of the Aber stuff in general, I don't know how a human could assemble it!  

keavdog, It is a decent size when finished.  Still a bit smaller than a 1/72 Herc though.  So far the PE hasn't been to bad.  Which is shocking.  I usually struggle with it. 

Wilbur Wright, So far it's a decent kit.  I'm not really that far along though, lol.  The seats bugged me a bit, I know I'm starting to sound like a rivet counter.  If I wasn't so close to Whiskey 7 I wouldn't know any better to be honest.  I was quite shocked to see the little seat belt latches in there. 

Slowly picking away at the interior.  Painted the black on the floor.  Not entirely how the kit instructs.  The painting instructions in the kit are just meh.  Leave a lot to be desired there.  But it does cause me to look online and try to find some reference pictures.  I'm having to use a lot of artistic license on this though.  I've seen the floors painted a few different ways.

A few more fiddly PE bits put in the cockpit and painted. 

Putting in the little anchor points for the seat belts.

Rest of the cockpit PE ready to go in when I'm ready for it.

Pan seats painted.  A lot easier than scratch building the seats Whiskey currently has.

Hopefully I can do some assembely and weathering tomorrow to the interior. 

A bit more progress on the interior today.  Slow and steady, lol.

Cockpit is pretty much done. 

First small section behind the cockpit put together.  I'm surprised there isn't more on these shelves. 

The rest of the interior bulk heads, pan seats, and insides of the fuselage weathered.

Hoping I can get the rest of the interior finished up, and get the fuse halves together in the next couple of days.

Its looking good keyda

lurch

Its looking good keyda

 

Thank you!

Interior is all done.  Should be able to close up the fuse tomorrow. 

Front section.  I've never been in an accurately restored C-47, so I have no idea if any of this is even close to accurate.  But I have to roll with it.

All the pan seats, and seat belts installed.

Hard to tell, but I installed all the windows, and did a bit more detail painting.

Only a few more small things that will need to be installed before I close it up.  Hopefully that goes well, and I don't have any fit issues. 

That is looking great!  All of those details are what's going to make this kit stand out.

TJS

Holy cow, great work on the interior, and great job on that PE! 

MR TOM SCHRY

That is looking great!  All of those details are what's going to make this kit stand out.

TJS

 

Thank you!  Sure hope so, lol.  It's just a shame you can't see any of it once it's closed up.

Thanks!  For once the PE cooperated for the most part, lol.

Sky is an early RAF and more commonly FAA color for the undersides. Light green, and no idea why the interior would be that color.

Trumpeter color instr. are alway BS anyways. They are just lazy.

Bill

GMorrison

Sky is an early RAF and more commonly FAA color for the undersides. Light green, and no idea why the interior would be that color.

Trumpeter color instr. are alway BS anyways. They are just lazy.

 

Bill

 

I was rather confused myself when I seen that in the instructions, lol.  My first Trumpeter kit, so I wasn't expecting it.  I just did interior green.  Seems most things in that era were either Zinc Chromate Green, Interior Green, or Chromate Yellow.  Fairly easy to figure out.

So after a bit of a struggle yesterday I managed to get the fuselage halves matted.  I had to file down the sides of the bulk heads to get everything to fit, and still had a very small gap.  Oh well.  I made sure to reinforce the seams with what I call the Mac Daddy super glue, so I shouldn't have anything split on me.

Got the wings glued together as well. 

Onto todays progress, which wasn't a whole lot.  I made sure to check ahead and see what it was going to take to get the center wing section together.  I know there is going to be a seam to deal with on there.  There is a bit of a seam on the airplane in that space where the wing fairing is, but I'm going to have to fill it, and sand it down so it's not such a big seam.  Anyway.  I'm going to have to build up the landing gear bays, and up to the fire seal on the nacelle before I can join the center wing section halves.

So that stuff got painted.  Still needs to be weathered.

Worked on the wings and horiztonals a little bit, and they got some primer to show they still need a bit more work.

Fortunately I realized this kit has a pesky 7th window on the port side which is incorrect.  Whiskey did have a 7th for a long time, but didn't get it until she entered civilian service after the war.  The museum eventually removed it, and she only has 6 on the port side, and 7 on the starboard side.  So that window is getting puttied over.

First of several rounds of putty, sand, prime, repeat done.

Moving right along.  Looking good - good catch on the window.  

keavdog

Moving right along.  Looking good - good catch on the window.  

 

Thanks!  Might as well call me a river counter when it comes to Whiskey 7, lol.  It's odd, the Monogram kit has the correct 6 windows.  I suppose it's all in the subject they used as their reference.  A lot of the C-47's were converted to, or back to DC-3's after the war.  So I wonder if that is the difference.  I've even seen a couple DC-3's with 8 windows. 

Yes good catch and no harm being a rivet counter, I'm proud to be one. The friction is when said person lays their trip on others.

There were DC-3s that had the last two windows on starboard side connected to form one long one. And there were the sleepers with little port windows over the bunks. Lots of variations.

Bill

GMorrison

Yes good catch and no harm being a rivet counter, I'm proud to be one. The friction is when said person lays their trip on others.

There were DC-3s that had the last two windows on starboard side connected to form one long one. And there were the sleepers with little port windows over the bunks. Lots of variations.

 

Bill

 

Or in the case of the static C-47 at the museum(not owned by us) 8 windows.

Over the past few days)obviously not yesterday, I was in a freezing cold hangar most of the day) I worked on getting the pieces painted and together so I could assemble the center wing section.

I literally had to snicker when I put these together.  I know just how much stuff is actually behind that silver fire seal.  On the model its just open space.

I love the fact this kit has some detail in the gear bays.  The tiny little oil tank, which in the real thing is a complete pain to get in and out.

Center wing section is now in one piece.  Literally not locating or alignment tabs to speak of anywhere, so it was a bit fiddly to get lined up.

I'm close to be doing with the putty, sand, prime, repeat phase on the fuselage.  Just a few more small spots I'd like to sand a bit more.

Then I can start the same process on the center wing section, join the two pieces, and work on any seams there. 

It's been slow going the last several days, as I landed up picking up a very nasty head cold from a friend at the museum.  No, it's not Covid.  I've managed to avoid that so far (knock on wood). 

At this point I'm not a huge fan of the way this kit is designed.  There are some minor fit issues, but a lot of them.  I have had to file away at several areas to get things to sit properly.  I am being very picky with this one as well.  It does have some pieces meet up where there are natural seam lines on the airplane, but the gaps are too large.  So I've taken to the putty and sanding to close them up most of the way, or all the way, and I'll rescribe where I need to. 

Center wing section glued in place.  Before I started any putty and sanding work.  You can see a sizeable wing root seam.  There is a seam line there on the plane itself where the wing fairing goes from the fuselage to the wing.  I just need to make it much smaller.

In between rounds of putty, sand, prime, repeat I've been working on the engines.  The kit piece with the push rod tubes was very brittle, and things broke as soon as you touched them.  So I snipped them all off the ring, and replaced them with round styrene.

Painted the engines and exhaust peices while I was at it.

What a difference some black paint, and a wash makes.

Spark plug leads installed.

So engines are just about finished up.  Just need to install the nose case and the prop govenror.  Funny I actually know what these parts are called now.    I knew nothing when I built the 1st Mini Whiskey 7. 

I should be able to make some good progress this weekend.  I'm not going to the museum.  Don't want to get anyone sick.  I'm starting to feel better, but very slowly.  So I'm not going to take any chances.

Thats looking good. Glad you are feeling better.

lurch

Thats looking good. Glad you are feeling better.

 

Thank you.  Very slowly feeling better.  It was a whopper of a head cold that's for sure.  It's been several years since I've been sick, so I guess I was due.

Guess I'm going to do two updates.  It looks like I forgot to post yesterdays.  Whoops.

Finally happy with the finish, and done with putty, sand, prime, repeat, and all the rescribing that goes with it.

Glued on the wings, and temporarily mounted the engine cowling, and intake scoops for painting.  Now is the time I start smacking the wings into everything on, near, next to, or above my work bench.

Exhaust installed on the engines.

Another 7 hours at th bench today finally resulted in paint.  But before I get to that.  I realized last night when kind of looking ahead to things, which I do from time to time, that the kit had the postion of the foot ball antenna in the totally wrong location.  So first order of business was to relocate that. 

The white spot is where I covered the original mounting hole, quite a ways back is a green mark where I made the hole for the correct location.

I decided I wanted to give a chipping method a try.  I usually just carefully make marks with silver paint and a brush.  But I figured I would give this a go.  I painted on some aluminum, clear coated it, then used masking liquid where I wanted the chips, hence the blue specks.

It worked well in some spots, and others it just didn't want to come off.  Took so much effort to scrap it off that it scrapped of the paint competely.  I know about the salt method, but really don't want that mess in my bedroom.  I'm sure I'll find something that works for me at some point.  Maybe I'll use Elmer's glue next time.  Seems like that would come off easier.

Mini Pratt and Whitney 1830! Fitted the nose case to see how it looked.

The big accomplishment of the day.....paint!

I still have a lot more work to do.  I am hoping to paint on all her markings aside from her tail number which will be decals.  I need to make the masks for the W7, and the 37.  Hoping I can accomplish that with my Cricut.  I have the Montex masks for the National Insignia, and for the R on the tail.  So maybe, just maybe she'll have some markings tomorrow.  The invasion stripes will be painted on with a brush.  Which makes me more nervous than masking and painting them with an airbrush.  But this one has to be as accurate as I can get it.  We recently lost Mr. Lesile P. Cruise Jr.  He was a paratrooper on D-Day that jumped from Whiskey 7.  So I feel like this will pay a little bit of homage to him and everyone else who served. 

Lots of painting done today.  Hubby bought me a Cricut for my birthday last year, and I've used it a few times, but my main reason for wanting it was so I could make paint masks.  Finally got to use it for that purpose today.  I had intended to make the W7, and the 37 on the nose.  Turns out I needed the R as well.  The one that came with the Montex masks was just too small.  Took a bit of trial and error to get the right size, and find a text that was suitable.  I still had to modify the 7 a little bit with a hobby knife.

National Insignias painted on.  Bit stressful for me, but worth it in the end.

Mask for the tail number cut with my Cricut.

All of her markings!

Next up was the invasion stripes, which for some reason I was very nervous about.  I used my better judgement and decided to mask off the area for the entire stripe, and lay down some white paint with the airbrush to make a base.  Otherwise I'd be painting fifteen layers with a brush.  After putting down the base I went in with a brush and painted the white.  Then marked out where the black needed to go, and added those. 

Really starting to look the part now.  Still quite a bit to do.  Needs a gloss coat, then weathering, final assembly.  Kind of nice not using decals, and being able to skip an extra gloss coat.  I usually do a gloss after paint, lay down decals, and another coat of gloss before weathering, and a matte coat. 

Keyda, the Invasion Stripes are excellent. Just like the real thing. Well done.

fotofrank

Keyda, the Invasion Stripes are excellent. Just like the real thing. Well done.

 

Thank you!  Was actually kind of fun not having to worry about them being perfect. 

Only managed a couple hours at the bench today.  Had to do "adult" things like laundry, and errands, lol.

I got a gloss coat on between running around.  Then after dinner worked on doing some weathering.  Panel line wash first, then some grime, and mud on the wing roots from "boots" going up and down fueling and checking oil.  Some oil, and hydraulic leaks.  I tried to keep the invasion stripes themselves fairly clean.  They wouldn't of been that dirty considering they were just painted on maybe a day or two before D-Day. 

Hopefully I can get more time at the bench tomorrow.  I'm excited to get this finished up!

Wow! What a project! All the seatbelts...  

Your paintwork and markings are superb. Excellent invasion stripes. Looking forward to the rest. 

Great progress.  Close to the finish line now.  The national insignia look great - I have yet to try that.  And your Cricut seems to be getting put to great use.  Life with out decals is tempting... 

Hoss WA, Thank you!  I think the most annoying part about the seat belts was getting them glued in place the right way, lol.

keavdog, Thanks!  That was my first attempt at it.  I'm glad I did it that way.  I was just going to use the decals, but I worried they wouldn't sink into the rivet detail, and just stick out like a sore thumb.  I've always had issues with finding W7 decals.  I can find the 7, but not the W.  Making a mask by hand with a hobby knife was not fun, many failed attempts.  The Cricut was a game changer, and honestly if I can go that route I will.  Need to find a pattern for the National Insignia, lol.

After 80 hours she's finally finished!  Not sure if I mentioned it previously, but I did use Quickboost's corrected resin rudder, and exhaust on this.  Overall not a bad kit.  Somethings were a bit fiddly and needed fine tuning to fit properly.  The instructions suck.  So I certainly wouldn't reccomend it for a beginner.  Thankfully I know my way around.  Can't speak for their decals, since I didn't use any of them.  The decals on the prop blades were from an aftermarket set, and the only decals I used on the whole thing. 

Enough chatter, on with the pics.

I even managed to get the PE brake lines on there this time, lol.  I found glueing them on in increments worked out very well instead of trying to place the whole thing at once, start at one end and work to the other end.

I do love the detail in the gear bay compared to the lack there of in the Monogram kit.  A lot easier to install this oil tank than on the real thing.

So this is my little tribute to the men that jumped on D-Day.  Including Leslie Cruise, who actually jumped from Whiskey 7 on that day.  Unfortunately he recently passed away, and I never got to meet him.  It would of been my absolute honor to shake his hand and thank him for his service. 

Great job Keyda81 on both the interior and exterior. It looks like it ready to be loaded with paratroopers.

Turned out really nice.  Now see if you can keep the museum from stealing it