Monogram Cessna 180 on floats FINISHED

A friend had a 53 180 he rebuilt painted in that scheme and added amphib floats. The performance with mods he added was great.

A standard 180 with amphibs was "Payload limited" to say the least.

He upgraded to the 260hp engine and added ART wing extensions. https://www.wingxstol.com/index.html

Site for wingx added for any scratch builders. 

I have about 500hrs on the 180 and 185 on wheels, skis and straight floats.

Much fun to fly.

Of course the DHC-2 Beaver will always be my favourite, especially on floats. 

Beautiful!  I wish there were more GA models out there!  I do have 3 of the crappy Piper Cherokee models.  They are so bad, I don't even want to build them......  but I'm hoping one of them might turn out halfway decent, and I can finish it like my real Cherokee....

BillM

What colts did you use to paint the interior?

Hi, BillM, I'm not sure you'll get an answer from gbritnell.  This is a relatively old thread, and he last posted in the forum back in 2007.  I'm not sure he's around anymore.

What colts did you use to paint the interior?

skybolt2003,

Yeah, I didn't say it was going to be easy.  I know of only two C-195s up here in Alaska.  One's been parked up on the East end of Merrill Field for quite some time.  The cowling was removed and the engine was covered in plastic wrap.  You are definately a LUCKY man.  Personnaly, I'm lucky enough to be a mission pilot for the Alaska Wing CAP.  We've got 8 DHC-2 Beavers (among other aircraft) that I get to play with on occasion.  As I'm sure you're aware, there's nothin like priming up that big round motor and the smell when that cloud of blue smoke bellows up when she turns over.

Round motors are greatest!!! 

Thanks for the website info and I may take you up on your offer. 

Thats 1 sharp little plane you got there.  I like it alot thx for the pics.

oh wow shes beautiful! exellent work i love seeing the average non-military aircraft every once in a while!

hope to see more from you soon! 

Well I think it's finished. I painted the yellow by masking. I then painted the cowl and insert on the tail black. The remainder of the striping was done with Micro Scale decal film. I cut strips from white and added them to the yellow on the fuselage. I cut the Cessna logos and applied them to the tail. The black striping was next. I made templates from paper and reinforced them with masking tape. After applying all of the decals I noticed that the yellow on the tail should angle up. The yellow decal film from Micro Scale matched the Testors yellow almost perfectly so I cut pieces and layed them over the top of the painted area. The match is dead on. After all the decaling was finished I overcoated everything with Future. I then added all the support rigging and the control lines for the water rudders. All in all it makes an old Monogram kit look pretty good.

Looking great!  There's a few classic C-180's up here in Alaska but many have the enlarged tail filet and extra rear cabin windows (sometimes hard to tell them from C-185s).  I was lucky enough to pick up a couple of the Monogram C-180 kits and plan on making a C-185 on floats and one on Wheel-skis.  They'll both have the STOL fences and wingtips, and I'll be scratch building the tail filet and extra windows, along with making my own decals.  One will be an Alaska State Trooper (F&W aircraft) and the other will be an Alaska Wing CAP aircraft.

My other project is making a C-195 (LC-126) on floats from the 10th Rescue Squadron (Alaska)using parts from an L-19/O-1E, C-180, DHC-2 and various others and a BUNCH of scratchbuilding.

jeaton01,

You Could make a C-170B from a C-180 but you'd have to take the tail from an L-19.  I've got about 50 hours in a C-170B...great airplane!  Lot's of them up here too.

jeaton01 wrote:

Model USA did the 1/48 L-19/O-1 in 1/48.  By my measure the 180 is 1/41 scale, but never has looked quite right to my eye.  Mostly the cowl shape seems a bit off, not spherical enough on the bottom.  One of my favorites is the Monogram TriPacer, but I prefer to reverse the main gear and leave off the nose wheel, which makes it a Pacer.  Much better flying airplane.  Bandai did the 150 in 1/48.  But I say nothing negative about the nmf finish on the beginning of this thread,great job!   Bare metal was common on the 180/185 series in the early years, into the late seventies.  I have quite a few factory brochures from that era.  A 170B could probably be done from the Monogram 180 landplane kit without severe heartburn.

About that Bandai kit.Was that the one with 2 figurines in the box? As far as I can remember, there was 1 figure of a mechanic and 1 of a lady.
Must have been late 70s as far as I can recal. I know I've build it, but cannot recollect what happened with that bird afterwards .

Luc

Thanks for the comments. Neil, yes I layed down a gloss black undercoat before applying the Alclad. I then put a coat of Future over the Alclad to protect it. It doesn't like much handling without an overcoat. Here's an update. I have masked and painted the yellow and the black on the cowl and rudder. I have some colored decal sheets from Micro Scale so I cut the .040 stripe from white and layed it over the yellow. I also put the registration decals on from the kit. For their age they went on quite well. I'm just waiting for some black decal film to finish the black striping on the side and floats. I'm more or less following the box art. Here's the latest pics.

Beautiful paint job. Did you lay a gloss black base coat or is that painting straight on the plastic. I haven't seen many civil aircraft models, nice to see them.

Thank you for sharing

Neil

jeaton01 wrote:

Bare metal was common on the 180/185 series in the early years, into the late seventies.

Take a ride around any airport here and you'll see a lot of bare metal too.  The bush pilots say if they strip the paint it saves them 80+ lbs...  I have a beaver I'd like to finish in bare metal if I ever get to it!

Model USA did the 1/48 L-19/O-1 in 1/48.  By my measure the 180 is 1/41 scale, but never has looked quite right to my eye.  Mostly the cowl shape seems a bit off, not spherical enough on the bottom.  One of my favorites is the Monogram TriPacer, but I prefer to reverse the main gear and leave off the nose wheel, which makes it a Pacer.  Much better flying airplane.  Bandai did the 150 in 1/48.  But I say nothing negative about the nmf finish on the beginning of this thread,great job!   Bare metal was common on the 180/185 series in the early years, into the late seventies.  I have quite a few factory brochures from that era. 

A 170B could probably be done from the Monogram 180 landplane kit without severe heartburn.

Whe can we see some more pics? How's the build going?

capnMac - the 1:48 Bird Dog was done by Hasegawa. I'm looking at my build of it right now. The oly Bird Dog I've seen in a shop for ages.

BTW, has anyone got the Airfix 1:72 Bird Dog? I want it!

Looking really nice thus far. I sure would like to take a spin or two in one of those - not to many places here in Kansas to take off and land on water! I really like the finish you got, looking forward to seeing it completed.

Cheers,

Eric

Looking great so far.  Nice job with the Alclad NMF.

Regards,  Rick

Ok, now that you mention it, I do now remember the Testors kits.  Duh.

I'd still like some large-scale though <G>.

Hmm, I'm now thinking that ther was a vac 1/32 Cessna 150, but that may have been a short run (or short-lived) operation. 

Oh well, I'll still keep my eyes open, in case I ever actually get started on my "stick time" collection (which would make for a motley, but not boring shelf of birds <g>).

If I remember correctly that kit goes back to the 1960s. She looks great. Very nice finish. Are you going to put stripes on her?

Ah, capn, the Bird Dog and the Sky Master have both been kitted in 1/48th scale. Testors boxes the old Hawk Sky Master, and the L-19 was recently released (a couple years ago) by (I had the name on the tip of my tonge)!! Shoot, nobody tell the FAA about this or they might ground me too.

see some small and civil.

Sheesh, just civil/GA at all.  Be nice if somebody would only get the 1/36 moulds from ARII and rerun there Cessnas & Piper's in that line.  Reshots from those mould can't be that much worse than the stray kits that were on eBay till that source dried up.

Even at 1/36, the kits have a very nice elegance, and are not very large at all, for being "large scale."

I've often wondered why the Skymaster & Birdog were not kitted-up in 1/48 or 1/32; both would be good "youth" sizes, and both have civilian & military applications.