Trainer GB 2014 #CLOSED#

found an error on the xtradecal instruction sheet. it says to put a decal on the small door, but as you can see on the actual plane it never touched it. so watch this if you do one of these.

also something i never though of , the decals are designed to fit the kit parts not AM doors so ill have to salvage the bits i dont need from the main decal to fill in the gaps ;-(

you can see the doors here properly

Misty, is there such a large difference between the AM doors and the kit's doors? It then seems someone was using mertic and someone was using Imperial to measure LOL

I saw on the plane page the same Testors 1/48 PT-20 I wanted to build but then scrapped. It actually cones out rather well and it is now back on my build roster!  Hope the host doesn't mind to much  LOL

Theuns

On the pic the far left (larger) one is the am door and the small one is the drawing of the kit one. Ignore the size difference but you can see the different shapes of the two. And the am one definately has the more accurate shape looking at the real thing. The am one has much more detail on the inside too which makes it well worth the hassle

Here are the sprues and decals for the new Revell Stearman.  The plastic is a medium soft white, and it is not easy to capture in a photograph all the detail.  I have shifted the exposure to get max detail and the true white is not apparent.   It is a very complete kit with engine detail behind the firewall, and looks accurate to me.  

At present I am drilling holes for the rigging.  The instructions give a pretty good diagram of the rigging except that they do not show the roll wires between the front cabanes, nor do they show the javelins that prevent the lift and landing wires from rubbing at the mid span intersections.  I think the representation of the fabric is very good, and the control surfaces are very nicely detailed, especially as to the wing/surface separations.

The locations for the rigging are represented by raised dots, I would rather have had indentations.  The kit is a very good balance between detail and build ease, for instance the cabanes are molded to the fuselage halves, which should make upper wing assembly as easy as it can be on a biplane.

Wow that really looks nice! Strange that the raised dots indicate the rigging spots.

It is the first time I have seen decals for a wood porp, that is cool!

As for my " half hearted compared to the other builds here" Ryan PT-20, I have joined the fuse halves and then sanded off all the rivet detail.

I also re-scribed the panel detail and cut out the flaps to lower them.  

Pix to follow

Airfix finaly delivered the clear sprue,  after a call to find out they forgot to post it first time x-( so i am back in the game. Not only that but the kitchen ( bar the floor and blind) is done so i actually have some time to myself ( shhhh dont tell swmbo)

They look pretty good Omar. I like the appearance of both.

Good to see your start Eagle. I was a bit worried about that kit, I had some idea what it might be like.

I've been away on a business trip this week but before I went I started the next Chipmunk.

If you look closely at the decal sheet, you'll see that the white surround of the roundels and fin flashes is off centre.

Putting pieces together and painting stuff now.  All the holes for the rigging are drilled, and the interior parts of the fuselage are ready to close up.  Everything is just assembled without glue in the photos, except for the magnetos and all the parts of the fuselage interior.  I shaved off the kit's molded on seat belts and put in some Eduard belts.  I also shaved off the outer half of the locating ports for the seats as I was worried they might show later on.  Other things I have noted is the location for the tail brace wires is incorrect on the stabilizer lower side, they should be the same as where the upper wires are shown, not further outboard.  The rudder pedal footrest/runners are located a little more outboard than they should be, next time I will replace them with wood and move them in some.  It will not be easy to carve the plastic off.  Likely the location is due to not being able to get everything right in scale and end up with a model that most people will be able to build without excess frustration.  I put some .005 styrene squares in the lower wing center section to get rid of a couple injector pin markings the easy way.

I see that there may be plans to issue the Lycoming PT-13D/N2S-3, as both types of fire extinguishers are supplied.  Any other changes would be firewall forward, and some changes to reflect an electrical system, which was not installed om most PT-17's, and when it was it was sans generator, just a storage battery in front of the instructor's feet.  There is an electrical panel included for the right side of the rear seat but that is for a restored airplane as it looks nothing like wartime equipment.  I will be sanding off all the position lights on my model.
On the engine it says to paint the induction pipes burnt metal but I have always seen them black.  The exhaust pipes are on the dishpan which I painted Buffing Stainless Steel Metalizer and then rubbed with a little SNJ aluminum powder.  The little exhaust pipes were painted burnt metal, overcoated with a little jet exhaust.  There is no wiring harness, I'll have to work something up for that.  I painted the pushrod housings Floquil Old Silver, but they probably should be black but then who would ever see them as they are buried in back on the W-670.  I painted the cylinders Floquil weathered black, then put several very thin coats of Testors Gloss Black until a little sheen built up.  The crankcase is Navy Gloss Grey, I wish it had a touch more blue to it.  

So far the fit is excellent, but I am wondering how the engine will fit since it is on the engine mount and has to be located just right so the dishpan fits well to the side and bottom cowls.  Probably will have to assemble it all at once.  I hope to keep the right side panel removable.

Pitty airfix did not get the decals right on the red box chippy, the last few airfix decals I had were really great.

That is a cool review John, thanx  :-)

Here are the major parts of my extremely simple PT-20 build. I hope to maybe shoot some paint on it today. I have never painted before assembly, but will give it a go here.

Hey there FSM,

Just wanted to compliment everyone on their progress.  Some good building goin' on in here.

I've also had the chance to make some progress.  Not much, but some.  I still need to trim, mask, and paint my SNJ's vac canopy, but in an effort to avoid doing that, I turned my attention to its decals.

I had an old Microscale sheet that had what were supposed to be VMT-2's markings, but as I looked at some references, I found out the sheet was wrong.  Still, I figured I'd be able to use some of the markings.  When I tried to use the decals, they disintegrated in the water.

I tried to use some liquid decal film to salvage what I could.  It worked OK, but it actually made the old decals a little thick and tinted, ever so slightly, their clear carrier film.

I used what I could and scavenged the rest from my junk drawer.

Besides the canopy, I still need to do some detail painting and build up the powerplant, but this is where I'm at with the SNJ.  The Corsair needs more paint before I can continue, but the weather hasn't been cooperative.

Thanks for lookin'!  That's it for now.  Stay tuned!

Looks like a good save on the decals, it all looks great. its horrible when that happens, i had it happen with some tamiya decals  x-(

Some really nice work going on in here!

Believe me guys, nothing beats the LF-Models decals in awfulness. They desintegrate if you look at them the wrong way, the paint flakes off of the carrier film, they wrinkle like mad as soon as any clear coat touches them, they are printed pretty badly, the white isn't even close to being opague and they need a lot of micro sol and fiddling around to get them into panel lines. They are basically an utter failure in every single category you can rate decals in. The price aint great either. If you are anterested in my adventures with them, jsut have a look in the Reich Defenders GB...

you can almost hear her saying "look at all that filler , You suck!"

Theuns,

It looks great!  I love the dropped flaps.  I wish I had done that with my kit.  Oh well.  Guess it's all the more reason to go out andpick up another kit.  

I can't wait to see the final product!

Eric

Misty I have that same kit and I also had to slap on the filler mate! I have not even got to the primer stage yet, but your is giving my hope for mine

Eric, I am just lucky enough to be a pilot and also work on planes for a living so I have a basic idea of how to make them look they are "working"  LOL

With such a simple kit every bit extra helps. I also put the elevators in the up position as I am planing something " special " for it...............stay tuned.

I shot some model master insigna yellow on the wings, stabs and tail. As soon as cured I will do the alclad on the fuse and undercart.

Omar somehow I missed your pix , it does look very nice indeed!

Theuns

It was nice to have the option to drop flaps on such a cheap kti, it seemed rude not to B-)

It took three goes to get all the seams acceptable, i love the red glazing putty, its so smooth and hardly shrinks.

What undercoat did you use for the yellow and what type of paint iscmodelmaster, ive not used it but the yellow looks real nice.

this just happened , cue lots of loud swearing and more filling and sanding. grrrrrrrrrrrrr

Wow, the Stearman and the Hawk are looking great. I'm really enthusiastic about these all trainers.

I've got another Airfix Chippy almost ready for paint, and have actually painted the black anti-glare panels on both models. The first will be in the red / white/ grey RAF scheme, and the second will have the bubble canopy, and be another CAF aircraft. I'm going to a swap meet on Sunday, and hopefully can score another couple of Chippies, as I have two more schemes to do with the decals that I currently have available.

Cheers

Tony

What is the red glaze butty Misty ? I might have to get some.

Cheers

Tony

The wings look nice Theuns  

Misty, I hate it when things break off late in the build, I always end up making a mess of the fix..

Omar is making me want to build a T-6.  Just not with those decals!

A little more progress on the Stearman.  I have the engine put together and painted.  I made up an ignition harness using a brass circlip and some fine copper wire stripped from electrical wiring, soldered together over a paper pattern.  I made 7 long wires and taped them down over the ring and soldered them, then cut the center portions to leave 14 wires.  Some nice moldings for the engine.  The blue paint is drying on the appropriate parts, the blue used on trainers is a bit of a mystery to me, 25095 is supposed to be the correct color, and that is close to the dark blue Testors 1111 in the little square bottles.  But, that looks much too dark to me, so I put quite a bit of white in it to lighten it up to look more like my photograph of 39WR.  I suspect a lot of post war Stearmans are painted a lighter blue cause it is prettier.

Gonna have to touch up that prop hub a little.

taxtp - it is 3M Acryl-Red glazing putty 05098

Hye guys.

I put golss black alclad primer on the fuse and have now finally made up my mind that the stuff just does not work for me. I re-psrayed it with gloss black tamiya enamel ready for pollished allu alclad.

The wings I brushed on a coat of future ready for decals but I overdid it and it nessed up, so I will have to re-do the yellow on it.

Pix later

Theuns

Bummer, Theuns!  I did my blue twice also, but I just remasked and oversprayed the blue.  It was way too dark the first time.  So I took some Ford Engine Blue, and did a test patch and it looked too dark.  I ended up adding about 20% Flat White and it looks pretty close to my reference pictures now. 

The model is just stuck together, the lower wing kind of snapped into place and I doubt I will bother to glue it.  Great fit all around on this one, allowing the possibility of painting before assembly, something I almost never do.

Theuns,  i never got along with alclads gloss black either, it never seemed to cure properly and wouldnt polish up nicely.

John i,love the coulourful scheme, its nice to see a bright and cheerful plane.

Nice John!

A mate of mine flies his full size PT-17 in the same colors you got on there. The thing I recall most of that plane is the more "big" sound of the tires as they touch the runway compared to general aviation planes, but then again they are a tad larger than standard Cessna wheels  LOL

I tell you this PT-20 is giving me allot of paint hassles! The alclad pollished allu came out like silver lacure almost even though the base gloss was super smooth. Maybe the rain affected the paint :-(

Theuns

Thanks, Theuns.

I have had good luck rubbing on a final coat of SNJ aluminum powder to get the polished aluminum look over many different metal type undercoats, but care has to be taken not to get the powder where you don't want it.

I started the rigging, actually all the connections are made except from the connections to the lower wing and fuselage  that start at the upper wing.  I added fuel lines from .015 wire and a fuel gauge from fiber optic filament.  I'm going to have to flow a little blue paint into the gap under the cockpit aluminum cover, it didn't end up as low after gluing as it did when I test fit it.

The upper wing is just test fitted at this point until I finish painting the windscreens and install them.

OK, so I managed to get the paint all off, I will have to make up my mind now if I want to re-try the alclad thing or if I am going for plain silver.

If I went alclad Imigh have some areas show up where I did not sand well enough getting the old paint of, so I am starting to think I should just go silver, having learned a valuable lesson on a cheap model about alclad and wet weather .

Theuns

talking of paint, i sprayed theHawk with decanted tamiya TS-14 and was less than impressed with the result. i just couldnt get a nice smooth result. So it was out with the micromesh pads and rub it down flat (burning thru it all over the place), and re-spray. this time i thinned it with mr leveling thinner about 2:1 and  ia m waiting for it to dry of as i type. fingers crossed.

the first go shiny but rough

respray - ahhhh, Bisto!