alancmlaird

Thanks muchly, chaps. It was touch and go there for a while, and on seeing my own pics close up, there are definitely some improvement to be made post-gallery. I really would like to 'crack' the fine outer line to the dark blue with better resolution printing, and the canopy framing is too thick (I nearly gave up on it as the dashed transparencies wouldn't stick securely to the cockpit combing). I'm now eyeing-up some drawings and pics of the coupe version, and rummaging in my BIG box of bits for the next unrelated set of components to butcher. Are modellers all suckers for punishment?

DH94 Moth Minor G-AFPN. Strathalllan Air Museum 1980s. Still flying. To recap, built from: Frog Miles Magister fuselage, inner wings, propeller, rudder, tailwheel, windscreens and seats. Airfix Handley Page Jetstream outer wings. Airfix Tiger Moth anti-spin strakes and wheels. Plastic card/stretched sprue tailplane and undercarriage. To sum up, a pile of old bits'n'pieces. I'm delighted with the Moth Minor shape derived from an unpromising bunch of bits, less so with my painting (the actual aircraft had a very thin dark blue line running very close to the dark blue main parts, but my printer resolution wouldn't print it, and I certainly couldn't mask and panit it. I'll experiment a bit with thicker lines on decal to see if I can improve on it and re-apply all over. Also, if there are any professional typographers out there who take issue with the registration lettering being a bit 'amateurish', take it up with the original sign-writer - I got it spot-on!

A quick, bad, late, snap to reveal a bunch of serious touch-ups still required. I will post better (maybe) ones on the gallery at the last minute (also maybe!).

....well, I know I should have checked before now, but the curved transparency (the Magister has one curved and one flat-glass screen) from the shop-soiled kit was completely unusable. I already had one from the spares box, but I needed two, so, Philistine that I am, I robbed the one I needed from this original Frog boxing, excavated from my historic stash mine.... ...a dab of clear PVA to glue both to the now nearly finished model. It looks like, despite my previous non-shows, I might actually get finished in time to put pics in the Gallery before close of play. (Don't worry - I have already planned a Hawk Major conversion from this boxing, which uses two of the flat-glass screens, and just needs new trousers plus modified fin and rudder. Easy-peasy, waste not, want not, re-use recycle etc etc.)

Just a 'masking' progress report ("A boredom shared is a boredom halved" nobody ever said) Midnight blue leading edges everywhere. Tape still on the strake and tailplane, just the other side of the fin/rudder still to do - plus lot of touching up! Windscreens to be added. Decals done and ready to go on. Oh, and I knocked an undercarriage leg off while masking 🙄

The change-over was probably the G-AS-- in UK range as I have seen contemporary pics, some with and some without the top registration (eg, Piper Cherokee G-ASFL has the top wing reg when in early Loganair ownership in 1963. Subsequent re-paints seem to have not bothered re-instating it. I notice in the last few years that more and more current owners are returning their now classic aircraft to original schemes and are including the top wing registration again. As a rule of thumb, if the subject is pre- 'T' reg then I'll include the upper wing lettering unless I find evidence otherwise. I have actually built that Loganair Cherokee from the Aurora kit, and though I only found a confirmatory pic very recently, I had guessed correctly about the upper wing registration! You might find it helpful to look here on what not to do... Where I completed a Beaver floatplane last year. I confidently decided to leave the rivets on. I wish i hadn't. My home-produced transfers (on transparent stock) were a complete pain to get to stick. I have now soaked them off and re-printed new ones on white stock which I have found much easier to press around raised detail and won't show dark bits like you can see here

Yes, my preference is enamel. Didn't know that about an additive. Certainly I seem to have to budget for replacement tins every summer (greater evaporation?) of nearly everything these days. I think the dead give-away is how much more 'crusting' appears round the tin lid compared to days of yore. I miss benzine in petrol too - snifffff mmmmm 🤪 https://www.knowde.com/stores/advansix/products/ez-blox?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=advansix_launch&utm_content=anti-skinning-agent&gclid=CjwKCAjw_uGmBhBREiwAeOfsd_gwRRnvJcpJ43eidsMxLMxlhl0Wjs-4Ud-gCMff6VK47pvcsJDDhBoC7C4QAvD_BwE https://www2.mst.dk/udgiv/publications/2004/87-7614-097-0/html/kap04.htm#:~:text=Anti-skinning agents are therefore added to solvent-borne air,where volatile types are preferred. ...looks much easier just buying new tins every year!

After a bit of a gap, I've made some progress.... ...adding some peripheral components. What a difference some detail makes! In the brief interlude, my tin of gloss white crusted over, and against my better judgement I poked a hole in the surface like an Inuit looking for a fish and extracted enough paint for the final all-over coat. Inevitably, the old paint was infected with little lumps, so while waiting for some replacement paint to arrive, I sanded (1200 grade wet'n'dry) smooth as much as I could before reapplying another, hopefully smoother, coat or two. Not much to do now.

I won't inflict upon the assembled masses the repetitive tedium of masking small areas, painting gloss white, watching paint dry, removing masking, repeat. ....but in between times, I made up undercarriages, where my spares box failed me - being without a pair of Chipmunk assemblies which I reckoned would have been ideal - I had to make 'em from scratch with the addition of a pair of Airfix Tiger Moth wheels (donated from a kit destined to be a floatplane). The perforated airbrake is a bit wobbly, but that was the best out of four attempts! Plus a cowling intake carved from a bit of stretched sprue painted black and not yet released from the sprue...

Well, I thought the Magister and Moth Minor had obvious similarities, though as it turned out, only the Magister rudder was any use without severe modifications! The Maggie fuselage had a passing resemblance only, yet the cockpits were in the right place. The 'inspiration' if that's the right word, was that, for the first time in 50 years, during a clear out both the Maggie and the Jetstream were sitting side by side ready to be junked. I'd wanted a kit of the Moth Minor for that long, but had lost interest in the hobby by the time (I think) a vac form was released, but I didn't buy it (anyway, the few early vacs I had bought were pretty crude). I think Dujun have done a resin kit a mere 20-odd years ago, but I've never seen one for sale. With the adjacent Jetstream begging for re-use, something just 'clicked' with the wing-taper and I scaled up a line drawing from t'intenet, not in any great hope, but the outer wing coincided exactly! Serendipity I suppose. Would I have ever noticed the possibilities if they hadn't been sitting side-by-side? Even if I had, did it need this Group Build to put building a DH, but something different, in my mind at the same time? Who knows? This might not even be the easiest way to scratch-build a Moth Minor, maybe some plastic card would have been easier, but would that blank sheet have given me the inspiration to start? I doubt it. Anyway, this feels like 'proper' modelling like Alan W. Hall used to do in Airfix magazine in the 1960s. Ahhh! There's my inspiration!

Hmmm...that worked well. I'll have to look for a 'smug' emoji! Wings masked off at the centre-section, three coats of thinned gloss white applied to the outers - I've not done the gloss top coat anywhere else yet, I just wanted to see if the rib masking worked. It was difficult to show in the photo, but I am delighted with the result. Well worth the effort and much better than my original attempt.

....this is my more subtle approach to 'starving cow' canvas... 1. Cut long strip of masking tape to width of ribs (minus a whisker) then short sections from this as required, this allows a bit of adjustment to any wobbly gaps which stretched sprue doesn't when attaching. 2. Thinned matt white painted into the gaps, I gave it four coats, which might actually have been too many, even though the model will need at least two coats of gloss white enamel on top. 3. Tape removed to reveal new ribs (which might get a light sanding to soften the edges a bit). A bit tedious (no more so that the sprue method) but is more accurate and consistent. Well, maybe. We'll see when the paint goes on. I still have to cut the deep groove for the aileron/flap joints.

After much priming, sanding, filling, filing, rinse & repeat (I should really add 'bish bosh' to the title!) ...and in refining the shape I decided my 'starving cow' rib detail just didn't cut it, so orft it was jolly-well sanded too. A more subtle (I hope) alternative will be tried next, but I'm getting happy with the shape, just some minor details to add now (see what I did there?)

At last! I finally get to use a bit off a De Havilland kit... ...the spare anti-spin strakes from an Airfix Tiger Moth kit (I've previously built two - on here somewhere - but as the early strakeless DH82), though a bit like the Magister fuselage, there is very little left once I finished whittling. Fitting these was instrumental in me realising that the rear fuselage was too fat and curvy. I also spotted (way after I should have) the protruding intake on the starboard side of the nose (third pic) and the need to fill in the aperture on the port. More whittling on the end of a bit of sprue did the (fiddly) job.

Its identity might change as we progress, depending on its similarity to an actual aircraft! I have another spare Jetstream so ending up as a biplane could be a possibility, though I suspect certain DH aficionados might already have sussed the answer.

It's only when you get the major components together that you can see the whole picture... ...and where I've gone, if not actually wrong, then not right yet. Ignoring the rather crude drawings I've been using (where did those Aeromodeller drawings go that I bought over 50 years ago?) and starting to compare the hulk you see here with photographs on-line, there are some obvious alterations needed. The main one being the too-fat sides of the rear fuselage at odds with DH's delicate design. Luckily the Frog Maggie fuselage has styrene aplenty to shave that down. Not so obvious in the shot it that the top line of the front fuselage is about 10thou too low and the underside of the cowling needs to be filed a bit to bring it upwards. Also, despite a fair bit of careful adjustment pre-assembly, the outer wing aerofoil section don't quite match the centre section - nothing I haven't had to fix occasionally on 'proper' kits. Definitely some refinement required before its seen here again! (The coat of matt white helps to show the shape without being distracted by cut lines and bits areas of filler. Most of it gets sanded off again))

I agree. In this case, even if (as is likely) it turns out to be like a bad kit - at least its a cheap bad kit! A few years ago, I felt I must have Wingnuts kits till I realised if they turned out great, well, that's 'cos they were great kits, and if they turned out badly, it was all down to me. No satisfaction as Mr Jagger might have sung. Now I'll just have a go at minimum expense, and any result just above adequate is fine by me.

I always feel that scratch-building is not so very different from building from a kit.... ...there it is, nearly ready to start now

Meanwhile....waiting in the wings.... The Jetstream outer wings, surprisingly, needed little modification. Slightly altered wingtip, fill and smooth all control surface joints and re-scribe new lines. Stretched sprue was attached with the thinnest liquid glue to indicate the fabric covering of the new-position ailerons and flaps. Tedious but necessary, I think, though I suspect by the time I've done the other wing surfaces plus tail, I'll wish I'd just lightly scribed those on too. I may be gone some time.

Minimalist cabin detail should be barely visible down the cockpit aperture. Magister seats with added armrests, sprue control sticks, scrap plastic instrument panels, all on plastic sheet floor.

....and now here is a weather report. Heavy rain has started falling in a way that only Scotland and Manchester can. Oh good - now I can make some serious progress toward that which may end up in in the bin anyway. Fuselage top-decking and fuselage horizontally sectioned (lower) and reattached (upper). Wing centre-section chord reduced and reshaped. The rear top decking will curve down towards the tail and the rear underside is a straight line from rear wing root to tail - irritatingly, the Magister fuselage does the opposite, but happily, the old Frog/Novo plastic is thick enough to mostly accommodate removing oodles of material without breaking through to fresh air. Fuselage is narrowed and tail slightly shortened... ...with tailplane mounting, anti-spin strakes and blind flying hood removed. Interestingly, the cockpit positions stay pretty much in the same place

Aw, spoilsport. Peter Piper managed it fine.

I should have explained my first photo: The Jetstream I built when the kit was new, and following the cancellation of a USAF order, the prototype 'WBR was the only one of its type ever to fly. The 50 year gap has neither been kind to my unsympathetic storage or indeed paucity of talent. The Novo Magister kit was bought at about the same time and had suffered shop-window sun-fading and heat warping. Both were on the cusp of being binned in a loft clear-out. And yet, they might still be of use if... ...the Magister fuselage and centre-section were combined with the Jetstream outer wing-sections, they might, with a bit of modification, be combined into something else entirely.

I really, really wanted to join the DH GB much sooner, indeed I was looking forward to it, but, well, circumstances, you know. It was also going to be a straight-from-the-box build, but they never seem to turn out that straightforward, so instead, here we go with a conversion scratch build recycle, probably all of those. Still, with nearly eight weeks to go, what could possibly go wrong....? Has there ever been a less promising late start to a Group Build? (Well, yes, probably my previous effort.) What follows should make more sense. Honest.