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Italeri 1/72 Scale C-119C Flying Boxcar **FINISHED**


Mike N

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My entry for this GB is the Italeri C-119C Flying Boxcar in 1/72.

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Developed from the C-82, the C-119 was a twin engine, twin boom transport aircraft entering service with the USAF in the late 1940’s. Despite being relatively new in service and having the usual teething troubles, it provided sterling service in the Korean War dropping troops and supplies, and carrying cargo into theatre.

I've always liked the look of this design, stemming from Flight of the Phoenix – only later did I find out that it was a C-82 used at the start of the film… This Italeri kit from the mid 2000’s is a modified re-issue of their earlier C-119G and AC-119 gunship kits (from the late 1980’s I believe). Most of the sprues are as per the G kit, but one of them has been changed to include new parts such as engine cowls, nose gear leg, etc. Interestingly, the tail booms have been modified to represent the early non-ventral finned design, so I wonder if the G variant will not be produced again? There is also a truck provided for scale and diorama options.

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Modified sprue for the C variant:

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There is a nice decal sheet with four options, three valid for the Korean War although only one is identified as such. I’m leaning towards ‘Oriental Beauty’ as it has the best artwork, but the only reference photo I can find is limited to just the fuselage around the art.

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In common with some of Italeri’s other releases of late, a helpful reference booklet is included in the box, featuring a few b&w period photos and technical drawings, plus colour photos of a preserved example and colour profiles of the decal options. Also shown here is my one reference on the C-119.

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I have built half of the earlier G kit for a different GB, modelling the Phoenix (which actually used a disguised C-119 rather than the C-82 shown flying). I found the kit to be very nice, and since I will not be butchering this one it should go together quite smoothly. The only thing I’m not looking forward to is the natural metal finish :o

Mike

Edited by Mike N
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It's going to be interesting to watch this build.

I built the C-119G a few years ago. Looking at your sprues, you have alternate engines to the C.

This was first model treated with kitchen foil after I bought some adhesive at SMW2000.

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Having build both the C-119G and a couple of the AC-119K. These Boxcar kits is having a excellent fit and quite good details given the age of the moulds. Always been one of my favorite kits

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  • 1 month later...

Is it still in positive? or did they made it in negative as they did with some of their reworked kits?

All the original parts still have raised lines. Only the new cowls have recessed lines. The change from the earlier kits are very minor!

Mike

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Apologies for the lack of updates, but progress has been both slow and fairly mundane!

As you'd imagine, I've been working on the interior first. The fuselage halves have various ejector pin marks and even random numbers present on the inside; not a problem if building it closed up but better off fixed when having the doors open as I intend to.

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Where the structure was broken by ejector marks I added lengths of plastic strip to repair them, the rest of the blemishes were scraped off.

I also drilled out the lightening holes from the clamshell doors:

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Then it was on with some paint. I sprayed Xtracolor interior green over everything, then highlighted the detail with a lighter shade of green drybrushed on, and finally gave it all a wash of oils:

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I wasn't sure on the floor colour so plumped for grey, with some weathering:

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The cockpit is quite nice, the only thing I did was to cut off the table mount on the aft bulkhead as it was far too high, but unfortunately this meant also sacrificing some of the details moulded on. Oh well, they'll never be seen... I used the booklet that came with the kit for the cockpit colours.

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Assembled cockpit and cabin floor:

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The other thing that's kept me occupied for a few nights is rescribing the exterior. Although quite fine, the raised lines would cause me grief when polishing the Alclad.

More to follow soon I hope!

Mike

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  • 3 weeks later...

With the interior mostly done, I've made some progress on the major structure.

Starting with some refinements to the kit, the wingtips have small bulges moulded on which I think are meant to represent lights, but from photos they look oversize. They are shown below prior to being sanded off. (Also visible are two dodgily scribed lines, which were later filled and re-scribed!!)

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The glare shield next to the landing light is horrifically thick - equivalent to about 3 inches at full scale! It's also not blessed with great moulding, plus the joint runs through it, so I sanded them flush and cut replacement parts from plastic sheet to add later.

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Moving on to the tail fins, the port fin has a bulge on the top, which appears to be correct for the G variant but not for the C, so that was removed also.

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With those amendments made I built up the sub-assemblies. I started by attaching the tailplane to the booms, using the centre wing to maintain alignment, and once dry I glued that joint too.

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Then on went the wings. They should have no dihedral so I ended up with gaps along the upper joints to fill.

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Back at the fuselage, with the interior installed in one half, I loaded in various weights under the cockpit floor, which provides a decent volume for this purpose.

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I then loosely assembled the fuselage halves and the rest of the airframe to check the balance - it looked good!

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After cementing the fuselage I still had the option of dropping a few more small weights in forward of the instrument panel so I checked the balance again just to be sure!

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That's pretty much where I'm up to. I just need to mask the canopy and plug the doors and then I can start sanding and priming!

Thanks for looking :)

Mike

Edited by Mike N
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Looking good.

I have just about completed mine which I started(finally after several years...)a couple weeks ago. I did the same with the holes in the rear cargo door frames having found good photos on the web by googling!! Lots there to help out. Mine is in RCAF colours using those lovely Leading Edge decals. My kit incidentally is from the original issue and without the lorry and extra engines. I also opted to leave the raised panel lines but rubbed them down enough so they are subtly visible after painting.

I note that extra small sprue with the new nose leg and single wheel appropriate for the earlier 'Dollar Nineteen'! And that mod to the rear booms with the omission of the ventral fin. Hmm.

As a pointer to help you, the upper halves of the booms and the main underside of the fuselage were painted with a protective coat of silver. The boom upper halves were to resist and protect from exhaust heat and was a silver colour so no bare metal in evidence. Quite easy to see the demarcation as (on my kit anyway) the boom centre line has this demarcation quite clear and ends just forward of the tailplane. Photos I found on the net show this especially derelict airframes. The fuselage underside protective coat was to protect against debris. The line where it demarcates from the shiny metal areas was, from the nose, up to the base of the forward crew door and followed along to the rear.

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Looking good.

I have just about completed mine which I started(finally after several years...)a couple weeks ago. I did the same with the holes in the rear cargo door frames having found good photos on the web by googling!! Lots there to help out. Mine is in RCAF colours using those lovely Leading Edge decals. My kit incidentally is from the original issue and without the lorry and extra engines. I also opted to leave the raised panel lines but rubbed them down enough so they are subtly visible after painting.

I note that extra small sprue with the new nose leg and single wheel appropriate for the earlier 'Dollar Nineteen'! And that mod to the rear booms with the omission of the ventral fin. Hmm.

As a pointer to help you, the upper halves of the booms and the main underside of the fuselage were painted with a protective coat of silver. The boom upper halves were to resist and protect from exhaust heat and was a silver colour so no bare metal in evidence. Quite easy to see the demarcation as (on my kit anyway) the boom centre line has this demarcation quite clear and ends just forward of the tailplane. Photos I found on the net show this especially derelict airframes. The fuselage underside protective coat was to protect against debris. The line where it demarcates from the shiny metal areas was, from the nose, up to the base of the forward crew door and followed along to the rear.

Thanks Paul :)

I'm not too sure whether the silver paint was applied to Korean era machines. The booklet that came with the C kit includes drawings showing protective paint finishes, both in aluminium and black. However, I've looked at several photos and can't make out any demarcation line on the booms of most aircraft, especially earlier ones. There also seem to be variations on the black areas, with some having black bellies, some with the booms aft of the engines black, and some with none at all! When I get near the painting stage I'll make a guess as to which Oriental Beauty had, as I haven't got a photo of her as a whole.

Mike

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The pics I've seen where the upper portion of the booms show the protective colouring admittedly are of derelict airframes. I found such pics on Airliners.net.

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  • 1 month later...

Update on procedings, mindful of the deadline looming!

Prior to attaching the wing/tail assembly I sprayed the canopy frame interior green (and this must be the only kit in history that Eduard have not made a mask set for!)

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Then it was on with the primer to find all the errors...

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After some cleaning up, on went Alclad's black base coat:

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A gentle polish then on with Alclad Aluminium, followed by 2 coats of their gloss:

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I ended up with some slight tonal variation, more by accident (i.e. dodgy airbrushing) than design, so didn't feel any need to mask any panels and use a different shade. Photos also seem to indicate a uniform colour.

With the gloss on, the next step is to mask the nose and tail for the blue and white markings. The decal sheet has these but I seriously doubt they'll work well enough, especially around the nose.

I've also invested in my first Scale Aircraft Conversions set, although annoyingly it is only for the G version so the kit nose leg will have to do.

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More anon.

Thanks for looking!

Mike

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hello all, a brief update on my work.

With the airframe 'metalised' I started doing some of the other colours. I started with the unit colours, namely blue and white. Italeri provide these as decals, but I had my doubts about getting the nose item to conform to the compound curves there. I decided to try it to save time, but it was comically small and hence discarded! Out with the masking tape...

I apologise that I don't have photos of the process, but I first sprayed the nose and fin tips white, then masked for the blue. The results are here:

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I also masked and sprayed the dark grey areas on top of the fuselage and wing roots.

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Then it was on to be colourful part, the Arctic red areas! C-119s in Korea had variations of these markings (when applied at all) so it's my best guess as to what Oriental Beauty actually wore. Photos of the 64th TCS in Japan showed aircraft with no red, red all around the leading edge, and red with bare leading edges. I went for the latter.

From the photo above you'll see I'd already started the masking process, as there are quite a few areas to mask. It appears all control surfaces remained unpainted, plus an outline around the national markings and serials.

For the stars and bars, I borrowed my wife's crafting circle punch as this was luckily the ideal size for the wing markings:

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I stuck some tape to thin plastic card and then punched out a perfect circle:

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Here's the model with all tape (and overspray protection) applied:

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One very noticeable thing from photos is that the red areas suffered badly from peeling, particularly the top surfaces (presumably from intense sunlight). I considered trying the 'wet salt technique' but instead went with masking fluid applied by sponge. This was dabbed on randomly and liberally, especially at the leading edges:

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The vertical tails and lower surfaces had only small areas dabbed.

We'll see how it all works out at the next installment!

Thanks for looking,

Mike

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This is a kit I have had a hankering for, for a long time. I like the look of the work you are doing on it and it is making me hanker after it even more.

PS How is the Rotodyne?

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Thanks you very much chaps, glad you're enjoying the build!

Nigel, I can wholeheartedly recommend the kit, it goes together pretty well and has bags of character. As for the Rotodyne, well, as you may suspect, it has not moved on, but rest assured that it shall. It is up on the shelf waiting to be resurrected :)

Mike

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Well folks, just to bring you up to date, I've sprayed the red...

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and here's the big reveal:

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Normally if this was the result I'd be going to lie down in a darkened room, but this time I'm delighted with it!

On with the decals! :)

Mike

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