Aeronautica Militare Italiana G.91R (Meng 1/72)

[Giorgio N]

Unfortunately at the moment building a 1/72 Yankee means working hard on the Matchbox kit or paying a lot of money for the Cunarmodel kit. I may build the former for the Matchbox GB, if so I hope to give some indication of what can be done to improve this old and basic kit (i've been planning this for years, hopefully I now have a decent idea of what's needed). I'll also use parts from the Revell kit to try and add some detail. The worst part is the canopy that is wrong in shape. With the R canopy being different there's not other option than scratchbuilding a replacement

With an F-16 intake "my" method may work, will be curious to see it tried

[giemme]

2 hours ago, Giorgio N said:

Unfortunately at the moment building a 1/72 Yankee means working hard on the Matchbox kit or paying a lot of money for the Cunarmodel kit. I may build the former for the Matchbox GB, if so I hope to give some indication of what can be done to improve this old and basic kit (i've been planning this for years, hopefully I now have a decent idea of what's needed). I'll also use parts from the Revell kit to try and add some detail. The worst part is the canopy that is wrong in shape. With the R canopy being different there's not other option than scratchbuilding a replacement

With an F-16 intake "my" method may work, will be curious to see it tried

Thanks G; I did read a build review of the Matchbox model some time ago (can't remember where, though), and you are just confirming what I read. I didn't know about the Cunarmodel kit, so I googled for it; €55 sounds like a lot of money, as you say, and I have no idea on its accuracy and on how it builds. I guess I'll wait for your Matchbox build  

 

As for the F-16, it's not in the plans for this year, maybe next ...  

 

Ciao

[Giorgio N]

Small progress: I finally decided that there was no point in gluing the paper intake duct on the side of the cockpit as very little light enters and nothing is really visible beyond 10 mm or so. So I could simply glue on the weapon panels. Meng offers part for both the 30mm and .50 cal armed variants, Italy choose the 4 MG armament for their G.91s so the correct panels were glued in place. Fit was pretty good

 

 

There's a bit of a gap at the rear but it's not too worrying. These panels are on the real 91 hinged at the bottom and swing outboard to allow access to the guns.

What can't really be seen in the picture is the long work spent trying to make the panel lines more noticeable. The panel lines on this kit are nice in most areas but on the fuselage top they become so shallow as to almost disappear. The only thing to do is to use scribers to make them a bit deeper. This is not easy in the area at the base of the fin as there's plenty of them and they are on a very curved surface. I have not completed this task yet and til now it's been maybe the longest part of this build

[giemme]

Good to see progress on this too, G!

 

I've recently discovered (thanks to @Fritag ) the usage of razor saws to scribe/deepen panel lines, when your standard scribing tools are too wide for the task. You get very neat lines, and if you run some Tamiya Green Cap along them with a fine brush, you also get a very clean effect. HTH

 

Ciao

Edited May 16, 2017 by giemme

[mirageiv]

Excellent work Giorgio, I really like the extra information you are sticking in this thread, will be very useful!

 

David

[Fritag]

I'm very late finding this - for some reason I always forget to look in the group build forum - but I'm glad I've caught it now  Excellent and informative work Giorgio.

 

I too have fond memories of the G.91.  I had a back seat ride in (IIRC) a G.91T out of Brindisi back in the late 80's.  Low level around southern Italy in glorious sunshine sitting in the back of a G91 - lovely it was.  I was lost most of the time but still lovely.

[Giorgio N]

On 15/5/2017 at 0:09 PM, giemme said:

Good to see progress on this too, G!

 

I've recently discovered (thanks to @Fritag ) the usage of razor saws to scribe/deepen panel lines, when your standard scribing tools are too wide for the task. You get very neat lines, and if you run some Tamiya Green Cap along them with a fine brush, you also get a very clean effect. HTH

 

Ciao

 

It's a technique I used in past, particularly when I had to deepen the panel lines cancelled during sanding the fuselage joins. I don't know if it will work in my case as the panel lines I still have to rescribe are in a tightly curved area, I feel that a needle in a small pin-vice is the better tool for these areas. In any case it's going to be a very boring job

 

19 hours ago, mirageiv said:

Excellent work Giorgio, I really like the extra information you are sticking in this thread, will be very useful!

 

David

 

Thanks, I try to give some info everytime I build a lesser known subject. Learning something new is something I love of modelling and I like to share this aspect of out hobby, be it from a historical perspective or a technical one.

 

3 hours ago, Fritag said:

I'm very late finding this - for some reason I always forget to look in the group build forum - but I'm glad I've caught it now  Excellent and informative work Giorgio.

 

I too have fond memories of the G.91.  I had a back seat ride in (IIRC) a G.91T out of Brindisi back in the late 80's.  Low level around southern Italy in glorious sunshine sitting in the back of a G91 - lovely it was.  I was lost most of the time but still lovely.

 

Thanks, glad you like it. And if one day you'll decide to give the G.91 the same treatment you're applying to your Hawks, it will be a joy to watch !

Speaking of the T, I'm of course very envious of your flight in one... mind, I'm even more envious of your time on the Jag..

The T was one of those types that pilots liked but first of all respected, it was known as "virus" as its flying characteristics could give nasty surprises to novices.

it's one of those subjects I've wanted to build for a long time. I have the Aeroclub kit with vacform fuselage and short run wings and my plan is to build this using as many parts as possible from the Revell R kit. Hopefully I'll start sometime this year.

[Giorgio N]

Rarely has such a small part needed so much time... and it wasn't even a particularly detailed bit of plastic...

I'm talking of the nose cone. This in the G.91R contains a number of camers, meaning that there's a few windows. Meng moulded the part in solid grey plastic with the camera window locations indicated by recessed lines. Good for a quick build (just paint the windows black) but I didn't like this solution. Really the best solution would have been to mould the part in clear plastic and I considered for a while the idea of cloning the cone in clear resin! The problem is that the resin I could source locally is known to turn yellowish over time so I passed. I know that there's some clear resin around that does not yellow but I couldn't find any quickly. My only option was therefore to try and cut the openings for the windows in the plastic part.

The front camera was easy, just drill the aperture with a bit of the right size. The side and lower windows were another story as they are square. And small. Actually the lower window is very small.

After a number of failed attempts I decided for a compromise solution: drill round holes, add round clear windows and then mask with a square bit of tape when it will be time to paint. Not the best solution maybe, but the best I could manage.. Here are a few pictures of the modified nosecone

 

 

 

 

The windows are not too clear in the pictures, they have now received a good treatment with progressively thinner abrasives, followed by a bath in Klear (same techniques often used for canopies) and they look much better. I'll now also add some black walls inside the cone to avoid seeing through the two larger windows on the side. After that, I'll glue the cone to the fuselage and I'll finally be able to sort all the gaps

[giemme]

17 hours ago, Giorgio N said:

drill round holes, add round clear windows and then mask with a square bit of tape when it will be time to paint.

 

Sounds like a cunning plan!   Bravo G!  

 

Ciao

[Fritag]

 

On 21/05/2017 at 2:20 PM, Giorgio N said:

I considered for a while the idea of cloning the cone in clear resin! The problem is that the resin I could source locally is known to turn yellowish over time so I passed.

 

I've recently been thinking of getting some clear resin as an alternative to shaping sprue or crash moulding various transparent bits and bobs - but I don;t know about the tendency to yellow.  I'll have to research things a bit more before buying.  Thanks for the heads up G.

On 22/05/2017 at 8:12 AM, giemme said:

Sounds like a cunning plan!

 

I agree - I don't think it's a compromise - I think it's a sensible and elegant solution in this scale. 

[Giorgio N]

2 hours ago, Fritag said:

 

 

I've recently been thinking of getting some clear resin as an alternative to shaping sprue or crash moulding various transparent bits and bobs - but I don;t know about the tendency to yellow.  I'll have to research things a bit more before buying.  Thanks for the heads up G.

 

 

The information about that particular resin yellowing was given to me directly by the shop owner, who is a very nice fella and knows a lot about the problems we modelers may have. To be fair he also said that their resin showed some moderate yellowing over a few years, so maybe I should have just tried.

I have discussed this with other modellers and someone mentioned that some resins are better than others, not surprising of course. Guess your only option is to ask around to other local modellers and see what the products you can find are like. IIRC the latest Prochima clear resin should be very good from this point of view but I don't know if this is available outside Italy. The one I buy here is not from Prochima but from a German company, never had problems with the standard type or the rubber and the shop is not far from home, another good reason to choose this one

What everybody told me is that clear resin cast in rubber moulds need a lot of care to avoid bubbles. Of course, all resins have this issue but if on a coloured resin part I only have small bubbles inside the part, it's no big deal while the same bubbles would totally spoil a canopy.

[TonyTiger66]

I just caught up Giorgio 

Its going really well  

 

I like your solution to the air intake. Also the camera windows on the nose. I agree that round windows masked to form other shapes is an excellent solution.

 

Looking forward to the next instalment 

 

All best regards

TonyT

[Mountain goat]

Those windows! Brilliant! Looks like it's going to work out nicely. Doing what needs to be done with the tools at hand, and then making it work - is what modelling kind of is about. Really liking this build therefore.

 

jay