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Airfix Do17E/F


John

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After the fun build that was the Airfix Hs123 I've decided to have a go at this fine old kit.

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The last time I built one of these it was in the original Type 4 box. This one is a bit later but still in that baby blue plastic I will forever associate with the Airfix kits of my youth. I don't think this kit has been in the Airfix catalogue since the blueprint style box, although it has been available from Bilek.

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So far I've painted the interior and put together wing and tail sub-assemblies. I'm not really much of a Luftwaffe modeller and don't have many of the specialist paint colours in stock, so for RLM02 I mixed Humbrol 86 and 90 50/50 and was very pleased with the result.

More pix to follow.

John

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This is an excellent kit, and well worth its reissue.

Here we have 3 wise Luftwaffe monkeys, undercoated in Humbrol 63 for their flight suits and awaiting detail painting. One of them may well sport a leather jacket!

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Here is the interior with my home-brewed RLM02, which looks fine to my non-Luftwaffe-expert eye.

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John

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A bit of progress.

The wings and the 3-dimensional jigsaw that is the engines nacelles are assemble here. There is little in the way of positive location for the nacelles, so they were lined up as neatly as possible at the front then glued and taped. Finally the rear was fixed to the lower wing. A bit of fettling gave a good fit that only needed some gentle sanding to get everything flush, and no filler.

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On the undersurface, the joins at the front of each engine needed a little filler to close things up completely.

Possibly the major weakness of the kit is the moulding of the props and spinners in one piece.

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The tail unit withthe outer fins painted red, these will be masked off fof the national markings.

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Larry, Mo and Curly now properly dressed.

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The fuselage joined together - no filler at all!

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Top view. You can install the ventral windows and the belly gun through the gar for the wing, if you're careful.

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The airframe completed and undercoated. The upper wing join needed a smear of White Stuff.

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John

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Here's the airframe with its upper surface camouflage colours applied:

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The colours are Humbrol 10 Service Brown, 86 Light Olive and a 50/50 mix of 90 Beige Green and 86 Light Olive for the grey. Undersides will be good old 65, and the red on the fins is 220 Ferrari Red.

Next stage is a coat of Klear and decals, and then Humbrol mattCote to even out the different lustres.

John

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You get the distinct impression that whoever designed these camouflage schemes must have been on something strong! Nonetheless, even in small scale, you can see how effective they are in breaking up the aircraft's outline. They must have been horrifically labour intensive to apply though.

John

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Upper surface markings from the 30 yaer old kit sheet applied with no problems. The nose glazing also fitted perfectly with a touch from a sanding stick. The clear parts of the gunners canopy have been masked and overpainted.

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John

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The finished item, with its final coat of matt varnish drying.

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It can't be denied that the kit is showing its age, and it could probably do with a bit more TLC than I've given it on this occasion, but the end result is a very nice, large and surprisingly colourful model.

Sorry about the poor photos, but my camera's useless in artificial light

John

Edited by John
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