Adrian Hills

Both an interesting subject and an interesting scale. Obviously challenging being this small but you have made a good job of it

Have got a bit more done. Joined fuselage after putting a pallet in the back with some sacks. Wing fitted surprisingly well. The nose on the one image (I think it is a painting) has some air intakes on it. So cut a few bits of tube to tart it up a bit. added a little bit on top of the tail, a distinctive feature of this particular aircraft. And waterlined the floats. All ready for an Alclad gloss black undercoat, hopefully also as useable as top coat for nose !

Paul, 1/144 Catalina! Do it Just got back to my W34, wings on and fuselage together. Not far from a black Alclad undercoat before silver to topcoat. Water lining the floats was a real task. Either my Dremel saw was melting and reforming the plastic or my razor saw is worn out after ‘just’ 31 years. Maybe a new saw. tomorrow I will look at my Ju 52/1m

Paul, going out and smelling the slightly cooler air will do you wonders. Am sure you can pop another one off - I particularly like the Norseman! I need to leap back into my Junkers. My family has been away for a week so I have been sorting the house out. I should have spent a bit of time modelling- am I stupid or what ? Hope to see you in the not too distant future

AMB, we’ve all had to deal with this back of the skirt problem (does that sound right !!). I think it is one of the reasons the kit isn’t being re-released. Once it is painted you’ll wonder why you worried. There are so many more interesting bits to look at. When you get to it you will find that the roof kinda fits fine. I seem to remember only minor adjustments. Looking forward to seeing some images of how you are getting on. Cheers Adrian

Stompin' Tom Connors - Sudbury Saturday Night (Live at The Horseshoe Tavern) - YouTube Just for you, regards CanAdrian

Looking forward to to seeing what you come up with

Cliff, thanks for note on that. Being Canadian it most certainly has an enclosed cockpit ! Cheers Adrian

Just a grab bag photo, showing a semi- assembled cockpit, internal ribbing highlighted in grey (its so small might show up better through windows) and oil drums, pallets and sacks all from Ratio railway supplies. Was very peaceful painting those, especially the 'Castrol' oil drums ! Might use some sacks pallets and drums in my JU 52/1m

I tried putting some ribbed sections on the interior but it looked to bulky. So just added a few bit of styrene rod to make it look interesting. Then hosed it down with Alclad The thinning around the windows and door orifice didn't help. But at least I can close the fuselage soon

Have now confronted the window configuration. Basically I cut some of the verticals out of the working fuselage and added the angled pieces removed from the donor fuselage. I chose this method as I thought the angle was the most difficult cut to look regular. On the working fuselage I kept a central vertical to stabilise the window orifice and then backed it up with plasticard. This made it easier to fill in the gaps with further vertical sections - used because they are the same thickness. Hopefully Tamiya putty, thinned with Revell glue will hide my sins (If only life was that easy !) Also seen in the image is the inclusion of the passenger door on the starboard side grafted into the blanking piece filling the loading-bay hole. front windows added as they will be painted over. This is what I am trying to emulate. I decided against doing the area using one piece of ribbed section as I don't think I have the skill. Now time for bed

A Tale of Two Tails. I have now fiddled with the lower wing tips from the donor kit and made them approximate the pre-1936 squarer tail. A bit cooler in the evenings to model as I'm sure many fellow modellers in the UK are sweltering a bit - not conducive to modelling. My first effort above with the second effort below. Am glad the ribbing frequencies of kit tail and wing tip are similar. Here you see what I call 'the squarer' tail on the aircraft photographed with darker colour floats and the corresponding lower power engine. compare with photos of the rudder seen when it had silver floats and extended rudder to counteract yaw. (hope I'm making sense!)

Hi Chris, Thanks for those references. The Russian on is particularly useful as cited in my last post. Will need to write to the Winnipeg museum and see if they know what colour the earlier floats were. I think the Canadian Airways wing panels were orange rather than the post war dayglo red depicted by some modellers. J Bot decals provide colour panels with their decals of this aircraft and they are distinctly orange. Yesterday I cut a section out the blanking plate fitted on the starboard side for the other door. Kit original personnel door fits fine. The tips of both donor kit lower wing sections were glued together and later they will be re-profiled to form the pre-1936 squarish rudder

The problem I am having is that I am an academic and am dealing with secondary sources. For my Doctoral research one particular Professor strongly emphasised the value of primary sources -ie what was written down at the time. Unfortunately, for the purpose of this project I have neither the time or the inclination to fly to Canada and do in depth research. So what you have is my best shot from the few publications I have as well as online searches. From Russian website "Junkers Ju-52/1m (seaplane 1930-1932) (seawarpeace.ru)" using Google translate, "The fact that the design of the aircraft of this type was successful is evidenced by the fact that during many years of operation only minor changes were made to it. Only the BMW VII aU engine could not withstand the test of the harsh Canadian winter and in January 1936 it had to be replaced by the British Rolls-Royce Buzzard, which was also a V-shaped 12-cylinder aircraft engine. With it, the aircraft formally received the designation of the modification Ju 52cao. Due to the change of engine, the vertical tail was also changed, increasing its size. Later, they began to use mainly a wheeled chassis, the tires of which were replaced by modern low-pressure pneumatics." Perhaps an answer to my quandry over rudder profiles so perhaps I do need to use the earlier rudder profile - Chiz !

For the basic anatomy of the aircraft I think I will go with an image reported as from 1931 shown in the Suadron Signal book, see below. The tip of the tail cannot be clearly seen in this image so I will go with what I have made, but modify it slightly. Note the tail wheel is still attached. I have seen a suggestion that this A/C was painted white. I think this is a mis-interpretation as the Squadron Signal book calls it a 'white elephant', but I think this probably refers to sentiments in "Flying Colours; A History of Commercial Aviation in Canada" by Peter Pigott that states the Ju 52 was 'an extravagant purchase' and due to unreliability of the engine only flew for sixty eight days in its first year - hence a 'white elephant'. Any comments on the colour of the floats in the above picture would be most appreciated. Now to do some actual modelling as I need to cut a passenger door in that starboard blanking panel I have just fitted !