lunarhighway

Here's a little more progres, but first of all thanks to everyone for the usefull comments... The rivets are indeed to heavy so a scalpel and some sanding took care of them. Next i put together the 3 piece engine cover, and did some sanding and scribing. I removed all intake scoops so i can later add some hollow items. i filled the original exhaust location and made a new one a little lower. When rescribing the pannel lines i made some mistakes, so i had to fill sand and redo, but it shouldn't show under a coat of paint. I opened and reshaped the intake and added the first cilinder from some metal wire coiled around a bigger wire and a pushrod from sprue. i glued the wing halfs together after rescribing some panel lines... fit was quite good, i removed some plastic from the center section to allow the new interior to fit, and did the same to the fuselage halves. i also made a new short chord rudder (almost overlooked this, but the plane i intend to model had this) from plastic card, as this seemed easier than sand the original... i scored the plastic from the back to represent the ribs. the sidewall ribs where made by gluing metal tape to some plastic card and scribing the detail into it. By scoring each side of a rib, and than burnishing down the outer edges of each groove one gets a very convincing raised rib by only making a depression. doing first the vertican ones and than the horizontal ones in between it even looks as if the first overlap the later... i think it is more to scale than had i tried to replicate this with sheet plastic... the ribs on the floor where also scibed in the manner. the central raised section was made from styrene strips however the bucket seats where made from plasticard. i cut the holes in the seat surrounds and than glued in a rolled strip of plastic. once dry the top half was sliced of flush with the surround, and the bottom was closed of with a plastic square that, again, once dry was trimmed to size... curved mail scissors come in handy for such things. thanks for watching

Great looking build so far! Although Porco's plane generally appeared clean, and your paintjob definately depicts this, seeing the bottom of the engine made me think you might want to add some small black oil streaks comming from between the pannel lines, as they appeared on the final flight of the first version of the plane... but they would be hard to see on the underside of the engine anyway... Looking forward to seeing the rest of this build!!!

Hi all, i've been gathering some more references for the interior, and i am working on a design for a printable cockpit. i might digitally color it and use it directly as paper or use it as a template for a plasticard one, wichever looks best. if i have some thing presentable i'll show it here. Just now, however i felt the need to do some actual phisical modeling, and as i'd cut of the flaps i figured i should look into how i would put them back on, so that i could join the wing halfs... I used a fairly simple technique i've used before, cut of the surfaces using a combination of scribing, sawing and cutting, making the cut go slightly inward towards the wing when viewed from the side, so that the cut of surfaces have a notch that fits into the wing rather than a flat joint (if that makes sence) next i cut a slot in the wing, bend some metal wire and drilled holes in the flaps and ailerons. the wire "hinges" where superglued to the surfaces and sandwiched between the wings... the bottom wing is thicker than the top half so i only had to cut the slot there. but what better way to show you than a little clip: https://youtu.be/AKExLh_IDUY appart from just being fun, attaching controle surfaces this way has a number of advantages... they're posable just like the real thing, but it's also stronger as glued surfaces can break of, while these will flex and the metal wire will even bend of the travle of the hinges are exceeded. I can give the model a natural look with all the surfaces a little offset, but if later some expert tells me something like 'these flaps would be raised on the ground', or the elevators where usually fixed in such of such position, i can simply adjust them to reflect this withouh any trouble. this kit only has 24 parts, so makeing a few more still keeps this an easy build... given the age of this kit, i can forgive it just about anything wrong with it, but i do feel modern kits should include separete controle surfaces (airfix are you listening!)...

Some years ago I did quite a few card models, most in 1\72 and 1\48 often scaled down from 1\32 scale so detail was pretty good, and some didn't look out of place at all next to their plastic brethren (IMHO). I eventually did some of my own designs ( Chilton DW 1.1, polikarpov po2, stampe sv4) but unfortunately desaster struck, and the importance of making a backup of digital files was thought me the hard way.What I learned was that a lot of seemingly complex structures can be made up of a few Simple flat or curved sheets... Coloured photo etched parts one close to this idea, but printed paper or card could be interesting... Especially as designs could also be shared digitally... With some people already 3d printing parts it could be worth exploring what the good 'old' 2d printer can do.

Pedru, I won't do the math, but just by looking at them i have to agree the rivets are to big for the scale. On the other hand looking at some chipmunk pictures the rivets on the wings and fuselage can be fairly noticable when the light hit's them right especially in silver finish, so I'm a little conflicted about just sanding them off... I'm considdering replacing them with sunken rivets that are more to scale, or raised decal ones. but i have not experience with the later although they're apparently produced in 1/72 so should be more to scale. lastly i have ordered some clear decal paper so when that arives i might try to print the rivets although i'm not entirely sure the printer resolution will be high enough. As an experiment i printed and instrument panel for the chipmunk, on photo paper, and while it's a little grainly up close, but considdering it's only 9mm wide i think it looks better than the decal you get with todays airfix kits (but not even this kit)... if i can find a way to cleanly punch out the dials i might try to sadwich several layers, but i'm not sure it would improve the final result much. wouldn't it be fun if kit makers would just print an extra instrument panel of a piece of card, of the side of the box (i recal reading of some old kits that had this)... in 1/72 it would look great i think, and it wouldn't cost more to offer this ...wait for it...'out of the box' option (and some seatbelts to please) As for the rivets, I'll probably keep them for now, but will likely arrive at a point where they get lost and i bite the bullet and sand the whole lot off..

I shouldn't have started this kit as i'm still to complete my supermarine S6b, but i felt the need to build something. This is the (very) old airfix kit in a recent box, but when i saw it for 4€ in the hobby store, i figured it would make a fun little project. I'm going to finish this as one of two aircraft that where accuired by the belgian airforce for evaluation in the late 1940's but as the SV4 was chosen as the new basic trainer these where the only two of the type that ever wore belgian roundles. few pictures exist of the actual planes, here's what info i have on them: looks like they might have been overall silver?... http://www.belgian-wings.be/Webpages/Navigator/Photos/MilltaryPics/post_ww2/De%20Havilland%20Canada%20DHC-1%20Chipmunck/De%20Havilland%20Canada%20DHC-1%20Chipmunk%20Frontpage.htm As the airfix kit dates back to 1969 some work was expected to bring it up to standard. I started by test fitting the main components and cutting the nose section from the fuselage. The molds are clearly worn, and the parts need some extra cleanup, but once done the fusalate and wing sections fit together well. the wing to fuselage fit is a little tight, but i'd rather do some sanding than filling. the only problem area i see is the aft wing to fuselage joint. the parts are a little vague here and there seems to be a step, but some filling and sanding should sort that. i sanded the resulting very thick trailing edge of the engine covers to a more scale like thickness and opened up and reshaped the air intake i also cut the flaps the rear deck of the fuselage has a depression on either side to accept the very thick kit canopy, but in reality this was flush with the aft fuselage. Rather than filling these in, i cut out the affected pannels and replaced them with sheet plastic I'm still contemplating what to do with the rivets as the real plane did have raised rivets but obviously the molded once are a little heavy, but for now i'm carefull with to much sanding.

Rod: Thank you very much for such a detailed answer! It's much appreciated. With so many Chipmunks still flying it's hard to know which variation you're looking at and what has been retrofitted or changed. Your list gives me some great pointers to look for . If you're familiar with the airfix kit, you'll know that it's very rough kit... but this has the advantage that most details will have to be scratch build anyway (i was condiddering replacing the canopy with a vac formed one, so now it seems that will need to be done). And as you remarked, i will have to decide what details i'll represent in this scale. And in the end, given my model skills i hope to represent something that captures the look of 'a' chipmunk. That book also looks very nice, i'll definately look into that.

I found this thread looking for info on the Chipmunk, but sadly the first link seems to be dead. I figured i'd post my question here rather than start another toppic I'm planning to build airfix's 1/72 scale Chipmunk wich was tooled in 1969... and to help with the creation of the interior i'm putting together some (simplified) diagrams of the side pannels and the floor, etc. These will be semi scale, by wich i mean i'll take into account the actual dimentions of the model so that everything based on these drawings will actually fit inside the fuselage rather than be exact scale. (as I imagine most kit and aftermarket interiors do) Once done and if deemed appropirate i'd be more than happy to share these here. But to that end i'm looking for any good references on the interior of the Chipmunk. Especially 3 views of the interior so that i can exprapolate the dimentions and relation of all components. Any free on line resources would be ideal, but recommendations towards printed or digital publications containing such diagrams would also be appreciated. I'm especially intersted in the early 1A variant, as i'm planning to build one of these (possibly both) http://www.belgian-wings.be/Webpages/Navigator/Photos/MilltaryPics/post_ww2/De%20Havilland%20Canada%20DHC-1%20Chipmunck/De%20Havilland%20Canada%20DHC-1%20Chipmunk%20Frontpage.htm I've seen a few build reports on the chipmunk, and i figure these might also be helpfull in this context.

i haven't tried baking or heating it... i didn't want to risk any harmfull or weird odors in a kichen oven. in all fairness while the technique worked resonably well for small flat bits i think it's rather limited... larger pieces took very long to harden and would become rubbery, but still deformable along the way, wich can cause the mold to deform quickly... i think in any case the trick is to use as little play dough as possible. if you have some play dough at had i'd say give it a go, but i can't garantee it'll work...it will surely capture detail very well, but the key is getting it to dry without deformation.... if you're looking to buy something for casting, i think for your money there's better stuff out there...

It's been a while again since i made a post, yet i've done some more little things to the kit in what little time i had, and it's beginning to look like a plane. i've attached all the wings and stabilizers, and done all the rigging using metal wire... i think it's what's been putting me off, but i said to myself i woudn't start another kit before this one was finished. what remains to be done is touch up the paintjob, especially the floats are a mess (i really need to get my hands on a compressor again so i can airbrush), do the decals and attatch the final bits. here's how she looks so far:

I build this kit along time ago,but i can already see this one will end up better than my effort. That's a very nicely done cockpit! The belts are especially well done considering how small they are,but I must also agree on the wire used being slightly to thick. But in the closed cockpit this will probably not look bad. If you look for some really thin wire for detailing, get hold of any flexible electrical wire, like from a broken charger or headphones, stuff like that. If you strip off the insulation (cutting it lengthwise with a blade works well, although the insulation itself can be usefull to cut disks from) you'll likely find a lot of very fine metal wires possibly copper,inside. I seem to remember having an issue with the flatspots of the keyed weighted tires not sitting flat on the ground.might have been something I did wrong buttake care when you get to that step.

This is the first version of the s21 before Curtis shoots him down and it's been redesigned and rebuild with the help of Fio. The bigest visual change besides the pop up hatch is a new engine resulting in the side mounted radiators being changed for a single radiator under the nose of the engine pod. so adding Fio to this plane would be "historically" inaccurate That said Miyazakis vivid animation and attention to detail, really made this plane come alive and a scene like you describle would make for a wonderfull model display (although a diorama with the rescued 'hostages' drying on the wings would also make a fun scene...)

i imagine it would work, i was able to push in and remove several miliput panels before the miliput got a little to sticky and it would stick in the mold, so i simply left it to harden after which i could just release it from the mold by breaking it away... since the play dough is somewhat oily i would imagine it could work with epoxy resing as well, but i haven't tested it. Drying time seems to depend on the volume of clay used, small thin pieces like the oned shown dried over i think one or two nights, but i have a bigger lump wich has been drying for two days and is still a bit flexible...although if you would use something liquid that wasn't forced into the mold, i'd imagine it might be used instantly... i've only tested it on a few pieces, and it worked better than expected, but on the other hand i think other materials might be more suited... deformation of both the mold and the molded piece seem to be the bigest risks. i tried hardening the playdough in the freezer, but surprisingly it stayed flexible

A few days after playing with play dough clay together with my son, i discovered some leftover bits that managed to escape had gone rock hard... This got me thinking if the stuff might have modeling applications... So I did a little experiment... As i have about 7 spitfires in 1/72 in my stash and some dont have a decent intrior or even an instrument panel (or a horrible decal), so i figured i'd try to make a copy of the parts in those kits that had nice panels. Both AZ's mk IX and fujimi's mk XIV have quite realistic pannels so they where used for this test. what i did was press the kit parts into play dough, let it dry, and than press miliput in the resulting mold... here's a few pictures of the test... once dry i painted and drybrushed the resulting panels to check if everyting came out ok... Unfortunately while trimming the pannels it turned out Miliput can be quite brittle and the lower bulkhead got destroyed, the pannels ened up quite usable, so while this technique obviously is far from perfect, it is usable, the main advantage is that while it tends to shrink slightly play dough doesn't stick to kit parts, but does capture very fine detail exceptionally well. I'll experiment some more, but for what it's worth this seems to be a usable way of copying semi 2D parts. .

Lovely build! You certainly did the original justice and it looks right at home in that water! Funny to read you replaced the spinner with a german bomb, as i did exactly the same on my pavla build for shape issues of the original kit item. Personally i wouldn't go for a full disk for the prop. Pictures of the real thing show that when the prop was spinning it the two blades where still individually visible, but slightly blurred and faded near the tips, so perhaps making wider transparent versions of the blades and air or drybrushing the original colors that fades out from the base to the tips might produce a convincing effect (just an idea though, not sure it'll work). I agree a new tool airfix kit of this plane would be a good idea, along with a new tool dh88 comet.

for location pins you could drill small opposing holes and use somewhat sturdy metal wire for the actual pins. if you need a spar for strength (given the size of the subject), perhaps you could considder some lenght of sprue, it would have the advantage of fusing perfectly with the plastic of the parts. than again as there's plenty of surface for the glue to bite to, just keeping the part aligned while the glue sets should be enough i think. you can superglue the pins in one side and once dry use this as alignment pins. Metal wire in drilled holes works even on small parts such as struts, it has the added benefit of allowing some flex when the parts are testfitted so that any the fit can be tweaked when the parts are dryfitted, and because the resulting metal pins can be made longer than the traditional alignmeny pins, they will actually hold many parts in place without glue, wich makes test fitting even easier

I'll be watching this thread closely, as this kit is high on my wishlist. I'm a big fan of Porco Rosso (and all other films by Hayao Miyazaki), i think i read in a review somewhere the decals are quite thin and a bit transparent, so this is something to keep in mind, so if you use them perhaps paint the areas white.

It crossed my mind to, perhaps it was some visual aid for the pilot, but than i can't imagine thim seeing much at all of the floats given his location and that cramped cockpit (i don't even think he had any forward vision at all.) I think this model would look very nice in 1/48 as well... I've come across pictures of the build testors model, and to me it seems like the forward float struts are a bit to far forward of the wing root... just in case you would want to correct that. there are quite some pictures of the s6b so finding some references of the area shouldn't be to hard

Hi all, I apologize for my long absence, other things had taken over priority over this build. however, i still have every intention of finishing of this kit. So what has happened in the odd moments i had some time to work on it. I finished the last remaining riveted pannels. completed the central rigging for the floats with flattened metal wire. semi permannently attached the struts and mounted the fuselage on the floats. cut of the blades from the one piece prop and replaced the spinner with the tip of an old german bomb, as the kit supplied item was a little short and blobby. painted the blue areas with a home made mix of acrylic paints (including revell, italeri, and some big tube artist acrylics mixed with alcohol the metal areas where mostely painted with valejo liquid silver what still needs doing is fill the joints of the struts to the fuselate and floats attach wings and controle surcages attach the vacuum formed canopy attach the prop + some minor details touch up and paint all the remaining details appy decals build a little diorama base for the cart so here's how she's looking right now: you may notice the demarcation of the blue and silver is higher on one float... this is actually in the instructions, and while i initially thought it was a printing error, pictures of the real plane confirmed this also... anyone knows what they where painted this way?

I finally decited how i'll do the rivests, i used a relative large-toothed micro saw to punch a square in metal tape and than bridge each two opposing dots with the same saw punching in the rivets line by line... if that makes sence. Next i cut out each pannel fron this riveted sheet, and stuck it to the wing. unfortunately rubbing the tape down also restroyed the rivet effect somewhat so i went back with a scriber and punched in each rivet individual using the previous mark as a guide... it's not the most exciting job, and you have to keep concentrated as messing up to much means starting over, but it progresses quicker than you'd think and when you considder the rivets on the real plane where also done one by one by someone, probably with a heavy rivet gun, well.... the task suddenly seems quite doable... that said i still have 3 more wing surfaces to do most of the floats and the tailplanes, so... i suppose it's a little mad.. i hope it'll turn out to be woth it... here's the wing.. i'm not sure if the real plane was bare metal in these areas, i think it might have been coated with something, but either way, i'll have to paint the non covered parts of the plane so i also coated the wing with italeri medium grey as a primer and to tone down the rivets somewhat. it's not as tight as i'd hoped but i think it captures the real effect somewhat so i think it's worth it...

Hi all Thanks for the paint advice, funny enough my only silver paint i have at the moment is an old pot of citadel silver (easy more than 10 years old...back when they had flip caps rather than screw lids) wich is has gone rather thick, but still works for smaller details. so i think perhaps citadel colors are a good investlent for metalics. I haven't progressed much on the build as i wanted to experiment a bit with methods to make my rivets more consistent. what i've done is I scanned the plastic wing and than traced the 'picture' in inkscape and added rivet as dots... next i'll print these, stick these over the metal tape covered plastic part (though i lost a wing, untill i looked under the scanner again)... The next step will be to punch in each individual rivet with a needle. so stay tuned...

Perhaps a bit late but i just had an idea... perhaps you could try to use clear celophane tape. Stick it tot a clean surface and cut out the panel. And than stick it to the canopy... Haven't tried this as i used pavlas vacformed canopy, but its somethig you might test on a spare canopy and ir xan always be peeled Off if something looks odd

Hi all, I haven't had much time for the build lately. i was hoping to make this a clean build untill i noticed the floats and wings of the plane are literally covered with rivets... we can't just let that slide can we! So as the foil coverting proved to be very successfull on the spitfire, there's no reason not to try it here. I think i'll limit it to the floats the wings and the hirizontal stabs, the fuselage seems more clean. As you can see the front section is a little to wiggly and i might have to redo that... I'm taking some time prefection the rivet technique... small sections work well but i'm thinking of building some kind of jig or some other method to align things. i'm also looking for some good metalic acrylics that can be hand brushed. Working on the wings now, so i'll post more pics when those are done.

Why not, in stead of search for aftermarket details, look for some good references, and, if you feel adventurous, try to scratchbuild some details?. A lot of details in 1/72 are esentally strips or shapes of sheet plastic, or bits of metal wire...adding some simple details might bring the feel of detail on the kit to a new level, and if nothing else it can be very rewarding. That said, as mentioned above, i'd focus on the overall look of the kit rather than to much detail...an out of the box kit, build by an expert will always look better than a dressed up kit with poor joints and a bad paintjob. In the end it dousn't really matter what you do, just have fun and perhaps learn something

With only the struts remaining on the sprue i decited i should clean these up as well and while i was at it i drilled soms holes and inserted some metal wires tot help with alignment. Although i only have Thave The front struts done this wat this makes dryfitting really easy and i have good hopes of getting everything aligned easily. For The riggig of The floats i used flattened metal wire.