Old Man

Great subject, Redstaff! Don't know how this might translate to spray work (I brush on acrylics), but building up a solid color by repeating glaze coats can give things a nice lived-in look, that's not quite the same everywhere without being obviously so. Best of luck at something new! James

That's coming together nicely, Jeroen! Looking forward to more. James

Fascinating project, Pieter. Not something you see every day. James

That's a serious;y snazzy bit of modeling, Steve! Great work on a favorite subject. I've often wondered how a scrap between these and the Japanese 'Claude' would have sorted out. James

Thanks, Uncle. The nose is, again, something sure to draw the eye, and so it ought at least to look right. I'd decided against this course in favor of slotting in the clear panels, and that might have sufficed if I'd paid enough attention setting the front rake. I figured if I'd best do it again I might as well do it fancy. This took the best part of a weekend. James

I was struck with ambition when seriously contemplating closing the fuselage. The nose seam was not so rough as it looks well above. Pressing the nose got things close enough, and while this spread the rest of the fuselage, that's not a problem. Glue nose first, then the rest. The real problem was that the front facets of the glazing weren't raked at the same angle. I figured it could be made tight, but trying risked damage to the clear panels that couldn't readily be repaired if the fuselage was closed. I did not like the triangular glazings in the cockpit roof; one was blemished by CA excess on the inside, and they really didn't reflect the drawings. So I did something I'd contemplated before starting this up, but decided not to. I sawed off the cockpit roof. Doing that now meant removing the glazings, but I could do better. I found there was enough 'flex' in the old plastic that I could raise the fuselage height, just aft of the cut, by wedging beams of heavy styrene rod, which sufficed for about 2mm of lift, which greatly benefited the profile. Then I set about making a new cockpit roof. This is a 'wish me luck' picture in the middle of it, when the tricky bit started. Everything is keyed to the notch behind the side glazings. The solid 'glazings' are to establish a level for the roof's assembly. The rear portion is a sort of barrel vault of 3.2mm x 2.5mm rod, assembled to end-pieces and liberally reinforced with CA gel on the interior. The front piece is based on a 'plan view' matching the front glazings and a rear end-piece matched to the front of the rear piece. I cut a triangular piece of 0.5mm sheet, bent it by a bit of rolling on a tweezer nose, fastened it in front, trimmed it at the back. It's nice when something new works, and easily, too. It's all rough, but right enough for the stage. Here's the front piece complete. You can see the beams jacking up the fuselage height. Here's the rear piece in behind, after some fettling. There's still some blending to do, but not so much as it might seem; the black isn't gape but paint, from slopping black all over the interior of the front piece. With the new roof comes new glazing, sides first: It's 1mm clear, and a pain to work with. I took to taping one surface so measures could be marked, and a piece has a chance of being found if dropped. Here the front pieces are in as well: The clear panels are glued to the roof only at this point. There's still some fettling of the mating surfaces between the clear and the fuselage sides before a final fit. One is widening the nose a bit; right or wrong the protruding corner of the front glazings must be accommodated. Once all is ready, the roof/glazing assembly should press down into place once the fuselage is closed with little fuss or filler. For compare, here's the profile photo of the aeroplane in question, and one of the original kit piece. James

That's a wonderful little thing! James

This is a Martin YB-10 on its earliest use by the Army Air Corps, flying air mail from Oakland, California to Newark, New Jersey in the spring of 1934, when the Army had taken over after Post Office contracts with private aviation firms were cancelled. It's a Williams Bros. 1/72 kit, with some small alterations (air scoops and exhausts) to represent the initial trials batch. Here's link to full thread, which includes an account of the whole Air Mail fiasco. https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235019372-martin-yb-10-flying-the-mail-on-route-18-april-1934/ James

Now that, Ray, is some by God transport! Great subject. Williams Bros kits are an adventure, but one worth taking. James

Looking forward to the final, John. Metallic paint over corrugate is a hard row to hoe. "Tally-Ho! Fox in view!" James

Here's a test-fit of the wings. Fuselage is just taped, the lower wing's center clips the bottom together. I've set up a sort of 'flying jig'; pieces of 30 thou sheet. They're placed a bit outboard of the center section. A centerline is marked on the upper wing, and so is where the gauges should meet it. Near the tips are marks for interplane struts. I aimed at 31mm for the gap, but they came in a bit over. The fuselage to upper wing gap here is about what it ought to be in scale, if the thing was in scale.... So I went for another take. the gauges are tacked on at their bottoms with a bit of CA, and so can be readily snapped off, and attach to the upper wing with white glue only. So after a bit of shortening, down to 30mm, and some cleaning up on the lower wing, and placing an 8mm gauge on the fuselage centerline, I repeated the exercise. I think this looks about right, I may trim the gap another millimeter still, if struck with ambition. Here's a look at a kit interplane strut tacked in place. It's angled too far out, but part of this owes to the upper wing panels having no dihedral, while the lower one does. Still, I'll probably have to trim them a bit. The nacelle cabane struts are far too short, and will have to be scratched. Once I've closed the fuselage, I'll set seriously about the wings.... James

Thanks, Col. With this, getting it to strike the eye right's about the best can be done. You'd need to scratch-build a fuselage, and cannibalize wings off another one, to get it jibed with the plan. James

Scouting report on the gap, no pictures. Having sorted out which pieces of the kit are the interplane and nacelle cabane struts, I found the odd errors of dimension in this kit may have worked for once in my favor. The Matt drawing gives the gap as an inch shy of 10 feet, but measures it from lower surface of one wing to the lower surface of the other, which is not so helpful in addressing the model. Vertical from upper surface of lower wing to under surface of upper wing is 23mm on the drawing, which by rule of thumb ought to scale up to roughly 34mm for the kit. Since the Condor sets the lower wing well above the bottom of the fuselage, it matters how much of the fuselage fills the gap in the center. On the profile plan, 17mm of this is filled by the fuselage, leaving 6mm between fuselage and upper wing, which by rule of thumb is 9mm in scale. The distance from the bottom of the fuselage to the upper wing measures 30mm on the plan, 24mm of which are fuselage. The 6mm gap between fuselage and upper wing is one fifth of the total distance from fuselage bottom to upper wing. It is this proportion which an eye looking from photograph to model will gauge whether the gap 'looks right' by. The kit's fuselage is 31mm high, with 23mm of that above the lower wing. One quarter of total fuselage height is a hair less than 8mm, which added to the portion of fuselage height above the lower wing, gives a 'kit gap' of around 31mm, three less than the 34mm it ought to be by measure off the plan. The interplane struts by measure of the plan are 24mm, scaled up to 36mm. The kit's interplane struts measure 33mm long. This shortfall comes pretty close to the difference between real scale gap and 'kit gap' necessary to preserve proportion between fuselage and the gap between it and the upper wing. So with just a little trimming, the kit's interplane struts will do with a fuselage to upper wing gap of about 8mm. They're short for accuracy, but fine for verisimilitude. It will be possible to set this gap independent of any other assembly, because two small struts constituting a fuselage cabane (omitted in the kit) are set on the centerline, and so if cut to measure and put in place these can serve as a gauge by which to set the gap entire. My intend is to get the fuselage closed and get the struts set properly up this weekend. James

Here's a bigger copy: It's a shame the Army scheme is swapped a bit. The Olive Drab fuselage was the earlier finish, the blue fuselage came later. Delivery was certainly in the olive/yellow scheme, the machines were ordered in 1933 before the change. The order for blue early in 1934 called for new machine to be delivered blue, but did not direct repainting of machines in service. These were to receive the new coloring as part of their next overhaul. James

Thank you, Toryu It is a help that there's constant chord, and that there's no stagger. And I did wind up checking the chord, it's one of the dimensions that's right enough by my fairly crude means of measurement from the plan. Some of the errors are just weird. The fuselage height (but not length), and the upper wing span, both scale out pretty close to 1/87 rather than 1/81. James

I've never seen an issue of that didn't have some gem inside. Is the article the source of these profiles? James

Welcome to the Legion of the Damned.... There's a WIP link in a post above. James

Thanks, Ross! PM on the way. James

I've got you book-marked, Sir, from your reply to my query on the subject over on HyperScale. That's a wonderful trove you've put on display! Well worth poking about in. James

I see you're familiar with the beast. It says it's in 1/81, and mostly is. I am glad to hear the Ardpol people are back at it, and mean to put one on the market. I'm doing this as a YC-30 out of Bolling Field in the Transport group build downstairs: I wanted to do the Chinese, I'm fond of the period and it's an ultimate odd duck. In 'Air Power' articles of the period, it was sort of assumed airliners and transports would be quickly turned into heavy bombers by adding a few racks and guns. With this kit it's not worth the effort, but the Ardpol offering would tempt me.

I've started one of the Glencoe kits, and looking up background took me to some items of interest. It's a shame there's not a better kit of the Condor available. Then there's this: The focus of this advertisement short is a flight on a Curtiss Condor, but its proffer of luxury service to 'people on the go' is a priceless period piece. It has a great many frames of modeling value. James

An odd thing to describe as a thing of beauty and yet, here we are.... Wonderful work, superb modeling. James

I've only done their I-16, and yeah, there's a good model to be extracted from the kit, and fit will be what it is. Spectacular save!

Great work, John!

Damn. Looks like the unholy product of a tryst between a Morane 406 and a Spitfire.... James