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Have just started new scratchbuild and thought it'd be good to share the build here. Kits of civilian scale models are pretty thin on the ground - compared to the crop of Spitfires, P51's, 109's etc. One that seems to have been quite overlooked is the Piper PA-24 Comanche. Correct me if I'm wrong - but I've only seen some larger scale flying model kits - and nothing in more conventional (or even unconventional) scales. There's quite a few Cherokee kits (which is more 'family sedan') but the Comanche (a bit of a 'sports car') seems to have missed out? The inspiration for this is that it was one of my fathers favourite aircraft when he was in his early flying years - at the Royal Aero Club of NSW based at Bankstown in Sydney, Australia. Here's a picture of the subject model here - taken circa 1963 on a 'field trip' to Canberra. This is a VH-RSX PA-24-180 - in a rather tasty colour scheme. The other one I am torn with doing is this PA-24-250 VH-SME operated by the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Authority - who had quite a fleet of aircraft to support that big project. This one here - a Greg Banfield photo from Bankstown 1963 courtesy of the Ed Coates collection. Including tip tanks. http://www.edcoatescollection.com/ac1/austmz/VH-SME2.jpg To save making a decision - my current plan is to build TWO models at the same time. One of VH-RSX and one of VH-SME. Twin Comanches? Anyway - onto the model. I've now scratchbuilt quite a few of this style of aircraft and have a fairly standardised technique for dealing with the glasshouse and a full interior. These will be in 1/48 to fit in with my 'collection'. I found a set of plans from Aeromodeller 1961 - which whilst targeted at a flying scale model include some very handy fuse cross-sections and 'look' to be on scale vs compromised by the 'flying scale' requirements. There's also another set of plans in Air Progress - Winter 1962-63 which are rather nice but without the cross sections. There's some subtle differences between the plans - which I'd put down to artistic license. And happy to work with both of these as a basis. First up - here's the 'buck' for vacforming of the fuselage. Basically a skeleton of 1mm styrene built out with the cross sections from the plans (and all a little undersize to allow for the thickness of the vacformed plastic... That looks like the pic below after it is filled and sanded, filled and sanded, filled and sanded with 2-pack car putty (buy it from the automotive supplies stores - tell them you want to fix a dent in your car!). This is not quite ready for vacforming - a little bit of finessing still required to get the shape right, For vacforming, I will mould the underside in white styrene - and the topside in probably PETG (first use of this, wish me luck). The buck will be cut just in front of the windscreen after moulding the underside - this will give me a sharp clean edge to the front canopy, and ditto the top of the engine cowling. [The photo looks as if it's back to front - it's just the plan printed in reverse so I can get both a LH and RH view of the fuse (& yes I know the door is only on one side)]. So with some more putty on the buck and set aside to dry - time to turn attention to the wings. Remember I'm tag-teaming two models. The wing shape has been cut from 1mm styrene for bottom skin and 0.75mm for the top skin. Trailing edges have been sanding down wafer thin on the inside surface (using 180 grit then 400 grit wet and dry sandpaper. very wet). then a bit of marking out of the wing spar location and the wheel wells. Next steps are fabricating the wheel wells (gosh they're a long way aft!). Also finish off the buck to the point I can vacform. Hope you enjoy the build!