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Showing results for tags 'Hansa W33'.
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The cumbersome and ungainly Hansa seaplanes family has nonetheless some charm and appeal, and I had build so far two on Japanese civil registrations some time ago, if of another Hansa denomination (W.29): Browsing the Net I found some images of a civil machine that flew for the Tiedemann tobacco company. Tiedemann had a very smart marketing department then, and the company owned a number of vehicles that wore the company's colors and symbols in very striking, well-produced and elegant schemes. Here the plane on Flickr: At some point they used for publicity purposes this Hansa W.33 seaplane that they named "Tiger" -that was by the way the company's mascot- that had on the tail the Norwegian colors, and on the fuselage the stripes of the tiger, that cunningly matched the colors of the company land vehicles, painted as "wrapped" on a number of carefully reproduced tobacco leaves of different hues. Looking for a suitable kit candidate I found the Broplan vacuum-formed offer. Broplan kits are not what you call affordable, and their accessories in injected plastic can only be described as crude. No decals either. The struts come molded, but four of the smaller struts are undefined. Broplan doesn't include a diagram with the correct lengths of those parts, vital for alignment. The plan included in the instructions is, for some unfathomable reason, not in 1/72 scale, so no measures or references can be taken from it. Many of those injected parts will be replaced with better parts anyway. On the other hand, the vacuum-formed parts are correctly molded, the plastic has a reasonable and even thickness, and reasonable surface detail is there. But hey, this is no mainstream kit of powerful manufacturer, so you have to make certain allowances, although let it be said: there are very good vacuformed kits, so the media is not an excuse. But enough: res, non verba; let's get at it. Two modifications are needed to convert this kit to the Tiedemann machine: 1) The nose has to be modified as the intended plane had an underslung radiator, a blanked front, another engine, and an open nose top. 2) The aft position was of course "civilianized" and had no scarf ring, therefore it's cleaner on the top following the natural shape of the fuselage, and having a half-round access door on the left side that was hinged at the bottom for the access of the passenger. Other minor changes in detail will apply, like prop and such. The package: Contents of the bag: Instructions: Surface detail on parts: The injected bits: Permanent marked used to trace parts contour. If you think that you may get confused, especially with the smaller parts, you can use the permanent marker to put their numbers (from the instructions sheet) or name on their internal surfaces: Some will need additional cuts from inside: Parts separated from backing sheet: The injected bits plus clear material for windshields: Parts separated: Cleaned up: Although I will not use this engine I will assemble it for the sake of review: Kind of rough: Here is why you need that permanent marker line, to know where to stop sanding: Vacs require careful, measured and extensive sanding to look right: Thin trailing edges are the goal: Sanding of parts up to the marker line completed: The parts: Changes needed here for this version: Some gluing begins:
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