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Showing results for tags 'Route of the Northliners!'.
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I will soon be retiring and moving to Wisconsin, where I went to University many years ago. I thus thought it appropriate to build an aircraft with some DairyLand heritage -- I chose the Lockheed Model 10 Electra of Wisconsin Central Airlines circa 1948: The worklog for this project can be found here: I began with the old, short run kit by Special Hobby, and made numerous changes & corrections. Some of the most significant are: Vacuformed a new canopy (the one in the kit had yellowed with age) Replaced the horizontal and vertical stabilizers with thinner, scratchbuilt items Added seats and details to the passenger compartment Enlarged the engine cowls and installed aftermarket Wasp Jr engines Re-built the main landing gear struts and scratch built tail wheel assembly Decals are custom made by Arctic Decals ( arcticdecals.com ). Mika did a great job on these and helped research the details. Enough yackity-yack, let's see some photos! Some close-up, detail shots: Nose lights and pitot tubes added: Aftermarket engines with added cylinder wiring and valve pushrod covers: Re-built the engine cowl, added exhausts, scratch-built correct landing gear struts, and added the leading edge landing light: Added passenger seating and detailed the interior, little of which is visible now: Mika's decals were very thin, and went on beautifully! Scratch-built rear surfaces to replace the over-thick kit items: Scratch-built tail wheel area: Wingtip and tail lights were made using UV-activated liquid gel, painted with transparent red and blue. As a side project, I converted a 1/72 WWII staff car into a 1948 Plymouth Special Deluxe sedan. Rebuilding the frontend and grille area was a real challenge to my scratch-building skills! Final beauty shots: I never expected this to become a three-plus month project. Shipping delays due to the Coronavirus pandemic left me with a lot of down time while waiting for parts and decals to arrive. But, at long last I can call this job done. My plans are to complete my Wisconsin Central Airlines collection with a DC-3 Dakota and Cessna Bobcat. But first, I have to pack up my workroom and stash for my move to America's Dairyland. That means, I won't be doing any modeling until after I've got my new workroom set up -- Probably November-ish. Wish me luck!