1/72 Piero Magni PM 2, Choroszy Modelbud

[atvd1020]

My first entry for this group build is the 1/72 Piero Magni PM.2 by Choroszy Modelbud. I bought this kit on finding a build review of this kit on Hyperscale a while ago.

The PM.2 was an experimental monoplane built by Italian engineer Piero Magni in 1925, developed from his 1924 PM.1 'Vittoria'. It in turn led to the Magni Vale PM.3-4 (also available by Choroszy), which can still be seen at the Museo della Scienza e della Tecnologia "Leonardo da Vinci" in Milan. I don't know much more about the aircraft except that it is really sexy, but I found an interesting article on Magni's PM.1 and 2 at the Flight archives here:

http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1925/1925%20-%200566.html?tracked=1

The kit consists of the resin parts and small decal sheet above, along with a small piece of clear plastic to build the windscreen from. The moudling is of excellent quality and the clean-up from the casting blocks is straightforward. Some parts need to be scratchbuilt and these are indicated in the instructions:

The instructions are shown in four steps and are straightforward, clearly showing where everything needs to go, and the painting instructions show the plane as brown and black. In general, it looks like a straightforward build too, but I will need to be careful about the smaller resin bits and their fragility.

[CliffB]

What a fantastic looking aircraft and a new on me

I don't know if you've made any Choroszy kits before atvd1020? I've made a few and they are really pretty good, but without exception (so far, at least), there are always a few bits left over which don't appear on the construction diagram. It's always fun trying to work out what they are!

Cheers

Cliff

[trickyrich]

Welcome aboard with such a lovely looking wee thing!!

That is such a lovely looking plane, will be great to see it when completed. I'm not familiar with this manufacture at all though I have seem plenty of their products around, some will be very interested in this build. Looks like you have plenty of flash to get rid of, no biggie there, as long as the moulding is good it should be a straight forward build.

Cliff seems to like them so they must be ok. You can't have a resin build without some crazy instructions.....it wouldn't be normal!

Well good luck with your build, enjoy it, and we're all looking forward to seeing it finished.......no pressure!

[atvd1020]

@Cliff:

Thanks for the heads-up about the extra pieces, I've started cleaning the kit up and found one already! I will cannibalize it for some scratchbuilt parts the kit requires you to make, though. Dry fitting suggests that it should go together quickly provided I'm patient.

@Rich:

The flash is coming off easily. It's not obvious from the pictures, but the flash and resin joining the parts to the casting blocks are very fine and came off evenly with some scoring with a knife. The fuselage needed more cleaning, but I'll get to that after putting it together to avoid any asymmetric sanding.

[atvd1020]

The cockpit and interior are done, and I will post pictures tomorrow once the paint dries. I've had some fun with Vallejo acrylics trying to create wood colours, though some tints I came up with look more butter chicken than plywood.

[trickyrich]

mmmmm......Butter Chicken!

[atvd1020]

I've finished assembling and painting the cockpit, which I've kept on an Xtracrylix bottle for reference:

The resin bits for the levers were really fine, but appear to be faithfully based on the pictures in the Flight article. The silver rods were scratchbuilt from stretched sprue. After priming, the cockpit was done with Citadel Chainmail and a mixture of Vallego wood and brown paints. I also used the latter on the interior walls:

As the plane's main body was plywood over a wooden frame, I painted these parts in different wooden mixes. The plywood color was what looked like butter chicken, but this was lost after I added the wood grain paint from Vallejo. It's surprising how the wood grain effect makes the interior actually look wooden just like that. The whole front of the fuselage containing the engine was made of metal, hence I painted it in Humbrol Aluminium.

The cockpit and instrument panel installed in the fuselage. In retrospect, the panel might have been made of wood and may not have been painted black. The black wall in the fuselage is meant to represent the firewall. Following this, the fuselage was assembled:

The join line between the fuselage halves will need to be better cleaned up, and there's a nasty ridge on the underside which still needs taking care of. Once that's done I can continue gluing on bits. Fortunately the plane has but one 'panel line', marking the separation between the metal and wooden parts of the plane, so there's no worry about losing detail at this point.

[CliffB]

Looking nicely delicate

Cliff

[whitestar12chris]

Coming together nicely, like the wood effect.

All the best Chris

[trickyrich]

nicely done, she is quite small!

[atvd1020]

So after cleaning up the fuselage and join lines, I stuck on the empennage and (most of) the undercarriage:

I glued the undercarriage components together before sticking it on to the fuselage to make sure I could get their correct angle at the right position, and it mostly worked:

The legs are actually correctly aligned, though it's not obvious from the pictures. The beam (spar?) joining the undercarriage legs is a bit too long and is bent, and I'll probably take out a small section of it later on in the build.

Besides cleaning up the fuselage join, I also had to rebuild two of the cylinder bulges on the cowling because they were sanded down.

[trickyrich]

thats coming along nicely, and nice getting the undercarriage on and square, that wouldn't have been too easy, especially working with superglue.

[atvd1020]

So the wings have gone on:

and the struts too:

Since they were meant to be able to rotate 90 degrees and serve as airbrakes, I didn't sand them and glue them flush with the wings or fuselage. The port wing was badly warped and I managed to get most of it out after heating it with a hairdryer. I stopped bending it back into shape after I heard the wing crack...

I started to paint the cowling black to check for seams or bumps (and I found them), to avoid messing up other parts while gluing the propeller, spinner and exhausts. After that came the little actuating things to go on the rudder and ailerons:

I have to say I lost four out of the six provided and remade them from the resin pouring block they came on (very convenient, since the block was the right thickness). Getting them in the right place was tricky and you can see all the sanding I did to get the excess superglue off. After this and the Fox, I will try and stick to 1/48 for biplanes. One problem with the kit's resin is that while it's very fine, it's also very flexible and can get bent out of shape and tear (not break) if you're not careful. I replaced the parts joining the main undercarriage legs because of this. Next will be painting the fuselage to check for other seam lines or flaws.

[trickyrich]

for such a small model you are doing a wonderful job! You are much braver than I would be tackling a 1/72nd resin Bi-Plane, but I have to say you are making it look easy!

[whitestar12chris]

Coming along nicely, the little details make all the difference, even if they are a pain in the proverbial.

Chris

[atvd1020]

Thanks for your kinds comments, chaps! Right now a coat of paint to spot flaws has gone on, and there are a few seams to clean up and fill in. I especially have to sand down some blobs of superglue which I missed when they were still transparent agains the resin, but show up now as bumps under the paint. Not very exciting, especially with the kit size.

[atvd1020]

After much procrastination and forgetting to take photos, I've given the plane its first coat of paint (Humbrol 98) and added the prop and spinner on:

The spinner didn't fit neatly on the propeller, but did after I widened the slots for the propeller a bit. It took a bit of handling to get it properly lined up with the fuselage. The wheels were painted in Humbrol linen and the tyres painted over that with the usual mess. It's not immediately clear from this photo, but I've hacked off and sanded the more obvious blobs of superglue that stood out after the paint.

Before the paint job, however, I dropped the kit and surprisingly, the only damage was the loss of the tailskid. I rebuilt it twice since then (this is the second attempt). Finally, I added the bracing for the undercarriage-also stretched sprue:

Sorry for the bad photo quality, but this was the clearest had-on shot I could take. Even then, I had to tweak the image's levels to an extent that would have gotten me into trouble had I done it at work.

I should have the final paint touch-ups, exhausts and first coat of varnish on by the next update, and then I can start to think of the next kit (probably Anigrand or Miniwing).

[BritJet]

Only just noticed this! Looks like a nice easy job so far despite the small size.

Looking forward to seeing it finished.

Steve

[trickyrich]

Thats great work, especially for something that small.

She certainly is a sleek looking plane.

[atvd1020]

Thanks for the feedback, guys! The kit is more or less done, but at the moment I have to remake the upper wing markings as the kit's ones disintegrated, probably because they were serials as a single piece for each wing. The smaller decals are going on fine.

[CliffB]

I hope that the new decals work out OK.

Cliff

[atvd1020]

I hope that the new decals work out OK.

Cliff

Unfortunately not quite. Other, smaller decals which I can't recreate with white decal strips have also gone bad and I've emailed Choroszy regarding replacements...fortunately there is no more work left to be done on the kit, except the windscreens, so this build will be done for the GB.

[atvd1020]

And so, slouching towards the finish line.

The replacement decals came much faster than expected, and Choroszy were kind enough to send me two extra sets! This came in handy in the end. I spent a lot of time stripping paint from the top wing, repainting it and buffing the whole kit smooth again before adding a fresh coat of varnish. In the process I knocked a wheel and a tailplane off.

In the end I simply couldn't fit a windscreen in because I didn't make and glue it in at the point indicated in the instructions. With the wing fitted on, I couldn't get the curve or the height right, and I gave up after scratching some of the paint and varnish in an un-retouchable location while trying to fit a windscreen on.

In the end the second set of extra decals came in handy as the decals for registration numbers wouldn't come off neatly or crumpled beyond recovery while coming off. The wing and port side ones were fine, but not the starboard, which is why there are no photos from that side.

I just need to add a mirror/windscreen thing on the wing and tone down the gloss with Xtracrylix flat or my old nemesis, Vallejo matt before posting pictures in the gallery. In the end I really liked this kit and have already ordered another one from Choroszy. Since their official site also sells Karaya kits, I might try one of them too.

[trickyrich]

She looks beautiful!!!

You should be very proud of her!

[atvd1020]

She looks beautiful!!!

You should be very proud of her!

Thanks! I am, this is the first kit I've finished this year which I think is good enough to post in Ready for Inspection or, in this case, in the GB's Gallery. Now to finish that Voodoo...