A Dove from above - COMPLETE

[Wonky Donkey]

Hi folks. 

 

This is my first WiP thread, so you'll have to excuse me if it gets a bit calamitous and the pics are average at best. 

 

I've recently finished a couple of 1/48 WW1 builds, so time for something different. Without setting out to do it, I've been slowly and randomly building types, or specific airframes if possible, that can be found in Scotland's National Museum of Flight at East Fortune. An old WW1 airfield with a great history, my two boys and I spend lots of time there. It can't rival the big museums down south, but it's got some interesting types and has been modernised lately. 

 

They have a De Havilland Dh.104 Dove in Civil Aviation Authority colours (G-ANOV) which I'm fond of:

 

So I bought the Amodel kit with the intention to create this scheme:

 

Imagine my excitement then when Caracal released two sheets for the Dove/Devon which included a CAA sister (G-ALFU) as housed at Duxford. Although there are some differences between them, it'll do me 😊 

 

Imagine my annoyance then when the upper stripe decals turn out to be blue and not black as they should be 😡. 

 

I pondered doing a different scheme instead, but non grabbed me and that was the whole reason for building it at all. I can live with the blue. 

 

I've made a start, but I'll try to keep the posts in some semblance of logical order. 

 

Here we go then... 

 

W-D 

Edited November 8, 2018 by Wonky Donkey
All done now

[Wonky Donkey]

So what's the kit like? The very definition of short run!! Flash everywhere, inconsistent detail, no locating aids whatsoever, massive sprue attachment points, sink holes that are actually holes and vague instructions. There is a small PE fret for aerials if I can work out which ones are appropriate and if I can stick them on in vaguely the right place. 

 

Some pics of the above :

 

 

 

The transparencies are thick but clear, and providing fit isn't terrible it should be a reasonably quick build. 

 

There's no cabin interior at all, though. I toyed with the idea of approximating one, but my spares box is bereft of useful bits and given the decal issue I'll take the Rolling Stones approach instead. 

 

W-D 

[Wonky Donkey]

So task 1 was to tidy up the larger parts. Fill the whole in the lower wing (might need to stock up on filler... 😂), clean up the fuselage halves (the sprue attachment points are all on the mating surfaces), remove flash from any bits needed soon-ish etc. 

 

I painted the inside of the fuselage halves black. 

 

There's a few modules to build up first. Cockpit, nose wheel bay, engine nacelles and windows to fit to the fuselage. 

 

Nose wheel bay is reasonably detailed and went together fine. Can't see a way to fit the retraction arm later, so in it went. I've painted the bay silver and fitted it (rubbish pic alert..):

 

Cockpit parts are OK once cleaned up. Instructions call for paint code "K" but there's no K in the list of colours.... 😂 Research (ahem) suggests Doves are anything from black to a lovely cream, and G-ALFU is at the blacker end of the scale. So I've gone for a 50(ish) shades of grey approach:

I'll add some belts from tamiya tape and the control columns need to go in. Instrument panel looks good under the kit decal (blue tac from the Eduard detail set... 😂😂) 

 

Engine nacelles build up from 6 parts each. Overly complex if you ask me (which you didn't..) :

 

 

None of the windows fit their apertures. I'm talking not even close! There are 10. I've done one side but got bored, and it's not done the clarity of the parts any good from so much sanding. Meh! 

 

Thanks for looking in. Enough for now. 

 

W-D 

Edited October 16, 2018 by Wonky Donkey
Went for it too soon! 😂

[Martian]

Sounds like Micro 👽Mesh and Novus 1 Is your friend with the windows.

 

Martian 

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

Hello W-D ... Ive always had a soft spot for the type. Mind if i grab a seat and tag along ? 

Edited October 16, 2018 by Corsairfoxfouruncle

[Horatio Gruntfuttock]

7 hours ago, Wonky Donkey said:

So task 1 was to tidy up the larger parts. Fill the whole in the lower wing (might need to stock up on filler... 😂), clean up the fuselage halves (the sprue attachment points are all on the mating surfaces), remove flash from any bits needed soon-ish etc. 

 

I painted the inside of the fuselage halves black. 

 

There's a few modules to build up first. Cockpit, nose wheel bay, engine nacelles and windows to fit to the fuselage. 

 

Nose wheel bay is reasonably detailed and went together fine. Can't see a way to fit the retraction arm later, so in it went. I've painted the bay silver and fitted it (rubbish pic alert..):

 

Cockpit parts are OK once cleaned up. Instructions call for paint code "K" but there's no K in the list of colours.... 😂 Research (ahem) suggests Doves are anything from black to a lovely cream, and G-ALFU is at the blacker end of the scale. So I've gone for a 50(ish) shades of grey approach:

I'll add some belts from tamiya tape and the control columns need to go in. Instrument panel looks good under the kit decal (blue tac from the Eduard detail set... 😂😂) 

 

Engine nacelles build up from 6 parts each. Overly complex if you ask me (which you didn't..) :

 

 

None of the windows fit their apertures. I'm talking not even close! There are 10. I've done one side but got bored, and it's not done the clarity of the parts any good from so much sanding. Meh! 

 

Thanks for looking in. Enough for now. 

 

W-D 

That's odd Mr W-D - I built this kit earlier this year and mine fitted perfectly. I just beaded each aperture with white glue and popped each one in on a tooth -pick with Blue tack on the end- but I had painted her first. Such is the joy of short-run stuff I guess. It is a nice kit and fits together well - the wing trailing edges are an example of what should be achieved by other manufacturers.

[bigbadbadge]

I too would like to tag along as I do like the type.  I have the Sea Devon to build.

Keep up the good work. 

All the best 

Chris 

[Wonky Donkey]

1 hour ago, Horatio Gruntfuttock said:

It is a nice kit and fits together well - the wing trailing edges are an example of what should be achieved by other manufacturers.

That's a good point, HG. The trailing edges and tips are incredibly thin. I meant to comment on that earlier. So far, barring the windows, fit has been fine once parts are cleaned. 

 

I tried all ways to see if there was a "right way" for each of the windows but no. Unless I'm being a complete divvy (Possible!) they were just too big (or the apertures too small). I'll have a go at polishing them up as @Martian Hale suggests. 

 

Happy to have the rest of you along, chaps. 

 

W-D 

[Lord Riot]

I've got one of these! Need to get those decals now. Will be a very interesting build this.

[Paul J]

Just received my decals from Caracal the other week. Nice quality. I was going to go with the CAFU finish until I too discovered the blue for black cheatline. Will probably go for the Hawker Siddeley finish instead but that needs bigger the over engine intakes which the A Model doesn't have... unless its on the Sea Devon issue?? 

Will follow along this build and see how it goes.

[pinky coffeeboat]

I'll follow this one too, those very decals are winging their way to me as I type!

 

Interesting comments about the quality of the kit, when I received mine I was impressed with the neatness and finesse of parts and I don't recall much, if any, flash. I do remember the big underside sink mark though and the lack of cabin interior. The runner attachment points seem to be a method many companies are using nowadays and not one I like.

It's a shame that the decal sheet stripe is the wrong colour but as its a simple straight line I'm certain I can manage to repaint that.

 

Jeff

[Wonky Donkey]

2 hours ago, Lord Riot said:

I've got one of these! Need to get those decals now. Will be a very interesting build this.

I'll only be doing the one build Lord Riot so unless you wanted to do the G-ALFU [wrong] colour scheme there may be an oportunity there. Not sure if there are many "common" decals to use. I'll look.

 

W-D

[Lord Riot]

Thanks W-D! Does it include RAF ones?

[Mr B]

Nice start on a nice little plane. Will be tracking your build progress as I got one to build myself a resin one. 

[kev67]

Its a nice little kit, the sink mark seems to be on all of them, nothing a spot of Milliput won't cure. I'm scratch building the rear interior with some resin seats

[Wonky Donkey]

2 hours ago, Lord Riot said:

Thanks W-D! Does it include RAF ones?

Here's the link to the sheet:

http://www.caracalmodels.com/cd72079.html

 

W-D 

[CaracalModels]

6 hours ago, Wonky Donkey said:

I'll only be doing the one build Lord Riot so unless you wanted to do the G-ALFU [wrong] colour scheme there may be an oportunity there.

Good luck with the build. Since I do not have access to the real plane, I interpreted the dark color in the photos as a dark blue at the time.

Please note that the sheet includes a set of white "Civil Aviation Flying Unit" markings and enough white striping to make it possible to paint the black cheatline with minimal effort.

[Wonky Donkey]

16 hours ago, CaracalModels said:

the sheet includes a set of white "Civil Aviation Flying Unit" markings and enough white striping to make it possible to paint the black cheatline

True. I'll see how the build goes. If I manage a half decent job, I might do that. Otherwise, as I said earlier, I'm happy enough to stick with the blue. 

 

W-D 

[Wonky Donkey]

I've been a bit distracted with a red arrow for my wee boy's room, but I've made some progress on this. The cockpit is assembled and mounted into the rhs of the fuselage. Fit was decent.

 

I've added some strips to the top and bottom edges to help align the fuselage. I don't think these were necessary, but they made life easier. I got all the windows in, and have polished them up as much as I could be bothered with. Masked them off with tamiya tape as they're a nice easy shape. Last thing was to chuck a lump of lead into the front. I never know how much is necessary, so I wedged in as much as I dared below the cockpit and above the wheel well. 

 

I also got the wings put together. I concentrated on getting the recesses for the engine nacelle lined up as best as I could as I felt that sorting that area out might be tricky. The leading/trailing edges lined up pretty well on that basis, but a dry fit to the fuselage suggested a fairly substantial gap at the wing root. Not tried it properly though, so might be fine. 

 

The fuselage is now joined and ready for the seams to be dealt with, but no pics of that to hand. I'll sort the fit of the canopy next, but probably leave it off until after painting as the shape might be tricky to mask. 

 

W-D 

Edited October 21, 2018 by Wonky Donkey

[Wonky Donkey]

Evenin' all. Time for a wee update on this. 

 

I finished the red arrow for my boy's room so could focus on the Dove (he's 3, so obviously it has to have smoke):

 

So, I got the fuselage together without much drama. It was a bit out of alignment at the front, which I think is because I didn't quite get the undercarriage bay properly true. I superglued the front part. The rear half lined up nicely with tamiya cement. Tidied the seems to give an acceptable result (to me)

 

Then I could add the wings. Needed a bit of fettling to get them to fit but nothing out of the ordinary. And if you look (ahem) closely there might be a tiny gap at the root...... 

 

I pondered plastic strip, filler etc then it dawned on me that a spreader in the fuselage might work. I forgot to photograph that but here you can see it improved things masively (some filler also employed):

 

At this point I noticed in my reference photos that the Flying Unit airframes have an extra bubble type sky light on the fuselage (you can see it in the photo in my first post). This isn't in the kit. A root around the spares box turned up some spare cockpit windows with a blister that's close enough the right shape (from a Lanc B.II I think). I carefully cut round the blister:

 

Drilled and filed an opening for it to sit over:

 

Engine nacelles and tail attached with no more than the usual truing up and smear of filler for good measure, and we're ready for a wash and some primer:

 

 

Cheers for looking in.

W-D 

Edited October 25, 2018 by Wonky Donkey
Photos didn't work...

[qn30jEkPz7]

On 16/10/2018 at 23:00, Wonky Donkey said:

... I'll take the Rolling Stones approach instead. 

 

W-D 

Sticky fingers?

[Wonky Donkey]

1 minute ago, LostCosmonauts said:

Sticky fingers

Often, yes.... 😂 

 

Was thinking more Paint it Black.. 

 

W-D 

[Lord Riot]

It's looking brilliant!

 

Seriously tempted to start mine at some point but I'm hooked on 1/48 jets at the moment. Still can't decide between a 207 sqn Devon or Dove G-AREA or G-ARHW in Hawker Siddeley/BAe colours with blue tail fin. I remember them flying over my school and into Woodford almost every day in the 80s.

[Wonky Donkey]

Howdy folks. 

 

I've spent what seems like a lifetime getting the main colours onto the Dove. To be fair, part of that was spent debating whether I could be bothered painting the cheat llne black or not. In the end I thought I was pleased enough with the rest of the build to give it a go, so I did. 

 

Now, masking isn't my favourite part of the hobby but even that doesn't excuse my cockerell up. After priming (white) and a wee bit of remedial work on some joins, I painted the whole shooting match gloss white. The I masked for the black stripe. I somehow left some large gaps on the wing undersides and some overspray found its way there. 😡 I can only presume it is as a bit of rebound from the work surface but whatever, it was pretty obvious. 

 

I finished the red first (tamiya red with a few drops of purple to shift it slightly towards a more burgundy red), then fixed the white at the end. So, I had to mask the bloody thing completely again!! 

 

Turned out OK I reckon, though:

 

 

Ready for the (not many) decals and detail painting next. 

 

Cheers for now. 

W-D 

Edited October 31, 2018 by Wonky Donkey

[G.E.SAUNDERS]

           hi ALL ,

 

                                bit late for  W.D  but Milan at OMEGA MODELS has a Set of Passenger Seatin' He can supply

                                   plus exra's on the Resin cast  twig

 

                                                                                              cheery "Modellin' " mumbas !

 

                                                                                                                           Geoff

 

                                                                                                                               F.T.G .3156