John Posted October 26, 2019 Share Posted October 26, 2019 Placeholder for now.  I was originally going to do this kit for the Matchbox GB but chose the He70 instead - that was a mistake 😲  I came across this photo of a Swedish Norseman and was immediately inspired:  https://images.app.goo.gl/s9nrUhefowLSgKvY6  Now that's colourful.  I thought I was going to have to delve through the spare decal box but a bit of time on the internet revealed this:  https://www.rebell.com/tp78-norduyn-norseman-in-swedish-af-service.html  A wee order is therefor on its way to the retailer. Update when it arrives.  John      6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrlx Posted October 26, 2019 Share Posted October 26, 2019 Hi John!  Welcome to the GB! Great colourful choice!  Good luck!  Jaime  1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Courageous Posted October 26, 2019 Share Posted October 26, 2019 Looking forward to this one. Â Stuart 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsairfoxfouruncle Posted October 26, 2019 Share Posted October 26, 2019 Nice choice and what a fortunate bit of luck that someone made the decals. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Posted October 26, 2019 Author Share Posted October 26, 2019 We can do a bit of prep work waiting for the decals,  I bought this kit from Model Zone in Glasgow for the princely sum of £3.99. I think it must have been one of the last things I bought there:   The parts are still bagged but to my great surprise the box also contained an Airfix P-51D, minus canopy. Shows how much spare room there was in the Revell box, I suppose:   There are 3 neat light grey sprues and 1 clear. The parts look good, but so did the He-70...shudder   Beautifully printed decals. If I hadn't come across the Swedish air ambulance I'd have done the Canadian version here:    Finally, Revell's legacy newsprint instructions:   More soon.  John 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Courageous Posted October 26, 2019 Share Posted October 26, 2019 No point in hanging around...get building man. Â Stuart 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsairfoxfouruncle Posted October 26, 2019 Share Posted October 26, 2019 Didn't even know this existed, show coming ip in two weeks and on the wants list now! Thanks 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Posted October 27, 2019 Author Share Posted October 27, 2019 Fantastic walkround of Swedish Norseman 78001: Â http://plasticfantastique.com/walk_arounds/walk-around-noorduyn-uc-64a-norseman/ Â John 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigbadbadge Posted October 27, 2019 Share Posted October 27, 2019 Very nice indeed John and what a bonus finding the Mustang too a lucky buy. Â Looking forward to this. All the best Chris 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Posted October 30, 2019 Author Share Posted October 30, 2019 I ordered the decals on Saturday evening, got a PayPal request on Monday morning and, to my amazement, they were here when I got home from work this evening: Â Â That is seriously impressive - well done Rebell Hobby. It looks like an informative package, which I'll have a better look at tomorrow. Â John 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grandboof Posted November 1, 2019 Share Posted November 1, 2019 A very colourful Norseman . Will be watching Martin H 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Posted November 3, 2019 Author Share Posted November 3, 2019 On 10/27/2019 at 9:30 PM, bigbadbadge said: Very nice indeed John and what a bonus finding the Mustang too a lucky buy.  Looking forward to this. All the best Chris I think it was me that stashed the Mustang - I'll have to try to find the clear sprue 😃  On to the Norseman. The first thing that becomes apparent on comparing the kit with the walkround photos is that the subject aircraft has an extra window on each side behind the rear access door, presumably to allow anyone sitting on the rearmost bench seat to see outside.So, before any construction comes a bit of butchery:   Not too bad. 78001 seems to have a very varied interior colour scheme, so that's next.  John 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graham Boak Posted November 3, 2019 Share Posted November 3, 2019 (edited) Needn't rush, the Matchbox kit is a mix of two different marks and if you are going to worry about the window then there are a few other things to at least consider -the stub mountings is what comes to mind and something to do with the cockpit. There is an excellent book on the Norseman from Norway, covering Norwegian individual aircraft in some detail, and I'll try to remember to dig it out from the loft tonight.  Norwegian Wings No.1: Noorduyn Norseman Mk.IV and Mk.VI : Nils Mathisrud  The Mk.IV was used by the RCAF and the Mk.VI or UC-64A by the USAAF. The kit has a Mk.IV fuselage with Mk.VI stub wings and inaccurate Mk.IV floats. It also has Mk.IV tailplanes, but so did the Norwegian AF's Mk.VIs, so that's probably OK. The main problem is that the Mk.VI has a wider and deeper fuselage, the latter being easier to fix. The floats for the Mk.VI were bigger - Nils recommends those from the Hobbycraft Otter - good luck! There are a number of different hatches and intakes, the kit needing fettling for either variant. Although the civil examples did end up as hybrids as parts became less and less available. How much of this you want to deal with is up to you and the walkaround. Edited November 3, 2019 by Graham Boak 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Posted November 7, 2019 Author Share Posted November 7, 2019 That's interesting, thanks. I didn't know Norsemen came with different sizes of fuselage. Â My understanding is that the Swedish examples are UC-6As, so MkVIs. Since I don't have any detailed information on the differences I think we'll have to live with them and adopt a "reasonable facsimile" approach. I certainly don't have a Hobbycraft Otter to cannibalise! Â John 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graham Boak Posted November 7, 2019 Share Posted November 7, 2019 Clearly Matchbox didn't either. The 3 in. bulged bottom might be a reasonable compromise, not needed to try it, the 10 in. wider fuselage seems make the windscreen (also different in detail) a bit difficult to me. Fortunately I only have to make wider stubs for an RCAF one and ignore (or maybe have a go at) some of the hatch detail.  One simple point to check is whether the cowling has the flare at the rear or not. Basically this is a Mk.IV vs Mk.VI difference, but postwar they got shuffled around. Apparently the Noorduyn-built Harvards used the same cowling and were found with either, so maybe one from a T-6 kit might help... I've not checked. Obviously I should - but I've spare Harvard cowlings, if only old Airfix ones. From the photos and boxart above, the kit has the "wrong" one, but depending upon which example you finally do, maybe not!  It'll be interesting to see your comments on the fit of the kit. I had trouble with the He.70 too, mainly (OK, almost entirely) about the fit of the wing to the fuselage. And choosing the right shade of grey (or was it metal?) for the aircraft.  Hopefully the Norseman will be better. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Posted November 7, 2019 Author Share Posted November 7, 2019 Thanks. Â The He70 is the single worst Matchbox or Matchbox-derived kit I've ever seen as far as fit goes. The unconventional wing to fuselage join didn't help. The Norseman can hardly be worse... Â John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graham Boak Posted November 7, 2019 Share Posted November 7, 2019 I recall a Strikemaster where the wings could be glued at any dihedral angle over about a 50 degree range, depending on how much filling you wanted to do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Posted November 10, 2019 Author Share Posted November 10, 2019 There's some nice interior detail in the kit - unusual for Matchbox:   The walkround also shows interesting interior colours, which I've tried to replicate using Humbrol 87 for the grey, a mix of 28 and 34 for the white areas, 89 for the blue, 9 for the wooden floor, 151 for the green seat cushions and an ancient tin of 32 for the dark red.   I've also wrapped a strip of thin Microstrip around the rear of the cowling to simulate the flange pointed out by Graham. This will need a bit of blending in.  John 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Courageous Posted November 11, 2019 Share Posted November 11, 2019 I was going to pick-up one of these Norseman kits at SMW over the weekend but the seller wanted £30...forget it at that price!  Stuart 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Posted November 13, 2019 Author Share Posted November 13, 2019 I wouldn't pay £30 for one either, in fact if it hadn't been on sale I probably wouldn't have bought this one. I'm having a He70 flashback moment trying to fit the floats. There's no positive location for the struts to join the undercarriage stub leg and it's not at all obvious where they are supposed to join. The instructions are useless for this, just pointing vaguely in the direction of the parts. A job for superglue, I'm beginning to think. John 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterB Posted November 13, 2019 Share Posted November 13, 2019 (edited) Hi John,  The Matchbox Meteor NF I am currently building has a wing to fuselage joint which looks decidedly vague as well and the undercarriage has no proper location, just a butt fit. Coupled with very ambiguous instructions I would suggest it may run your Norseman and He 70 very close! Makes the recent Frog kits we did look much better thought out and documented. Reminds me of a comment Serge (Aardvark) made about the designers of some of the Russian Frogspawn artwork - definitely smoking something peculiar when they thought up these kits.  Good luck!  Pete Edited November 13, 2019 by PeterB 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Posted November 14, 2019 Author Share Posted November 14, 2019 They seemed to take their eye off the ball in some of their later kits. I think there's going to have to be some rebuilding of the support struts on this one to give them a decent chance of staying in one piece in the longer term. Â By the way if anyone out there wants the Revell decal sheet, minus the instrument panel, drop me a pm. They'll be an improvement on the old Matchbox sheet. The instrument panel decal is no loss, by the way, you can't see it at all. Â John 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seahawk Posted November 14, 2019 Share Posted November 14, 2019 On 11/3/2019 at 4:55 PM, Graham Boak said: Norwegian Wings No.1: Noorduyn Norseman Mk.IV and Mk.VI : Nils Mathisrud  The Mk.IV was used by the RCAF and the Mk.VI or UC-64A by the USAAF. The kit has a Mk.IV fuselage with Mk.VI stub wings and inaccurate Mk.IV floats. It also has Mk.IV tailplanes, but so did the Norwegian AF's Mk.VIs, so that's probably OK. The main problem is that the Mk.VI has a wider and deeper fuselage, the latter being easier to fix. The floats for the Mk.VI were bigger - Nils recommends those from the Hobbycraft Otter - good luck! There are a number of different hatches and intakes, the kit needing fettling for either variant. Although the civil examples did end up as hybrids as parts became less and less available. How much of this you want to deal with is up to you and the walkaround. So if you correct the stub wings and don't use the floats, you'll have a tolerable Mk.IV? How do the stub wings differ please?  Though I suspect the Israeli Norseman I had my eye on will turn out to have been a UC-64A (Mk.VI). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graham Boak Posted November 14, 2019 Share Posted November 14, 2019 That's basically what I'm going to do. The stub wings are longer in chord at the fuselage side, more of an aerodynamic section, and taper to the wheel mount. I haven't yet attempted measurements or actually starting on it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Posted November 17, 2019 Author Share Posted November 17, 2019 A comprehensive rebuilding of the float struttery to match a bit more closely one of the examples in Sweden:   John   5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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