Airfix 1/72 Tiger Moth

[malpaso]

Another day, another lockdown completion!  Not quite; I’d started this model some months ago, but only painted parts on sprue and partly assembled the cockpit.  I picked it up again as the time filler between paint coats on the Tsu-Chang (see other RFI).  Its an interesting contrast to the Taiwanese jet given both were designed 50 years apart for effectively the same job!  As you can see it’s the civilian boxing, though the strakes show that G-ACDC is ex-wartime RAF (though built as a civilian and later called to the colours).  Painted in Tamiya acrylics, probably the red should have a tinge more maroon.  I went with red DH “hubcaps”, though Airfix instructions say silver – I think silver are the bare wheels in some photos of Delta Charlie.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just to show how small it is:

 

It’s a nice kit that generally goes together okay.  The fit of the extra strakes could have been done better (by me) so that less filler was required.

Rigging was metallic embroidery thread (a suggestion somewhere on the net), which is probably overscale but gives a good effect.  The only real issue is keeping everything tightened correctly, pulling a line taut can result in another distant one slackening off (the same issue would be true for fishing line or invisible thread options).  In the two mornings since it was rigged its appeared different lines are tight so maybe picking up some atmospherics?

To my eyes there’s possibly a slightly greater stagger on one side than the other, whether it started crooked or was induced by the rigging is a bit late to worry about now.

 

This is a hairy Tiger Moth:

 

Unfortunately robust clean up of such a delicate and mostly painted model is difficult; added to which the silver colour highlights any flaws so there are some defects where the wires were trimmed and made good.  Nevertheless it was a good primer in small scale biplane construction, there’s plenty more in the stash…unfortunately most are RAF or USN interwar types so there’s a lot of rigging vs silver paint rectification in my future.

Cheers

Will

 

[fjaweijfopi4j48]

Somebody must have a stash of wool the size of England, there is such a proliferation of Moths lately!

Another civvy one!

[TonyOD]

The registration gets it extra cool points. Looks fantastic in those colours. Really nice.