Ford Tri-motor +++FINISHED+++

[Ray S]

Hello all!

 

Although I love to build the new, super-duper kits that are extremely well detailed and fall together well(Ish), I do have a hankering for the 'older nostalgia' type models. I have built quite a few over the last couple of years, and that has taken me back to my childhood (too many years ago now!). Well, one model I remember from 1969 was this one, the Airfix Ford Tri-motor. I cannot claim this will be a nostalgia build, in view of the fact that I never had one, but one of my friends in Singapore showed me one when I was building a Boeing Clipper in 1969, and I thought I should have a go. It is now some years later, and finally I got one (not that I tried very hard during that time) from good ol' KingKit. The version I got was the Red Stripe boxing, which I think was the first:

 

 

The contents were excellent, barely any flash on the parts, which reinforces the 'early' thought - here are a few:

 

 

One very odd point I have noticed is that some parts have numbers on the runners, others do not!

 

 

I thought that was a little odd, until I realised that most of the numbered parts are those that could cause confusion as they are port/starboard options. Now, as this is a tri-motor, it has a lovely build feature, in that it was corrugated. Airfix have captured that well to my eyes:

 

 

Another good thing is that it comes with an excellent descriptive instruction sheet, so you know what the parts represent as you build!

 

 

There was a hitch though! For the life of me, I could not figure out in some places what went where! I searched the web for a more modern instruction guide (ATF, Scalemates, suggestions on the BM 'Instructions wanted' page, Google etc) but had no luck, then I popped a request on good old Britmodeller, and @dogsbody came to the rescue with some pictorial guides:

 

 

Thanks for that! They helped me out no end, especially for the interior fitting, and, I suspect, later on for the outer engine fittings and undercarriage. With the written instructions, no matter how I looked and read them, they made no sense. This is not necessarily a problem with them, I do sometimes get that when I am just reading a book! I look at the page and nothing sinks in. I hope it is not a sign of things to come...

 

I intend to build it as this:

 

 

It comes from a very colourful sheet by Blue Rider:

 

 

Naturally, I chose the least colourful of the lot, and will only use four transfers - the serials and the Ford logos. The upside is that I will not have to try and get too many markings down on the corrugations, and all four are on the same part which can be fitted when painted and decalled.

 

I will leave it at that for the introduction.

 

Take care all,

 

Ray

Edited August 15, 2020 by Ray S
Tidy the post

[Ray S]

I have made a start with this Tri-motor.

 

 

It had some of the easier transparencies I have had to mask. They also fitted extremely well into their openings and, when dry-fitted, they were hard to get back out so that bodes well for later. The small circular window (presumably the lav or galley?) will be 'Kristal-Kleared' when the time comes.

 

The interior looks quite busy. I have only added lap belts for the pilots, I do not think they used shoulder straps. The seats aft are only dry-fitted at the moment. The markings guide suggested the aircraft I will do was still registered in the US and was helping support the Bolivian Army as a transport. I wonder if it was a troop transport or a cargo one? I will need to do a bit of research on that. I am quite minded to take out the seats and just skin the floor and have it as a cargo transport. I have shut the starboard aft door, so I cannot see in anyway! But those side transparencies are quite clear.

 

One thing I will have to do is change the pitch of the props, the concave part is forward, I think it should be aft. One or two online reviews suggest just cutting off the attachment spigot and reversing them, that sounds plausible:

 

 

One thing I think would be useful, and that is to be a @Martian with numerous tentacles, as I will need about four to six hands when I put the four-part fuselage and interior together.

 

More soon, with luck!

 

All the best everyone,

 

Ray

[billn53]

Lovely aircraft. For a classic kit, it isn’t bad but needs some loving attention. Too bad there’s not a more modern kit.
 

You will definitely need an extra hand (or tentacle) when it comes to installing the engines. Also, beware, that the locating holes in the wings for the engine mounts are not symmetrical — if you are not careful, one engine will be closer to the fuselage than the other (at least, that was my experience with my build). 

 

Also, be very careful with the clear canopy, mine was very brittle.
 

My WIP can be seen here, you might find it useful. 
 

 

 

- Bill

[bigbadbadge]

Great choice, this is a cracker of a kit and very enjoyable.  I built one a couple of years ago and the fuselage went together well as did the rest of the kit, I also had initial trouble understanding the engine struts under the wings but all went well.  The decals in the kit went on easily too.  

Keep up the good work

All the best

Chris

[Jeddahbill]

Great choice!  I have recently been looking this same kit and will follow your build closely!

Bill

[dogsbody]

The page from this book, about the Ford.

 

 

 

 

 

Ray, I have emailed the whole page to you.

 

 

Chris

 

 

 

 

[Ray S]

Hello all!

 

Well, thanks to that page posted by @dogsbody, I will not be adding the seats! I have some plastic sheet with embossed lines which will do quite nicely as the flooring, and it will cover the seat location holes.

 

You may be able to see in the next photographs why some extra hands may be useful when buttoning up the fuselage!

 

 

 

In the second photo, to my addled mind it looks more like a flying fish! Thanks to the improved instructions, I now know where to fit the interior, so it should not be too tricky to close up. This kit does have location pins for the fuselage, but they are very small indeed, two up front and one aft. I will close up the front first, add the interior, and then close up the back. I have added the first part of the undercarriage to the underside of the fuselage - that part was a bit warped too and needed four pegs to get it flat on the fuselage bottom. I may need to reposition the bracing angles later.

 

In the meantime I had painted up the seating while listening to the cricket (England v Ireland one-dayer) but it is all still just dry-fitted:

 

 

They will now come off and go into the spares bin thanks to the new information.

 

That is it for now, thanks to you all for the comments and encouragement.

 

Ray

 

PS Thanks @dogsbody for e-mailing the page, really appreciated!

Edited July 30, 2020 by Ray S
Tidy the post

[Ruskin Air Services]

I really like this kit, I think I've built this kit 3 times

[Ray S]

@billn53, Thank you for that link you posted above. I am not sure how I missed that when it was current, but what a cracking result you got from the kit! I have made a few notes from that thread, and I will try to incorporate some into this build. Not all, mind! I know my limitations...

 

I have started to modify the fuselage sides just a wee bit. The first things to go were the control thingys just in front of the cockpit opening:

 

 

I know there is a word for them, but I have forgotten what it is! I sliced the levers off with a newish blade, sanded the rest down to corrugation level. Then I ran a curved knife blade along the corrugation dips to create a shallow 'valley', then the tip of a rounded file to deepen the dip a bit, and finally a small square file to finish it off, and ended up with:

 

 

This silver plastic has a great (sometimes!) memory and shows up where you have worked. It does sometimes hide issues though by making them invisible in plain sight! I know what I mean. I also ran a scriber down the back of the six rectangles to show some ventilation slots.

 

I have also added the replacement floor in the after cabin, that meant I did not have to fill all the seat mounting holes. The new flooring is ribbed slightly, as this real-life aircraft had been modified hastily on arrival in Bolivia, I have not worried about making it perfect, and little will be seen anyway.

 

 

Since doing that, I have been having fun(?) trying to fit the interior. There is not much surface area to tape together, and with the four fuselage parts and the interior to juggle, I have struggled. The interior is supposed to fit onto ribs moulded into the sides as a butt-joint, rather than resting on the ribs. I have found it tricky to get the part to stay there while I dry fit the rest. If I put the interior against the ribs, it stays put better, but then the bottom part of the fuselage will not fit. I have glued the vertical bulkhead to the rib now, and am letting that dry before I try to gradually close the other half up.

 

More soon, with luck!

 

Cheers, Ray

[billn53]

21 minutes ago, Ray S said:

@billn53, Thank you for that link you posted above. I am not sure how I missed that when it was current, but what a cracking result you got from the kit! I have made a few notes from that thread, and I will try to incorporate some into this build. Not all, mind! I know my limitations...

.

.

.

 

 I have glued the vertical bulkhead to the rib now, and am letting that dry before I try to gradually close the other half up.

 

This would be a good time to check the fit of the clear canopy and center wing piece. When I built mine, I had the cockpit rear bulkhead too high, and the canopy/wing center didn't fit. I had to sand down the top of the vertical bulkhead and inside of the wing center to get things right.

[Paul J]

I like what you have done with the control 'bellcranks?'  Those square lus just forward of them need to be modded to resemble vents. Check out the box art. 

[billn53]

1 hour ago, Paul J said:

Those square lus just forward of them need to be modded to resemble vents. Check out the box art. 

The "vents" on the forward cowl varied significantly from aircraft to aircraft. Best to check photos and go from there.

[Ray S]

5 hours ago, billn53 said:

This would be a good time to check the fit of the clear canopy and center wing piece. When I built mine, I had the cockpit rear bulkhead too high, and the canopy/wing center didn't fit. I had to sand down the top of the vertical bulkhead and inside of the wing center to get things right.

Hi, I did notice that when I looked through your build. I have tried to take that into account when I was test fitting, but am fully prepared to cut and trim if need be! Thanks for reminding me though. My forward bulkhead has set slightly staggered forward. If I fit the wing midsection, I can pull it back vertical with the ledge at the front of the midsection, but I have not tried with the canopy in position but it looks like I would not be able to.

 

5 hours ago, Paul J said:

I like what you have done with the control 'bellcranks?'  Those square lus just forward of them need to be modded to resemble vents. Check out the box art. 

Paul, I see what you mean. The illustration on the box has no resemblance to what is in the kit.

 

https://flic.kr/p/2jrDSWf

 

This is the aircraft I am trying to build. The image is from 'Aircraft of the Chaco War 1928-35' By Dan Hagedorn and Antonio L Sapienza, I have left it as a link as I am not sure about posting the image.. I cannot quite work out the air vent arrangement, but it does look like there is a 'scoop' in front of one of the control horns (I knew there was a word for them!). Again, nothing like what is in the kit, so I will have to think 'how can I sort it?' or 'shall I leave it?'. I have noted that the larger control horn with the two wires is in a different place to where Airfix moulded them, being lower down.

 

I have started to get the fuselage together. I let the bulkhead set a bit, then glued the front part of the cowling together. This seemed to go okay, but I left the rest of the interior 'floating' for the time being. Once the front had been taped up and the glue had started to bite, I did the same for the back end. That meant the fuselage sides were together joined by a total of about one and a half inches of plastic! When I was test fitting the wing midsection, I found I needed a spreader in the upper aft cabin to bring the sides out to the same size. Cue a quick chopping of some rod:

 

 

I will paint that later so it does not stick out like a sore thumb!

 

I have played with the canopy, but I might be in a spot of bovver. Can you guess why?

 

 

 

I think it has had a bit of a hard life, don't you? One good thing though, It does fit well, with only small gaps which can be easily (I hope!) filled. I am going to try polishing it up a bit, but those scars on the side I fear are ingrained.

 

That is it for now, thanks for looking, and the advice too!

 

All the best,

 

Ray

Edited July 31, 2020 by Ray S
Replace pic with link

[billn53]

I found this and thought it might be helpful. 
 

http://www.lloydaereobolivianofriends.com/430684468

 

- Bill

[Ray S]

On 7/31/2020 at 8:16 PM, billn53 said:

I found this and thought it might be helpful. 
 

http://www.lloydaereobolivianofriends.com/430684468

 

- Bill

 

Thanks for that link @billn53 . Sadly, it suggests the pilot who flew this Tin Goose to Bolivia was one of the two who died when it crashed only 35 days later.

 

I have had a think about what I am going to do with this model. Having been reminded to look at things like cowling louvres, I am going to do this as a 'near' reality aircraft. I do not have the skill to reproduce the multitude of small vents which are around all of the engine cowlings, so will stay with the kit-supplied mouldings. Things like thinning the wing trailing edges will go by the way too, but things that are within my abilities will be attempted.

 

Yesterday, I managed to get the lower fuselage onto the model. It took some doing as it needed a fair bit of tape to hold it together:

 

 

I was unable to get the belly to fit snug forward, but overall I did not end up with too many gaps. I thought about that for a bit, then decided to mix two things that I would not normally have on the same model - filler and corrugations! Deluxe Materials Perfect Plastic Putty to the rescue, so I smeared it on then wiped it off later with damp cotton buds and damp tissues.

 

 

This was taken before I really got the knack of wiping the excess putty away, but eventually all was pretty much okay for me.

 

Then I took one of Bill's suggestions, for the wings. I trimmed the location tabs on the out upper wings so I was able to clamp the three parts together for a strong wing upper:

 

 

This helped me get a pretty good joint up top. While that was drying, I drilled out three small holes inside a pair of rectangles under the lower wings, for the control cables later on. Note to self: remember to do the same for the upper wing for the control cable outlets!

 

Now to the engine pot attachment points. Bill had mentioned in his thread (page 8 ) about the engine pods being asymmetric from the centre line. I have had a little look at the wing lower sides:

 

 

The small panels have different sizes (numbers of ribs) so that makes working things out a little difficult. The outside location holes are all along the blank 'rib' but the inner holes are at different distances away from that rib. That will all help produce the offset mountings, so I have got to get my head around the way to put this lot together when I finally get to it. Bill gave one solution in his thread, so I will just see how this build goes, and know how to try and ensure the undercarriage, when fitted, is vertical.

 

 

On the back of the front bulkhead, there are two round lumps. They looked like ejection pin towers to me, but it turned out the port one is the airspeed indicator, and the starboard one is the altimeter! Good job I did not cut them off! I have also just noticed that I need to refit the spreader bar too! And clean up the interior...

 

I have added the first bit of external colour. The image I posted as a link in a previous post shows what appears to be a lighter colour around the window area of the cargo cabin. I have brush painted that with Revell 90 Silver acrylic. That will get masked off before I paint the main colour Aluminium later.

 

In the Walkaround area of Britmodeller,

 

 

 

...there are a number of fabulous images of the Tri-motor, and they have helped me no end for some details which I can possibly cope with. I was surprised at how shiny things like the engine pods and support struts were, that is something I hope to be able to show. I am going along the lines of thinking that the plane would have been reasonably new when in Bolivia, so they would have been bright. The corrugations I will do as a duller aluminium.

 

Well, that is it for now. I have to say I feel happier now I have set limits to what I will do to this, but I still hope to improve the model somewhat.

 

Thanks very much for dropping in and giving me some ideas, help, and encouragement. Take care all.

 

Ray

[billn53]

Good progress! One trick when puttying the seams is to lay down a strip of tape to protect the corrugations, creating a narrow “trench” along the seam for the putty.

[Ray S]

5 minutes ago, billn53 said:

Good progress! One trick when puttying the seams is to lay down a strip of tape to protect the corrugations, creating a narrow “trench” along the seam for the putty.

Good idea! I have read about it before, but it never seems to sink in until it gets mentioned again! One day I WILL remember. Memory is a problem with me. Example:

 

I forgot to show one photo in my previous post. If I turn one wing upside down and look at the location holes from inside the wing, you can see this:

 

 

Just off to the right of the uppermost right hand side location hole is a dimple moulded into the surface. It looks like it is where one location hole should have been when the master was made. I wonder if I drill that, would it square off the fitting of the engine pods? Or would it cause more problems - it is the lower port wing!

 

PS - the luggage doors fitted incredibly well to their holes, a tremendous fit! I have glued them shut.

 

That is really it this time for the moment!

 

Cheers, Ray

[Ray S]

Hello all.

 

I have done a little to this today, mainly destruction! I had a look at some of the pictures on the Walkaround and on some of the images on Bill's build, and found out about the control wire outlets on these aircraft. It meant chain-drilling a series of holes towards the trailing edge and trimming that out, followed by thinning the wing interior to give a better impression:

 

 

As you can see, I have not worried about thinning the trailing edges. I have wondered how to improve the three fuel caps(?) forward. I had a bit of a look through my used photo-etch, and have found that coaling scuttles from a White Ensign 1/350 HMS Dreadnought is not too far out size-wise, so I may will try one of them!

 

I also trimmed off a fillet on the undercarriage legs and replaced them with a piece of 0.3mm plastic rod to represent a brake system component:

 

 

The one trouble with the silver plastic this is made from it that it shows blemishes even when you have dealt with them - in this case the ejection pin marks. One of the legs also was quite badly misaligned in the mould so needed some remedial work. I was not able to sand/cut an angle into the rods to blend them into the legs, or at least I was unable to see it properly!

 

From yesterday's post, the wings went together really well, with no need for filler along the two joins:

 

 

Then the inner child in me could not resist seeing how big the aircraft was going to be:

 

 

The forward bulkhead is angled slightly and sits in front of the wing centre section, but the cockpit canopy fits okay. I can use the lip at the front of the centre section to pull the bulkhead straight, but it does take a fair bit of 'oomph' to get the wing back into the right place.

 

I have been experimenting with some silver paint for the main colour. I usually use Revell 90 Silver acrylic brush painted, but I think that is too bright for this, their 99 Aluminium looks a very similar shade, so I tried Humbrol enamels. They have dried with very little shine (11 Silver and 56 Aluminium), but I will give them a second coat tomorrow and see how they go. If all else fails, I will resort to using a Humbrol Aluminium rattle can.

 

That is it for now, hopefully more soon.

 

Thanks for looking in,

 

Ray

[billn53]

She is a big girl, isn't she?

 

About the control wire outlets on the upper wing. If I recall correctly, the outlets are indeed rectangular (per your cutout), but they were sealed with what appears to be a leather or rubber "boot", with a hole for the cable to pass through.

 

-Bill

[Orso]

Love this build.

Here are my approach to the rudder wires: 

 

[Ray S]

1 hour ago, Orso said:

Love this build.

Here are my approach to the rudder wires: 

 

 

@Orso, that was very informative, thanks for adding that link. I was thinking of trying to solder (with solder paint) some tiny brass rod and supports, but your idea looks good too, as did Bill's use of CA-soaked paper for the supports in his build. My main worry was cutting six small circles from the rod, all the same size! And soldering such small bits. And how to secure them for soldering...

 

23 hours ago, billn53 said:

She is a big girl, isn't she?

 

About the control wire outlets on the upper wing. If I recall correctly, the outlets are indeed rectangular (per your cutout), but they were sealed with what appears to be a leather or rubber "boot", with a hole for the cable to pass through.

 

-Bill

Bill, thanks for letting me know. I am going to leave the spaces (probably) as the wires need to come out through the slots, and if I get holes at the wrong angle through the 'boot', they will look odd.

 

Anyway, I have fitted the lower wings to the completed upper section. They went together well, but I did find a slight gap aft where one wing outer was slightly thicker than the centre section - I had not noticed when I put the uppers together, my fault! Now they are together, you can see just how thick the wings were, and why they had space in them for the mail/luggage:

 

 

I still need to fine-tune the wing leading edges, and to do something about the landing lights. I will be off to Hobbycraft tomorrow, and I will see what they have in the beading line for the lenses. They fit really well to the fuselage:

 

 

The fuselage still needs some cleaning up too! One thing I have been wondering is whether to fit the engine pods while the wing is off the fuselage. My thinking is that I will have more access to the structure which hopefully will help prevent the slightly offset issues that may occur, and it will also allow me to add replacement longitudinal struts fore and aft on the pods. The fit of the wing is so good, I don't think it would be an issue putting on the pods first.

 

 

Anyway, talking of pods, I have started them too:

 

 

They went together quite well again, just a little sanding prior to joining the parts. I had painted the front interior red and green for port and starboard to (hopefully) prevent me from getting them wrong later. I also marked the instructions too for when it comes to the struts. I do not trust myself. I am going to try and improve them. Bill has given some ideas in his post, I will try some but not all. 

 

That is it for now, thanks for looking in and for the likes, comments and advice.

 

Ray

[stevehnz]

This is coming along beautifully Ray. Some great info from yourself & others for when I can have ago at mine. I'm looking forward to the final reveal.

Steve.

[billn53]

Like Steve said. She’s coming along fine and I’m sure will look great when done.  
I wish I had known of Orso’s build when I did mine. There’s some great work there, he was able to accomplish things I would not have thought possible. 

[clive_t]

As is my habit, I am arriving 'fashionably late' to the show here, but you've done a stellar job so far on an oldie-but-goodie kit.

[Ray S]

On 8/4/2020 at 10:22 PM, stevehnz said:

This is coming along beautifully Ray. Some great info from yourself & others for when I can have ago at mine. I'm looking forward to the final reveal.

Steve.

 

On 8/6/2020 at 12:13 PM, clive_t said:

As is my habit, I am arriving 'fashionably late' to the show here, but you've done a stellar job so far on an oldie-but-goodie kit.

Thanks both!

 

I have been pottering about with the engine pods these last couple of days. I have checked out Bill's build as regard the engines, and was quite happy to modify them in a similar fashion. That required a 1/2" tube and some packing material to bring the front forward a little. I had 3/8" tube, and could not get any the right size at my local model shop, so I decided to leave it as-is. I used some online plans (apparently by Ford themselves) and added some louvres on both sides of each pod. I also scribed on some panel lines, but I think they are more generic than accurate. To represent screws, I used a needle and made them recessed, and, finally, I drilled out a hole for a filler cap of some sort which is visible on the fuselage sides of the pods, ready for some brass rod later.

 

 

One thing I have not got the hang of is scribing around conical shapes. I have tried Dymo tape and masking table at double thickness, and also putting the part into a hole to the panel line and trying to scribe that way. So my panel lines do not go all the way round. I painted the engine pods with Mr Metalizer Stainless and buffed them with a cotton bud, and got a nice metallic shine, similar to the walkarounds and the images Bill put on his post of a real Tri-motor:

 

 

I decided to try and use the kit struts on this build. I had read a couple of instances where the strut part numbers were wrong in the instructions. Going by the aerofoil on the parts, they were wrong on the newer pictorial instructions, but on the original written ones, the numbers were correct. Anyway, I still have the wing off the model at the moment, so I used the wing engine mounting holes as a jig to fit the struts to the engine pods. I used CA to fit the parts, and found it exceptionally tricky, but eventually got the struts on, but when attached to the wing, the engine canted off to the port. I re-drilled the rear inner mount slightly further aft, and straightened the mount up.

 

 

I had previously given the wing a spray coat of Humbrol Aluminium, and also gave parts of the leading edge a brushed coat of Aluminium and gloss varnish just to give a slight tonal variation. The engine struts were Revell 90 Silver acrylic.

 

One final thing, after I had painted the wing, I found the inner wing leading edge had split open, and I needed to re-glue it, carefully!

 

That is it for now, I wonder what I will do wrong next time?

 

All the best, Ray