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ICM 1/32 Fiat CR.42 Falco - Corpo Aereo Italiano, Ursel, Belgium, October 1940


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Looking good Stew .either you or I have opend up the wrong end of our guns . It could well be me but I'm lying in bed away from the instructions so this needs investigating. (Not me being in bed at 7.00)

Cheers Alistair

 

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Well obviously I don't hope it's you that has opened the wrong end mate, but I hope it's not me... :lol: I think the slightly tapered end is the part that fits to the fuselage; as you say, investigation is needed :hmmm:

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

 

Edit: No you're alright mate, I've opened the wrong ends :blush:

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I fitted the lower wings, a bit in advance of the instructions but there isn't anything they are going to interfere with:

 

DSCN2188.jpg

 

... and I had some time to kill while the engine and exhaust components were drying after an undercoat of blackish grey:

 

DSCN2190.jpg

 

The eagle-eyed may spot that I did the wheels at the same time :) 

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

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Yesterday the bulk of the engine components got their paint: Vallejo Metal Color; Silver for the push-rods, Exhaust Manifold for the cylinders and a mix of the two for the 'spider' which I'm guessing is the fuel-feed pipes:

 

DSCN2192.jpg

 

... and the rearward parts were assembled - it might be my camera, and much as I would like to blame it, it could just as easily be the lack of my photographic skills which basically consist of setting the camera to 'Auto' for everything apart from 'macro on/off', but suddenly everything looks the same colour, which it isn't. I'll try taking some pictures in natural light later:

 

DSCN2194.jpg

 

This looks quite a complicated manouevre, but everything goes together nicely. However you do need to keep your wits about you as all the parts are keyed to each other and while they might fit in some other position, that means something else won't fit later. As Alistair @Mottlemaster noted earlier the diamond-shaped mounting key at the back of the engine (facing upwards in the picture above) is not symmetrical so that's something to watch for. 

 

The exhaust pipe arrangement is beautiful; mine got a coat of Tamiya Dark Iron, I love this colour but again its subtleties are rather lost in this picture:

 

DSCN2196.jpg

 

These have now been fitted and it is a lovely piece of engineering :wub:

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

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22 hours ago, Mottlemaster said:

Looking good Stew .How does the construction compare with the Gladiator?

Cheers Alistair

 

Thanks Alistair :) The construction so far has been quite closely comparable to the Gladiator; as long as you keep an eye on the instructions and know what you are meant to be sticking where before you commit to glue, when you get there you can be confident that it will fit.

 

21 hours ago, bigbadbadge said:

Hi Stew

The engine looks good fella. Great job.

Chris

 

Thanks Chris - I'm happy with it, and it was quite satisfying the way it all fit together, it was like doing one of those little 3D puzzles that suddenly click into place and leave you feeling that you achieved something when in fact all you did was what you were supposed to do :lol: 

 

20 hours ago, spitfire said:

Compared to my builds this is going at Warp 9, great progress and it's looking good.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

 

Thanks Dennis - yes they finally allowed us to work from home from about the middle of February and it has done wonders for my modelling, when I get a break I can just wander into the back bedroom and potter about with a kit for 15 minutes; it's surprising how much you can get done :) 

 

12 hours ago, Biggles87 said:

I like the engine with the subtle differences in the metallic shades. I recently discovered Tamiya Dark Iron but agree with you that it doesn’t photograph well.

 

John

 

Thanks John, I'm glad at least one person knows what I mean :D I took some more photo's below but they still don't really capture the essence of it.

 

10 hours ago, rob85 said:

Your making this look very easy stew! Looks fantastic so far mate.

 

Rob

 

Thanks very much Rob :) So far this, and the Gladiator/Sea Gladiator, have been quite simple kits, the parts count isn't enormous and ICM didn't go nuts and start adding interior framing where it won't be seen afterwards or internal fuel tanks and so on, so really it has been pretty easy, I don't think it's down to me though :lol: 

 

Anyway here's the back part of the engine in daylight:

 

DSCN2197.jpg

 

DSCN2200.jpg

 

... and I started on the front part of the engine. I've made a decision not to go nuts weathering stuff any more, but I did give it a watered-down application of Citadel Nuln Oil wash to bring out the bolt detail:

 

DSCN2201.jpg

 

From the pictures of the engine in the Italeri book there seems to be a fairly large data plate on the portside of the reduction gear casing; I may be able to make a reasonable facsimile from the Airscale RAF placards transfer set, I'll have a look later... 

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

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I finished off the engine yesterday; I used a transfer from the Airscale Allied Cockpit Placards set for the data plate on the engine... it's a little too small but it will be invisible from almost every angle anyway and it's better than nothing:

 

DSCN2204.jpg

 

On the real aircraft there is a bit of wiring which I think is associated with the interruptor gear that runs from the lower 'blobby bit' on the reduction gear casing back to the collar of the casing and from there rearward. If you are a fan of superdetailing it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to reproduce this with copper wire - you can buy little spools of it in various sizes for use in fly-fishing and it is ideal for this sort of thing if you can't be bothered to forage for your own amongst discarded electrical equipment. I do have a set of those little spools, but I didn't do the wiring because I am that lazy.

 

Then I assembled the prop - the implication of that really is bigging up my involvement to an almost embarrassing degree, my involvement consisting, as it did, of sticking two perfect;y-fitting parts together:

 

DSCN2206.jpg

 

The propeller backs and hub were sprayed black(ish grey):

 

DSCN2207.jpg

 

I can't remember the name of the colour, it was a batch of Jamie's Royal Navy colours we were tinning up and I shamelessly blagged a big tin of it, it looks black, until you put it next to pure black so fits perfectly with my preference for not using actual black unless absolutely necessary. It also makes a great primer for metallic acrylic paint, hence the hub getting a coat too. 

 

The front-facing blades were pale sky blue - according to the Stormo! website colour guides the Fiat-Hamilton propellers on the CR.42 and G.50 were this colour which they match as being or being close to FS35466 which is generally noted as Sky Blue. I used RLM65 on mine, it will not be the greatest of my colour transgressions, I am sure :D 

 

DSCN2209.jpg

 

Next to paint the hub silver, apply the logo's to the prop blades and then start on the cowling parts... 

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

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Hello Stew. Considering the size of the engine in 32nd scale, the oil line on the front cylinders are qui visible and not difficult to do,3 on the right side and 4 on the left one. Two handles are also present

http://www.silverwings.pl/132-fiat-a74-rc38.html  keep it up, cheers.

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Thank you Jean, but I completed the cowling yesterday and to be honest if I had wanted to add the wiring, that boat has now sailed :) 

 

The propeller hub was painted silver:

 

DSCN2211.jpg

 

It is a lovely moulding, though I doubt it will be seen when the spinner is fitted... I made a small pencil mark 2cm from each propeller tip and used this as a guide to apply the propeller logo decals:

 

DSCN2214.jpg

 

Hmm, not quite right I feel, perhaps they should have been a couple of millimetres closer to the hub; however they are at least consistent with each other. I left them a while to give the transfers time to set, and added the 'pips' to the inside of the landing gear fairings which hold the wheels in place - they are supplied as separate parts, which causes a certain amount of faff as they are quite tiny, but it does eliminate the risk of sink-marks on the outsides of the fairings so I can appreciate the logic behind it:

 

DSCN2216.jpg

 

I also temporarily fitted the tailwheel fairing with Blu-Tack so that I can paint it with the rest of the underside before removing it and fitting the tailwheel itself, this seemed an easier option to me than fitting it all and either masking the tailwheel or painting it in situ:

 

DSCN2224.jpg

 

The prop blades got a satin coat to seal the transfers, and the cowling parts were de-sprued and cleaned up ready for the interiors to be painted:

 

DSCN2217.jpg

 

As far as I can see from the preserved examples the interior of the cowling looks to be the same grey as the cockpit interior (with the possible exception of the Swedish example, which may be Aluminium, it's hard to see). I think ICM call out the same colour too in the instructions, in any case, grey is what mine got:

 

DSCN2220.jpg

 

... and so on to the fitting. You see those little indents on the cowling parts above? They accept protrusions from certain of the cylinder heads at the front and back of the engine, which I did not notice and consequently - thankfully - did not trim off at the time :) The fitting all felt a bit 'seat of the pants'... 

 

DSCN2222.jpg

 

... but it got done:

 

DSCN2226.jpg

 

I'm sure it is possible to get a better fit than I did, but I didn't. I'll run a little Liquid Green Stuff into the gaps and wipe off the excess and I hope it will produce an improved result. Those familiar with the kit may notice that I fitted the lower central panel where the upper one should be - I have managed to prise this off and fit them in their correct positions (the two lines on the top cowling above are guides for the air intake(?) and should, obviously, go on the underside where this fits).

 

Next I have the option of de-spruing, cleaning up and carefully noting the number of a literal* forest of struts, or painting the undersides Aluminium and dealing with the struts later...

 

Cheers, 

 

Stew

 

* not a literal forest :D 

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Thank you John :) ICM do provide the option to leave some or all of the central cowling panels (i.e. the removable ones) off, but if you do leave them off you get parts to fit to the tops of the cylinders which would prevent re-fitting the central panels again, so you need to choose one or the other. But yes, you could choose to leave one or more of the panels off to display the engine (or most of it at least), I just prefer to have my models buttoned up so you see what the aeroplane itself looks like, if you see what I mean?

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

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20 hours ago, Biggles87 said:

I usually go for panels which detach completely to show internal detail.

 

That being the case John I think ICM's solution would be perfect for you :) 

 

Not that much progress yesterday; as noted above I ran some Green Stuff into the gaps betweeen the engine panels - my reasoning being that a filled gap still looks like an imperfectly fitting panel, which is quite feasible on a real aircraft, but a gap you can see through looks like you did something wrong :D 

 

DSCN2230.jpg

 

I decided to paint the yellow cowling first then mask it before fitting the engine to the fuselage, it will be far easier that way to match the camouflage on the cooling gills to the rest of the fuselage since I will be able to do it at the same time. A lot of photographs of the Corpo Aero Italiano aircraft show them without the yellow cowlings but they all had it - my belief is that most of the surviving photos were taken on arrival in Belgium or soon after, both by the press and those pilots and other members with cameras, in the excitement of arrival and to mark the moment: "Look, we are here!"

 

The ID yellow paint was temporary and removable and apparently did not age well, in pictures it looks very pale and is noted to be a much paler yellow than the Italian yellow paint. There is a possibility it was actually RLM27 - a sort of lemony yellow - rather than the golden egg-yolky colour of RLM04 and again I can see a scenario that fits this: You are a Luftwaffe liaison officer and have to provide x-amount of ID yellow to some not wholeheartedly-welcome allies; at least you can get rid of that stock of temporary ID yellow that your Gruppe ordered by mistake :lol: (For the avoidance of doubt I made this up for my own amusement when I was thinking about it and it has no basis in historical fact nor am I suggesting that there is any evidence that this was the case :D)

 

TLDR: I painted the yellow bits in a mix of RLM04 Yellow, white and a bit of Zinc Chromate Primer to shift it toward the green part of the spectrum a bit:

 

DSCN2232.jpg

 

Yes; I remembered to do the as-yet unfitted air intake and the spinner too :) 

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

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Thank you Dennis, I'm afraid it's a boring one today... the underside and struts are all going to be painted Aluminium, or, perhaps to be more specific, Aluminio, to represent the silvery dope of that name. I confess that I don't like using silver paint and generally fear for the result before I even start, a fear that often proves justified to a greater or lesser degree. In any case I want to get it done in one session if I can, and that means enterng the Forest of Struts. Struts... fahsands of them! 

 

Well actually six per side, but it is plenty. I've de-sprued and cleaned up the cabane struts and will work my way outwards making sure, I hope, not to lose track of the part numbers, since they all fit into specific holes in the upper and lower wings and fuselage.

 

I did complete assembly of the upper wing, so that's something :)

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

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So like Red Riding Hood you are about to enter a forest, but an even more dangerous one, one made of struts. Of course buoyed up by your recent experiences with the Gladiator struts could cause you to skip eagerly onwards,glue in hand.

I found the struts even more tricky than the engine to do but came out fine in the end. Lots of swearing and forgetting to breathe.

Cheers Alistair

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On 4/13/2021 at 7:26 AM, Mottlemaster said:

could cause you to skip eagerly onwards,glue in hand.

 

Those who skip eagerly skip foolishly, in my experience :D 

 

So I skipped eagerly on and completed the de-spruing and cleaning up of the struts, which each got a dip in IPA to wash off any finger oils and sanding residue, and was put in a numbered compartment box:

 

DSCN2239.jpg

 

I have a (serious) question about injection-moulded struts... why are the sprue connection points always part way along the strut, where some careful cleaning up will be required, rather than at each end, where you could be a bit more relaxed about it? I accept that you need two entry points or entry/exit points for the moulding, but why not have one at each end? I would be interested to know if anyone does know :) 

 

As is visible above, I painted the wheels and gave them a slop of Citadel wash, Nuln Oil for the hubs and Agrax Earthshade for the tyres:

 

DSCN2237.jpg

 

You can see the difference in real life, honest :D 

 

Finally as a displacement activity between struts, the propeller got its spinner fitted:

 

DSCN2233.jpg

 

Mmm... colourful :) 

 

So big jobs* next I think; spray the undersides and the struts Aluminium. Bit much for a workday I think, but not far off the weekend now B) 

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

 

* Oh do grow up!

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