Dunny Posted February 24, 2023 Share Posted February 24, 2023 Hi All, My next project will be Special Hobby's N-3PB. This aircraft was purchased off the drawing board (24 in total) by the Norwegian government in 1940, just before the fall of that country. On delivery these aircraft were operated from Iceland by 330 Sqn RAF, made up exclusively of exiled Norwegian aircrew. This squadron flew from 1941, performing maritime patrol and anti-submarine missions until they were replaced by the far more capable Sunderland. This will be my first floatplane build, although I have built a couple of seaplanes (namely the Sunderland and Walrus). Here's the box art: I believe this was a new tool kit in 2015, and the sprue shots show a nice level of detail: Floatage: And the small transparency sprue: Not sure if I have the testicular fortitude to separate those canopy elements! The decals look nicely in register, along with a small PE fret (I think those are the rudders): At this stage I'm planning to complete as this aircraft GS*G: Very evocative photos showing the operating conditions! I may have to do a bit of wear and tear on this airframe to reflect the harsh life. Anyway, off we jolly well trot! Thanks for looking, Roger 20 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AliGauld Posted February 24, 2023 Share Posted February 24, 2023 Another brilliant choice. It's Special hobby but you know what you're getting into. The engineering on the floats looks good. No nasty centre seams to deal with. Cheers, Alistair 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dogsbody Posted February 24, 2023 Share Posted February 24, 2023 Just because I can, here are a few more N-3PB photos: Chris 14 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Planebuilder62 Posted February 24, 2023 Share Posted February 24, 2023 Hi Dunny There is an earlier build of this model on here somewhere with lots of good input from the Norwegian markings guru @Vingtor regards Toby Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vingtor Posted February 24, 2023 Share Posted February 24, 2023 4 hours ago, dogsbody said: Just because I can, here are a few more N-3PB photos: The first one is a copy of an actual colour photo, showing the original American colors (sic) before repainting to British TSC. I have a copy myself, developed from the original positive film (somewhat different in colours from this copy). The others are colourized b/w photos, more or less inaccurate... 3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dunny Posted February 24, 2023 Author Share Posted February 24, 2023 4 hours ago, dogsbody said: Just because I can, here are a few more N-3PB photos: Thanks very much Chris - it's very well documented for such a small number of aircraft! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dunny Posted February 24, 2023 Author Share Posted February 24, 2023 5 hours ago, AliGauld said: Another brilliant choice. It's Special hobby but you know what you're getting into. The engineering on the floats looks good. No nasty centre seams to deal with. Cheers, Alistair Thanks Alistair - I'm certainly encouraged looking at the sprues 4 hours ago, Planebuilder62 said: Hi Dunny There is an earlier build of this model on here somewhere with lots of good input from the Norwegian markings guru @Vingtor regards Toby Thanks for that Toby - will dig it out! 4 minutes ago, Vingtor said: The first one is a copy of an actual colour photo, showing the original American colors (sic) before repainting to British TSC. I have a copy myself, developed from the original positive film (somewhat different in colours from this copy). The others are colourized b/w photos, more or less inaccurate... Thanks Vingtor - I shall proceed with caution, although the first photo looks to be a pretty good representation of TSS, Cheers, Roger 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vingtor Posted February 24, 2023 Share Posted February 24, 2023 1 minute ago, Dunny said: it's very well documented for such a small number of aircraft! Much of the "documentation" on the colours is wrong though. I have done research on this lately, which will be described in a forthcoming book. The text is in Norwegian ... 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John_W Posted February 24, 2023 Share Posted February 24, 2023 Quite an elegant aircraft, very similar to contemporary Japanese designs. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdrianMF Posted February 24, 2023 Share Posted February 24, 2023 Hmm - this calls out for a diorama ... If you aren't comfortable with dioramas, i have just the GB for you! Regards, Adrian 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vingtor Posted February 24, 2023 Share Posted February 24, 2023 1 minute ago, Dunny said: the first photo looks to be a pretty good representation of TSS, But in American colours, apparently Blue Gray M-485 or Dark Gray 13, together with Dark Olive Drab 31 upper sides, with Light Gray M-495 lower surfaces. The floats had a lighter grey, possibly Blue Gray 12. Nils 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dunny Posted February 24, 2023 Author Share Posted February 24, 2023 2 minutes ago, John_W said: Quite an elegant aircraft, very similar to contemporary Japanese designs. I agree John - I shall probably preserve those elegant lines by not cutting the glazing for an open canopy! 1 minute ago, AdrianMF said: Hmm - this calls out for a diorama ... If you aren't comfortable with dioramas, i have just the GB for you! Regards, Adrian A worthy effort Adrian - I commend you 🤣 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dunny Posted February 24, 2023 Author Share Posted February 24, 2023 2 minutes ago, Vingtor said: But in American colours, apparently Blue Gray M-485 or Dark Gray 13, together with Dark Olive Drab 31 upper sides, with Light Gray M-495 lower surfaces. The floats had a lighter grey, possibly Blue Gray 12. Nils Thanks for that Nils! I shall probably go for quite a faded/worn finish so the 'original' colours will not be quite as critical 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigbadbadge Posted February 24, 2023 Share Posted February 24, 2023 It certainly does look lovely and a great subject to model, looking forward to this one. Chris 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dunny Posted February 24, 2023 Author Share Posted February 24, 2023 Just looking at the photos above, it looks to me as if the propeller has black rear surfaces, bare metal front surfaces and no yellow tips. Interesting... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Rat Posted February 24, 2023 Share Posted February 24, 2023 56 minutes ago, Dunny said: Just looking at the photos above, it looks to me as if the propeller has black rear surfaces, bare metal front surfaces and no yellow tips. Interesting... Bare metal instead of flat black would mean less drag on the prop, and yes, it does matter. When I was a ramp rat many years ago, one of our jobs was washing aircraft, and giving them a good wax job. Apparently a wax job on a prop was really appreciated by the owners, they said they could just sense the difference it made. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dunny Posted February 25, 2023 Author Share Posted February 25, 2023 35 minutes ago, The Rat said: Bare metal instead of flat black would mean less drag on the prop, and yes, it does matter. When I was a ramp rat many years ago, one of our jobs was washing aircraft, and giving them a good wax job. Apparently a wax job on a prop was really appreciated by the owners, they said they could just sense the difference it made. It certainly makes sense - in fact Skuas and Rocs both had bare metal fronts to their propellers, so it was obviously considered important at the time... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dunny Posted February 25, 2023 Author Share Posted February 25, 2023 (edited) Hi All, Well I've made a start this morning, just looking around for potential pitfalls. Glazing can always be a bit dubious on SH kits, so the first thing I did was dry fit the fuselage halves to check the glasshouse: Not too much wrong with that! There is a fair bit of flash around the fuselage, which I suspect is a function of SH using relatively low injection pressure on their tooling. As per usual there's always an ejector pin in the wrong place: That will need to be sorted, as it's smack in the middle of the gunner's compartment. I kept examining the above photos to try and get some sense of the interior colours, gun mounts and such, and, well... This happened: It was a bit of buttock-clenching action with the razor saw, with no less than 4 cuts required - I figured if I was going to take an early bath I may as well go hard and go early. The only casualty was the pilot's sliding portion which cracked straight down the middle, but I'm quite pleased, not to say relieved, that my bold play worked out pretty well, as it IS a nicely detailed interior! With the cracked component I'll either make up a replacement or possibly just cover it up with an extra frame strip (no-one will ever know!) Thanks for looking, Roger Edited February 25, 2023 by Dunny Grammar & spelling 10 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iceman11 Posted February 25, 2023 Share Posted February 25, 2023 Excellent choice and thread. One cannot go wrong with a RNoAF aircraft (although it wasn`t named RNoAF at that time)!! Will follow with great interest and keep em coming! Check Six and build something! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dunny Posted February 25, 2023 Author Share Posted February 25, 2023 24 minutes ago, Iceman11 said: Excellent choice and thread. One cannot go wrong with a RNoAF aircraft (although it wasn`t named RNoAF at that time)!! Will follow with great interest and keep em coming! Check Six and build something! Thanks very much - welcome aboard! It certainly is an unusual subject which I haven't seen built often... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vingtor Posted February 25, 2023 Share Posted February 25, 2023 7 hours ago, Dunny said: Just looking at the photos above, it looks to me as if the propeller has black rear surfaces, bare metal front surfaces and no yellow tips. Interesting... The outer 2/3 was black. The inner 1/3 was bare metal. On most aircraft. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dunny Posted February 25, 2023 Author Share Posted February 25, 2023 2 minutes ago, Vingtor said: The outer 2/3 was black. The inner 1/3 was bare metal. On most aircraft. Nils, Now I can just about see the demarcation on this photo: Thank you! Cheers, Roger 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigbadbadge Posted February 25, 2023 Share Posted February 25, 2023 Holy moley Roger, you're away and great job cutting the canopy into sections too. Great start fella. Chris 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gingerbob Posted February 25, 2023 Share Posted February 25, 2023 10 hours ago, Dunny said: just looking around for potential pitfalls I've got some spare ones if you need any! (I happened to find the mythical (or at least, hard to find) 1/48 vac last year. Very unlikely I'll have the courage to build it, but how could I not take it home? If I had any sense I'd sell it on eBay or something...) 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AliGauld Posted February 25, 2023 Share Posted February 25, 2023 And he's off, Cracking start with the canopy. Was it bravery or the patented AliGauld method of let's see what happens not really considering the consequences. I would suggest the former. Looking forward to more. Cheers, Alistair 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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