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Cold War (1950-1974)
Discuss the aircraft modeling subjects during the Cold War period.
Hosted by Tim Hatton
High Planes CAC Winjeel
magnusf
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Posted: Sunday, August 16, 2009 - 08:34 AM UTC
Time to start another one, this one is for the Ronnie RAAF -campaign.

This is quite an odd bird, before stumbling over the kit I had never heard of it. For those of you who know as little as I did, Wikipedia is a good place to start!

The kit is very much our standard High Planes kit: light blue plastic, quite a lot of flash and crude instructions. On the positive side there are many marking alternatives, all catered for by well printed decals and actually, when the flash is removed, parts usually fit well! Add to this a very clear canopy you have the stuff that winners are made of ! I have a certain fondness of these kits, I have built a few and have many more in the stash, be sure to try at least one before you put your tools on the shelf! And where else will you find an injection moulded Winjeel?


Box"art". Well, I like it anyway!


All there is in the box! I have started to clean up the major parts.


Engine will be hard to save (I think I have a white metal one somewhere) but the rest of the parts can be judged as useable!



Magnus
magnusf
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Posted: Friday, August 21, 2009 - 07:27 PM UTC
I couldn't find that white metal engine so I spent ten minutes with a file and found that behind all that flash there was an acceptable engine. It is even possible to build this one out-of-the-box then!


The white metal prop is really nice!


Magnus
Merlin
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Posted: Saturday, August 22, 2009 - 10:00 AM UTC
Hi Magnus

Nice work on cleaning up the engine! I'm following this with interest because it's a great subject and I've never built a High Planes Models kit.

I must admit the pale blue plastic had me wondering if you'd got the colour balance set wrong on your camera! What's it like to work with - soft or brittle?

All the best

Rowan
magnusf
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Posted: Saturday, August 22, 2009 - 06:55 PM UTC

Quoted Text

Hi Magnus

Nice work on cleaning up the engine! I'm following this with interest because it's a great subject and I've never built a High Planes Models kit.

I must admit the pale blue plastic had me wondering if you'd got the colour balance set wrong on your camera! What's it like to work with - soft or brittle?

All the best

Rowan



Neither soft, nor brittle: just a very nice and workable plastic. A fact to be very thankful for when it comes to these models !



Magnus
Merlin
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Posted: Saturday, August 22, 2009 - 09:53 PM UTC
Thanks Magnus

I must admit I've always been tempted by their 1:48 racers. The CAC Avon Sabre looks rather tasty too!...

All the best

Rowan
magnusf
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Posted: Sunday, August 23, 2009 - 07:00 AM UTC

Quoted Text

Thanks Magnus

I must admit I've always been tempted by their 1:48 racers. The CAC Avon Sabre looks rather tasty too!...

All the best

Rowan



You mean this one?

This is the 1/72 version, High Planes conversion with the rest of the bits from Academy!

I have a few of the 1/72 racers as well. They are nice! An RB-51 is almost finished (and has been so for the last ten years...)


Magnus
Merlin
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Posted: Sunday, August 23, 2009 - 07:13 AM UTC
Hi again

Very nice! That makes it even more tempting to try its quarterscale stablemate one of these days!

All the best

Rowan
magnusf
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Posted: Tuesday, September 01, 2009 - 09:35 AM UTC
Engine doesn't fit. In an attack of sudden helpfulness, High Planes have supplied me with some kind of engine mounts inside the fuselage halves. Located in a very wrong position! And the intricately shaped "dish-pan" has been filed to something completely else compared to what it was from the beginning. It would probably have been easier to make my own support for the engine. Anyway, now it almost fits!







Magnus
Merlin
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Posted: Tuesday, September 01, 2009 - 11:38 AM UTC
Hi Magnus

Just to tease out a little extra info for any of our viewers who may not have tackled a kit like this yet... How did you thin the cowling: using a motor tool or trimming away by hand? Any tips for getting it even?

All the best

Rowan
magnusf
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Posted: Tuesday, September 01, 2009 - 08:36 PM UTC

Quoted Text

Hi Magnus

Just to tease out a little extra info for any of our viewers who may not have tackled a kit like this yet... How did you thin the cowling: using a motor tool or trimming away by hand? Any tips for getting it even?

All the best

Rowan



Thanks for asking Rowan!

I used my Dremel. It really must be kind of an emergency since I haven't used it for at least the last five years, just scraping with a rounded scalpel blade usually does it!

For getting it even? Well to start with, it isn't especially even ! It doesn't have to since very little will be seen with fuselage closed and engine in place (this is more of case of being able to glue the fuselage together at all!). But I think it helps to use as large a tool as possible, I use a spherical burr I got from a dentist many years ago. Local defects can then be scraped away with a scalpel blade and a bit of sanding helps as well!



Magnus
magnusf
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Posted: Wednesday, September 02, 2009 - 09:20 AM UTC
After filing away happily for another half hour I decided that I had enough and that fit won't improve any further!


Fuselage halves and engine primed. The confused-looking guy sitting on the stick is a poor Luftwaffe pilot who has sat there waiting to be painted for a long time...


Australian interior green is very, well, green. Incredibly green actually!


Engine and dish-pan. Detail painting tomorrow!



Magnus
LongKnife
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Posted: Thursday, September 03, 2009 - 08:02 AM UTC
Great to see this Magnus. It gives me hope for the two Reggiane J 20 Falcos I have lurking about. The starting point is roughly the same. But the green is very very green...

Keep it up. I'll stay tuned, hoping I'll someday summon up the patience for something of this calibre.

Tony
magnusf
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Posted: Saturday, September 05, 2009 - 10:01 AM UTC

Quoted Text

Great to see this Magnus. It gives me hope for the two Reggiane J 20 Falcos I have lurking about. The starting point is roughly the same. But the green is very very green...

Keep it up. I'll stay tuned, hoping I'll someday summon up the patience for something of this calibre.

Tony



Remember that this is 1/72, it is a bit more forgiving than larger scales. Less area to sand you know ! The Reggianes, are they from Classic Airframes?

On to tonight's update. I knew there had to be something worse than the engine. And guess what - there was! The seats, three differently sized lumps of plastic that has very little to do with the look of the real thing. I thought that a good filing may save them (there might be a seat hidden below all that excess plastic) but I soon realised it wasn't worth the effort!

Aeroscale member grubbyfingers have a very nice web page with his profile art (worth checking out, they are awesome!) and lots of other useful goodies. Among these is a comprehensive walkaround of the Moorabbin Winjeel ,an excellent source for detail photos. As can be seen, the seats are thin sheet metal bucket seats, easily replicated in plasticard.


Master pattern is a Hurricane seat from Eduard. I scribed vertical lines in the plastic marking back and seat bottom that then will be bent in an "L"-shape. They were then cut to width (6 mm) using scalpel and straightedge.


Back and bottom glued to one side. Yes, I know, the side part is a bit large (the metalsmith probably got something wrong when converting my drawings from mm to inches or the other way around ). Seriously, after making twenty or so carefully sized ribs for my Canberra flaps, cutting my thumb badly in the process, and then having to trim them afterwards since they didn't fit anyway I have stopped doing exact-fitting parts! With a sharp blade and a steady hand it is possible to get the same result without the skill and effort ...


Four seat blanks left to dry. The blue lumps of plastic are the originals. They are up for donation if you need them, receiver to pay for postage!


I've glued the fuselage halves. This is how the engine turned out. I will probably weather it carefully using the airbrush and Tamiya smoke, it does look a bit sterile in there! I also realise that I should have read this article before closing the halves !


Internal fuselage detail and a close-up of my left thumb. Pick your own area of interest, I would recommend the Winjeel :-) !



Magnus
magnusf
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Posted: Sunday, September 06, 2009 - 09:29 AM UTC
Seat manufacturing continues!


Three new seats, the one to the left still lacks its front.


I managed to get myself a reference shot of a radial today. Not the exact one used in the Winjeel but its bigger brother!

I'm off to visit my parents for a few days so your eagerly awaited updates won't be back until Thursday the earliest!



Magnus
Tango-India-Mike
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Western Australia, Australia
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Posted: Monday, September 07, 2009 - 02:17 AM UTC
Greetings Magnus,

An aircraft fondly remembered from my own RAAF service and I'm pleased to see someone building this kit of it. I have the High Planes kit in my stash too, but havent got to it yet for lack of good cockpit interior photographs to work from. Now though, I've just seen the link here to the Moorabbin example and bookmarked it for future reference. Memories from over thirty-five years ago aren't good enough to get by on, unfortunately, but I do remember that the interior green isn't quite as bright as you have it here. The colour seen in the 'walk-around' photos also appears a bit too bright, and I think that may be due to lighting or flash photography. It's close, but the colour is a bit duller than that in natural daylight.

All the same, I'll be watching your progress with interest and perhaps gaining inspiration to get on with mine.

Is there a time limit on this 'Ronnie RAAF' group build? I'm fiddling with Meteor Mk 8 kits at present, but no real progress made other than cutting parts off the sprues. I could do with a project to motivate me into actually finishing something!

Cheers!

Tim.
Merlin
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Posted: Monday, September 07, 2009 - 10:21 AM UTC

Quoted Text

Is there a time limit on this 'Ronnie RAAF' group build? ... Cheers!

Tim.



Hi Tim

The Ronnie RAAF campaign ends December 31st. You can see the current and planned campaigns HERE.

All the best

Rowan
magnusf
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Posted: Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - 07:00 PM UTC

Quoted Text

Greetings Magnus,

An aircraft fondly remembered from my own RAAF service and I'm pleased to see someone building this kit of it. I have the High Planes kit in my stash too, but havent got to it yet for lack of good cockpit interior photographs to work from. Now though, I've just seen the link here to the Moorabbin example and bookmarked it for future reference. Memories from over thirty-five years ago aren't good enough to get by on, unfortunately, but I do remember that the interior green isn't quite as bright as you have it here. The colour seen in the 'walk-around' photos also appears a bit too bright, and I think that may be due to lighting or flash photography. It's close, but the colour is a bit duller than that in natural daylight.

All the same, I'll be watching your progress with interest and perhaps gaining inspiration to get on with mine.

Is there a time limit on this 'Ronnie RAAF' group build? I'm fiddling with Meteor Mk 8 kits at present, but no real progress made other than cutting parts off the sprues. I could do with a project to motivate me into actually finishing something!

Cheers!

Tim.



Tim!

The green turned out a bit on the bright side, I agree! I worked over a white primer and the paint didn't cover that well. We'll see what it looks like when fuselage is closed and canopy is on though!

If your'e in Meteor-mode, I have an old build blog here. If you don't feel like reading it all, I can give you the most important advice here: do not try to cut the canopy! An interesting subject for an RAAF-campaign is Halestorm. MPM have even released the kit with decals for George Hale's Korea-Meteor.



Magnus
Tango-India-Mike
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Posted: Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - 12:16 AM UTC
Pleased to meet you, Magnus! Just having another look at those walk-around photographs, No.29 shows a glimpse of the interior green colour through an opened access panel beneath the windscreen...this is a better impression of the colour than that seen in the other views, which is definitely affected by the flash photography and therefore badly misleading. I'm sorry I don't have anything I can show you to help with a really good colour match...I had some quite substantial Vampire components salvaged from a wrecked airframe many years ago, but these are long gone now!

I've just had a look at your Meteor project and must say it's looking very nice, despite your problems with decals. How anyone can think the Meteor is ugly is beyond me! I think it's a beautiful aircraft...alright, the trainer and nightfighter variants are a bit 'aesthetically challenged', but the Mk 8 definitely has appeal.

Yes, I have the MPM issue of the kit and will be doing it up as a Korean War example, but it's not going to be the 'straight-from-the-box' job that I was planning it to be...the outer wings are much too thick and I just can't live with that! The canopy won't give me any problems, as I don't intend to have it open. In fact, I'll use it as a master pattern for a crash-moulded replacement anyway, since the model will be a 'flier'...as most of my models are nowadays (see my 'flying plastic' thread in the WWII aircraft forum).

I'm very inspired by your Winjeel project and may get mine out soon to build in the 1 FTS colours. Back in 1975, No 96 Pilot's course was hampered by poor weather in the training area at Point Cook in Victoria, and so moved operations north to RAAF Wagga in New South Wales...where I was lounging around on the pool flight waiting for a course to start. The weather was gloriously sunny and warm, and my colleagues and I had nothing to do but laze on the grass for several days and watch the parade of Winjeels doing circuits and bumps...it was wonderful! Ah, happy days!

Cheers!

Tim.
Merlin
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Posted: Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - 10:02 AM UTC
Hi Magnus

What paints are you using? If the RAAF Interior Green is too bright, it would be great if you and Tim could steer us towards a more suitable colour for aircraft of the period.

All the best

Rowan
Tango-India-Mike
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Posted: Thursday, September 10, 2009 - 12:13 AM UTC


Hey Rowan, although it may be a bit too late for Magnus, what I COULD do is visit my friends over at the Air Force Association's aviation museum here in Perth and take some photographs. I don't know what's currently in the workshops, but I do know that their C47 is displayed with the cargo loading door open...the lighting is very good in natural daylight and the interior colour is the same green as the Winjeel. Actually, you never know...there may even be some of the correct colour in the paint shed!

Otherwise, I'm afraid I can't really help with a colour bought 'off the shelf'. I usually mix my own colours, although I do keep basic camouflage paints and primary colours.

Cheers for now,

Tim.
magnusf
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Posted: Thursday, September 10, 2009 - 08:57 PM UTC
Friends!

On the subject of interior colours, I aimed for FS24110 as stated in the instructions. Using Federal Standard 595 Color Server I have created this paint sample:

It certainly is a bit darker than my cockpit!

I mixed it from these two paints:

With a little less yellow in it I think I would end up with something perfectly acceptable! I'll try it when I paint the rest of the interior after the weekend!


Seats are finished. I might try to emboss the metal pressings into the seat backs using a ballpoint pen.


Horizontal tailplanes added.



Magnus
Merlin
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Posted: Friday, September 11, 2009 - 03:02 AM UTC

Quoted Text



Hey Rowan, although it may be a bit too late for Magnus, what I COULD do is visit my friends over at the Air Force Association's aviation museum here in Perth and take some photographs. I don't know what's currently in the workshops, but I do know that their C47 is displayed with the cargo loading door open...the lighting is very good in natural daylight and the interior colour is the same green as the Winjeel. Actually, you never know...there may even be some of the correct colour in the paint shed!

Otherwise, I'm afraid I can't really help with a colour bought 'off the shelf'. I usually mix my own colours, although I do keep basic camouflage paints and primary colours.

Cheers for now,

Tim.



Hi Tim

Apart from helping to nail the colours, detail photos of Australian (or any other) subjects would be great! We could add them to the Walkaround section.

Magnus - VERY nice work on the seats! They'd be good in 1:48 or larger, but 1:72!?... really impressive!

All the best

Rowan
Tango-India-Mike
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Posted: Friday, September 11, 2009 - 04:38 AM UTC
No problem Rowan, I need to go over there anyway and photograph the C47's exhaust system. Actually, I've been asked if I'd consider stepping in to reorganise the display department (uniforms and other artifacts), but haven't really decided yes or no just yet.

Certainly though, there are some very interesting aircraft on display there, which I can photograph fairly extensively. Let's see, just off the top of my head there are:

Spitfire Mk 24
Lancaster Mk VII
C47
CAC Wacket
CAC Wirraway
Avro Anson Mk I
Canberra B.20
MB 326
DH Heron (the original prototype!)
PBY Catalina
2 Tiger Moths (one of them a fully-rigged crop sprayer)

...and one or two others that I can't think of at the moment. An old mate of mine is in charge of the largest (and constantly growing) photographic library in Australia...he's forever complaining about his workload, but I know he's as happy as a drunk locked in a brewery! And they even sell kits there! It's a top class aviation museum, so if you ever come to Perth you must schedule a day to go and have a look at it.

Magnus, those seats have turned out a real treat and will greatly improve the model's interior. I'd forgotten that the instruction sheet provides an FS number for the interior colour! Now I'm getting really inspired to make a start on mine! Until I do, though, I'll just watch yours taking shape...with much interest.

All the best for now,

Tim.

Merlin
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Posted: Friday, September 11, 2009 - 05:12 AM UTC
Hi again Tim

Crikey! Could you do a Walkaround on the Wirraway? I'm packing up to move home, but I couldn't help spending a few minutes having another look at Special Hobby's 1:48 kit before boxing it up. It's a definite candidate to find its way onto the workbench once I get settled again, so some reference shots would be a huge help.

All the best

Rowan
Tango-India-Mike
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Posted: Friday, September 11, 2009 - 06:37 AM UTC
I'll do my best, Rowan...possibly one day next week. One thing I can tell you about the Special Hobby kit, only from observation of built examples because I don't have one myself yet (I have the Boomerang though!), is that the windscreen slopes back at too shallow an angle and spoils the characteristic look of the Wirraway. I don't know for certain, but Falcon/Squadron may have a 1/48 T6/Harvard canopy in their range, which would offer a suitable replacement. Otherwise, the kit looks very good...and isn't it about time Australian subjects started getting a bit more attention by the kit companies? Thank you Special Hobby! Now can we have it (and the Boomerang) in 1/72?

House moving? What fun...I don't think!

Cheers,

Tim.
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