Friday, October 31, 2014

Installing the Custom Wheel Wells

Yesterday I installed the custom wheel wells into the wings after trimming the wing ribs. Tonight I glued them securely in place with plenty of white glue. Everything is looking good and I am pleased with the results.

While it is a heavy modification of the original kit it will sure make it look a lot nicer.

Sunday, October 19, 2014

Wheel Well Adjustments

To get my custom wheel wells to fit in the wings I needed to shave off the edges to fit the wing contours.

Saturday, October 18, 2014

Better Wheel Wells

I was not impressed with this kits recommended method to display the wheel wells which consisted of applying black decals underneath the wings. Since the model will be suspended from my son Terry's ceiling where it would be very visible I searched for a better solution. It took some time to figure out the best method but what I came up with was purchasing a 1/4" thick piece of balsa wood and using my dad's press drill as I do not own one to create 3" wide holes for the tires.

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Need a Needle

Needed to find a way to keep all the small lead weights in the nose and not rattle. The solution was to purchase the largest needle available at a local pharmacy. Was a bit awkward to explain why I needed a needle but once the pharmacist understood what I was trying to do she was very helpful and cooperative.


I put some glue in the syringe which will also add some weight and inserted it into the small whole in the body and with a good amount of pressure was able to squeeze out several ml of glue. I also decided to add some glue inside of each feel tank, although the holes are too small for lead weight the glue will be better then nothing. Now I just got to let the parts hand downwards for a couple of days while the white glue cures.

Sunday, October 12, 2014

Gone Fishing


Bought the smallest fishing weights I could find but they are still too big. I have been busy cutting them up into 8 smaller pieces and heating them up with a small torch to make them round balls which fit into the tiny hole where the landing gear is supposed to go.

Saturday, October 11, 2014

Tail Dragger


Back landing gear installed, had installed the forward gear but had to remove it. This plane is what we call a tail dragger, too much weight in the back of the model despite the marbles I glued in the nose.

I will go out and buy some fishing weights made out of lead and insert it into the small hole where the front landing gear goes.

Monday, September 8, 2014

Taking Shape


Glued the wings to the body of the aircraft, now this project is starting to take shape!

Sunday, September 7, 2014

Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Tail Wings


Tails wings are back from the garage with a few fresh coats of paint, glued them to the body of the aircraft.

Saturday, August 23, 2014

More White to Paint...


Unfortunately I realized that I forgot to paint the wings ailerons white as I relied on the box art of the kit and did not analyze the instructions properly. What tricked me is the artist who made the very nice box art added reflections that blended the grey color of the top wing with the white of the ailerons.

Same thing for the tail wings, the top should be white when I thought it was grey. I masked up the parts and will be heading back to my garage to apply a few coats of white…


Painting the Body Grey Complete


Painting of the grey on the body is complete, removed the masking and putty and got a nice gradient as I was hoping for. This will be a technique I to reuse…




Friday, August 22, 2014

Masking the Body

Preparing to paint the final color on the body of the aircraft. Using a new technique I discovered where I use putty delimit the area I want to be masked. I then used Glad Press & Seal to cover the area I wanted to protect. The putty is round and will allow for a more natural gradient of paint when spraying.

I’ve seen some pretty nice results unsung similar techniques and am hoping for the same results…


Wednesday, August 20, 2014

Vertical Stabilizer

The vertical stabilizer has been completed, the sprayed water has dried and the tissue is tight/strong.

Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Horizontal Stabilizer

Completed the horizontal stabilizer today.  The picture show the water sprayed I just sprayed onto the tissue, once dry it will stretch and tighten.

Friday, August 1, 2014

Rounded Wing Edges


I thought that rounding off the wing edges would be difficult but the balsa wood made if very easy to sand.

Monday, July 28, 2014

Wing Supports


Completed adding the support pieces for the wing struts, this wing is starting to take shape!

Friday, July 25, 2014

Raising the Wings

Completed installing the wing struts, had some fun raising each wing and ensuring that both sides were at the same height.

Sunday, July 20, 2014

Wings!

Started work on the 27.5" wings and they are very large, so large that they passed my sheet of cardboard underneath the plan by just a small amount. Casey and Terry are often checking to see what's new with the kit as the build is going very fast, glad to see they have an interest in the project.

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Horizontal Stabilizer + Propeller Issues

Completed the horizontal stabilizer tonight. While working on it I noticed something in the plan which can be seen in the photo, the propeller has three blades yet the kit has a two blade version. After doing some reading I found out that I am supposed to make a three blade version out of balsa wood based on the two bade version! I'm not a happy camper...

Sunday, July 13, 2014

Vertical Stabilizer

This weekend I completed the vertical stabilizer... Felt I better attack both vertical and horizontal stabilizers before proceeding with the larger wing.

Sunday, July 6, 2014

Body Complete

Today I completed the body of the Warhawk and it is amazing how a bunch of flat pieces of wood can turn into a three dimensional object.

Thursday, July 3, 2014

Starting to Take Shape...

Well the two halves of the body are not in place and Terry is already amazed at it's size (as well as me). I've gotten used to the new super glue and have a feeling that I will be able to build this kit fairly fast. Once thing that I am doing that I did not do back in 2009 on the DR I Fokker is sand all the part numbers on the pieces. I recalled having to add extra coats of paint because I could see the numbers through the aircraft skin, an issue I want to avoid this time round.

Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Gorilla Super Glue

Added the first set of ribs to the hull of the aircraft and used a new "Gorilla Super Glue" since the UHU glue used on my previous balsa build is currently not available at the local hobby shop.  It's really great and works well, only issue is that parts can be glued within a few seconds so I need to be precise on the first try.

Monday, June 30, 2014

How did I do that again???

Started the new kit, had a bit of difficulty remembering how to start... Fortunately all I had to do was read up on my previous blogs from the first balsa kit built back in 2009 and it all came back to me. Basically just need to use a sheet of cardboard under the plan so that the pins will hold the pieces in place and wax paper on top to protect the it from the glue.

Sunday, June 29, 2014

P-40 Warhawk

Terry (my second son) who is now 4 1/2 birthday is in March and I want to give him as a gift for his 5th birthday a scale plane to hang from his bedroom ceiling just like I did for my oldest son Casey. Recently I found out that a local hobby shop was moving and they were having a sale with all kits 25% rebate. I jumped on the occasion and got a P-40 Warhawk for $37.50 instead of $50. To my surprise it is large at 27.5" wingspan compared to the 18.5" of Casey's Fokker DR-1 triplane. Now I just got to get this done before the end of the summer/early fall!

Thursday, June 19, 2014

Masking the Cockpit Windows (Part 2)

Having painted the windows in late May I did a last inspection of the cockpit and glued the glass to the frame with white glue. I then added the second mask set which overlapped the first one and added some extra masking take since the masks had lines to make them more flexible in the curved sections and I wanted to ensure no paint got through.

Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Masking the Cockpit Windows (Part 1)

I ordered some special masks to fit the windows of the Intruder and to my surprise there were two sets. The first one seen here is slightly smaller then the second set and is to be painted black to replicate the rubber lining around the windows. The next one will slightly overlap the first mask so that I can paint it to match the upper section.

Sunday, May 18, 2014

White Paint is hard to Apply!

After applying seven coats of white paint a I am finally satisfied with the results. To my relief the mask to cover the cockpit worked and nothing was damaged during the paint process. With the mask gone I was finally able to add the heads up display (HUD).

Friday, May 16, 2014

Front Wheel

After a little break from spray painting several coats of white paint I completed today detailing the front landing gear.

Sunday, March 2, 2014

Cockpit Mask

Today I added a tape mask as to prepare for the several coats of white paint that I need to apply to the underside of the aircraft. That parts makes me nervous as I don't want to destroy any of the detail that I added to the cockpit.

Saturday, January 25, 2014

Clamp those Wings!

Today completed glueing together the lower and upper halves of each wing.

I started with the right wing yesterday which required seven clamps to make sure everything was aligned properly since the pegs that are designed to go into the holes inside the wings are very small and easily slips out of position.

The left wing which I worked on today required five clamps since the fit was better then on the right wing.

I tested the wings on the hull of the aircraft to give me an idea of how it would look like when complete and my first reaction was amazement from the sheer size of the kit!

Saturday, January 4, 2014

Bombs, Bombs and More Bombs!

The two white hardpoints (weapon stations) are finally complete and to my surprise was actually a much longer process then I had initially expected when purchasing the kit de to all the small parts.

Each of the twelve Mark 81 general purpose bombs (nicknamed "Firecracker") have two clamps that were painted aluminum for a total of twenty four. These needed to be aligned and glued to the two white weapon stations. My A-6 Intruder will ultimately have the two hardpoints plus three drop tanks as depicted on the box of the model.