SPA Modeler

One of PE brace wires snapped as I was gluing the fuselage halves together last night. i knew it was bound to happen. So off they all went. Thankfully, I had CA debonder on hand.

Looking at the sprue tree, there are 4 braces from the original molds and all I had to do is stretch some wires using scrap sprue to desired thickness enough to make it look rigid, not flimsy and too thin. That’s has been done and am happy with the thickness to simulate rigid wire bracing.

Once I cut them to size, they will be glued to the braces at some point over the weekend.

Once that is done, I’ll have to redrill the holes for them to fit into the holes on the fuselage on both sides. I’ll make sure to leave enough length to fish it thru the holes as I reattach the brace to the floats.

I am going to skip on using PE steps since I have the original ones on the tree. The grasp handles, will be the only last piece of PE I will use.

On a sort of unrelated note, this kit came with PE instrument panel. As flimsy as it is, I decided to glue it to a plastic sheet and cut it out and glue it to the cockpit. If I had followed the instruction guide, I know I’ll bend the heck out of the panel enough to render it useless.

I will admit I completely forgot to install the pitot on the wings. Maybe it's a blessing I overlooked it since it made zero sense to install it so early. The assembled 3 part wing assembly has to be slipped into one fuselage half before gluing the other fuselage half. Made no sense.

I haven't seen this kit yet but I may have to snag one. I wonder what AM goodies are available for this one?

Progress is looking good. Hate to hear about the brace but sounds like you've got it covered.

Alright......dammit!! I just couldn't help myself.

I snagged one and at a good price at that. And THEN......I spied something totally new for this kit.

A complete update set for this kit from Flightline Engineering.

That detail set looks sweet! How much did it cost you?

WHAT??!?!?!??! Take my money.

With shipping and everything it all came out to just a tad over $50. This has been an aircraft that I've been wanting to build for a VERY long time but never cared for the Monogram kit as it was. Now I'll be able to and have a little PE to boot.

I hear ya on the old Monogram kit. I’m hoping maybe Eduard or someone comes out with a better Kingfisher kit. But damn, Joe - $50 for all that is a great score.

Here are the new float braces...


These will will face the inside towards the main float




These will be facing on the outside...

Nicely done.

Well Tom.....you've definitely influenced me to finally build the aircraft I've always wanted to do in the scale that I wanted to build it in. Such a cool aircraft. As a kid I had dang near every Monogram WWII aircraft model there was except for the Me-110 and this one here. I've been wanting to build one of these for a while now but couldn't pull the trigger because of the simplicity of the kit. Looks like I've got my opportunity coming up. Let's just hope that my aircraft building skills have rusted too much.