SPA Modeler

Hey gents, as usual summer took me largely away from the bench. Several items hanging around the in-progress stage, but I did grab THIS kit while on vacation, get all excited for it, saw it through to the finish.






















Topside...



Underside - note the two observation windows.



My little buddy Fuji, finally, gets to mount a Jap aircraft.

Couldn't find much for references, anything is better than nothing, right?



Fuselage halves, cockpit floor, seats, beginnings of harnesses:


left side fuselage:


right side fuselage:


Old-school Hasegawa, Decal instrument panels:


Canopy, thick but pretty clear:

Tried something different with the canopy masking. Frames are sorta visible, but hardly any ridge there to work with.

Soooo.... electrical tape to fake in the frames...


Use that to act as border lines for my usual masking tape method:


Not bad, not completely happy with the final result though.


Seats:


Instrument panels & cockpit floor:


Fuselage sidewalls, all scratchbuilt.

Played with the tail feathers.




Interior bits - were good enough for how visible they will end up being...






Forgot to mention - the previous owner of these kits snipped everything loose from the sprues. Pretty straight forward, most stuff I can figure out without part #s anyway, and the parts were (generally) snipped off clean. A little putty required on the floats.

So, I sorta went with a modified rigging for the floats. Rivet-counters look away please. I don't really have good thickness rigging, although I guess I could spend an evening stretching sprue? Which I need practice at. Anyway, the attachment struts between fuselage & floats are pretty delicate, I think I'd like to add some sections of brass rod as a reinforcement here, between the central fuselage and inner side of the floats.



Naked Jake.



Jake with primer.

That is very well done, so far. How the heck did you get the "buckles" the right size?

Like I was sayin' about the eyes.........

Lookin' good Vance.

LyleW wrote:That is very well done, so far. How the heck did you get the "buckles" the right size?

Lots of squinting. Wire stripped from "twist-ties" then wrapped around the tip of the smallest pliers I own til I got the shape, then cut with an Xacto blade on glass.

Better eyes than I have! That's for sure! Great work.

Thanks gents!