Cap'n Wannabe Posted July 7, 2016 Share Posted July 7, 2016 (edited) G'day Folks...My name's Damien. Or Damo. Or Hey You! Whatever....as long as you have a drink in your hand when you call.. I'm into civil GA aircraft, and military aircraft wearing civil schemes. I've been modelling on and off (mostly off) since I was a young lad, so I'm not a master modeller by any stretch....in fact, I've started far more kits than I've finished, mainly through frustration at making a balls-up. Nonetheless, I keep at it.. After having a couple of chats with LSP_Kevin (it's *your* fault!!) at Melbourne Model Expo, I've decided to work through the balls-ups instead of consigning yet another partially built kit to the dark recesses of its box again.. To this end, I completed what for me was a lightning 3 week build - Lindberg's 1/32 Laird Turner Meteor racer. I deliberately didn't bother filling any gaps....just threw the thing together and painted it. Apart from stuffing up and re-printing a couple of decals, it was a fairly simple and frustration-free build....and it felt *good* to finish something. So with the "OMG I finished a bloody kit" feeling still running through my body, what better time to tackle something *slightly* more advanced! While I don't know the history of this particular kit chapter and verse, I do know that Marui produced an Aero Subaru, Piper Cherokee 140, and Cessna 172 floatplane and land plane in 1/36 scale. To me, this scale, while odd, is far better for civil GA types than the more popular 1/48...of course, 1/32 would be far better! I have the Aero Subaru x 2, the Piper Cherokee x 2, and a single Cessna 172 land plane. They're about the size of a 1/48 P-51, so they don't need a whole lot of real estate. The Aero Subaru - indeed, all the kits I have from this series - are designed to have an electric motor spinning the prop, which means two things: 1. They're lacking in the engine department, having an engine face rather than a full engine, and 2. They have a hatch under the rear fuselage to accommodate an AA battery. I'm not going to wire up the battery, so I'll have to figure out a way to make the hatch look more "real", but I imagine that will be fairly simple. The cockpit is pretty bare for a kit this size - basically an instrument panel and 4 seats. There's no side-wall detail, and I'm not going to put any in on this kit...perhaps on my second one. The instrument panel is inaccurate, and there are no decals for the instrument faces. Again, in this example, I'm not going to bother too much with that area. There are heaps of raised rivets all over the kit - I'm undecided whether to remove them or not.. Anyhow, on to the photos.. Box art: Various parts i've been working on: Edited June 3, 2017 by Cap'n Wannabe D.B. Andrus, Rocat, dutik and 3 others 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ericg Posted July 7, 2016 Share Posted July 7, 2016 Cool! Look forward to seeing more progress, and even more so, on the comp table at expo next year! Eric. Scale32 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LSP_Kevin Posted July 7, 2016 Share Posted July 7, 2016 Great project, Damo! Glad to see my advice has borne fruit - the Laird Turner looks great! Flaws are there to see, but so is the finished model, and that's the main thing. Modelling is as much about patience and confidence as it is about skills and tools. I reckon you'll do great with this one, and Iook forward to following your progress! Kev Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cap'n Wannabe Posted July 7, 2016 Author Share Posted July 7, 2016 Thanks gents! So far, apart from a bit of cleanup, I've "carpeted" the cockpit. The technique I use for creating the carpet is pretty simple....I cut strips of medical tape and lay them down on whichever surface requires carpeting. This creates a realistic texture, which I then paint as required. Job done Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cap'n Wannabe Posted July 7, 2016 Author Share Posted July 7, 2016 OK, now that I have new tyres on my car... I've primed the cockpit, plus other assorted bits and pieces, in preparation for paint. In this photo, you can see the tape a lot better....reckon it'll look pretty good in the dark blue paint, stippled with grey... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zero77 Posted July 7, 2016 Share Posted July 7, 2016 The Laird Turner is just great !!!! For the Aero Subaru, very nice project, but is it really a non-LSP work? I know that LSP are usually 1/32 and 1/35 and bigger, but 1/36 is just a non-standard scale but i'm pretty sure that besides another 1/35 model nobody without a ruler can notice the scale difference. Cap'n Wannabe 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cap'n Wannabe Posted July 7, 2016 Author Share Posted July 7, 2016 The Laird Turner is just great !!!! For the Aero Subaru, very nice project, but is it really a non-LSP work? I know that LSP are usually 1/32 and 1/35 and bigger, but 1/36 is just a non-standard scale but i'm pretty sure that besides another 1/35 model nobody without a ruler can notice the scale difference. Just wait until I drag out the 1/20 scale kit! Zero77 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LSP_Kevin Posted July 7, 2016 Share Posted July 7, 2016 The Laird Turner is just great !!!! For the Aero Subaru, very nice project, but is it really a non-LSP work? I know that LSP are usually 1/32 and 1/35 and bigger, but 1/36 is just a non-standard scale but i'm pretty sure that besides another 1/35 model nobody without a ruler can notice the scale difference. Actually, that's a good point, and one I failed to consider. I'll move this thread over to the main WiP forum, as I think it does qualify. After all, these kits are in our database! Kev Zero77 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cap'n Wannabe Posted July 7, 2016 Author Share Posted July 7, 2016 Oh, thanks Kevin...I wasn't sure if it would qualify or not.. Zero77 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LSP_Kevin Posted July 7, 2016 Share Posted July 7, 2016 Oh, thanks Kevin...I wasn't sure if it would qualify or not.. Welcome to the Big Leagues! Kev Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hubert Boillot Posted July 7, 2016 Share Posted July 7, 2016 Nice project ... And the Laird Turner is more like 1/27 - 1/28th, depending on where you measure things... So these two projects average 1/32 ... Hubert Cap'n Wannabe 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shawn M Posted July 7, 2016 Share Posted July 7, 2016 as a die hard Subaru fan I need to get one of these Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cap'n Wannabe Posted July 8, 2016 Author Share Posted July 8, 2016 as a die hard Subaru fan I need to get one of these They're *bloody* hard to find....it took me about 4 years to get mine.. Shawn M 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cap'n Wannabe Posted July 8, 2016 Author Share Posted July 8, 2016 I've made a little bit of progress today - working from home helps a lot! Last night, I painted the "off" white in the cockpit, and the white on the seats. This morning, I masked off the cockpit and seats, and painted the blue. At this stage, I should probably point out that the cockpit colours are purely from my imagination as I can't find *any* cockpit photos of the example I'm building. Anyhow, pretty much every light aircraft I've flown has had an off-white plastic cockpit liner in the roof and down the sides, which then changes to vinyl at the top of the door trim. Some have carpet under that, which is what I'm going for. Not sure that I've pulled it off convincingly, but that's the nature of the beast. I reckon it'll look ok once she's all buttoned up.. Here's the cockpit floor/rear seats. I've got some overspray to clean up, but otherwise it looks ok. I reckon it also needs a coat of semi-gloss to tone things down a bit and even things out. The inside of the cockpit.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cap'n Wannabe Posted July 8, 2016 Author Share Posted July 8, 2016 Lol! You got in just before me, MARU! I'm having some issues with photobucket - for some reason, it's rotating all the pictures I upload by 180 degrees, so I have to edit them once uploaded.... Anyhow, a bit of a disaster this morning - went to check on my plane parts, and found this: this: and this! It looks like the Vallejo blue has had some kind of reaction with the Gunze paint underneath....frustrating, because I've now got to strip it *all* back and start over. Modelling is fun.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now