Alain Gadbois

Hi Max! Love to watch your Typhoon build! Might be too late for you but others might find usefull these photos of the landing gear and wheel wells. Right side shown, left essentially symmetrical from a quick glance at the photos. Took these in Ottawa a couple years ago.

Hi Hubert! Very precise, clean and organized work! Alain

Hi Shaka! Very nice! Looking forward to see the finished model! Alain

Hi, Thank you for this very usefull tip! I make my tarmacs with plaster and this can work with that technique. Alain

Hello again! Here is the left side, where you can note that the cut out starts higher up! Also there is a touch-up on the panel line as it was a bit irregular: I added some red putty in the scibed line then made an imprint with my Tamiya ruler. I hope now it will be OK. Back to the wings now, after tracing the rivet lines on the bottom part and insuring a good match with the top wing. Drilling out the link chutes... Filled carefully... Tricky when viewed from the inside, where the openings conflict with kit structures and styrene patches. One last bit now, with detail added to the beam where the landing gear is to be attached. Ejector pin marks are filled with putty in the background. Thank you for watching! Regards, Alain

Hi Kevin, Please move it to the WiP , as I am continuing the build for sure! Here is the front cowl. I used part of a plastic container as a form to sand the putty on the 5 strips of styrene added. I place the sanding paper on the concave side and turned round the cowl to obtain a true cylinder shape. The right side with cowl. Note that the cut out on the cowl starts at the panel line. More photos to come, probably not hosted on Photobucket....to such time waisted... Regards, Alain

Hi all! Still having problems with Photobucket today! Last week I continued work on the nose cowl and front fuselage, plus completed details on the left side of the wheel well, symmetrical to the ones shown earlier on the right side. Also got back on the wings, and managed to draw the position of the panel and rivet lines, from all photos and drawings available. I will post all the photos I have, plus any new ones, as soon as Photobucket is up again. Regards, Alain

I have a bit of time to add these 2 photos: The sanded surface of the right fuselage and with a coat of primer. The panel lines are done but still need a bit of work. The rivets traces seen are from the kit and I will draw on the model the correct ones. The photos aren't that good sorry! Thank you again! Regards, Alain

Hi all! Thanks and yes I will do my best with the sanding of the putty! I cut out a ring that will hold the front cowl in place. And it is held with a bit of tape to show the look of the Martlet I. At the top you can spot the slit that is only opening around the cowl. Now another messy looking putty job for you to examine! Now here is the progress on the fuselage, after the initial sanding and with a bit of spot putty. Some more sanding and then time to scribe the panel lines. Regards, Alain

Hello! Tonight I have photos of the progress on the front cowl and forward fuselage at last! With 3 out of 5 strips added: With all 5 strips. It was a bit too tight around the front fuselage , so one strip was removed and replaced by a slightly wider one. The epoxy putty on the front fuselage: That's about it for tonight. I have started sanding the epoxy and it is going well.. Regards, Alain

Hello all! Thank you for your comments! For some reason Photobucket isn't working tonight so no pictures! I can tell you I have modified the cowl with five strips of styrene to increase its diameter. I made one cut and glued one strip at a time to keep the integrity of the part. The rear edge of the cowl was sanded to achieve scale thickness and to make it fit at the enlarged front fuselage. The new engine now fits right in the correct position. I added some epoxy putty to the front fuselage to obtain the new length and width for the Martlet I. Not as much as I thought initially, and now it is sanding, priming and engraving time! Regards, Alain Hope to have the photos soon...

Hello all! That you again! The props are now cast and primed. These will be natural metal in front with the US Navy warning stripes that are (from outside) red, yellow and black. The back will be flat black. The basic engine with all the cylinders in place: The front part of the engine before adding all the appropriate Cyclone details: The little baffle which directs the air close to the cylinders. I will again cast 9 copies of it (way to lazy to sculpt all 9). Getting close to completing the engine! Here are most of the basic details in place, next the push rods and wire harness... That's all for today, Regards, Alain

Thanks Harvey! But just 10 days left !!!!

Thanks a lot guys! The prop still needed a final sanding before making the mold Thursday. I cut it open this morning and I will cast the 3 needed tomorrow. I made some progress on the Cyclone engine: I glued a styrene disk in the back of the Hasegawa casing to support all the cast cylinders. Next, to be certain of the alignment of the cylinders, I drew lines 40 degrees apart (360' divided by 9) and made marks on the styrene disk all around. I will add all cylinders, all shimmed to be at the correct position on the casing. I have molded half cylinders only because the baffles between each will hide the other side anyway. Here is a quick view of the engine assembly as it was before I glued on the second cylinder. Still many details to add. The only thing finished is the hub. Here is a closer view of the hub, painted black. I used Tamiya Tire Black for scale effect. There are so many little bits added on this part...and it ends up looking just like a stock kit part! Regards, Alain

OK now it worked!

Hello All! Here is the progress on the new propellor blade and hub. I added a bit of material on the leading and trailing edges to increase the cord of the blade. At the root I added a bit of material because it looked a bit skinny compared to the rest. The tip of the hub has been cut to be replaced by a bit of styrene tubing, the round end is an Airsoft pellet attached with CA. The hub is modified also with putty to smooth the shape. I will post the last 2 photos later as I seem to be unable to link those when in Photobucket... Regards, Alain

Thank you! I have been working on the prop and hub, basically rebuilding the kit part. 5 cylinders are cast and I will start gluing in place on the Hasegawa centre part. I got rid of the intercooler intakes with a Dremel inside the cowl, but cutting and enlarging this part will be difficult. Hopefully photos tomorrow, Regards, Alain

Hi Mike. Sorry to hear about the paint problem. Hope everything will turn out right in the end. This type of camouflage is about the most difficult to do. Your observations on the way RLM 76 is applied are absolutely correct. This appears on some other types also, so you might see some examples you can use as inspiration. Regards, Alain

This is going to be very interesting! Looking forward to see the first parts. Regards, Alain

Hi Hubert, Here is another suggestion, and please do as you wish in the end! It seems nearly all the clear panels are basically flat, so why not use clear sheet styrene (or another clear material). The clarity would be perfect. There are 2 windows on top that have a curve from what I can tell, but those you could save from the kit maybe, or make a small form to crash-form on. Regards! Alain

Hello all! Now continuing in the wheel well area, I have completed the structures on the right side. This is quite visible when looking in the large openings. Next I removed a molded-on pipe and replaced it with aluminium wire. The 2 darker wires added are the brake lines which will connect later to the wheels. The chain drive for the gear retraction mechanism is not very realistic frankly, but I can't do much about that... Here is the fist step to modify the cowl: remove the amount equivalent to the louvres at the rear of the part. The whole cowl will need to be slightly enlarged over-all to fit over the larger diameter engine. Of course the the intercooler scoops will have to be removed. I have only molded 4 cylinders so not to much progress on the engine itself. The Martlet prop is completely different to the kit part but I have found an 1/48 Corsair prop (ARII) which looks nice but is a bit short. Here it is in the process of being modified. I hope I can use the kit hub, with appropriate changes. Regards! Alain

Hi Hubert, Scratching a new fuselage will end up being faster than trying to correct the kit parts. Don't hesitate! Regards, Alain

HI all! I managed to finish the left side of the fuselage. The map cases are the kit parts, wrapped in tin foil from bottles of wine. This material was collected 25 years ago, because since the foil has been change to some kind of aluminium-like product that I don't like at all... My attention is now turned to the instrument panel. I realized the kit part is lacking in height so I made a corrected styrene piece. Its funny that Trumpeter cast this piece in clear, as this serves no purpose at all... I made a little test on a small piece of styrene of the correct thickness, to see how to make the holes for the instruments with the bevelled edges. This was satisfactory, so here is the panel, which is still missing little knobs and a few more details. The largest hole in the panel was punched-out, but all the rest were drilled after being very carefully marked on the part and first pre-drilled with a smaller size bit. Afterwards, the holes were reamed with the Dremell tool...gently by hand, of course! Here are the modifications made to the panel bulkhead. You can see the trimming for the right-hand side console. Then I had to add some styrene bits to adjust the shape of the panel bulkhead relative to the new position of that side console. This is what forced me to make a new panel. On the right I filled in some holes for 3 instruments. I sill need to sand this flush and drill new locations for these. Last for tonight, I have started to modify the engine parts from the kit, Hasegawa and copies from the ZM cylinders, top left. Thank you. Regards, Alain

Thank you for the feedback on the colors! I am certainly conscious of the scale effect, although is is a bit difficult to scale as I have no real full size color to start with. I will have to see when I begin painting. What is true is that in B&W photos the top colors look quite dark. The aircraft will show some wear and heavy exhaust stains under the fuselage. Here we also use Brita filters. I will surely cut open the one we are using when it is time to replace it. Thanks for the tip!

Bonjour Hubert! Fantastic project, one of my favorite aircraft! Looking forward to see what the kit actually offers... Bonne chance! Alain