Borsos

You are doing a great job with this kit. Referring to the Helldiver‘s nickname that you chose as the title of your build, I‘d say that when the original was just 2nd class, the kit seems to be a 1st class b****…. However, the result of your work counts and this looks pretty nice. The masochist in me even knocked the door asking me why not starting this beast in the nearer future. Andreas

Thank you all very much for your kind words! Today I found an envelope from France in my letter box: these parts look wonderful and I hope I can do them justice. Many thanks again to Waroff! This is an amazing gesture! Now I ned to find some balsa wood to sand the core for a new spinner. And I need to dust off my old vacuform box… But before I was occupied with some carpenter’s work. It’s my standard size for WW2 single engined fighter plane bases. Some intense sanding comes next (I think it is a good idea to do this far away from the model). Best regards, Andreas

That’s really great stuff!

Thank you very mich for your interest and your friendly comments. Meanwhile I gave the kit a shot if VMS gloss clear coat and finally made a choice for the markings. I can’t see anything wrong with the kit decals, but I wanted a battle of France Dewoitine and no Vichy yellow and red. So I got a set of Berna decals. Although I could also have done the national markings by airbrush using Montex masks I went with the decals. I was lazy. And as laziness always is a great idea, I was rewarded with very thick decals that hardly reacted to setting solutions like Micro Set and Sol. After using a hair dryer I was finally satisfied and I repainted shadows with highly diluted Mr Hobby smoke. Another gloss coat, threatening the panel lines with oils and a coat of VMS matt brought me to this: Rough handling and bad karma (laziness?) caused me damaging the small PE radiator under the nose. When I looked for a solution to repair the damage I realized that I had done the complete lower nose section wrong. Better now, but still wrong Best regards, Andreas

Thank you for your interest alltogether, well, the rudder … You are right, Messieur waroff, you are so right…. You put your finger into an open wound. I had thought, Contact Resine, who fabricated these resin parts, would have known what they did — at least better than I did. But in fact also I couldn‘t detect any traces of these ribtapes in my book on the original, which in the end bothered me even more than its shape: I decided to remove the paint with Methoxypropanol and sand down these tibtapes. I also sanded it more to shape. it is neither perfect, because the fin itself seems also to be a little out of shape, nor finished yet, but it’s better than before I think. Oh yes, even I had realized that the kit‘s blades were way too undersized compared to my scale plans… Call me Sherlock It just looked strange … well… it is even beyond my tolerance: My way to deal with it was just much more primitive than yours, waroff. I simply robbed an old Revell Spitfire kit from the 1970ies, that I wouldn’t build anyway since they had released a better one. Some sanding and the Brits fit the French backing plate and spinner better: I could have lived with it, but of course I would like to take your generous and very friendly offer, waroff, and purchase some of your wonderful 3D blades. Compared to these my own attempts at correcting the kit’s flaws can’t hold their ground. Would you tell me what I owe you? I am going to scratch build a new backing plate and a new spinner (since the kit parts are glued together firmly) and do my best to do these 3D printed parts justice. After lots if sanding, rescribing, filling and sanding again, the Dewoitine was ready for priming and some Vallejo aluminum as a base for preshading. I went on with carefully stippling some masking fluid with a sponge to prepare some paint chipping; preshading then was done with MRP black and took some evenings. And for the camouglage I used Hatakas orange line Early WW2 French Air Force paint set. I really love these paints. Especially on the undersides the effect of the preshading looked a little stark to my taste and I was thinking a while about giving it another shot of highly diluted Gris Bleu Clair. But now, after some weathering and panellining, I am happy that I had stopped in time…

Oh what a pity! But both ideas sound like a fix could be possible. fingers crossed! Andreas

Thank you very much, folks! the other resin parts for the tail fit much better. I just cut them flush and added some brass tubing for rigidity. After thinning, rescribing and riveting I also added the prominent belly radiator… and the two air intakes on the fuselage‘s nose. For detailing the Flaps and rudders I took the measurements directly from the scale plans Looking horrible… A little better after some excessive sanding. Missing are the prominent hinge details, also to be added after painting (2nd knot in my handkerchief) Here we are close to priming stage. Before I had to install the front window of the cockpit glazing. But That’s another story… Best regards, Andreas

This areas was the only place that demanded a little extra work when closing the fuselage. I puttied the seams that don’t correspond with actual ones with plastic from the kit diluted in Tamiya glue. That stuff eases rescribing a lot because it is as hard as the plastic parts (well, because it is actually that plastic..) The resin air intake fit very nicely and just needed some strokes with sandpaper to flush into the fuselage‘s lines. As I had gotten some resin parts, I removed the rudder with a razor saw… During that surgery the little blops on the fin were sanded away. They are position lights and should be replaced later with clear plastic. I made a knot into my handkerchief. Best regards, Andreas

I‘ve seen some nice builds of this kit, but still I shy away because of the sheer amount of work it needs. You are a brave man to start that epic struggle! Your progress looks nicely! best regards, Andreas

Amazing work on the cockpit. And as I started recently Trumpeters Bf-109 F-4, a kit that seems to have less in common with an actual F-4 than Revells G-2, I love watching you focussing on F-4 features here… best regards Andreas

Merci beaucoup, Messieurs! These are fascinating documents, but like I said before, my Dewoitine isn’t that far from being finished. Luckily I didn’t find too many flaws yet; but I haven’t browsed browse through these 4000+ documents of the original plans. Zoukei Mura, have you had a look at that? There are no excuses not to produce a state-of-the-art kit of the Dewoitine d.520 ). I must say that I am one of these repelling perverts who build models just for having a good time and relaxing and not to win contests. From time to time even weathering attracts me more than correcting some incorrect panel lines . But I also have this book to the rescue: and some nice pics from the internet, where I also got the blue color (night blue, I love this poetic name) https://ww2aircraft.net/forum/threads/dewoitine-d-520-question.38837/ Well, when I closed the fuselage — after adding the excaust stacks from the inside — I decided to go with the kit part of the clear canopy’s rear part. Best regards, Andreas

Thanks a lot folks! As this bird is on it’s finishing line in reality, I hope he won’t see too many errors when he should look by When I turned my attention to the fuselage, something showed up that I had never expected after an … ahem … mediocre fit of the flaps: The resin parts for the cockpit fit surprisingly well after some cleanup: I actually liked this resin cockpit and kept adding scratch built detail to a minimum. The instrument panel is from Yahu. It’s always wise to paint your cockpit in a color that fits your prepainted panel — or you can do it like I did . When it’s about painting cockpits I don’t mind overdoing the contrast between lights and shadows. It brings out the details better after closing things up; in my opinion at least. As there’s no engine with this kit (which I am completely fine with), I was ready to attach the fuselage halves now. The seat belts were made of lead foil and wire. There are some useful PE parts with this kit, but I always hate PE seat belts. I find them looking way to stiff. best regards Andreas

… especially as it was riveting, swearing, filling the mess, sanding, re-riveting… plasticcard was useful when I opened up the chutes for the spent cartridges. the landing lights on the wingtips were sawn off with a razor saw and replaced with clear plastic. best regards, Andreas

Thanks a lot for your interest, folks! As I had already the wings in my hands, i went on with them. Thinning the edges, filling the seams, rescribing the panel lines and riveting the wings took me quite a while.

Thanks a lot, folks! Sadly the lower part of both wings (which is one single part) needs a little more force than that... I must say that I was really sceptic regarding the resin parts, especially when it came to this... some magicians could possibly turn that into a nicely looking figure after heavy clean up and some coats of paint -- we will never know The plastic parts are actually quite nice. The dihedral problem after glueing the wingparts together. Was this a good idea to do before having found a solution...? The positive thing with the Dewoitine (contrary to the Bf-109 e. g.) is that this bird is not really well known (which I cannot understand). So If I'd use the wings like they were, not too many people would realize the missing dihedral, no? -- But I always would know it, and I am sure I always would regret it not to have done my best to improve that aera. Browsing through some French forums I learned two things: 1. In spite of having learned that beautiful language for three years at school (back then ... in the Stone Age...), one's able to forget a language almost completely (or is this just me?) 2. Many French modellers seem to have corrected the dihedral problem by glueing a strong piece of plasticcard cut to the proper angle between the upper and the lower halves of the wings. Great idea, but in my case... As you can see in the end I went on with a much more brutal way of correction. But after some extensive puttying and sanding it looks like it should and -- most importantly -- it stays in place like it should: Best regards, Andreas