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Reggiane 2005


MikeA

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I shamefully admit to having been a "guest" on this site since last century, but have never been brave enough to post on it! I build very very slowly and typically in very short intervals to fit the past time in with the rest of life. I have tried another couple of websites but keep on gravitating back to here, so .....

 

The change in posting came about from a comment in Melbourne when I had called in to purchase some paints for this particular build. the guy at the counter asked me what I was building and, on hearing, told me in no uncertain terms to "Not stuff it up" or words to that effect. I knew what he meant, as the kit is very hard to get hold of now and happens to represent a particularly attractive aeroplane - if you're into planes with props on the front I guess. I finished this one a couple of weeks ago, and will post the photos I have from the build before posting the rest of the final photos. Most of the photos were taken with an iPhone, so apologies that they are not quite the highest of quality. I have posted here, rather  than a Work in Progress, as it is finished.

 

As it turned out, the shop had no paint for me, so I mail ordered the Colourcoats paint for the topsides and had to mix my own for the underneath and interior. I wanted to build this OOB, which I pretty well managed apart from:

  • scratch building the rectraction arms and torque arms for the main undercarraige, as the kit items were unusable
  • replacing the gun muzzles with brass tubing
  • replacing the pitot tube with brass tubing
  • adding some instrument dials to the cockpit walls, using Mike Grant Decals and scratch built bezels
  • separating the elevators

The other more substantial variations from a straight OOB build were that I decided to replace the scribed panel lines on the rear fuselage with overlapping panels, being suitable inspired by seeing a Macchi in the Smithsonian at Washington DC last year and looking over the few photos of the RE 2005 I could find on the Net. This then lead to trying a stressed skin effect on the rudder and riveting the entire airframe. All of these were first attempts for me.

 

And then during the build I discovered that the entire right hand side of the fuselage was a different size than the left hand side, so that nothing lined up correctly, and the top of the right wing was a different size to the bottom half. All this made the model building process very scary and I had the words of the Melbourne model shop guy in my head the entire time! You expect continual dry fitting with short run kits, but this took it to a whole new level! The underneath nose area and turtle deck in particular took a huge amount of filling and sanding repeated incrementally. In the end almost everything did line up, although if you look very carefully the exhausts and elevators are offset albeit by less than a millimetre.

 

The instructions were very vague about the placement of the cockpit walls. To get here required a small amount of sanding to fit the instrument panel, but nothing substantial. The rear bulkhead and walls fitted without drama once I figured the right place to put them.

 

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The Reggiane marking on the left hand cockpit wall was really only on the prototype as far as I can gather, with these markings also being on the rudder of the prototype, but I liked the look.

 

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The rear bulkhead is square in the next photo - it's a parallax error when using the iPhone camera. The interior was preshaded with black and then sprayed with a 50\50 mix of RAF Interior Green and white. I added the plastic card across the front to prevent a see through situation.

 

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This shows the inserts required to both give a completely circular front and the space required for the instrument panel. I also added in some plasic card stops to allow the fitting of the exhausts at the end of the build.

 

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I used Mr Surfacer 500 sprayed on against Tamiya masking tape strips to build up the overlapping panels, after filling the original panel lines. You can also just make out the stressed skin on the rudder - done by scraping with a curved blade over pencilled lines and then sanding. It turned out OK for a first time but nothing to take close-ups of.

 

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The tail wheel bay took a lot of sanding to fit in the space provided, mainly due to the thickness of the fuselage plastic. I drilled the holes in the side of the bay, although this is really modelling for God as they are almost invisible on the final model.

 

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The gun trough panel is separate with resin inserts for the troughs themselves. When I first dry fitted the panel it was a perfect fit with the fuselage fillets I had added. After the substantial sanding involved in fitting the troughs, however, it was very bad, particularly on the left hand side. In the end it took a lot of filling and sanding!

 

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Here you can see the difference between the two sides of the turtle deck.

 

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However it wasn't until I fitted the headrest bulkhead that the work required really became apparent, noting that the bulkhead outline is correct.

 

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All of which, following lots of filling, sanding and multiple coats of the Colourcoat which took seven thin coats to actually make a lasting impression, resulted in:

 

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The decals went on well, except that I could not get rid of all of the silvering on the top wing fasces markings. After I had finished, I found some more photos which showed that this particular series of the aircraft did not have the large square fuselage gun panel stencils - but that's life.

 

I will post the remaining final photos in a second post.

 

Hopefully I didn't stuff it up.

 

Cheers,

 

Mike

Edited by MikeA
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Welcome aboard, Mike!

 

:post1:

 

Glad to see that you plucked up the courage to post your work. And very nice work it is, too! Are you in Melbourne, Australia? (There are at least 5 others around the world.)

 

Kev

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Thanks for the comments! Not quite in Melbourne - about three hours west, In Warrnambool.

 

The final pics follow. I haven't added the aerial wire as this model will have to travel back to NZ with me in due course - we are recent imports to Australia and unlikely to stay past retirement.

 

The model was sprayed. Weathering was kept light as I'm not that great at it plus the real aircraft only flew for a few hours before being abandoned to the allied advance. I finished it with a patchy gloss as these did have a glossy finish, but weathered rapidly.

 

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The next shot shows the Mike Grant placards on the wheel strut. The brake line, uplock and riveting on the doors were also added.

 

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The photos I found seemed to show that the top colour wrapped around the entire nose section, whereas the instructions had this area in grey. Similarly the wheelbays and gear doors seemed to have been left unpainted rather than the green suggested. It is difficult as the various photos show a mix of the prototype and the first production run, and I found it difficult to differentiate some of the photos.

 

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The tail wheel bay doors were scratchbuilt as the kit ones were barely usable.

 

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I took a risk and cut the squadron badge out from the tail cross decal. This then went on a painted cross instead - the white used was Tamiya Gloss White which fortunately was a perfect match.

 

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And finally the pilot figure from Craftworks. Strictly not accurate as he would probably have been wearing summer clothes at the time. The close up looks a bit naff, but in the "flesh" he's OK. Painted in oils.

 

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Hope you like it. Turned out to not really be OOB at all, mainly due to the problems encountered with the molding. Having said that, I still have nothing but praise for this PCM kit. It is a challenge, but that's most of the fun. I really love the look of the plane - a real shame that none survived the war except for a part of an empennage. 

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Mike

Edited by MikeA
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Mike,

Great project my friend.I'm a big fan of Regia Aeronautica aircraft myself so I can really appreciate your choice of a RE-2005. IMHO the RE-2005 is the absolute sexiest of the WWII Italian fighters. But close on her tail is the Macchi 202. Hope to see more RA projects from your talented bench.

Highest Regards,

Gregory Jouette

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Thank you for the comments! I also like a few of the RA aeroplanes, especially the Series 5 fighters. What scares me about most of them is the typically beautiful but complex Italian finish on them - those smoke rings et al. I'd need a lot of practice before committing! Tricky over here in Australia as well, as I don't have a dedicated modelling area or spray booth - a bit like back to my much younger days!

 

Cheers,

 

Mike

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Thank you for the comments! I also like a few of the RA aeroplanes, especially the Series 5 fighters. What scares me about most of them is the typically beautiful but complex Italian finish on them - those smoke rings et al. I'd need a lot of practice before committing! Tricky over here in Australia as well, as I don't have a dedicated modelling area or spray booth - a bit like back to my much younger days!

 

Cheers,

 

Mike

For the smoke rings on a 1/48 scale Veltro I intend to do, I have a Plan: (tell me what you think) After painting the base color I will cover the outside of the plane with blobs of liquid mask in a pattern mimicking the smoke rings. Then, I will go around between tge rings with more liquid mask to limit overspray. For this kind of detail with liquid mask, you need a silicon tipped brush, the kind used for eye-makeup. I had my daughter find one for me.

 

Now, the plan is to not paint the rings, but to paint the blobs at the inside of the smoke ring. This way, hopefully, the overspray alone will make the smoke rings without me having to be overdependent on my shaky hands. A lot of blobs in 1/32....

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