Cessna 172, Nichimo, 1/20

[John Everett]

Brief update. Slight work on the interior and too much effort expended in making a truly bad pilot figure slightly less bad. (But still pretty bad.)

 

 

Adding in a few fun details

 

 

Once the "pilot" is painted, I've got a few more baggage details to finish and then can enclose the fuselage.

[John Everett]

An overdue update on the Cessna.

 

I wouldn't have used the poorly sculpted pilot figure. But the friend for whom I'm building the model wanted one.

 

Fuse is joined and cockpit enclosed.

 

The engine will only  have limited visibility so I'm not going all out with details.

 

[SCRATCH BUILDER]

Interesting subject.....

[1to1scale]

I have always wondered if this kit was any good, I have flown many hours in 172's, would be cool to build it as one I have flown, maybe even the one I solo'd in a long time ago.

 

[Out2gtcha]

I like it so far. Very interesting to follow along

[MikeMaben]

 

 

[John Everett]

On 2/15/2019 at 8:42 AM, 1to1scale said:

I have always wondered if this kit was any good....

 

The kit is a bit of a love/hate for me. 

The interior cabin, instrument panel detail and engine construction are fantastic. But there are dozens of small things which are most certainly right out of 1983. The attachments of the wing struts is rough and ill-fitting. You will need to carve and rebuild those places with epoxy putty. The transparencies fit quite well. But the plastic is thick and distorts the views to the inside of the cabin.

 

The model uses long, squishy springs to attach the various flight control surfaces and flaps. (I think the idea was to allow the model to articulate.) But this results in surfaces not mating up very well and requiring a lot of minor hand work to get them to fit snug.

There's also a lot of surface detail which would be obvious in a newer model which is absent here, such as pushrods and refueling handles.

But it builds into a very unique and accurately shaped model if you're willing to deal with the multitude of minor inconveniences.

[Sepp]

Nice work!  The owner's manual is very convincing and the Jepp folder is an inspired touch.  You nailed the Cessna-cream panel colour, too.

 

Naughty pilot for having loose articles in the cockpit, though

Edited February 17, 2019 by Sepp

[mgbooyv8]

Good job so far with this big Cessna!

Cheers,

 

Peter

 

[John Everett]

Update: Magnets!

The friend for whim I'm building the model wants it displayed with the cowling closed. But it seems a shame to hide all that detail. So I've used tiny, rare-Earth magnets to allow the top half of the cowling to be removable.

If you've not considered these little items for securing bombs or other externals to your Large Scale Models, you may want to think about it.

 

[SkyKing]

With tiny magnets and some judicious saw cuts, you can make entire sections of a model removable to expose internal details but easily replaceable.

[John Everett]

If you've never used a material called Parafilm, you may want to give it a look. It's sort of like clingwrap meets wax paper. Once you stretch the material it becomes slightly tacky and holds well to the smooth plastic of clear parts. I've used two layers here for safety. (Two layers also seems to make the stuff easier to remove after it's been in place a couple of days.)

 

 

Mister Surfacer and Mister leveling Thinner mixed about 40/60 respectively.

 

 

 

Detail isn't bad for a 40 year old kit.

 

We'll be painting it in this scheme with the dark and light blue and a US registration number: 

 

 

We haven't decide yet if we want the wheel pants or not. But there will most certainly be the Cessna logo on each wig tip.

 

 

 

[LSP_Kevin]

I've personally never had any luck with Parafilm, but it obviously works well for those who have mastered it.

 

Nice work, by the way!

 

Kev

[John Everett]

Ready for decorative paint.

 

And a public service message about the Silhouette Cameo cutter and similar devices.

 

The kit comes with a nice vinyl sheet of letters in the proper size and font. But it doesn't cover all of the possibilities which I need for this model. (I'll need several more # 3's)

First the sticky vinyl letters were placed on a black paper background and scanned on our printer/scanner.

 

The Cameo cutter uses free software ( https://www.silhouetteamerica.com/software ) which allows any image to be imported and manipulated prior to cutting.

 

Here, my scanned letters and numbers can be resized, duplicated, arranged and changed if needed. (Note that the slant of the letter is different between the left and right side of the airplane. - This is where the kit's included letter sheet was invaluable.)

 

 

If you're cutting film from a large roll, you may be able to forego using the sticky mat which comes with  the cutter

(Shown here is a roll of Oramask 813. But there are dozens of brands out there. I like this stuff because it's slightly ridged and doesn't flop around too much when it's peeled from the backing paper.)

 

Use the "frame" (a simple box drawn around the desired mask)  to help place the individual letters with correct spacing and alignment.

 

Peel the "box" away and leave the letters in their proper position ready for the dark blue paint.

I'm waiting now for my buddy to confirm that this is what he wants before I paint it. If this stage is incorrect it can't be fixed.

There's too much about the Silhouette Cameo cutter to try to explain here. But if you're interested in this system, they cost about the same as a large Wingnut Wings kit and they can scribe thin plastic sheet, as well. The best thing you can do is to download the free software from the link above and start tinkering. It takes about a day to learn and there's tons on YouTube.

[Out2gtcha]

Lovely work for sure!    

Just personally, there is NO WAY, I could build a beautiful kit/airplane like this and NOT put wheel pants on it.   IMHO, the 172 needs them and just doesnt look right without them. 

However, 

Having done a lot of commissions, its the customer whos always right! 

 

 

 

11 minutes ago, John Everett said:

There's too much about the Silhouette Cameo cutter to try to explain here. But if you're interested in this system, they cost about the same as a large Wingnut Wings kit and they can scribe thin plastic sheet, as well. The best thing you can do is to download the free software from the link above and start tinkering. It takes about a day to learn and there's tons on YouTube.

 

 

 

Oh my yes! I have had a Silhouette cutter (Portrait) for a few years now after trading a new Tamiya P-51 for it that I snagged for $85.00 and IMHO, it has CHANGED the modeling game for me. 

Now instead of hunting down specific set of decals or masks, I just cut plot, and change the points in the Silhouette software and come up with my own. 

 

If you havnt done so already and can highly HIGHLY recommend getting the upgraded "Designers Edition" software for the Silhouette cutters.  Things like the ability to "nest" your work around each other for big cuts is invaluable, but the real deal is the ability to import/export Vector files.  Working in AI or the like to create masks is excellent and the DE software upgrade allows import of the .SVG files, and to me its the only way to create with the sharpness and clarity of the Vector files VS say a Raster file.   Much sharper!  

 

 

Things are looking splendid here, and am looking forward to more progress!