Fuji FA-200, 1/20 Nichimo

[mozart]

That’s a great looking engine Peter, something like that which is so realistic just has to be displayed on the model. 

[mgbooyv8]

Thanks, Max!

 

The last days were spent with painting many small parts, constantly checking references etc.

The engine is painted, I had a nice blue-grey colour in my collection of paints which matched pictures and memory:

Xtracolour X157, FS16176 "Grey F-15 Mod Eagle" (!)

 

The kit parts were installed on the engine with the exception of the exhaust pipes:

 

The engine is clicked on its firewall temporarily for handling.

Here are other views:

 

 

Things to add to the engine: exhaust pipes, wiring and additional scratch things like oil filter, oil filler cap and baffle plates.

 

The instrument panel was also given attention.

The kit has decals for the instruments:

 

Annoyingly, they were printed on one contiuous film within the surrounding line, so they had to be cut out individually.

They settled nice in the instrument recesses with help of DACO Strong (red cap) decal solution.

Glass was simulated with drops of Klear.

 

Some additional placards were required on the lefthand side of the panel.

Fortunately, I have an old Mike Grant instrument and placard decal set which yielded suitable placards:

 

And here is the instrument panel in all its glory:

 

The kit instrument panel is faithful to an old factory picture which can be found on internet, most probably from the version which the kit portrays.

For PH-MBK, some modifications were necessary:

 

Pedestal:

- remove propeller pitch control lever,

- move throttle handle to the right,

- mount it higher than intended by the plastic and by the instructions.

 

The pull levers on the right side of the pedestal got small handles (you can put your fingers behind them).

Headset connectors were added on the lower lefthand and righthand corners of the panel.

 

The slot below the pedestal is for a microphone and the small hole on the left of it is for its cable. 

These items will be added much later in the build.

In the sixties and seventies, it was quite normal to fly without a headset.

The noise level is very high in a small plane, for the simple reason that sufficient insulation material adds too much weight to the small plane.

It's unthinkable now to fly without a headset, and rightly so!

A nose cancelling headset has been the best investment I ever made for flying.

 

The control yokes also will be added much later in the build.

 

Remember that I showed a picture of the amount of lead required to let the Fuji stand on its nose wheel?

I was able to put a lot of it in the cabin floor part.

Below the centre console:

 

And in the recesses below the front seats:

 

This is about half the amount of lead needed.

The rest will have to be put behind the instrument panel.

I hope the space is sufficient!

 

To be continued.

 

Cheers,

 

Peter

[RLWP]

What fun!

 

Richard

[LSP_Kevin]

This is looking most excellent, Peter!

 

Kev

[mgbooyv8]

Thanks, guys!

Fun it is indeed!

 

Today I prepared small stuff to go on the cabin floor.

Glued small instrument panel illumination lights into the edge of the glare shield,

and glued the whole assembly into the surrounding nose/windscreen edge part.

 

After hardening of the glue, I could fill the area behind the instrument panel with pieces of lead sheet, cut to shape with scissors.

They were fixed with double sided tape and secured with pieces of sprue, glued to the instrument panel and the forward edge of the nose/windscreen part.

 

A lot of lead sheet was needed:

 

...to ensure that the Fuji will stand positively on its nose wheel:

 

To be continued.

 

Cheers,

 

Peter

[Alain Gadbois]

Coming together beautifully!

 

Alain

[mgbooyv8]

Thanks, Alain!

[mgbooyv8]

 

Hi guys,

 

Work continued on the interior.

To the cabin floor were added, from front to rear:

rudder pedals, heater boot (?), fuel  tank selector valve, set in "closed", flap handle and trim wheel,

scratch safety harness reels for the front seats, the rear bench seat and its safety belts:

 

The kit should have a sheet of vinyl from which to cut the safety belts, but it was not there anymore.

No great loss, as masking tape is a much better material for making the belts.

A very useful cutting tool is the Infiny Easycutting mat shown on the picture.

It is made from a hard material and it has parallel cutting grooves at several distances.

Just stick a piece of tape on it, pass a sharp knive through the grooves et voilá: a nice belt with constant width!

The buckles are slightly modified kit items.

 

The 4-point safety belts for the front seats will be added later.

Note that the Fuji only has 4-point safety belts on the forward seats, for the simple reason that aerobatics are only allowd with two occupants.

 

The belts were painted a metallic gray and several parts on the floor received a wash to highlight detail:

 

Three restraint straps were added to the parcel shelf (behind the rear bench):

Again they were made from masking tape. Braces and buckles were scratchbuilt.

 

A roofliner was fixed to the parcel shelf and this assembly was fixed to the backrest of the rear bench, but I forgot to take a picture.

 

The cabin floor was glued into the fuselage, followed by the interior side panels. The latter fixed the floor into position:

 

After hardening overnight, the parcel shelf-backrest assembly was added:

 

It needed a little wiggling to ensure that the backrest was aligned with the seats of the rear bench before fixing with Tamiya Extra Thin.

 

Now, the rear cover of the cabin could be added after it had received its interior liners.

This part was very thin and flexible, so it was glued in stages:

 

The rear seam will need a bit of 2K filler to blend it in nicely.

The cabin cover is a bit too low in the corners.

That will be done after the glue has hardened.

 

The instrument panel needed a small speaker below the pedestal.

This was scratched from pieces of strip and finished of with a resin mesh decal, which can be found on the Mikro Mark rivet decal sheets:

 

And here it is painted and installed below the pedestal:

 

As mentioned earlier, the slot above it is for a microphone and its cable, which will be added later.

 

This assembly was added to the fuselage as well:

 

Again, both sides had to be glued in sequence to ensure a good fit as a result of the flexibility of the parts.

The model is more and more starting to look like a Fuji!

 

To be continued.

 

Cheers,

 

Peter

[Chris Wimmer]

That's really great work, Peter! Your IP and belts look absolutely convincing 

[mgbooyv8]

Thanks, Chris!

 

As mentioned in the previous post,

the rear seam needed a bit of 2K filler to blend it in nicely, as the cabin cover is a bit too low in the corners.

Here, the corners have been filled and smoothed:

 

I have also test fitted the sliding canopy. It fits perfectly.

 

The engine cowlings were also partially assembled.

The lower cowling, consisting of two parts, was glued to the front cowling.

To ensure everything was symmetrical and straight, the other cowl parts were taped in place while the glue hardened:

 

In the mean time, I studied the photographs I took of the engine of PH-LFC to work out the shape of the baffle plates on the engine and to find out how heater hoses and so on are connected. It is different from the installation of the O-360 as indicated in the instructions.

I scribbled and sketched my findings on an old invoice of my local hobby shop:

 

Never throw anything away.

I worked out the shape of the baffle plates:

These will be copied in plastic card.

 

Then started the big task of masking the interior and the previously painted control surfaces in preparation of paint.

The spare firewall for the motorized option is very convenient to close-off the front end:

 

The picture was taken just before spraying with my favourite primer of Revell 75 enamel, thinned with a mix of lacquer thinner, turpentine and white spirit, the latter three in equal parts.

 

And here is the result:

 

Ofcourse, additional filling and sanding will be necessary:

 

The corners behind the rear cabin cover need some refinement and I still have a shadow of the luggage hatch in the fuselage, which needs filling.

 

The sliding canopy had a long dimple after I had removed the mouling seam. This has been filled with UV-hardening superglue, sold over here by the Bison brand.

On the picture, it is in the process of being smoothed out:

 

To be continued.

 

Cheers,

 

Peter

 

 

 

[mgbooyv8]

 

Hi guys,

 

After the process of sanding-filling-sanding and re-priming, it was time to reinstate the rivets.

For this I used the Micro-Mark H0 rivet decal sheet:

 

The rivets on the left side of the fuselage replaced the removed luggage hatch:

 

The rivets on the right side and on top of the fuselage were replacements for the ones that were sanded away:

 

Rivet detail on the bottom of the fuselage was non-existent, while pictures showed otherwise.

So these were added as well:

 

Lost rivets were also added to the lower engine cowling:

 

Lost rivets will also be added to the canopy, but one raised line had to be re-instated first.

Instead of using stretched sprue, I used Mr. Surfacer:

 

The masking tape was removed immediately:

 

I think I have a nice subtle line there.

 

The next steps will be finishing the rivetting on the canopy, put a layer of grey primer over all the rivets and start with the white paint.

Like the control surfaces, the first layer(s) of white paint will be Revell 301 satin white enamel, because it covers well and is really white.

The final layer will be Tamiya gloss white.

 

To be continued.

 

Cheers,

 

Peter

Edited January 31, 2021 by mgbooyv8
typos

[BradG]

That rivet set looks interesting I was looking at someting like that for another build of mine.

[mgbooyv8]

Hi Brad,

 

I can recommend them. You get two sheets in a package which is a good deal.

The decal also works well with Micro Set and Sol and DACO Strong decal setting fluids.

Micro Mark sells two sizes: HO scale, which is the one I used here,  and O scale, on which the rivets and other shapes are proportionally larger.

 

Cheers,

 

Peter

[mgbooyv8]

Hi guys,

 

A short update this time.

The canopy got the rivets I had sanded away, again from the Micro-Mark HO sheet:

 

All the rivet decals got a sealing coat of Klear (I still have two bottles ).

Then they were covered with my Revell 75 grey primer mix.

 

Now I could spray everything white.

Here is the status after 2-3 coats of Revell 301 satin white enamel:

 

Now I can start with the top coat of Tamiya X2  gloss white.

I expect I will need 1-2 coats for a nice coverage. We'll see.

 

In the mean time, I'm busy making the baffle plates for the engine.

Here is an in progress picture:

 

To be continued...

 

Cheers,

 

Peter

[mgbooyv8]

Hi guys,

 

The white coat is finished.

As expected, I needed two coats of Tamiya X-2, with some polishing in between coats.

After demasking the control surfaces I was happy to see that they and the rest of the airframe had the same colour:

 

 

Now I'm sorting out the red for the fuselage band and the logo on the tail. It is an orangy-red colour.

The registrations are in black, so that's easy.

 

The masks for the tail logo are currently being drawn to make masks with my Silhouette cutter.

During their time at Martinair Flying School, there were some variations in the colour scheme of the Fuji's.

I'm settling for what I think was the first colour scheme, as shown on the picture in the beginning of this thread.

Interestingly, the Martinair logo on the tail was a variation of the official one and apparently it was corrected sometime in its career.

I found that out while fitting my traced official logo onto the shape of the fin, with said picture underneath, in the Silhouette software.

That's still work in progress.

 

The registration, PH-MBK has aready been drawn, based on crappy scans of the prescribed letter font, present on the Dutch government website.

I made corrections based on pictures and this is the result:

 

Now it is just a matter of sizing and cutting masks.

 

The scratch baffle plates for the engine were completed:

 

 

Now its time to fit the exhaust system and the cabling.

 

A start was wade on the main landing gear fairings and the wheels.

Both were a gluey mess and needed restoration.

This is what the fairings look like after initial sanding, one is already cut in two halves:

 

It is clear, the flange at the rear of the fairings will need replacing.

 

Luckily, the tyre halves split easily.

I could retrieve three hubs from their tyre half, and needed to make repairs on their edges:

 

The tyre halves were sanded smooth where needed. I didn't lose the tyremarks. 

 

To be continued...

 

Cheers,

 

Peter

Edited February 19, 2021 by mgbooyv8
removed " Martinair Flight Academy" , it is now assimilated into KLM flying school.