Fuji FA-200, 1/20 Nichimo

[mgbooyv8 951]

 

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 775]

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

[mgbooyv8 951]

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 951]

 

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 by mgbooyv8
typos

[BradG 4,564]

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

[mgbooyv8 951]

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 951]

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 951]

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

[KiwiZac 262]

Such a gorgeous finish, and the engine looks great too!

[mgbooyv8 951]

Hi Zac, Thanks!

 

Cheers,

 

Peter

[mozart 12,825]

Wonderful progress since I last dropped in Peter, all's looking very splendid! 

[mgbooyv8 951]

Thanks, Max!

 

I continued drawing the Martinair logo on the tail in the Silhouette software.

A useful side view of another Fuji was found which I could use to adapt and my logo.

Here is the screen dump of the Silhouette software which illustrates my approach:

 

I traced the surround of the model's fin,  scanned it (top left) and traced it (top right).

Next, I sized the picture to ensure the fins more or less matched.

Then I copied the previously drawn loge into this worksheet and squashed it until it matched the picture (bottom right).

Then I enlarged the loge again to tidy it on the mesh (top centre).

finally I reduced its size to check it on the picture (bottom centre).

 

It looks like the logo is OK and a mask can be cut to check on the model.

There is one other hurdle: the corrugations in the fin, that can be tricky to mask. I will have to think about it.

 

To be continued.

 

cheers,

 

Peter

[Alain Gadbois 2,214]

Excellent work Peter! This project is coming along very well!

I like the added baffles in the engine, which are often missing in models.

 

Alain

[mgbooyv8 951]

Thanks, Alain! 

 

Cheers,

 

Peter

[mgbooyv8 951]

Hi guys,

 

The masks have been cut this morning and were OK.

Now I had to mask thee red line on the fuselage.

For this I also had to tape together the engine cowlings.

 

Maybe you remember that my engine came out a little too wide? 

I always thought this was going to haunt me later and indeed it was.

A final test fit confirmed I had to widen the inside of the forward cowling a bit to ensure the baffle plates fitted easily inside.

 

So out came the El Cheapo Dremel:

 

The plastic was thick enough not to worry to grind through the plastic.

The carburettor intake was also modified. The plate with the rectangular hole was widened to the sides and closed on top.

The rectangular hole will be covered with an air filter, which is in the kit.

Behind it a rectangular funnel will have to be made, being the cold air inlet to the carburettor.

The round hole on the left will be connected to an air hose, leading to the heat shroud of the left exhaust pipe, to provide heated air to the carburettor.

 

The cowlings were taped together and taped to the fuselage.

Next followed a lot of measuring and looking to pictures to obtain the right position and size of the red stripes with masking:

 

And here,the primary masking of the stripes is finished:

 

The other side is masked as well. I'm done for today.

Before I can spray anything I have to add the logo masks on the fin and cover the rest of the airframe.

 

To be continued...

 

Cheers,

 

Peter