KH T-6/Harvard Kicked Up A Notch: Apr 14/20: Finished!

[skydivin]

Master with those terrible decals.  Super impressive work.  As always!

[KUROK]

Love that yellow paint scheme and great job on those decals!

[dodgem37]

Boy, that's nice looking.

 

Sincerely,

Mark

Edited April 10, 2020 by dodgem37

[chuck540z3]

Thanks guys!

 

April 7/20

 

I hope everyone is keeping well.  This virus stuff is very scary, but it also gives us modeling nerds a chance to focus on our hobby.  Like many these days I work from home, but work is really cutting into my modeling time!  Yes, I know, I’m very lucky to still have a job.

 

(Deep sigh).  This model will never be entered into a model contest, because there are too many flaws.  The biggest flaw is the canopy, which is too narrow, is not made to be left open and does not fit the kit parts at all.  The second flaw is my painting.  More on that later.

 

As shown earlier the canopy parts are too narrow for the shelf they sit on and the tabs on the bottom of some of them don’t fit the openings in the fuselage.  I say “some”, because most of these tabs are missing, which is identical in both kits that I’m using.  Here’s how narrow the parts are.

 

 

 

 

Side by side they look OK.

 

 

 

 

But if you stack them, as they are on the real aircraft, each canopy part lifts the next, so the larger front one on top is much higher than the rear.

 

 

 

 

As documented earlier, I tried to heat and bend the canopy parts wider and crashed and burned with cracks in the clear plastic, so I had to buy another kit to replace them.  Looking at the interior of a Harvard, it’s clear that the inside is painted interior green like the rest of the cockpit.

 

 

 

 

So I masked off both the interior and exterior of the canopy parts and painted them accordingly, BUT, as mentioned earlier, the yellow does not cover very well, so it takes many coats of paint to do so.  With dark green on the inside, even my white undercoat wasn’t enough to help with coverage, so I had to spray many coats to get them the right shade of yellow.  The second problem with the paint is that it’s lacquer.  Lacquer paints don’t like to be masked for long periods of time and when you pull off the masking tape, the paint sometimes chips, especially if the paint is thick.  Repairs are very difficult, because the lacquer doesn’t dissolve with thinner very well when it has cured and painting with a brush is also difficult, because it dries so quickly.  On my last Kitty Hawk build of an F-5E, the canopy came out beautifully, because it only took two coats of black paint and I was able to pull off the masks before it became too hard- and chipped.  In any event, here are the canopy parts after painting and the touch ups I could do.  This is as close as I’ll show them, due to all the flaws.

 

 

 

 

And of course, I still have the same problem as before when you put them on the cockpit sill.

 

 

 

 

One of the reasons the rear canopy is so narrow, is that Kitty hawk made a shelf at the rear that does not really exist.  The rear canopy should be flush- or almost flush- with the sides of the sill and not narrower.  Major mistake in my mind and nothing fits anyway.  Checking other builds of this kit, most modelers just park the canopy parts on the sill and call it a day

 

 

 

 

The other issue is the big holes along the sill, which are there for the canopy parts that don’t fit.  They should be filled.

 

 

 

 

Since nothing is accurate and nothing fits, I can do whatever I want to make the canopy parts fit better.  It came to me that some channel styrene might hold everything together and cover the holes at the same time.

 

 

 

 

So I painted the channel yellow on the sides and Alclad Steel within the channel, to replicate a slider, then glued it to the cockpit sill.  I wish I had done this earlier before painting…

 

 

 

Since the middle canopy is narrow, but also fixed and doesn’t slide, I cut a notch in the channel to glue it to.

 

 

 

 

The middle canopy dry fit.  Not bad.

 

 

 

 

But the rear canopy will not clear the roll cage and will lift the other canopy parts if slid underneath.  I wish I had known this earlier as well, so that I could have shortened the cage slightly which would be easy.

 

 

 

 

Running out of choices (and patience!), I decided to leave the rear canopy opened slightly so that it didn’t interfere with roll cage.  Because it’s so narrow, it fits perfectly between the sliders on each side, and is slightly lower, but is still aligned with the rear glass.  I then glued the middle canopy on top, using Gator Grip Hobby Glue so that cleanup was easy with water.  Note that I installed the seats first, because you can’t install the rear seat later.

 

 

 

 

I then glued the front canopy to the middle one, making sure most of the canopy framing within was visible for interest, again with Gator Grip glue.  Done!  While the rear canopy is only partially opened, you can still see much of the cockpit area.

 

 

 

 

This looks much better from the front now.

 

 

 

 

With the canopies stacked on each other, painting flaws are less noticeable, but they still piss me off.

 

 

 

 

I’m on the homestretch now!…

 

 

 

 

Lessons learned for those of you building this kit in the future: I would have added the styrene channel to the sill before painting, for a cleaner and much easier installation and shortened the roll cage, so that the rear canopy didn’t interfere with it.

 

So there you have it.  While my canopy painting is barely a 7/10, I think the idea of using a styrene channel along the cockpit sills is a 9/10 for execution.  As mentioned, it is not realistic, but not much on this kit is anyway.

 

 

Cheers- and stay safe,

Chuck

 

 

Edited April 8, 2020 by chuck540z3

[crobinsonh]

Great description of the problem and resolution. You are a stronger man than me as I would have chickened out and placed in on the shelf of doom for a while.

[mozart]

That was quite an odyssey Chuck! The canopy really is a weak part of a kit which, as you mentioned, already has many issues but I like your idea of the channel along the sides. I keep looking at my first Harvard where the canopy is “stacked” in a most unconvincing fashion and wondering whether I should attempt to do something about it! I’ll probably build another Harvard at some point but a scratch-built canopy is possibly the easiest option!! 
She’s looking very good indeed, I know what you mean about flaws but they are not readily apparent, only to you. 

 

That ledge did exist by the way, just not as pronounced as on the KH kit:

Edited April 8, 2020 by mozart

[Lothar]

Fantastic problem solving - wish I had some of your abilities.

Lothar

[zaxos345]

You have done some really very nice work there Chuck!! Love it!!

 

John

[dodgem37]

Nice problem-solving and execution.  It still looks really nice.

 

Sincerely,

Mark

[chuck540z3]

6 hours ago, mozart said:

That was quite an odyssey Chuck! The canopy really is a weak part of a kit which, as you mentioned, already has many issues but I like your idea of the channel along the sides. I keep looking at my first Harvard where the canopy is “stacked” in a most unconvincing fashion and wondering whether I should attempt to do something about it! I’ll probably build another Harvard at some point but a scratch-built canopy is possibly the easiest option!! 
She’s looking very good indeed, I know what you mean about flaws but they are not readily apparent, only to you. 

 

That ledge did exist by the way, just not as pronounced as on the KH kit:

 

 

Thanks Max and yes I knew the ledge was there, but at 1/32 scale, you should see almost none of it which is why I said it "didn't really exist", but my photo says otherwise.

 

If I hadn't bought a second kit to replace the first canopy, I'd be buying another right now to replace this one and give it another shot, now that I have sort of a solution for canopy fit and placement.  Not to be this time, especially with the pandemic and Lord knows how long that will last.

 

Ah heck, here's a close-up of what I'm talking about.  No photoshop, just lighting edits.  Although it isn't super bad, the framing is ragged in places, which I've already tried to fix.

 

 

I take pride in my canopies and was shooting for this:

 

 

or maybe this:

 

 

Live and learn, next time!

 

Cheers,

Chuck

Edited April 8, 2020 by chuck540z3

[williamj]

Lovely work on this Chuck..keep going,you're almost there.

[MackTibbo]

Fine work, sir! We all have builds like these, so hang in there - you have demonstrated abundant ability to fix problems. I may have a solution for your yellow “blues” in future. For many years I have used U.S. Navy Radome Tan FS33613 as a primer under yellow, red and white. It works fantastically well, doesn’t cause color shift and requires fewer overcoats. Badger Stynylrez has a very similar primer color available, should you wish to try acrylics. Sorry I missed the chance to tell you this before the yellow went on. 

[LSP_Ray]

That is looking great, Chuck! Your flaws look very minor to me.

One suggestion: when you have to stack several layers of color like that yellow, you might have to oh-so-carefully run a new Xacto blade along the mask before pulling them to break the paint from being too attached. 

[dsahling1]

Out of curiosity, any thoughts on the next jet project or not quite at that point?

[Thunnus]

Beautifully clean work as always!  Love how the yellow colors really pop,, especially on that blue background.