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

[chuck540z3]

Thanks guys!  I've been very busy modeling this past week or two, so I'll be able to show how to transform this....

 

 

Into this...

 

 

And alter this crap.  Seriously, I've never seen this before.. Ever....

 

 

Into this....

 

 

These Kitty Hawk kits are a real challenge, but with a lot of extra work, they turn out pretty good!  More tomorrow....

 

Cheers,

Chuck

Edited December 9, 2019 by chuck540z3

[markiii]

Nice work, Chuck

[Uncarina]

Chuck,

 

Great work—you can really bring out the best in these kits!

 

Cheers,  Tom

[Robthepom]

I'm not a huge fan of the subject, but huge admirer of your skills, keep us posted

 

Congrats on the publication

[Anthony in NZ]

Wow, talk about silk purse from sows ear stuff.....lovely work there Chuck!

[Kagemusha]

Lovely work, especially on the engine, looking forward to tomorrows show, I'll be tuning in!

[chuck540z3]

On 11/23/2019 at 10:54 AM, mozart said:

Good, didn’t know that cos I’m not keen on Eduard PE! 

 

I really like Eduard Photo-Etch (PE) brass parts, but that doesn’t mean I use all of them as you will see below.  I typically use only about half of them, because sometimes the kit parts are better than PE, sometimes you can’t see where the brass is located very well and a lot of the time the PE parts are too tiny and fragile to bother with.  I have also developed a skill over time where I can install PE cleanly with no obvious CA glue showing, using micro-brushes and plenty of CA glue Debonder like Great Planes, which I’ve written tutorials about before.  Like anything in our hobby, practice with PE makes almost perfect results.

 

As mentioned in my first post, I want this build to be simple and I’m not worried about accuracy, partly because there are too many versions of this aircraft and from what I can find, no two seem to look alike in the cockpit area.  That means no extra wiring because the cockpit is busy enough as it is and I have no idea where the wiring would go anyway.  I’m also using some of the Eduard PE which appears to be modern, while the kit parts appear to be WWII vintage, so they don’t “talk” to each other anyway. 

 

Tip.  Dry fit every single part before you paint them, because most of them don’t fit without adjustments.  Some holes and notches are too small (or non-existent), some are too big and all of them have lots of seam lines and pin marks to fill and fix as shown earlier.  After test fitting, I like to paint all cockpit parts with gloss black lacquer, which exposes flaws, creates shadows and a lot of the parts should be black anyway.

 

 

 

 

I used the Eduard PE for the IP’s, the side panels on the starboard side and a few other areas, while I left the upper cockpit sills as is, keeping the raised relief like the black radios.  I then sprayed a gloss coat of X-22 on several parts, to prep them for extensive decal placards from Airscale that looked relatively close to what I found in reference pics.  While not perfectly “accurate”, they add a lot of interesting detail to an otherwise boring looking cockpit.  Meanwhile earlier, I knocked down the shine of the Eduard PE with a clear dull-coat.

 

 

 

After the decals were applied, I knocked down the shine with more dull-coat before putting the many parts together.

 

 

 

 

Thankfully, you can install or remove the seats at the end, which I’m dry fitting here before the installation of fabric seatbelts later.

 

 

 

 

Now a bit of a walkaround from different angles.  Although I’ll dirty up a few areas later, this is a restored Harvard as shown in the first post, which is super clean.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Eduard PE instrument panels sure look detailed.  Remember, the kit IP is just a decal on a raised surface anyway.

 

 

 

 

While I didn’t add any wiring to the side panels, I added a few wires to the back of the rear IP according to a reference pic, since it can be seen easily through the extensive canopy.  The front IP will be buried behind the fuselage, so I didn’t bother with anything on the rear of it.

 

 

 

Now a few more tips.  The side instruments in the rear must be repositioned to accommodate the front box, which is tilted inwards.  The sides of the rear IP glare shield fit very poorly leaving big gaps that can be seen later, so they should be filled and painted as shown.  The knobs on the top of the PE levers are created using a few drops of CA glue, then painted black, red or white depending on references.

 

 

 

 

Now the engine.  Thankfully there are some really good reference pics of my subject available, like this one.  Note the stainless steel rocker arm tubes, which are often painted black instead.  Also note those black metal spacers between the cylinders.  More on those later.

 

 

 

 

As shown earlier, my heart sank when I first looked at the main engine parts.  They are a mess with all sorts of flash and those huge injection remnants that need to be trimmed and cut off.

 

 

 

 

Using a Dremel tool with a diamond burr, I cut off the injection flaws and ground them down, so that they didn’t interfere with the opposite side.  The holes also needed to be widened, to ensure a clean fit.

 

 

 

 

Looking at other builds of this kit, the side fit of the engine often has gaps, so I glued and clamped all 9 cylinders at the same time.

 

 

 

The side fit is now nice and tight.

 

 

 

 

With the front face dry fitted, the engine is starting to look a lot better.  If trimmed properly, all of those rocker arm tubes fit tightly to the cylinders, without the need for glue.

 

 

 

 

I didn’t like the flat spark plug wires, so I carefully cut them off, trying not to destroy the cooling fins on the cylinder sides.  Holes were then drilled at the spark plug locations.

 

 

 

 

I then drilled more holes in the circular conduit and added spark plug wires and Eduard PE spacers as shown in the first pic of the real engine.

 

 

 

 

Since the spacers are black, while the cylinder heads are aluminum, I precut masks using the spacers as templates.  Otherwise, masking them in the tight spaces would be next to impossible.

 

 

 

 

Ready for paint, which presents another challenge.  How do I paint the tubes and circular conduit stainless steel and the center hub blue-grey without making a mess?

 

 

 

Something new to me that I bought a few months ago are these Maketar vinyl masks, which are made for wheels and tires.  They come in many different diameters and using one that was very close, I masked off the outer portion of the assembly after painting it with gloss black followed by Alclad Stainless Steel.

 

 

 

 

After painting the cylinders with Alclad Aluminum, I glued the center hub to it and reinstalled the wiring and other small parts.  Voila, a pretty good-looking radial engine if I do say so myself!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m afraid that this is the only part of the engine that you will see, because I don’t plan on any open panels behind it that will interrupt the lines of the aircraft.  This is also to avoid the picky crap behind the engine, which looks to be very fragile and not worth the effort if I want to keep this model simple.

 

 

Cheers,

Chuck

[bdthoresen]

Chuck- 

 

Love the work so far. Having been lucky enough to work on T-6G’s in my everyday job, your cockpit looks great, and the engine is the “Dog’s Danglies”........Keep up the stellar work! Feel like I need to get my tools!

 

THOR    

[JesniF-16]

Superb details Chuck! I appreciate you taking the time to document the intricate "steps" of these complicated builds... your threads are very resourceful for building aircraft models no matter the subject, so thanks for that   Congrats on your FSM publications as well, can't wait to get my hands on those!  Sorry for my absence from modeling but trust that I've been "binge-reading"  your last few build threads (better than netflix) and I must give you a pat on the back for your great ambition and determination!!!  Watching with interest 

 

/Jesse

[LSP_Ray]

Very well done, Chuck! And also congrats on the publishing of your articles!

[chuck540z3]

Thanks Guys!
 

36 minutes ago, JesniF-16 said:

Superb details Chuck! I appreciate you taking the time to document the intricate "steps" of these complicated builds... your threads are very resourceful for building aircraft models no matter the subject, so thanks for that   Congrats on your FSM publications as well, can't wait to get my hands on those!  Sorry for my absence from modeling but trust that I've been "binge-reading"  your last few build threads (better than netflix) and I must give you a pat on the back for your great ambition and determination!!!  Watching with interest 

 

/Jesse

 

 

Jesse!  Where the heck have you been all these years???  Hopefully you get another build thread going soon, because you are one of the best!

 

Cheers,

Chuck

Edited December 10, 2019 by chuck540z3

[spyrosjzmichos]

Man, I thought KH's OV-10 was riddled with injection pin marks but their T-6 as a whole new level!

Great job on the 'pit and engine Chuck!

[Biggles87]

Excellent progress. 

It looks like it’s going to fight you all the way, but I’m sure you’ll win.

 

John

[Nick Manzara]

Chuck I always enjoy your builds.  Keep up the great work.

[chuck540z3]

Dec 11/19

 

Thanks Guys!

 

I didn't have the seat belts installed above, because I am using HGW fabric ones and based upon my experience of making them at least 3 times (P-51D, P-38L, Spitfire Mk IX) I knew they would take a long time to put together.  One very surprising thing with this kit is that although PE brass belts are supplied (they were missing in my kit), there are absolutely no instructions on how to do it, unless of course they came with the missing PE.  Anybody know?  In the Big Ed PE kit there are more brass belts, with instructions, but they are painted, so they can't be annealed with heat without cooking the paint.  No matter, because I like fabric ones better anyway.

 

I have no idea what belts to use on this old RCAF bird, but HGW makes a two belt set for a late Spitfire which to me is "good enough", since accuracy is not a priority and I kind of like them.  So what's harder to do than cut out tiny pieces of fabric and attach microscopic bits of brass to create a seatbelt set?

 

 

 

Make TWO of them for twice the work!  These belts took me about 5 hours to assemble and glue to the seats.  Please excuse all the dust in the pics ahead.

 

 

 

 

After experimenting with various glues like Gator Grip and sharp scissors, I now use a sharp #11 blade to cut the fabric and CA glue to assemble the belts and install them on the seats.  If required, he CA glue is easily removed from the brass and fabric with Debonder, but you only get one shot on the painted seats, because the Debonder will eat paint.  I put a tiny drop of glue where I want the belt to go, then carefully hold the belt to the seat without moving it until it dries.  Since some CA glue inevitably shows up along the edges as shiny, I then spray the seats and belts with dull coat.

 

 

 

 

According to a few references the belts attach near the bottom of the seat at the back, but there's a rectangular notch where the back of the seat fits to the cockpit parts, so I cut the belts just above this notch and installed a brass anchor piece.

 

 

 

 

I'm not sure if those circular depressions under the seat are more pin marks, but when the seats are installed, you will see none of that anyway.  If this was a wartime bird that had heavy use, I would have weathered the belts with pastels and maybe wrinkled them a bit more, but this subject is a museum piece that can fly, so I left the belts fairly clean.

 

 

 

 

Next up:  Engine attachment and main fuselage assembly, where I will depart from the kit instructions by quite a margin.

 

Cheers,

Chuck

 

 

 

Edited December 12, 2019 by chuck540z3