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

[Troy Molitor]

Wow.  I’m really embarrassed to say I haven’t looked into this build yet, Chuck.  The T-6/Harvard build is so cool.  The added efforts you’re putting in are certainly bringing this one to lime light.   

 

The T6 to me is as interesting as ....hmmmmm.. a mid 70’s Ford Pinto!   

 

Your efforts however are just awesome.   Thanks for sharing.  

[Shoggz]

This is great stuff (again!)

 

Thanks for taking the time to catalogue your great builds so meticulously Chuck.

[dodgem37]

That looks fantastic.  Nice tweezers.

 

Sincerely,

Mark

[Nick Manzara]

Nice work on the seat belts Chuck.  

Where do you get your reference material?

[chuck540z3]

Thanks guys.

 

24 minutes ago, Nick Manzara said:

Nice work on the seat belts Chuck.  

Where do you get your reference material?

 

Both the book I have shown in my first post and this link, kindly supplied by Jari ("Finn").

 

T-6/ Harvard Erection and Maintenance Instructions

 

Cheers,

Chuck

[chuck540z3]

December 27, 2019

 

 

Back to this model after a nice Xmas break with my 4 grandchildren, all 4 years old and under.  What fun!- and the only thing good about getting old, since everything else sucks!

 

 

Unlike my last Kitty Hawk model of the F-5E that was relatively new, this model has been around since 2014 and there are several builds out there to see how others tackled this kit as a reference, including LSP_Kevin who started his build 6 years ago in January 2014.   Everyone struggled with the rear of the engine and the supports that attach it to the main firewall, because the instructions are bad and the engineering is worse.  With this info, I changed a few things, which makes this part of the build much easier, especially if you’re not going to expose the rear of the engine.  Although relatively detailed behind the engine, there are no open panels to see any of it unless you cut out panels in the fuselage, which is a real pain and I like the closed look better anyway.

 

 

The first thing NOT to do is Step #10, which has you glue Assembly “HH” to Part A5.  There are no attachment points, so everything is a guess and to make matters worse, Part F25 has only a 1/3 chance of being glued in the correct position, with the notch in the upward position.

 

 

 

 

 

Instead, I glued Part F25 to the back of Assembly “II”, which is simple because the notch in the center can only be placed correctly to fit.  I then glued Assembly “HH” to the back of “II” as shown, which aligns the exhaust correctly, although the exhaust portion F18 was not glued for easy removal.  My Harvard will have the characteristic long exhaust rather than the stubby Texan one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Most of the long exhausts that I have seen have a thin pipe that runs the length of the exhaust, allowing cool air to enter the front and warm air to enter the cockpit at the rear.  Using references, I fashioned something close using two bits of brass pipe, with one glued into the middle of the wider pipe after drilling it out to fit.  This assembly was then glued into a hole in the front of the exhaust as shown.

 

 

 

 

For the rear of the pipe, I just used styrene rod, since no holes can be seen and it bends easier than brass.

 

 

 

 

After painting the pipe with gloss black lacquer, I sprayed it with Alclad Steel and Stainless Steel.

 

 

 

 

I will weather the pipe using Tamiya pastels to give it a more used and burnt look later.

 

 

 

 

I then dry fit the pipe to the engine after painting some of the other parts that might be visible through the hole for the exhaust.  The outside ring will be left off until final assembly so that I can remove the exhaust pipe.  Note that the blue vertical portion of the front of the engine is at the bottom where it belongs.  If you mess up any of the above, this part can be all over the place.

 

 

 

 

Dry fit with ring on.

 

 

 

 

Next I started to assemble the main fuselage, using the brass side walls in the Eduard Interior kit.  Note that those big pin marks at the rear should be removed, because you can see them in the cockpit later.

 

 

 

 

Painted Interior Green.

 

 

 

 

As others have found, Part D6 on the rear spine is undersized, leaving gaps.  These and other flaws can be fixed of course, but there is abundant raised rivet detail that you need to be careful of sanding off.

 

 

 

 

The front sidewall fit is tight, no doubt made worse by my use of the Eduard side walls.  To keep things glued in place, I reinforced the join with CA glue- another reason to leave this area closed off.  All the other parts in Steps #11-12 are unnecessary as well.

 

 

 

 

Here’s the other problem with the engine assembly.  These tiny engine supports, which are weight bearing, need to be cut off those big sprue attachment points without breaking them.  I used a #11 knife after heating it up with a candle to slice through the attachment points, without stressing the supports.

 

 

 

 

And here they all are, but based upon a review of many other builds of this kit, I’m using none of them for the following reasons:

 

 

1)  They are weak

2)  Proper assembly is almost impossible

3)  They don’t fit very well, allowing the engine to be crooked

4)  You can’t see them later anyway

 

 

 

 

The back of the engine should have slid into a groove in the front fuselage for better strength, but since it doesn’t, I added some strip styrene to the inside of the fuselage parts to create a base to glue to when the engine is installed.

 

 

 

 

This is how the engine should look when it is finally glued in, with the outside rear ring just forward of the fuselage.  The front cowling will fit around this with the tabs on the fuselage inside the cowling.  This is all dry fit and will be left off until final assembly, making painting much easier.  The rear heating pipe will be inserted into a hole at the front of the rectangular panel, with an exhaust hole behind it.  Once the wings are attached, I will also add an exhaust support anchor on the bottom that attaches to the wing.

 

 

 

 

And here’s a tip I often use on my models.  With the cockpit parts like windscreens exposed and vulnerable to breakage while working on the fuselage, I protect the cockpit with some ordinary pipe insulation foam cut to size and attached with tape.  Based upon what I see so far, getting this fuselage into a clean form will be a lot of work, especially with all the raised fastener detail that I don’t want to sand off.

 

 

 

 

 

Cheers,

Chuck

Edited December 27, 2019 by chuck540z3

[LSP_Kevin]

Good work, Chuck! This kit certainly has its challenges, and I've not seen anyone yet successfully conquer those engine bearers. Looking forward to more progress!

 

Kev

[Kagemusha]

Great update, taking notes... 

[chuck540z3]

30 minutes ago, LSP_Kevin said:

Good work, Chuck! This kit certainly has its challenges, and I've not seen anyone yet successfully conquer those engine bearers. Looking forward to more progress!

 

Kev

 

Thanks to your build thread Kev, I've learned a lot and have taken steps to avoid much of the pain you and others have experienced with this kit.  I was going to play around with the engine bearers/supports to see if I could make them work, but after about 10 minutes of pain, it became clear to me that no matter what I could accomplish, it wasn't worth the effort.  If there was a panel that could be removed I would have tried a bit harder for the sake of others who might want to see this detail.  What is so frustrating is that KH could have easily made a groove in the front fuselage for the engine to slide into, but they obviously didn't.  I think my styrene modification should work out just fine and it's so easy to do.  Also, thanks to Step 10 that makes no sense to me whatsoever, the gizmo at the bottom of the engine is all over the place in other builds, thanks to stupid instructions and nothing definitive for HH and F-25 to attach to without error.

 

Cheers,

Chuck

[Gazzas]

I'm glad to see the master at work once again!  I don't know much about the kit, but I've heard enough bad press about Kittyhawk to keep me looking elsewhere.  I'm really digging your innovations!

 

Gaz

 

[Troy Molitor]

Nice update.   Thanks for sharing your work with us.  

[shark64]

nice progress. i love it.

[DonH]

Don't know how I missed the start of this, but have been enjoying catching up over the holiday.

 

I will never build this kit, it looks too hard for my abilities, but I am enjoying watching you turn this sow's ear into a silk purse.

[mozart]

1 hour ago, DonH said:

 

I will never build this kit, it looks too hard for my abilities, but I am enjoying watching you turn this sow's ear into a silk purse.

The KH kit isn’t hard to build Don, I’ve made 2 and thoroughly enjoyed both. Yes there are areas that are wrong with it, yes there are areas that have been badly thought out by KH and yes there are places that need improvement, most glaringly the undercarriage placement and the tail wheel but essentially it’s a kit that with care and attention builds into a good looking T-6/Harvard.

The characteristic long exhaust by the way only applied to Canadian Harvards bringing warm air into the cockpit, all the rest had stubby ones.

[Rocat]

Good progress and interesting infos and advices, as usual with your WIPs!