Dora Wings Dewoitine D.510 Chinese Air Force

[dutik]

This is what I want to build this summer:

 

 

My build will get the livery of the Chinese Air Force fighting the Japanese: Bare metal finish, showing the blue/white roundels of the Republic of China and with green blotches at all upper surfaces. Reviews of the kit are online available. My first impression: Looks well in the box. Well cast styrene parts with a huge number of sprue gates (this might add some extra work to clean them up). Optional parts for the wheel covers, dashboard and the rudder. A nice fret of PE with seat harnesses, dashboard, radiator louvres, hatches and other stuff. You get two choices to make the dashboard: Single styrene parts with instrument faces molded in place (there are 3 dashboards at all in the D.510) or a sandwich of a styrene backplate, decals for instrument faces and a PE cover. Nice choice. A set of masks for the canopy is provided too. Decals are looking good, but I have to get my chinese markings from elsewhere.

 

Also nice is the choice of different wing armament. It should be noted that the D.510 could be fitted on demand with Darne, Colt or Browning machineguns. So the wings of this kit come with muzzle openinges in the wing as well as with the option for underwing MG fairings. The sole difference between the D.510C and their brethren used by the French AF concerned this armament. While the later had two underwing-mounted 7,5mm MAC Mle.34, with the bulky 300 rounds ammo drum buried in the wing, the former had two belt-fed Darne machineguns fitted inside the wing (as in some French D.501). This can only be seen in close-up photos: the gun barrel was barely visible, just atop the leading edge. So we don't need the underwing fairings and go with the provided muzzle openings in the upper wings.

 

So the list of AM parts is reasonable short:

- Eduard masks (providing in- and outside of the windscreen and masks for the wheels)

- Chinese marking decals

- some strip styrene and lead wire to add some more details inside the cockpit.

 

Enjoy!

- dutik

Edited July 17, 2022 by dutik

[dutik]

First details added:

 

 

Also drilled out the exhaust stubs and glued them in place:

 

 

Regards

- dutik

[themongoose]

A good start for sure. Cool plane, plus the camo on top sounds like an eye catcher. Looking forward to watching you build this 

[dutik]

Cut out the solid floor and rear bulkhead because they wern't solid:

 

 

Next step shall be detailling of the seat, but before this I am going for two weeks into vacation

 

Saxon Switzerland, just incase you're curious

Regards

- dutik

[dutik]

Added some thingees to the seat:

 

 

Seat belts follow after painting.

 

Regards

- dutik

[Rockie Yarwood]

Looking good, dutik!

[dutik]

Cockpit partially built, painted and wheatered:

 

 

Should look nice inside the fuselage:

 

 

Now building up the dashboard. Three, to be correct. If you like working with single instrument bezels you might have a lot of fun:

 

 

A few bezels are in place. A lot more to go. Of course there is a set of injection moulded dashboards too, so the choice is yours.

Seat belts are a multipiece affair too, as with all current seat belt sets. Take your time, that's all you need. The single-piece PE radiator louvre flaps are not so funny, but I have to tackle them only close to the finish of the building process. Maybe I'll cut my own one from strip styrene to ease the pain. We shall see.

 

Sidenote:

Tried to brushpaint AKs Xtreme metal color, because the bottle said so ("brush and airbrush"). Big mistake! Skip the offer and use the airbrush only. Brushpainitng resulted in a mess. I am lucky this will be hidden deep inside the cockpit, and under some washes and pigments too. Don't brushpaint them! As for airbrushing: Gloss black primer required, as with most metallic paints.

 

Regards!

- dutik

 

[jeroen_R90S]

Looking good -and such a pretty airplane!

 

The only water-based acrylics I've ever been able to brushpaint with decent results has been Revell Aqua. Actually, my kids to better, as I'm too careful and apply it too thin -my kids just slop it on and it self-levels pretty good leaving no brush marks on small parts, and almost none on larger flat stuff like a 1/72 wing.

 

Jeroen

[dutik]

AK's Xtreme metal colors are enamel paints. But they are thin enough to be used to airbrush them out of the bottle and therefor not well suited for brush painting.

 

Yep, the good old days when we brushpainted our aircrft models too... I still hold a batch of 1/72 scale Kovosavody models from that time and show them on exhibitons from time to time. Still nice models, even with brushpainting.

 

Regards

- dutik

[jeroen_R90S]

As usual my head was quicker than my typing abilities - I meant that the only metallics I've been able to brush were Revell Aqua!  

Particularly silver, steel and aluminium, the rest are not as good (copper and brass).

 

I used Revell and Humbrol enamels in the past, the older ones worked pretty well, but I'm a fan of Revell Aqua for brushpainting now. Occasionally my kids build a model too, they just slop it on and it levels beautifully. I still have few of my old models, too

 

Thanks for the headsup though, I was looking at new metallic paints for the metal area's on my F-4S build in the non-LSP part.

 

Jeroen

[dutik]

You are welcome!

 

I have ordered the black primer for AK Xtreme metallics as well as the thinner/cleaner of the brand. I will report how it works when used as per manufacturers intentions. But first I have to get the fuselage closed and the wings on. BTW, I LOVE the AK Real colors. Airbrush only too, smelling like a dentists room, but the first paints that I am able to airbrush without clogging, splattering, peeling or simply flowing away from the surface. A modellers dream

 

Regards

- dutik

[GroovyPapa]

Great progress! Beautiful aircraft! I've got one on the way, directly from Dora Wings. The Euro to USD exchange rate is finally to our benefit, time to SERIOUSLY increase the size of my stash.