Styrene

Styrene

Monday, May 21, 2012

Monocoupe 90A

1/72 Planet Models resin Monocoupe 90

More and more kit manufacturers venture into the realm of civil planes, not only commercial jets, but private planes, planes from the golden age of aviation, planes from the pioneer period, racers, passenger planes form the 20’s, et cetera.
Finally our longing for something that does not mean glorifying killing is answered. Plainly said: the intentionality behind a bomber plane is not the same as the one behind a touring plane or a record plane, a racer, and so forth. Finally we can build a model airplane with our kids and tell them about adventures, challenges and glamour, and not about cracking the heads open of fellow human beings.
Praised be Planet Models for the launching of several of these beauties (including the Focke Wulf A-16 passenger plane, the Havilland DH85 Leopard Moth, the Bugatti 100P, the Hughes H-1 racer –the last three in 1/48-) and may it ease the karma of their previous subject choices, mostly Nazi stuff.
I am not naive; I know that war sells more than peace, which, alone, says a lot of whom -as a species- we are. But evolution and awareness may be even reaching our war machine-plagued modeling universe. Granted, Planet covered their behinds (marketing-wise) with a version that caters for the Spanish Civil war, but at least it allows us to build a civil model out of it too!.
There is another resin kit out there of the same subject, released by LF Models.
As I was saying, thanks, Planet Models! Now, that said...yes, some little issues.
The kit has a clean and sharp molding, almost no pinholes, easily-removable casting blocks, no warps or partially-molded parts whatsoever. Great so far. Nevertheless, you have to cut open the roof window on both fuselage sides. Well, no big deal (it seemed), although why, why, we rhetorically scream? So out with the JLC saw that Steve gifted us a few years ago. Two across-the-fuselage cuts went well, but you can’t saw the line that goes parallel to the fuselage, so I started carefully to score it with a new Xacto. Several times. And then, very, very carefully tried to pry it loose. To no avail. More scoring, no results. You can’t exert too much pressure, because the fuselage side may break at the weak window dividers, and we don’t want that, precious. More and more scoring and then the section came off cleanly. What was hindering the cut was that the fuselage sides are thick enough to get in the way of the cutting line, so later on you have to carve it from inside too. Planet, what the...?. Then it is the nose, just a solid block. Granted, with some recesses depicting the cutouts in the front, but no engine. Hum. I know some modelers would be grateful for that (one less step towards completion, pal!) but that’s not my case. I like my engines there, even if not much of them is visible. Wheel streamlined pants again are fused solid with their wheels. I know, it’s a small model, and it facilitates building, but surely not detail painting.
Nothing of this is insurmountable, and I rather deal with that instead of with pinholes, resin blobs, sticky parts or dubious shapes.
Be careful with the smaller parts (joysticks, Pitot, etc) as you cut them loose from the backing web. Wash all parts to eliminate mold-release residue (again, watch-out for the small bits) and sand to refine the parts using a mask. Toxic resin dust is no joke.
The vacuformed transparent bits come in a small sheet. They are crisply molded, but their transparency leaves a lot to be desired. In the photo you can see how it looks, and, by the way, that’s after washing and drying it. What looks like droplets or humidity or release agent or oil, are actually blemishes, solidly transferred on the sheet. In that sheet you will find two parts not accounted for in the instructions. They are doors, I assume in case you want to file open the ones delineated in the fuselage and pose the model to show, to better effect, the excellent interior provided. The instructions are good. They depict a few parts, with their measures, that you have to get or make yourself. All easy to deal with. The decals, which I didn’t plan to use, are from Propagteam, usually of a good standard as previous experiences with them indicate.
And so it began, by vacuforming a new cowl to replace the resin solid one and making a vague resemblance of an engine to put inside it. Since almost nothing can be seen through the cowl slots, no more is needed.

One of the doors was removed and the fuselage sides reduced in thickness from inside. Even so, the interior assembly, as it is almost invariably the case with resin kits, had to be sanded down in order for it to fit. The instructions -again in the tradition of most resin kits- are vague, to say the least, regarding where to position certain parts, in this case the instrument panel which should be closer to the pilot and not in the area at which the instructions generally aim, therefore leaving a gap where the coaming should be. Oi, again, Planet.

The fuselage was finally closed, the tail feathers added (not before drilling the holes for the ulterior rigging) and the landing gear glued at this point. Wings were given pins and matching holes drilled on the fuselage stub wings. And here another question: since the Mono has 0 dihedral and a one piece wing that seats atop the fuselage, wouldn’t have been more effective to engineer the kit likewise? This and other questions may have asked the Sphinx to Oedipus...
As you can see in the accompanying images aileron horns (not provided) were installed, then the model was primed, checked for blemishes, re-touched, primed again, sanded smooth and airbrushed with the lighter color of the scheme. Decals meanwhile were printed. The scratched door and minor parts were prepped  too. The windshield was separated from the clear vacuformed sheet, and to my surprise it was a good fit.
All the other clear bits were home-made.
Masking and painting ensued, decals and details, and this little bumble-bee was ready for departure to its destination at Glen Ellyn airstrip.

 








Friday, May 18, 2012

Mix Hummer of 1924

It's a fly!...no, it's a louse!...no, it's the education budget!..no, it's the Mix Hummer of 1924!
A 24 hours-long project.
Teeny Tiny, tinnier than my previously made Caproni-Pensutti:

 or my Gurney Grice Mosquito:

 or my Pou-du-Ciel:

the build was enticed by Tom Polapink of Skyways, who sent a link to the Aerofiles file on this one.
Here a link to the built version (there were at least two):


"Dear..I shrunk the Budget"

Sunday, May 6, 2012

Delanne II / Moreau JM-10.

Have you seen those marine life documentaries depicting a seagull or similar seabird snatching the fish from the one that caught it in the first place?
Well, in the early 30’s there was a French guy called Delanne who designed and built a plane named Delanne II, a side-by-side two-seater (baptized Ibis Bleu) powered by a 5 cyl Salmson 5Ac radial, later substituted by a 6 cyl radial Anzani and registered F-AJGB. He sold it to a partnership named S.F.R. which predictably enough re-named the plane SFR-10 and planned to turn it into a machine suitable for three people. The plane nevertheless is shortly after sold to J.M. Moreau, therefore becoming Moreau JM-10. Moreau hires Payen, who contributes to the design and installs a Renault 4Pb, which in turn is later replaced by a De Havilland Gipsy Major, and eventually by yet another engine, a Regnier R6. The plane receives a new registration, F-ANNI. It seems that Moreau was not preoccupied by the fact that the design was being attributed to him at this time. Attribution of the design varies according to different sources, but the one just described seems to be the right account.
Monsieurs Delanne and Payen will become later on recognized names in the aviation field.
The plane -and the story- do not end well. Moreau tries to sell the plane in civil war-engaged Spain and is murdered. The fate of the plane unknown.
The design (especially the first incarnation) bears a certain resemblance with the Tunison Scout, a contemporary American plane.
The almost organic metamorphosis of the plane involved a series of changes, besides the powerplants already described and the different noses thus created. Most noticeable are the canopy shape, the vertical stabilizer outline and the landing gear. You could build may be seven models that differ in something depicting the machine at different points in its life.
I could not decide which of the planes I would like to model: F-AJGB with its greenhouse canopy, or the “streamlined” F-ANNI; so I went for both. If somebody ever tells you that it would be much easier to build a second model or variant of the plane you are building, do not believe them, it is not.
As it is many times the case, no reference is 100% spot on, so you have to correct drawings, review the data and especially look at photos. Now, I have done a few 3 views, so I know it is a difficult task, especially with odd-balls for which there is little reference material; so I praise the guys that do it, but also keep a healthily distrustful eye on what they make. On the other hand, if you wait for perfect references to appear, very few plans or models could ever be drawn or built. Furthermore, as scratchbuilders know, the mere fact of producing a model dramatically increases the chances for references of all sorts to surface –notably after you completed your model-.
As you can see in the photos styrene sheet and rod were mostly used for the build. Wood masters were carved for the two canopies and the engine cowl of the later variant and the vac copies were produced in the Mattel 60’s Psychedelic Machine. Wheels and pants came from the spare box and some lengths of Strutz brass material employed for the LGs.
Props were adapted to fit the bill and a Ragnier engine scratched to spice-up the nose of the second plane, since the first one also got the exposed cylinders for the radial (thanks, Matias Hagen!).
Colors in this case were either described in the references (F-ANNI) or implied in the plane’s name (F-AJGB, Ibis Bleu, which is a sort of cobalt blue hue).

Thanks to my francophone friends Michel Barriere , Alex Bigey and Alain Bourret whom very kindly helped me with the research on this project.

References:
-Pierre Cortet article in "Avions" magazine issue #68. I realized that the cockpit photo in the article is wrongly identified as belonging to the Moreau, and Alex IDed it as representing a Couzinet 33. “Avions” #45 has another snippet on it.
-Les Ailes, contemporary article by R. Saladin
-Aviation Magazine, Nov 1983
-"Aircraft of the Spanish Civil War"
-Flight, Dec 6th 1929 page 1284, and July 4th 1929 page 544
-L’Aero May 11th 1934
-L’Aero Aug 10th 1934