Bridlington & Wolds Scale Model Club Forum
Models => Modelling Projects => Topic started by: cph64 on November 23, 2023, 02:45:46 PM
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On the theme of 'small is beautiful'. Earlier this year our youngest son and his wife spent some time in the Maldives as she's always wanted to swim with Manta rays so being the big softie that I am when I saw this recent release by Mark 1 Models I knew I had to get it and give it to them, once completed, as a reminder. I'd already done something similar when our daughter found out she was pregnant the day she watched the Red Arrows in Scarborough.
The kit is the 1/144 scale latest reboxing of the Twin Otter with 'Holiday Season' decals for Nepal, Tahiti and the Maldives. Previous releases cover Civil and Military users. Moulded in blue/grey plastic with options for land or floatplane it comes in an end opening box with the colour options on the rear, these are shown again in more detail in the four page instruction booklet. The decals are clearly printed and a bonus is a card hardstanding which, will not be used as I'm building the floatplane, but will come in handy another time. So far I've just washed the parts and primed them with Halfords white primer.
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That should be an colourful livery.
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Yep, the hard part will be matching the decal colours as all the instructions say are Blue, Green, Yellow etc., no FS or makers numbers!!!
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The trials of model making! :o
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Looks like the mark one eyeball being used again, together with some witchcraft in paint mixing....
Kevin
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that's tiny, but small is beautiful.
Bob c
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The wing and fuselage halves have some large mould knockout points, some of which are on mating surface (see photos). This must be de-rigeur for Mark 1 Models kits as the build of a HS 748 in the latest issue of Scale Aircraft Modelling shows exactly the same problem. Those on the mating surfaces have been removed using a sharp blade and sanding pad and as there are no locating points on the fuselage or floats thin strips of plastic card have been cut and glued in place.
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Hi Chris,
Sometimes if you want something a bit different you have to accept the product flaws on short run type mouldings.
I'm sure you will overcome them,
Kevin
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The fuselage halves have been joined, as were the engine halves, and then the longer nose was sawn off to fit the shorter version seen on the Maldives aircraft. The locating holes for the tailplanes have also been drilled deeper to try to ensure a positive fit.
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Looking good Chris.
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It will look great when you have finished
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Could this be the start of a new modelling genre for you?
Small, but beautifully formed, and like Msea says should look good when you have finished.
Cheers,
Kevin
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I did think about scaling down to 1/144 some years back Kev but there weren't the kits I wanted available then, now there are but my 1/72 stash is too big to part with (the Yorkshireman in me here, lol!!!).
So now it's time to try some painting. I'm doing this as sub-assemblies to ease masking and experimenting as I go along. The nearest blue I have to the decals is Vallejo Deep Sky Blue, it's a tad darker but Sky Blue is too light. You can just make the difference out when I tried them on the tailplanes. The blue has also been used on the engines, masked after for the white, and the upper wing. In my haste I forgot I needed the central panel of the upper wing white so it's ended up being sprayed over as I didn't mask it. The white is Tamiya White from a rattle can which I've never tried before. I pre-warmed the can and I don't know if this caused the problem or not but the paint went on thin and there is some running to rectify, even spraying from a distance. Looks like this is another 'simple' model where I'll be learning from my mistakes!!!!
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Trials and tribulations of modelling.
Keep at mate, you'll get there in the end.
Cheers,
Kevin
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Yes, I'm still learning too.
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The white has been worked on but there will still be some more to do once everything is put together. The blue areas have been masked off where required and coats of Deep Sky Blue applied. Test fitting the wing to the fuselage showed that some carving and filing was required to get a good fit. Once happy with this all the minute actuators on the underside were added. The decals required cutting out individually as they're on a constant backing sheet and were teated with Set and Sol, followed by a coat of Klear tp protect them during future handling. As this is a 'one size fits all' fuselage not all the window outlines are present so care was taken to align then as best as. The red at the tips of the floats has been and masked so the walkways could be painted Tamiya Semi gloss Black.
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Nice work Chris.
This is coming along nicely. Will look really good when it comes together.
Now, what about a diorama?
Kevin
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Looking very good Chris.
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It's going on a plinth Kev as a present.
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All the blue areas have now been painted or touched up. The decals for the body were applied before fitting the wings. As this is a generic kit there are only so many fuselage windows moulded into the plastic this means the window and stripe decal had to be carefully applied. I made a mistake in putting the cockpit glazing decal on before the blue antidazzle panel so there is a slight gap. On looking closer it appears that that decal wouldn't fit properly anyway so....... The engines were fixed to the one piece wing which was then put in place followed by the struts with the tailplanes going on last.
The floats had the red noses painted then they were masked so I could paint the black walkways. There are what appear to be black decals for these but they don't follow the paint scheme which is why I painted. Now we come to tricky part, joining the floats. The struts are thin with minute locating pips and the recesses in the floats are small. I drilled these out to hopefully help with the fitting. I tried various ways of aligning the floats so I could join them and eventually settled on a bag of lentils which allowed me to adjust as the glue was setting. No Martin it hasn't run aground!!!
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In all the Christmas excitement I forgot to add the photos, doh!!!!!
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Looking good Chris.
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After several attempts I managed to get the floats attached. I ended up fitting foam between the floats and resting the body onto this to attach them. The hard part was getting the struts to line up. The miniscule aerial was then fitted behind the cockpit and a coat of Klear applied after touch ups of white. Once cured the propellers were fitted and also coated. The stripes on these were put on using a Sharpie. The completed plane has now been superglued to the plinth and boxed up ready to given when we see our son and his wife.
Not the easiest of kits if you go for the floatplane version but worth the effort in the end, as again I've learnt something and isn't that what modellings about?
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Nicely Done Chris.
Sweet and Neat. Well done.
Kevin
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Very nice Chris.
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Thanks. Our daughter-in-law was so happy when I gave it to her, job accomplished.