1/48 ID/Combat vacuform EC-121 Constellation

[ghodges]

Thought I'd post my in progress pics of my 1/48 vacuform Connie as I should have her done by the end of the week. To begin with, instead of doing any EC-121 version I decided to opt for Blue Angels markings, as used by them in the late 1960s. This not only made the color scheme a bit easier, but also allowed me to skip using the tip tanks and any of the radar domes, saving me some vac work.

Keep in mind that everything but the airframe had to be scratchbuilt or pirated/adapted from spare parts or other aftermarket sets not meant for a Constellation, since no one makes stuff for this old vac kit. More info is by the in progress pics below.....

This is what you get.......

The basic wing assemblies. Note the brass tubing spars and how they're boxed in inside the wheel wells.

This is the main wing spar bulkhead built to strengthen that area when finally assembled.

Here it is in place....

The nose gear well was a little more complicated than the usual rectangular box

This is the bare bones starting point for scratchbuilding the landing gear. The nose tires are from the spares box and the main tires are Eduard Brassin B-29 tires.

These are the finished landing gear as detailed with soldering wire, tape, and plastic rod. Note the main gear now have aluminum tubing for their oleo sections.

This is a test fit of the gear to the plane to check its sit.... the wings and tail planes have yet to be glued on...

Oddly, my kit did not include a clear canopy, so I had cut that area out and glue it together to make my own mold.

Here's a couple of the clear shots made using my old Mattel vacuform, which was just big enough to get the job done.

I decided early on to skip building any interior except for a very rudimentary cockpit since the windows are so small.

I also decided to wall off the interior so as to prevent see-through and help blacken the interior. The round windows have all been filled at this point with UV cured clear resin. Save your plastic fiber yard signs as they can come in handy!

The assembled engine cowls and the assorted fuselage parts. Almost ready to close it up at this point. Note the epoxy putty on the cowls to help correct parts of them.

The cowls have been primed,  the engines selected from the spares box, and the vac prop spinners are now being worked on...

The kit cowlings were too plain and simplified, needing cowl flaps, exhaust pipe holes, and a curved indention dipping in behind the cowl flaps. This shows how I made the cowl flaps after carving their sides down and opening them up.

Test fitting the finished nose gear and the nose gear door....

All of the gear doors had to be scratchbuilt. Their interior detailing is bogus for the most part, but at least they look "busy". The hinges were made by punching out concentric rings of sheet plastic and cutting them in half.

Test fitting all of the main gear doors.... note at this point their interior "skins" have yet to be added.

One of the problems with a 3ft long fuselage is how to hold it for painting and drying. The model was too big to add the wings and then try to paint the entire model, so the fuselage and wings were painted separately. The wings were then added, the wing roots filled and sanded, and then the wing roots were repainted to blend them in. Here, the fuselage black primer is drying. 

Here she is as of today... decaled and awaiting final assembly of all of the fiddly parts over the next couple of days. Final pics will be posted then!

Questions, critiques, and comments welcome, as always!

 

Gil 

[Jmarc]

WOW,WOW,WOW !...Your my kind of modeler !. Love your approach ,love your choice of DECO and just can wait to see the finish product !  GO,GO,GOOOOO

[Ron Bell]

Magnificent, as usual. You need to have a national con close enough to Jacksonville so you can drive and bring some of these larger masterpieces for all to see in person. And by the by, what Blue Angels Blue did you use? I have a little project of my own and I'm almost ready for paint. 

[ghodges]

The paint? Therein lies a tale.......

The idea was to use KRYLON BLUE, which is what's recommended on the CAM B.A. decal sheet since it's (supposedly) what the team uses to touch up the jets during the show season. HOWEVER, SOME pics from the 60s (Tigers and Phantoms particularly) seem to show a slightly darker BA Blue than what you see on the later Skyhawks and Hornets the last 40 years.

Thus, I decided to prime the entire model in gloss BLACK and then apply the Krylon Blue to darken it down a bit. The problem is that I could NOT get the Krylon Blue to spray on without reacting and crinkling in some places (2-3 times sanding and repainting). SO.....

I fell back to plan B/C, sanding out the problems as best I could (but not all were eliminated), repriming in black, and then I used the SMALL bottles of TESTORS GLOSS DARK BLUE (I'm out MM BA Blue), thinned with lacquer thinner and airbrushed on in as "wet" a coat as I could. That worked well enough, though the color (to me) looks more "modern" than I'd planned.

The good news is that IF you cannot still find MM BA Blue in the bottle, you probably can find the small Testors bottles of gloss dark blue, and it seems to work well for the Blue Angels color, especially applied over gloss black. 

By the way..... the BA Yellow trim was done with Tamiya rattle can Camel Yellow, applied over a flat white primer, which seems to match the decals decently if not perfectly. Hope this helps!

 

Gil 

Edited January 20, 2024 by ghodges