ghodges Posted October 6, 2008 Report Share Posted October 6, 2008 This is the old White Eagle 1/48 vacuform kit. I picked it up for less than $5 a couple of years ago at the 10,000 kit sale in NC. Having built the Czech Master Skynight earlier this summer (commission job), I decided to tackle this for myself while I had all of the reference materials out. Overall, this was NO more difficult than the injection kit; with the addition of the work all vacs need to prepare them for building. The intakes/exhausts had to be scratchbuilt, but then their fit was less work than the CM kit! The same held true for much of the project. Many things had to be built or pirated from the spares box, but I didn't really have to do much extra filling and sanding in compparison. The only other difference was that I decided to fold the wings and drop the flaps (for that more "candid look" ), but that only meant the addition of 2 bulkheads, 6 detail parts, and the support strut for each side. The support struts were made from plastic rod with pieces of plastic insulation from a length of wire cut and slipped onto them I also decided to opt for the "early" F3D version in overall gloss Dark Sea Blue. I used a small bottle of Testors dark blue and added about 5 drops of gloss black, mixing both in a standard MM mixing jar. It was cut with lacquer thinner and airbrushed on until I got the blue-black I wanted. My interpretation of '48-53 Navy DSB is pretty wide; some being almost black while others have a sea-green/gray cast. This mixture allows you to add coats until you get the hue you like. By the way, I use a different mixture for the more grayish DSB. Also, there is some countershading on the model, but it's difficult to get it to show up in pics The markings are from the CM kit. The interesting twist to that was that CM gives you 2 LEFT side squadron flashes! I didn't realize this until I started to apply the second one on the right and realized it would be upside down! The solution was simple enough: I cut a new one from solid bright yellow decal film. The CM decals worked well overall, especially the stencils. The borderless stars/bars came from the spares box. The wingtips and fin cap were painted MM bright yellow (over a coat of aluminum). The wingtip lights are clear red/green pieces of plastic sanded to shape and polished. The position lights on the top and bottom were made by Premier and are out of production to my knowledge. And, the final product! One final thought....man does GSB show EVERY little white speck of dust and "stuff" that gets into the finish! Maybe it's time to invest in a spray booth.....Cheers! Comment and critiques welcome! GIL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghodges Posted October 6, 2008 Author Report Share Posted October 6, 2008 The forum wouldn't let me put all of the pics I wanted in one post, so here's some in progress pics: The 3 pics above show how the intakes/exhausts were made and installed. The 2 above show the basic wing assemblies and the wing-fold bulkhead structure. GIL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghodges Posted October 6, 2008 Author Report Share Posted October 6, 2008 Continueing..... The first 3 pics show how the cockpit was made from sheet plastic, spare PE, and spare resin parts. The next one shows the assembled and painted cockpit. The last one shows the vac canopy masked and ready for installation. Note the open canopy hatch. GIL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghodges Posted October 6, 2008 Author Report Share Posted October 6, 2008 And last of all.... The 3 above show the various detail parts that were scratchbuilt. Sheet plastic, brass and plastic tubing and rod, as well as various pe parts and spare parts were cobbled together to "git 'er done". The sanding and priming (and sanding and priming, and...) stage. Note the piece of sponge used to plug the hatch opening. The final wing fold detail parts added towards the end of the assembly sequence. All that's left is to brush paint them DSB! By the way, there seems to be about a 5 image limit to posts (for future reference). As stated above all comments/crtiques are welcome. Cheers! GIL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phantomordie Posted October 6, 2008 Report Share Posted October 6, 2008 I admire anyone who can do vacuform. I tried one and decided to stick with injection. Your effort is truely masterful. Great looking Skynight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Lindsey Posted October 6, 2008 Report Share Posted October 6, 2008 Wow! Very impressive. Thanks for all the great images and info. Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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