Dave Ward's 1/48 ICM Henschel Hs 126A-1 Condor Legion

[Jim R]

Hi Dave
The wing is impressive. Hope the fuselage goes as well. You have certainly done very well with the masking.
Jim

[papa 695]

Great work with the masking Dave

[Dave Ward]

Hmmmmmmmmmmm. Not good, the paint has lifted in several places,[ATTACH]306162[/ATTACH][ATTACH]306163[/ATTACH]
Port of the fuselage - not bad, but stbd side lifted, and peeled in many places. The only difference I can think of is the high temperature when I was doing the fuselage. The primer, paints & masking are the same.
It's recoverable, but it's going to take a little more time..............
Dave

[Guest]

Dave,
What a great job you are doing, pity about the peeling paint. Ref the SU-27, I have the HB 1/48 in the stash, and yes I have the decals and mask for the Ukranian aircraft....... Looking forward to the finished paint job.
Cheers,
Mike.

[Dave Ward]

This hot weather really reduces my enthusiasm for benchtime, but I have redone some of the paintwork, and started more assembly. The rear of the cowling has to be fitted before the engine, and this dictates the position of the rest of the cowling radially, and thus the painting demarcation between top & bottom[ATTACH]306393[/ATTACH]

The long range weather forecast shows a drop in temperatures towards the end of the coming week.
In my 20's & 30's, I spent a lot of my working in the tropics - with temperatures much higher than the UK now - I think I'd last about a day at the present!, even without working....
Dave

[papa 695]

Looking good Dave, and a nice fix on the peeling paint

[Mickc1440]

Nice work on this one Dave, just had an enjoyable catch up with the build so far.
Mick

[Mini Me]

Dave,
Sorry to be late on this one but WoW, even with the lifting in spots the overall effect is impressive!
Rick H.

[Jim R]

Hi Dave
Sorry to hear of the peeling problem but I am certain you will sort it. The weather is certainly a problem at the moment when it come to modelling.
Anyway the camo looks great. When it is complete it will be a real stunner..
Jim

[Dave Ward]

I did have another thought on the paint lifting/peeling. It may be due to the weather, not the heat, but by me adding retarder to slow down the drying time of the acrylic paint! Difficult to prove, but another possible reason.
I couldn't work out whether the camo continued on the inside of the undercarriage legs - a search on the internet found this ( discussion purposes only )[ATTACH]306436[/ATTACH]
This was labelled as a 'Bulgarian' - but no, Condor Legion - the camo is only on the bottom section of the legs & spats
Dave

[Dave Ward]

OK, approaching the critical point of the build, the mounting of the top wing. [ATTACH]306980[/ATTACH]

I had a tussle with the fuselage decals - there are supposed to be four angled lines per side of the fuselage - I ended up with 2. Despite painting with clear varnish, the others just disintegrated to dashes......[ATTACH]306981[/ATTACH]
Ah well, they're not THAT visible. Next up is a coat of varnish, to seal everything in, and flatten things a little. Aside from the wing, the last major part is the bomb & carrier, but there are still a few minor details to go.
Dave

[Mini Me]

Dave,
That is shaping up rather nicely. The cammo looks the bomb!:thumb2:
Rick H.

[Dave Ward]

I had hoped to have fitted the top wing, but.................................[ATTACH]307173[/ATTACH]
I fitted the struts to the fuselage - OK. Then, it all went pear shaped. The location pins to the top wing are really too small to give any positive fit. Out came the CA - it was one of those days that it would NOT stick. I tried for over an hour, and then, I managed to break the small struts on the fuselage top. I repaired those, then had another go - success! But no, the fuselage was not at 90 degrees to the wing, and rotated as well. My efforts to get it all straight - and it all came apart again. At that point I decided that I had better leave it for the day! Hopefully I will be able to sit down and sort this out. I'm not sure how, but that wing will be attached.
Dave

[Dave Ward]

After a ponder on the problem, I realised that the thin struts on top of the fuselage were never going to be strong enough, so, using some brass wire I made 4 replacements - I'll have to add a cross brace from plastic after everything is aligned - 4 holes drilled in top wing to take the wire..............[ATTACH]307194[/ATTACH]
You can see that I've caused a bit of a mess around the strut locations.that'll need to be cleaned up.
The large 'y' struts had poor locations, so, I've drilled the ends, and added pins to really fix things
[ATTACH]307195[/ATTACH]

It's all going to need quite a bit of clean up - but at least nothing will fall apart!
This is really taking me back to the 70s & 80s, when vacform airplanes were my thing!
Dave

[papa 695]

It's fighting you all the way Dave, but your putting up one hell of a fight yourself . Keep it up and the pictures a coming.