Saaf c-47

[Guest]

In Afrikaans we have a saying "Nood leer bid" translated to "Emergency learns one to pray"!

I have cut up the tail, this just feels so wrong to do! Will build the broken structure today and then start to find some material to do the fabric.

Interestingly this Dak (as with many other SAAF planes of the time) wore no national insignea or serial #'s in total contradiction of internationla aviation laws. It saves me a few bob in aftermarket decals LOL!

Theuns

[Guest]

Hi Theuns, great work so far mate, gonna be a cracking build. I built the revell 1:48 skytrain version (you can see it in my gallery). That version had loads of interior detail, most of which you couldn't see when finished!!!!

Cheers, Andrew

[Guest]

The 48 size Dak must be Huge!

The basic structure is done, as soon as glue cures I will clean up and trim some of the bits smaller.

The elevators are mostly ripped fabric to do.

Theuns

[ATTACH]47681.IPB[/ATTACH]

[Guest]

looking great

can you little explain how you done it?

Roman

[Guest]

cracking job i`m really impressed

mobear

[Guest]

Roman, I basically cut off the parts that were shot off from the full size and then built up the structure from pieces of stretched sprue and I used the flat pieces of styrine from the sprue that the name and scale is usually printed on to do the ribs from.

Really not difficult if you have such goo reference pix , but a double edge sword as it is harder to get away with mistakes!

For the ripped fabric I tried some facial tissue, it tears very nicely, but is very fragile. I will try some dope or white wood glue to stiffen it up as soon as my final painting is done. I doubt that it will stand up well against the paint thinning agent, or masking.

Theuns

[Guest]

Thx Theuns for info and tutorial

Roman

[colin m]

Interestingly this Dak (as with many other SAAF planes of the time) wore no national insignea or serial #'s in total contradiction of internationla aviation laws. It saves me a few bob in aftermarket decals LOL!

No, people will just think you haven't finished it yet !! Yeah I know, taxi...... But anyway, the C47 was, and indeed still is a great plane and a milestone in avation history. Only yesterday I watched an old episode of Ice Pilots featuring Buffalo Airways, who still use a couple of these DC 3 for passenger services, the only airline in the world to do so, I think.

[Guest]

I was did my national service as a load master in the SAAF '90 to '91 and up till mid 90's IIRC the SAAF was the largest active user of C-47's at that time in the world.

To this day I can remember the exact sound the PW double wasp made upon startup billowing huge clowds of white smoke and spluttering into life, then settling down to a nice smooth drone as they heated up on an icy winters morning.The pilot would go through his sequince saying "12 blades cold start turning 2", then engage the starter turning the # 2 engine and count out "3,6,9"and on 12 would twist the big red magneto switch followed by a huge bang.

On landing sometimes the engines would spit massive flames out of the exhaust ,licking the wingskin very close to the fuel tanks. The crew would simply lean out the carb mixture and open the throttle to burn the fuel/oil that sits in the exhaust.

I can also vividly recall the "prop walk" duties of the loadies just before the sun comes up , bitterly cold (by African standards) with fingers that plainly do not want to co-operate in the leather gloves and the wind that would pass through our green cotton flight suites. You will be amased at the compretion the old gal's engines had if you tried to manually turn the props through a few revs to clear any oil (of witch she loved to burn!) from the botom cylinders.

If this was not done the engine could damage when the starter flywheel engaged.

Ah, those were good times.....

Anyway, back to reality - I will start to paint the model today.

Theuns

[Guest]

For the ripped fabric I tried some facial tissue, it tears very nicely, but is very fragile. I will try some dope or white wood glue to stiffen it up as soon as my final painting is done. I doubt that it will stand up well against the paint thinning agent, or masking.Theuns

as i said earlier .. kitchen roll works about the best, if you soak it first then let if part dry it's not so fragile for shaping.

If you need it to be totally repellent to all chemical agents then just drip superglue on it and it'll go hard as nails, that way you can sand or shape it to get the final look you need.

I like what you've done so far

[Guest]

Will give it a go, thanx

OK, so I just did a little painting on it while the weather holds.

I didsome pre shading, not to much as the whole thing in this scal is full of pannels and my airbrushing skills wll not do for that!

Humbrol 230 PRU blue straight out the tin with about 30% turps to thin down to be able to give light coats to let the shading show through. Not very visable in the pix, but it looks OK to me.

I did the whole thing in blue as I wanted to see if there are any spots I missed with the sanding.A light sanding with some 2000 wet paper will key for the green/brown ontop.

Theuns

[ATTACH]47730.IPB[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH]47731.IPB[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH]47732.IPB[/ATTACH]

[papa 695]

Looking good Theuns and nice work on the pre shadeing

[Guest]

nice work there,such an interesting build and watching is a bit of education

mobear

[Guest]

I did the cammo ontop, the humbrol 29 I added some white and a little cream to get the faded brown and for the green I used modelmaster Fernch khaki. I was to lazy to mask so I freehanded the camo, this is needless to say way to soft of an edge, but in 1/72 scale it would otherwize be a hard edge, not whatI was looking for.

Now I need to re-attach the broken off bits of the rudder ater painting LOL! Just goies to show, don't build fidly things.

Theuns

[ATTACH]47848.IPB[/ATTACH]

[Guest]

Thats freehand??? i'm impressed .... it looks very natural at the scale in the photo.