Scale modelling

This month's projects...

The Antares 1/72 Curtiss SC-1 Seahawk. The Seahawk was a naval scout floatplane used in the latter part of WW2 in the Pacific Theatre, brought in to replace the OS2U Kingfisher. It was a neat little plane, single-seated but with enough space behind the pilot for another person. The kit was neat and straightforward, easy to build, and with options for either floats and beaching gear, or wheels. It’s my 6th seaplane model of the year.

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This monstrous beast is Big Wind, a fire-fighting machine built in Hungary for putting out oil well fires during the first Gulf War. It comprised two Mig-21 turbojets mounted atop a T-34 tank chassis. After the war, the machine was rebuilt on top of a T-55 chassis.

This 1/72 scale model is based on the later, cleaner T-55 version. The model is a 3D print with some scratchbuilt parts. The mesh cage is made from plastic strips and fabric; the water nozzles are made from bent nails; and the water hoses are made from soldering wire. It’s a fascinating machine. I also have the T-34 version to build sometime and that will be a lot dirtier. Read more here: https://machinesinaction.com/big-wind/ or https://hackaday.com/2021/12/06/big-wind-is-the-meanest-firefighting-tank-you-ever-saw/

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Completed, the Octopus 1/72 IMAM Ro.43 seaplane biplane. The Ro.43 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMAM_Ro.43) was one of a line of Italian seaplanes used for reconnaissance in WW2, and this particular one was flown off the Eugenio di Savoia light cruiser in 1942.

The kit itself is terrible, one of the worst I’ve built. The plastic parts were not great and were mixed with an odd selection of resin bits. No locating pins or holes for anything, and placement of many parts was sheer guesswork. The cockpit section was too small for the fuselage; I had to build a floor for it to rest on. I drilled locating holes for many parts, and attaching resin bits with superglue was an annoying process. Tail and tailplanes were just butt-joined; I actually drilled holes and used wires to help support the tailplanes. The small floats are really fragile thanks to the poorly-attached resin struts. Many parts or sections just did not fit properly at all. The canopy and clear sections are vacform. Since it’s a biplane, there is a lot of wire rigging, and there’s even more because of the big central float. I drilled dozens of tiny, tiny holes (breaking a few tiny expensive drill bits in the process) in order to thread and glue a whole bunch of fine threads in place. Assembly was quite piece-meal; because of the difficultly of painting with everything assembled, painting was done before the upper wing, struts, and floats were glued in place. Of course, paint touch-ups were then needed for the glue marks.

There’s stuff I’m not altogether happy with, but all in all it came out OK for such a terrible kit.

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