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Thanks Gentlemen, I appreciate all the responses. Paul Ian, Cornwall model boats was the one I used. It works for me. Try this one though. Maritime Models

Now for the latest on the aircraft. I will say again, this is a beautiful kit. For those of you choosing the HPH Arado-196 in resin? I will watch intensely but no way or me, LOL. Here is the engine with cowl bracings installed. I will paint thes but they will be covered since I am buttoning up the cowl. Here's a shot of the Alley Cat resin canopy. Another beautiful product and a must have add on. The black masks are the masks provided with the canopy. They are the texture of electrical tape. Kinf of hard to wrap and hold form but more than adequate. The canopies are glued temporarily with white glue. They will be removed after priming and painting for finish detail and re-positioning. I did this so I did not not have to mask the cockpit area except for the area where the radio and gunner sits. Cotton balls to the rescue. Main canopy is not installed yet. The yellow Tamiya tape is the only mask from Alley Cat that I could not get to wrap around and stay down. For some reason, that one mask came in 3 pieces. That's it for now. Enjoy. Regards, Paul

Here is the latest update and more pics. Well, this has been a fun build so far. Learned a lot about resin, good thing. Still hate it. Love hate relationship? Finally got my missing parts from HPH after I scratch built the control cabinet. Slow but impressed with their customer support. Will buy from them again. I am happy with the extra work put into this. The aftermarket railings are a must in my opinion and making a new sled from brass and solder are totally up to the builders discretion but I am happy with that also. Now for some pics. Adding the hand rails around the base. The aftermarket stanchions were perfect for this. These took all of 30 minutes to install. This is the finished platform. The ladder was also soldered from 1 mm brass wire, which is called for in the instructions. Everything is primed and finish base coated so far. Detail painting will commence soon after some more work on the aircraft itself. Here is a shot of the kit control cabinet, which came after I finished the scratch built on, sans decals and detail. I bought Luftwaffe instrument decals and photo etch bezels. I think I will use kit cabinet after all. Looks nicer I think but will add decals and bezels if they fit. That's it for the catapult for now. On to the aircraft and get it caught up a little. Thanks for looking and I hope you all enjoy these. I hope also that these are a help for anyone choosing to do this. I know there are couple of you guys already choosing to do this kit. Beautiful and worth it. Enjoy, Paul

Wow, the ultimate kit. Congratulations Andrew. That is a wonderfully beautiful example of fine craftsmanship. Paul

Rog, imitation is the sincerest from of flattery, LOL. Nice scheme and build grouping here, love it. The resin Arado will still have to have attachment points scratch built for it. I don't know how the float struts are on the resin kit but I assume they will be the same as the Revell kit if both kits maintained accuracy. The dimensions for the HPH catapult are not likely to work for either. Check and double check before you build anything. Take inventory and order parts now, because any missing parts will take forever to receive. I just got my missing parts, almost a month later. The resin "monster" isn't such a monster, just finicky like most resin kits are. Plan on another method for the railings because if you do get theirs to work, they likely won't last. All of my sub-assemblies are done and I look back and it wasn't that bad. I am quite happy with it. Resin is a bear to work with no matter what. Godspeed, Paul

Gator Glue, the woodworking glue, also make a CA that has a rubber component in it. This glue is way less brittle than regular CA and is more shockproof. Give it a try. Paul

Ian, glad to be of service. All I can say is take a good inventory of the kit. I was missing parts and HPH said they will send them. I have yet to receive them, So I had to scratch build the control panels. I ordered instrument decals and etch bezels for it. The cat is almost done. I will post more pics by the weekend. Rog, thanks for the compliment. I learned to solder on this kit. Really had no choice. HPH's methods for the railings leave a lot to be desired. If you can do it using their parts, your better than me by a long shot. But soldering wasn't that difficult and the results look way better anyway, in my opinion. A butane torch instead of an iron and soldering paste made a world of difference. Even though this kit lacks a couple of things, it is a wonderful kit, I must say. If you are going to build the resin AR-196, you ARE a glutton for punishment, LOL Regards, Paul

Nice! I have a couple of mag bases like that. Could you please show more of the working or clamping parts? Thanks for posting this, Paul

Rick, yes that is what you need, the 25mm stanchions come in packs of ten if you like. If you are going to solder the sled like I did, I used solder paste with flux in it. It was a lot easier. Paul

Thanks Rick, really appreciate this. The brass stanchions I used from Cornwall are the 2 hole, 25mm ones. Also get the 1 hole, 6 mm for the hand rail around the base, 32 of them. Not bad at about 38 cents a piece. Way worth it just from saving all the aggravation. Also, the stanchions all use 1mm wire. I had to use a jig to support the tail support while setting the longer supports. All the other pieces were soldered using my fingers. Could have used a few sets of extra hands. Regards, Paul

Sweet. Love her. Paul

Thanks Dave, I do appreciate that. I think it's a must to build a stronger sled. I might have tried if it weren't for the missing steel pins. It gave me no choice. Still, the kit parts look flimsy. Watch your geometry. There is a 26mm height dimension on the height of the tail support. Absolutely wrong in the instructions. Paul

Ok, now for some promised pics. Between work, redoing the floor in the upstairs bath and other required stuff, I have not had an aweful lot of bench time until recently. Then, to top it off, I am fighting certain parts of the HPH catapult. Again, I will stress, this is a great kit. But a few parts leave a lot to be desired. Mostly, the launch sled support bars are useless in my opinion. Note I said "in my opinion". Very subjective from a resin amateur's point of view. Did I mention I hate resin kits? All that beautiful work to make really detailed parts and they skimp on the instructions. Why are the support bars useless you might ask. Well, they are resin, and they suck. A nice touch was that metal rods were molded through the center core so the tips could be bent into position and assembled into drilled holes in the mating parts. The following picture shows three of the support bars. The middle one is missing the metal pin from bad molding. They are already sending me parts that were missing, so I didn't want to ask for parts again. Besides, I'm convinced they are not adequate. This is where the bad instructions come into play. They give basic instructions and dimensions for assembling but nothing detailed. Problem is most of the dimensions will not work, at least for the Revell kit. So, I decided to scratch the sled from brass rod and soldered it. The only resin part was the base. One dimension in the instructions was correct. The distance from the loops under the fuse to the tail support post. Here is the fuse on the sled after soldering. What a pain in the ass it was. I duplicated the resin parts with 2mm, 3mm, 4mm. and 5mm brass tube and 1mm brass wire. And I learned how to solder yesterday. LOL, This is why I couldn't proceed with the aircraft until the sled was done. The locations for the loops under the fuse were questionable. The instructions had them at 32mm apart. But if you used that number the struts would have been in the way. So, I had to settle on 26mm, no big deal. Which means the sled assembly changes also. Pay attention to this if you build this kit. I believe this is the only important mistake. The loops under the fuse are my design. The instructions call for these parts to be scratched. This was the simplest way I could think of. Not what their picture shows but tough, this was aggravating enough. Here is finished sled. And now a few shots of the fuse build. I went with the Eduard interior but did not use the belts. This will be on the catapult and focus will be the two together, not the interior. And one of the floats. A nice little jig in the form of the display stand, which will not be used. And the catapult platform with finished rails. Of course not finished. That's all for now. The hardest part is done. Now to prime the fuse since the wings and floats are already primed. First though, mask the canopy and install temporarily to prime and paint together. More to come Gentlemen, thanks for reading my ramblings. Stat tuned. Paul

Matt, thanks a lot for those. I have been looking for some photos of this scheme. At least I now know this scheme did in fact exist. Paul

Hello All, thanks for the posts. I have been working on this, or these I should say. I will be posting more pics in the next day or so. But I thought I should add some narrative since it has been a while. I am totally impressed with the Revall kit. For the money, it is excellent. The fit is superb if you take your time and do a LOT of dry fitting. Unless I got lucky, the fit of the wings at the root is flawless. Not assembled yet but dry fitting is proving to be really good. She will be buttoned up around the engine because, in my opinion, the focal point will be the HPH catapult. I am using the Alley Cat resin canopy for this build and it is also excellent, It had a little haziness to it but after a dip in Future, it is clear as glass. Really nice. The cockpit is done and the fuse is buttoned up. I decided to do more work on the catapult next. This kit is proving to be a lot more labor intensive. Did I mention I hate resin kits? From the base on up to the launch rail, this a really nice build so far. A lot of work and it forces you to skip steps and go back if you want a nice build. There were some parts missing and I sent an email to HPH and they were more than happy to send them. I am waiting. As for the railing I mentioned above, i found some brass stanchions thus I will NOT be using their less than perfect method of building the rails. Here is a link for those of you that have this kit. Cornwall Model Boats The reason I stopped on the AR-196 is because the launch sled needs to be built and fitted to the fuselage before assembly can continue. So far, this is the only part of the kit that is posing a real problem. Their instructions for the sled are wrong for the Revell kit. They might work for their resin kit but not for the Plastic kit. You need to scratch build two parts for the underside of the fuse but their dimensions are not correct. If you use them, the float bracings interfere. Also, I feel they are not strong enough. These parts have steel pins in the ends to facilitate assembly but on two of them the must have moved during molding and are now useless. So, I will be scratching all of the bracings with brass tube and wire. I will post detailed pics as i move along. Do NOT build the plane complete if you plan on doing the catapult. The fuselage needs to be wingless and floatless if this is going to work properly. If for no other reason than handling while building the sled. Did I already say I hate resin kits? Pics to be coming real soon, thanks for reading. Paul

Nice job so far Anzo. Welcome to the forum. Great detail. Paul

Try this link to Google Drive. I suppose I finally had to learn how to use it. Password is in the title. Paul B-17 maintenance Manual

No jokes on the title please, LOL. For those of you interested, I have in my possession a PDF version of the ORIGINAL B-17 Maintenance Manual. I think this would be invaluable for those of us that might want to build the HK B-17 kit. It is 65 MB in size so I have no idea how to send it to someone. My email has a 25 MB limit. I can ship for the cost of postage for a CD or DVD. Post here or message me if you are interested. Paul

I will be using Alley Cat's canopy replacement for this build. As for photo's of the original plane, those might be hard to come by. I did find some WW2 forum posts referencing the "light colored AR-196's aboard the Scheer" That reference book I have seems pretty accurate so I am going with it. The color I am using will be RLM-65. As for the railings, full size plans are included but the only thing they provede are 2 MM Diam. X 4 MM long resin tubes that you have to cut off a block and drill through the side walls. I'm skeptical this will work without breakage. So, I have 2 MM brass tubing on the way and I will scratch the railing joints by soldering them if I have to.The railing themselves are 1 MM brass wire. Unless someone has a line on miniature elbows and tee's. I have looked for those also, no luck yet. Other than that, this catapult kit is sweet and well stocked. I will need to find pictures of that too. Thanks for the interest Gentlemen. Paul

It was a scary day today. I went over there while they were taking weight and size measurements to determine CofG and modulus for weight distribution. First calculations were showing they might have to move the wing forward 2 inches. 2 inches, I asked? I guess it makes a huge difference with flight performance. Later numbers showed it is just fine the way it is. Taking into consideration the weight of the engine, the pilot, ten gallons of gas and you are guessing at total weight at takeoff at this point. Engine is not on yet, it will be 2 cylinder inline. Total weight at takeoff, about 500-550 lbs.

James, yes, this will be epic. This guy has a shop you will not believe. He bought this as a kit half started. Actually, only the fuse was there and he says he had to redo most of that. They live about 6 blocks from me and this is the first time I have gone over to see it. Mostly because this is the first day they brought it outside. I am sure he would share some reference material but I have seen it and it is barely usable from the guy who started it. My friends dad can build these things from memory from hand sketches and Autocad drawings. This isn't his first build either. He used to have a full scale Pitts Special that he built. Mostly he builds 1/4 scale R/C airplanes. He must have a couple dozen of those. I drool when I see his basement shop. I will see what he can share. Maybe even invite him to join the forum here. Great guy, both of them actually. I work with his son Dennis. regards, Paul

Good Day all! I have started my Revell 1/32 Arado AR-196 float plane. A couple builds here have inspired me to start this recently. Here are a few pics of the progress so far and the scheme I am doing. I started the engine first since I am waiting on Eduard's interior sets and some paint for the scheme I am doing. Here is some reference I am using. And this is the scheme I will be doing. This plane was aboard the German Cruiser Scheer. I am doing this since she will be mounted on HPH's German ship's catapult. That's it for now. Enjoy. Paul

Since we are Large Scale Modeller, I couldn't resist posting some pics of a 3/4 scale Fokker D VIII my friends dad is building. Of course it will be flight worthy by next spring. I suppose this is the ultimate in large scale modelling. Enjoy! In some of these pics you will see added parts inside the fuselage. These ar parts still to be installed. They spent the day weighing the plane to determine center of gravity so that the plane is balanced front to rear for proper flight characteristics. Hope you all like this.

To go with my 1/16 Hasegawa Camel, which was delivered last week, I finally found the 1/8 Hasegawa Clerget engine I have been looking for. On Ebay. it cost me $44US with shipping. I bought the 110hp LeRhone (Oberursel UII) a month or so ago and I was so impressed with the molding I want to get them all. Detail on these is excellent, no flash and the cylinders line up perfectly with little to no rework. I have the Williams Brothers 1/8 LeRhone and after building their Wasp I know I am in for a lot of work to clean up that kit. I have decided to show these engines with the aircraft they were installed in. Paul

Awesome! But WHEN does it hit the shelves? Or mailboxes? Paul