Clunkmeister

Perfect pic! and I suppose I should finish mine with antenna wires and such

Many folks don’t realize how much of a beating prop blades take. Just powering up to get moving throws up gravel, but tight pivoting turns when you’re gassing on the outboard engine,.. that tosses gravel and sand everywhere. Prop blades wear quickly. They get checked and, if necessary, filed every single day.

We ran these things. They made us money. We weren’t all worried about preservation back then. They hauled big loads, reliably, and brought us home. No better praise than that. Note to modelers: working radials are filthy underneath. But the top of the aircraft is often spotless.

LOL. Not the way you put it, noooo....

Yup. It’s ugly where it can’t be seen, but decent on the outside. just line the cowl, louvered panel and nosebowl straight in a line. It’s harder than it seems because you’re dealing with a full engine, tight cowls, and a radiator surrounding the prop shaft...

Filing the edges. Tip damage, wear from gravel, etc. they could file a certain amount off and as long as we’re all the same, it was ok. Pretty routine stuff. The black paint just wore away.

The Zoukei was a great build, but I struggled in three areas. 1. Engine to fuselage to supports inside the wing attach and landing gear area. I bought this kit used and it had been partially glued together, no paint, nothing. Most was out of order, etc. The engine ended up sitting at a slight down angle, which wasn’t good. This angle must be perfect!!! I didn’t know this till later. (See problem #2) 2. Nose bowl, cowl panels and small louvered square vent panel right behind the nose bowl, dead center top of nose. The entire multi piece cowl jigsaws together, no muss no fuss. But mine didn’t. The cowl panels assembled well enough, and the nose bowl assembled well enough, but that little square louvered piece to dead center is a bear. Many award winning Zoukei 152H builds get this wrong. That little panel must be installed so it’s straight in line with the cowl and nose bowl. Many great builds have this piece sloping down to meet the nose bowl. This is WRONG! It must be smoothly in line with and parallel to the cowl behind it. No slight jog downhill to meet the nosebowl. If your engine is angled correctly, it’ll drop in perfectly. If the engine isn’t, you’ll have a slightly off cowl which will spoil the look of the entire model. Take the time to mock up the engine and cowl top together BEFORE attaching the cowl. If the panels at the top front of the nose aren’t perfectly flowing in one straight line, adjust the engine angle until it is. This is a real PITA to do, as the back of the engine has a gun breech, mounts, and equipment that all key into the wing support. Plan ahead. I couldn’t. Mine was built by the previous owner. I had to hack and cut the engine to re-angle it correctly to align that front top cooler panel correctly. No biggie for me, because it was to be closed up. Just plan for it. 3. Wing to fuselage panels. I covered the engine to fuselage to wing and landing gear support in item #2, but also, the wing fillet details are way, way too pronounced. The rivet heads on the wing root fillets look like they were left over from the construction of RMS Olympic. They need taming down. Plus the panel lines where the fillets meet the wing are close to 1/8 scale. Fix them Most of the issues I had I stack up to inheriting this kit with critical sub assemblies stuck together already. I want to do another, and I’m sure, like all other Zoukei kits, it’ll fall together.

And it’s companion, a Greenhearts 109F from the Eastern Front. Henri Daehne prop again and Kagero masks

As we slowly find more pics of my misguided youth, we found these buried in junk. My office way back in the day. That morning started off at -38 degrees according to my logs.

My last one was a year ago. ZM original issue kit. Henri Daehne prop and Radu’s belts

This weekend, when I’m waiting for HPH epoxy to cure, I’m gonna cut some plastic... gonna be FUUUN!

William, Bloody brilliant, mate! i looks real...

Definitely the B-25H

Very simple, actually...

There was a guy out of England on LSP advertising a resin British birdcage version of the Chippie. But no blown canopy Canadian version. He pointed out a lot of semi major differences between the pair as well. Not just as simple as changing canopies

Yup Tutor would be perfect size too. Chipmunk, Beaver, Single Otter, C-7 Caribou, C-8 Buffalo all in 1/32, plus CF-100 and CF-105 both in scale 1/48 or bigger would be bloody amazing.

No, not in your wildest dreams. But even if I wanted to, I think it’d be wildly out of scale. I think a combination of paint and foil would be killer on this thing.

The thing looks positively graceful in those pics. I never really realized the size of these until seeing one last year in Omaha. It actually made the B-52 seem small, even though it’s probably bigger.

I believe that was after a tornado direct hit at the Consolidated-Vultee Aircraft plant in Fort Worth, Tx

Good grief that looks amazing!

I give much for a 1/32 Tutor

You also get a special numbered plaque that goes with the model, and two seriously large and heavy plugs of nose weight, that are discs the diameter of the fuselage. I have no clue what they’re made of but they seem heavier even than lead. Depleted uranium perhaps? Who knows, but they’re darn heavy.

Dave that’s stunning! I love the natural aluminum look.

We wait a couple weeks and see, bud. Mug-9 was already for sale a few weeks before that one was bought.

1/32 - F-101B Voodoo or CF-100 Canuck 1/35 - C-7 Caribou 1/48 - CF-105 Arrow or C-46 Commando 1/72 - IL-76M