CANicoll

John, Beautifully done! Very nice lines on the camo as well. Beautifully feathered. You must have a massive stash of parts!! Another work of art, well done.

And this showed up in the post yesterday! Good old Spruebrothers. I guess I'm getting ready for the Spitfire Mk VIII. Wait till my Hannants order shows up!!

I have it as well but found that it was 'stringy'. It doesn't really put a drop down cleanly, at least in my experience. I moved on to Formula 560 and Gator Acrylic Glue. Formula 560 dries very clear, is easy to apply, washes up with water (and thins with water too!). Perfect for attaching clear parts. Let me know if you have a better experience with the G-S cement.

Ha! Lots of really good work there to look at! I find the same thing with the sprues. I cut them up and throw away the parts that are empty which makes finding things so much easier. Assuming I don't miss something and bin the part I was looking for!

The detail painting is working extremely well! The variance of the wood around the deck gun is a fantastic detail, well done!! I have to remember about Bob's buckles when doing rigging. I keep forgetting about them!

Thanks guys!! Test fitting will definitely be the order of the day. The Cat has moulded in pockets for the struts so worst case may need to add some material if needed. Or they may fit perfectly! Who knows? And I agree, once the canopies are in place and painted, definitely can see the finish line from there! Chris

Peter, Me too!!! I hope this is a well detailed and engineered kit. 🕺

Ohhh. I may need to stock up on some 1/32 P-39 kits!! Love some of these liveries. Beautiful and different.

Gecko Models? That's a new one by me!

The railings alone, all the PE, and forget trying to bend any sort of PE replacement for the superstructure itself. Wow. Ship modeling is a totally different beast! I'm in awe at the skill level you show between the aircraft, ships and figure painting. I'm definitely not that broadly skilled!

Beautiful!! I hope you display this with a magnifying glass nearby as the detail is amazing. CN

Thanks Peter. Can't wait to get the airbrush out again. Now that the canopy is 'fixed' the nose is close. Have assembled the Radar dome and will need to paint that before attaching it to the fuselage - trying to paint the undersides and rear will not be too easy once it is attached. Also need to get my butt working on the engines and get those cowlings painted so still some work to do. I'm still a little fearful of attaching the wing. On the 1/72 Cat the wing supports were too short by a few mm and it took a lot of work to keep the wing level. On this bird, I'm hoping the job will be easier because if not, the out of alignment will be glaring. Chris

Ahh, 'don't glow the parts'. I think way in the past I tried that, probably had them glowing, and boom - they broke when I tried to bend them... Thanks Rob!!

Gary, Really looking good and appreciate the tip - adding some blue! Never would have thought of that so definitely, like Peter, will be giving that a try. I hear you on the 'companies known for a low standard of accuracy". Definitely makes the building more difficult and less enjoyable. She's looking really good, however! A very interesting subject and one I would love to try and build sometime. Chris

Nice work and can't wait to see how the painting and weathering comes. There is so much detail to view!

Wow, stunning brass work Rob and love seeing your work process and the explanation is interesting and educational. One question - how do you know how hot to make the brass for your purposes? What kind of flame do you use (ok TWO questions!). I have not annealed any of the PE I've used (e.g. metal seat belts) so am interested to learn more. Superior work here. Fantastically interesting! Chris

Thanks gents! Took a break for a week to try and get caught up on other things, but hopefully will be a bit more consistent for a while. Nice to get back to the bench actually. Working on both ends of the plane tonight, After getting the resin tail attached and blended into the fuselage, time to work on the rudder. Cleaned up the join as that is where the pour plugs are (sorry no picture of that). As you can see, the fitting is VERY tight - too much so - and big gaps. There are a number of points that need to be cleaned up on that resin tail. Have not tried to fit the elevators yet. A little bit of sanding and things look a bit better. More sanding resulted in a better fit. After getting the rudder fitted to the tail and ready for paint, moved back to the nose of the Catalina. After taking a mm or two out of the pilots, the canopy fitted better, but was sitting proud towards the rear. Had to do a bit of sanding on the bulkhead behind the pilots. Now the canopy fits pretty much flush to the fuselage. The nose turret fits pretty well. The Eduard masks are only for the observation nose glass, not the 'bug-eye' nose turret. So this is just ZM tape cut to match the panels on the clear plastic. But yeah, hamfisted sanding the bulkhead and knocked over one of the pilots: Drunken pilot! Did some test fitting to see what the waist blisters would look like and how they would work with the windows retracted. This is going to work! There are not really any positive attachment points inside the blisters for the retractable window so it will be interesting to see how the windows will ultimately get attached. But there is plenty of clearance for the waist gunner. So that is fun - Should work out! And since the rudder can be dry-fitted, maybe its time to see the silhouette of the big bird. Not sure the resin tail makes that much of a difference without a direct comparison. Maybe will pull out the 1/72 Cat in the display case to compare. The tail looks almost as big as one on a Helldiver! More to come! Chris

Gentlemen, thank you!! In 1/48 scale the figures are so small so it is more showing the gist of what they pilots are doing. Thanks for the comments!!

Finally just bit the bullet, sat down, and figured it out. Its not 100% perfect, but with the canopy closing this will hide many of the imperfections. Win Win!! After spending too much time trying to fit the figure to the steering wheels, flipped the script. It actually worked out pretty close. The arm placement is kind of random but actually is probably more natural looking instead of having all four hands tightly on the wheels. The pilot on the right has had its head removed and turned slightly to his left - like he is looking out the window. They do sit a little proud in their seats, still. Hopefully with a bit of adjusting still will not have an issue getting the canopy to sit tight. Both steering wheels were actually a mm or two away from the bar so fabricated a piece to span the distance for the pilot, and just used some CA for the co-pilot's wheel. Doubt much of this will be seen anyway. Next step is to construct some tape shoulder belts to go from the seat to the pilot's shoulders. Not sure how much will be seen, but I think it will be visible through one of the many windows for the canopy. Also, getting the waist gunners set up. Still figuring out the window situation. But at least some progress, Finally!!

Peter, Now that is a beauty! Well done and none of the trials and tribulations took anything away from your excellent work. And you are STILL first to complete your build. Gotta love Dana Bell - the man knows his stuff. I agree with Mike - this should be the cover art picture. Excellent choice of background color, too. Really sets off the plane. Another build to be proud of. Congrats! Chris

Super work!! Love the PE, since I'll never do anything nearly as detailed (or tiny!).

Hmm, I will see about the fit, but leaving the 'window' off is certainly an option I had not considered - thanks for suggesting. Definitely the parts are way over scale and I agree with Rob that maybe just leaving them off is best. Peter - fitting the figures is giving me fits and definitely slowing me down. I'll sit down and fiddle with it, find that I have another variable to deal with and decide to hold off for a while. (for example, once the torso is attached to the legs, then it's a matter of attaching the arms so the hands are on the steering wheel(s), which have come off the steering column for better or worse). Thinking of starting another build but can't clear my head enough to figure out what to start next. Maybe tomorrow will bring more clarity and motivation.

Sasha, Beautiful and thanks for the updates. Your cockpits are amazing. Love the detail and your weathering is very well done. Very few people weather props well but you have cracked the code. Looks good. The black looks nice so far and there is a lot more surface detail than I thought for this kit. Thanks for sharing! Chris

Did some test fitting and will have two potential problems to address this weekend. First, not sure how to address the blister window. It slides up under the blister itself, but there are not any points to adhere the window to. I'll get some better pictures but the other problem is that I'm going to have to paint the window first, THEN assemble the window into the blister securing it to SOMETHING inside there, and then paint the blister. The second problem is fitting the pilots. Probably should have ground down the seats but may need to cut out some of the middle of the pilots (which will be easy since they are cut in half already). Test fitting showed the canopy fits onto the fuselage, and the pilots heads just barely touch or maybe just barely clearing the canopy overhead. Just need to make sure there is additional clearance for the engine controls which are mounted on the canopy roof. All of this has slowed down work on the Cat, for some reason. I COULD have masked and painted the wing insignia, but I like to spray all of the insignia at the same time to ensure color consistency. More to come!