Well,
it only took me a year but I finally finished this beastie. I used Falcon's vac-form
canopy to convert Academy's T-6 into an RCAF 402 'City of Winnipeg' squadron
Harvard Mk.lll. The long exhaust is Contrail tubing detailed with stretched
sprue and a bit of stainless steel tubing for the heater inlet. The ADF
'football' is from an old Heller T-6 as is the engine which I thought was a bit
better than Academy's. The engine was detailed with brass wire for the pushrods
and ignition harness and fine wire for the sparkplug leads.
The
kit propeller isn't bad but lacks hub detail because it is meant to have a
spinner on. The missing detail was added using thin slices of plastic tubing and
rod. Canopy frames are painted decal strip which very nearly drove me mad by the
end. Next time (Next time?!? Bahahahaha....!!) I'll do a Mk. lV - less framing!
In retrospect I don't think the Falcon canopy was meant to be open as the
section behind the pilot is too small (it should be the same width as the
sliding part), but I'm not losing any sleep over it. Nor am I waking up
screaming over the (I think) slightly short landing gear legs.
I
stretch formed clear plastic over the
leading edge of the wing from that Heller Harvard (I knew that wing would come
in handy!) for the landing light covers and used MV lenses for the lights.
Naturally
I managed to break off the tailwheel whilst cleaning it up so I reinforced it
with brass rod and took the opportunity to turn it around backwards (eat your
heart out Linda Blair) as it often castors around this way when Harvards are
parked. Paint is Xtracolour Roundel Blue and Humbrol Insignia Yellow which is an
almost perfect match for the colour chip in IPMS Canada's "Canadian Colours
Guide". Not being a proponent of the so called “scale colour” theory
(don’t even get me started!) I didn’t lighten the paint at all. So there...!
Post
war Harvards seemed to be kept pretty clean so I kept weathering to a minimum.
Brown and gray pastels were used for a
bit of exhaust staining and some dirt on the wingwalks and tires.
Andy
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