Birthday Boy

Only a few minutes after I brought the kit upstairs son arrived home from nursery school and he was sure happy to see his plane! Happy fifth birthday Andy!

Photo Gallery

Revealing the Pilot

With the final dull clear coat dry I proceeded to remove the mask from the canopy to reveal the pilot inside.

Final Clear Coat

Rushing to get the plane done for when Andy returns home from daycare I spray painted in my heated garage (with a air filter mask of course) a dull clear coat to seal in the decals and give the aircraft a more appropriate military look.

Propeller Installation

Tonight I installed the propeller and nose cone. I used sewing pins that had the ends with the plastic ball cut off and inserted it into the propeller blade. With part of the pin sticking out I inserted it into the plastic part of the shaft, applied some super glue and rotated the blades to the correct angle. Lastly, I glued the yellow nose cone Assembly of this kit is now complete!

Machine Guns!

Drilled three holes on each wing and inserted with glue 1 cm long brass tube that I cut. I prefer tubes over rods so that we can see inside the barrels. Will be painting them black once the glue dries. By accident one of the barrels went too far and fell into the wing. Unfortunately now if you shake the plane you can hear the small part rattle and there is no way to remove it without destroying part of the wing. Oh well...

Installing the Landing Gears

Added small pins to the top of each landing strut and with glue installed them into the wooden surface area of each landing bay area. I then proceeded to install the landing bay doors using some random objects to help keep them at the correct angle while the glue dries. Tomorrow I will apply some touch-up paint as I needed to cut and angle the landing bay doors in the tail section.

Installing the Tires

I drilled holes into the base of the wheel struts and used a rigid wire bent into an L shape to glue it into place. A simple technique that works.

Tail Landing Strut

The landing gear strut for the tail proved to be quite a challenge to build due to the multiple parts at various different angles. Like with the main landing struts I used wood and toothpicks and a lot of trial and error to get it to match the plans as close as possible as I really did not want to use the plastic part provided with the kit.

Main Wheel Struts

Built the main wheel struts out of wood using toothpicks for the torque arms and Tamiya masking tape above and below the aluminum painted pistons.