Orlik Savoia Marchetti S.M. 79 Sparviero

**Roddo** · #1 05-21-2008, 10:07 AM

This is my first build thread so wish me luck.

I bought this kit from Old Troll when he held his half-a-buck-a-page-sale a couple of months back. I had a good look when it first arrived and then put it at the back of my work desk while I worked on other models.

I thanked Old Troll for the models he sold me the other day and he told me to enjoy what he sold me and post pictures ....so thats what I'll do. I'm going to enjoy building this SM79 and I'll post pictures of the build.

I'm going to build this at 1:20 upscaled from 1:33 (165%) so again wish me luck.

I've built a metric scale cube and got the lamination thickness for the frames sorted and put some of Part 1 together. This is the floor of the cockpit. The parts beneath the floor are the supports for the wing spars where they enter the fuselage. The part stuck in the floor of the cockpit is put there to show how I got the thickness for the spars and frames right ie combined card till I got a tight fit. The spar and frame thickness is 1.5mm (1/16th). I couldn't understand the "English" instructions to find out how thick the laminating thickness had to be (finish the thickness at 1mm or add the paper to 1mm) something about 1mm. One thing is for sure 1.65 x 1 mm was going to be too thick.

This model has a lot of detail and lots and lots of framing and spars. This makes it ideal for upscaling.

Anyone got some photos of the inside of the cockpit. I searched the web and pretty well drew a blank. Lots of great footage on Youtube.

**Don Boose** · #2 05-21-2008, 10:26 AM

Another of my favorite airplanes, so I am delighted to see this build thread appear. Best wishes for the construction. This is going to be BIG model when you are finished.

Don

**bclemens** · #3 05-21-2008, 10:29 AM

Good luck, Roddo! Looking forward to seeing this develop.

**dansls1** · #4 05-21-2008, 10:50 AM

Cool - look forward to this build. If you need any extra reference, there is a build thread here on kartonbau.de in German (but with pictures

).
Dan

**Roddo** · #5 05-21-2008, 05:10 PM

Thankyou for the encouragement guys.

I love big planes ....you get something really significant at the end. I've put an 80% complete Halinski F6F-3 Hellcat on hold while I build this model. See how it dwarfs my A4 cutting board.

Thank you Dan. I read that thread and will sort those errors as best I can. I can make parts to patch any model errors. But at this stage its hard to say where the problem resides with the model or with the modeler.

I scanned the A3 card and paper sheets of the original at 600dpi and 24 bit colour and am printing the parts at 165% on 200gsm card on an inkjet printer. Compare the original to the 165% prints and finished part 1k. The reproduction of the green is not great but the resolution and detail are very well preserved. I wonder what the interiors of the planes were painted? I'll adjust the colour of the skin to a perfect match but the interior I'm not too concerned about and am happy with the pastelly green.

The instrument panel is another component of part 1. Note the double layering of card with hole cuts to reveal the instrument faces below in my component 1k. I sandwiched a thin sheet of clear plastic between the layers but it only looks like glass when it catches the light from certain angles. I doubt you will see this in the finshed model.

**Don Boose** · #6 05-21-2008, 06:59 PM

That's an impressive beginning.

Don

**Roddo** · #7 05-24-2008, 06:19 AM

Got a new print head from Empire Office Machines, San Bernardino, CA so my colour problem is all fixed up. Thankyou USA.

For the parts in Step 1, I had to trim most to get them to the same width to ensure the sides turn out flush. For example, I trimmed part 1f back to the thickness of part 1k. These parts and other should all be the same width.

I've put most of the parts in Step 1 together except for the sides and the bottom. A little extra was to line the inside of the frames with a thin stip of card rather than colour them with paint or felt tip pen. This is really easy to do and looks really good. I also added some extra card (see red arrows) a strip to better support and straighten up the floor and a couple of strips where the horizontal frames meet verical frames without any notches.

I'm going to put all of the cockpit parts in before the sides go on this is out of step with the kit but its a lot easier to do this way. And I'd also like to put the top on the cockpit to make sure I've figured out the cockpit gap problem in andreask's thread on kartonbau.de.

The problem I'm talking about is a gap in the upward extent of the sides and the downward extent of the cockpit cover. I think andreask made a mistake when he mounted the cockpit sides part 1 and 1a low relative to part 1h. I've included his picture that shows where he made the mistake. The floor line must be maintained in this model and to achieve this you have to increase the length of the let-in for parts 1 and 1a in part 1h, seen at the back of this picture. There appears to be a problem in the kit. I extended the let in on mine and think I've got this one solved. Thanks to andreask's build thread.

The fuselage below the cockpit is a piece of thick flat card that bends up just before the frame at the front in my second picture. This is technically hard to do at this scale because the card is really thick and I'll have to cut across the back of the card lots and lots so that it will bend without creasing. Plank bending technique from wooden boat building.

Did some one say this was going to be big....it is already.

**Don Boose** · #8 05-24-2008, 08:36 AM

Looks like a good beginning.

Don

Zathros · #9 05-26-2008, 11:35 AM

Nice job. The cockpit looks great!

**Roddo** · #10 05-27-2008, 06:38 PM

Thankyou for the encouragement its very much appreciated.

Some of the cockpit parts are coming together. Two boxes (part A10) on the cockpit wall to the outside of the pilots legs and a control consul between the seats (parts A23 and A24). The control consul located immediately below the instrument panel and between the pilots legs (parts A2 + A4 + controls), a great part. The pilot seats in what looks like fine Italian leather (parts A28 to A31). These would look good in my lounge room.

I think I got the laminate thickness for the 1mm wrong (this is the bulk of the laminating in this model). It should be 1.65mm (1/16th) or more. I made it thinner than this using the method outlined above which works spot-on for Halinski models however for this model I think the marked up for the tab slots is narrower than the tab thickness. The markups on the cockpit wall where the frames go is the same width as the markup for the tab slots and again is probably narrower than the frame thickness. Not to worry so far very happy with everything I've done.

The cockpit parts are really interesting and fun to make. There are lots of great cockpit parts to come. I don't know about you guys but I'm always happier with the bits than the skin. I think getting great skin fit is an art.