PBY-2 Catalina (1:50)

[SCEtoAUX]

Very good progress. The framing and cockpit are nice.

[Wyvern]

That cockpit is sharp!

Wyvern

[Captain Wildchild]

Progress update #1

I've read this thread a few days ago and decided to try out the technique and to build the fuselage for the Catalina in one piece, separate from the formers. Results are satisfactory so far, although the part around the cockpit is a bit chewed up; it was pretty easy to control the gluing this way. I also can't wait to see if it will match the bottom section of the plane.



Captain Wildchild, signing off =)

[Don Boose]

Looks very good. Excellent artisanship.

Don

[Richschindler]

Looking like a masterpiece in the making.

[Captain Wildchild]

Tail of the day:

[Don Boose]

Beautiful artisanship. Exceptionally smooth and clean construction.

Don

[Captain Wildchild]

Oh my, the problems begin Perhaps making the top plating in one piece was a bad idea; fitting around the turret and the cockpit proved very difficult. The lining of the waist gun section did not line up with the outer piece (quite significantly). This is not an issue for me since I plan for them to be closed.
The bigger issue is the fit of the waterline; there is quite a gap between the top plating and the black bottom section, while all parts fit snugly around the formers. I was paying special attention to keep my cutting very precise, so not sure where this error came from. I added the strip of plain white printer paper along the that joint, so the poor fit is not that noticeable even from a foot away in most parts.
However the end of the bottom section is a mess: the white pieces don't fit around the end of the black part. Also it became apparent that there is a slight warp in the formers. The rear half is off center relative to the front. I was aware that the formwork was kind of wonky, but decided to rely on the cutting and leave it. I should have trusted my gut to adjust it. Lesson learned ;p

Oh yeah, and the inside of the nose turret remains a mystery. There are no instructions on what to do, and the two strips that appear to be the inside of it don't really fit in there. This right now is the least of the worries, there will be a gun and a gunner in there, so barely any of it will actually be visible.

I was hoping to build a clean paper-only (no paint/patching) model, but it's not going to be this one No way am I rebuilding this, so the plan is to do the best I can in fixing those mishaps as they pop up and stick the finished model somewhere people can't look at it too close :p

[Captain Wildchild]

I have found out what went wrong. Came across this explanation while reading about an unrelated model (paraphrasing). The problem was with post-rescale printing. The width of the scanned A4 sheet is 210mm. A regular home printer can only print 200mm in width. However the page is not scaled proportionally, but squeezed width-wise only, thus distorting the shapes.

I have noticed that parts from the same page didn't fit properly, thus the error was not with scaling itself. After reading about the printer distortion, I went back to check and sure enough the parts were positioned perpendicular on the sheet.

This was after the frustrating and quite discouraging wing assembly. After that I gave up on keeping it clean and finished the rest in a couple of evenings.


The model is not presentable enough to keep as is, and patching it would be a huge hassle, I will probably damage it some more, weather and rust paint it, and have a little wreck photoshoot, something along these lines:


To be honest it is a bit of a relief, because it ended up larger than I expected - wing span of 25", and defending it from cats and a toddler would be problematic... After the photos I'll give it to them for demolition :p

[Wyvern]

I stil think you did a great job.

Wyvern