Pacificwind's L2D3 'Tabby' Surrender Markings 1/100

[Rata]

Much loved forum member PacificWind has kindly given us a number of high quality re-colours (and re-sizing) of Scissors & Planes (Bruno) and Thai Paperwork (Nobi) designs.
A little while ago he gave us a 1/100 Showa/Nakajima L2D3 'Tabby' (lic built Douglas DC-3/C-47) of the IJNAF WWII. A Bruno design that was originally a 1/300 (I think) model.
He's now done the same model finished in the all-white paint with green crosses 'surrender markings' which were applied to a number of still operational Japanese aircraft after the official surrender.

It goes together the same as his his earlier version with no major problems to report so far. The only real area of concern is around the cockpit- the windscreen and side windows need careful alignment to look right.

Onto the wings tomorrow.

[PacificWind]

Pretty good.
Clean, smooth and precise so far. I'll be waiting for more.

[Falco]

Very clean... perhaps too clean!

[Rata]

Funny you should say that Falco- being a white model I'm terrified of getting smudges or fingerprints on it. So I've turned into Howard Hughes and washing my hands with way-too-much regularity!

[Vinalssergio155]

It is the bad of white, very delicate, good, there are no edges to paint. It looks very good, I also have it printed, I'll leave it waiting so I do not wash my hands so often haha. You're doing very well, as always.

[Rata]

Thanks Sergio. Clean is mean!

[Rata]

Rostered day off from work today so making a bit of progress on Tabby.

My own inkjet printer is useless so I do all my model prints at the local library's laser printer. The prints are good quality but only on standard 80gsm paper which is fine for small single engine jobs but not so much for bigger ones like this. I printed this one at an Officeworks chain store, and though a bit dearer, the paper is of much superior quality and a bit thicker- probably about 100gsm which has made building Tabby a heck of a lot easier.

The only time I use the drawn tabs is on fold-back (wing trailing edges) or right-angle applications. Butt edge joins are ALWAYS separate tabs a-la-Nobi. The pics show this at the dihedral break so prominent on the DC-3/L2D3.

I laminated the wing spar stubs onto thick card and marked in pencil the dihedral break to help alignment.

The wing roots where they go under the fuse at the leading edge needed cutting in to fit the fuse contours. No biggie, just needs time to trial-and-fit by cutting (snip snip!) a little at a time.

[PacificWind]

Nice work so far.

Originally Posted by Rata

Funny you should say that Falco- being a white model I'm terrified of getting smudges or fingerprints on it. So I've turned into Howard Hughes and washing my hands with way-too-much regularity!

Dirty Garry...

[Rata]

Made good headway today. Bit of a problem: the outer wing panels have a strange cut-in at the roots on the leading edges. Not sure why it's there but it shouldn't be so I just put a bit of scrap on the inside and trimmed to follow the correct contours.

I've found that not glueing the wingtips until the wings are actually on is a good way to ensure correct appearances and head off wing warps. I've done this on the last 3 or 4 models I've built and it's worked well on all of them. It also lets you poke around inside with a small paintbrush handle to smooth over glue joins etc.

Tailplanes needed a little bit of root trimming on the underside to get a good fit. Again, snip snip, trial and error.

No way the engine nacelles were going to double curve over the wings so I cut some small darts on the edges as shown which worked well.

Kacper has done a neat touch: the last two pics show the shadow of the over-painted hinomaru under the green crosses.

Hopefully will complete this model tomorrow.

[PacificWind]

Don't forget about the wing fillets!

Any ideas for stand and exhausts, G-man?