old stuff

[rjccjr]

Hi All;

No! This is not the old Airfix, out of the bag, 1/72 Defiant. It's actually a pretty accurate cottage industry Vacuform kit that arrived in a kit pal swap. There was also an A6M-21 in the bundle, but my friend kept it because it was more accurate that anything on the market at that point in time. Photo 1r is a top shot. A newly acquired Passhe VSL airbrush was used for the paint job. You can tell immediately by the shape of the fuselage and wings that it isn't the commercial kit. The absence of rivets is another give away. photo 2r is a shot of the underneath. At the onset of WWII a barrage of often conflicting color regulations was issued. Fighters operating over England were not to have roundels on the underside, but differing markings and colors were in profusion. This particular machine had no markings at all. Photo 3r shows that the transparency of the glass has yellowed since the early 1980s. Photo 4r shows the paint job has held up pretty well. Some weathering was done with aluminum paint applied using a very dry brush technique. Photo 5r is a starboard profile. Having no idea what type of plastic was used for the canopy, the only adhesive that would attach it to the fuselage was an epoxy, which was over applied. On the other hand, even after forty one years there is no way that canopy is ever going to come off. Although the air scoop is off center, the last photo shows the defiant was a pretty clean aircraft. Who knows how good it would have been without the weight and drag of that turret and forward firing guns.

Regards, rjccjr