Martin Monterey MR1

[PR19_Kit]

A major milestone passed today, I've glued the Anigrand canopy in place on its custom made bed of Presto putty and it seems to fit pretty well, I'm very pleased. This pic was taken only a few hours aftwerward so some of the PVA hasn't totally dried off yet, but I'd taped the canopy in place and had to take the tape off for the PVA to dry fully.

It'll need a bit of PSR at the top rear to fair it into the fuselage properly, but that shouldn't be too difficult (I hope...)

You may wonder what the silver patches are inside the top panels of the canopy. Well because the RAF were going to use the Monterey's in the Indian Ocean where it gets VERY hot, they demanded some sun shades over the crew. The USN had also discovered the oven-like properties of the original production Seamaster canopies and Martin developed the roll-up blinds to protect the crew. 

Actually they're small pieces of the outer wrappers from Ferrero Roche chocolates glued in place with a drop of PVA each, one fully open and the other rolled back. 

[TheChronicOne]

Reduce,reuse, recycle!  Neat idea! 

[NARSES2]

Neat work Kit

[DogfighterZen]

Looking good!

[PR19_Kit]

I rather generated a massive thread drift on here earlier, and thankfully Chris managed to generate a mew thread for me about Mrs_PR19's woes.

Anyway, I'm making some progress on the Monterey's beaching trolley, painting up all the extra bits and pieces that I built onto it, and what a fiddly job THAT is. So far I've done the airbags and their pipework, the tyres and wheels, the buoyancy chamber lift jacks as well as those for the 'landing gear' and their pipework too.

I've got to get out the one bristle brush to do the hydraulic and pneumatic fittings on the ends of the pipes, give the main frame a coat of gloss and generate some typical RAF decals of the period. I expect they'd have given each trolley a UK registration number, despite them being so huge they'd never have fitted on any UK roads.  And I need to paint the buoyancy chambers yellow, they're currently undercoated in matt white.

A few more days should have the trolley done and dusted.

[PR19_Kit]

I finished painting the trolley at around 0230 this morning.  (I always do my best work in the small hours...)

It'll need some varnishing and a few decals and then it'll be done at last. Pics in a day or so, and hopefully you'll be suitably amazed. 

[Gondor]

I was amazed at the work when it was only in it's primer 

Gondor

[PR19_Kit]

It looks a lot better now, but you can't see all the underlaying work of course.

Decals going on this evening.

[PR19_Kit]

At LAST the trolley is finished! 

All painted and decaled in its radically different RAF scheme of RAF Blue/Grey with yellow flotation tanks. The RAF in their wisdom decided that the 32 beaching trollies delivered with the 30 aircraft Monterey order were road vehicles, and so they carried number plates fore and aft! This despite the fact that the trollies were far too large for any British road, but as most of them spent their operational lives in the middle of the Indian Ocean this mattered not a jot. 







Three general end and side views




This is the front, showing the main gear suspension, the foreward air bags and the lift jack for the starboard flotation chamber




And this is the rear end showing the side air bags and the pneumatic feed pipework for the air bags

[kitnut617]

     

absolutely fantastic ----   

OK the aircraft had better be top notch now Kit   

[Steel Penguin]

Kit that is a thing of beauty and wonder on its own    it almost deserves to be shown separately to the  Monterey 

[PR19_Kit]

Thanks gentlemen, and you're dead right, I'd better get on with the aircraft to sit in it now!

Back to the dreaded panel line re-scribing. 

[Rheged]

I can see the trolley  and aircraft getting two separate Whiffie nominations, and deserving both!

[loupgarou]

I can see the trolley  and aircraft getting two separate Whiffie nominations, and deserving both!

I too was thinking the trolley deserves a Whiffie nomination on its own.

[PR19_Kit]

When I took the pics the 'satin' varnish was still a bit wet, and looking pretty shiny, but I expected  it to matt off a bit.

WRONG!

It's still shiny now and it's dry.......... 

I DO wish they'd get the correct title for these various varnishes on the tin, bottle or whatever, or at least have some sort of consistency in the mix. This was Humbrol Satin Cote, that I've used before with some success, but now it looks as if I'll have to do it over again with some real satin varnish.

I can't spray it as some of the detail stuff needs to remain in the gloss, matt or satin finish as it is now.

It'll end up 1/2" larger all over than before I painted it!