Ricks' Ramblings

[Pellson]

I have to say that the thought you obviously are putting in before leaving a built model, and the quality with which you complete your builds actually make it all but annoying that you haven't more regularly written and shot your builds in a blog like this. These are really good! 

[Rick Lowe]

Thank you, Sir! I appreciate that. 
It's simply procrastination and being my own worst critic.
And the fact I've only had a laptop since just after Christmas...
But after all, I model for me and if others like my stuff, that's a bonus.

On the laptop issue, the fix turned out to be simply turning off the keyboard number pad function... 
Ah well, I Know This Now...

[DogfighterZen]

That Mustang...    

[Rick Lowe]

That Mustang...    

Yeah, they are Purty, sure enough.

[Rick Lowe]

This one's a two-fer; all will be revealed in due course.

1/48 Piper Seneca  **Real World**

I was needing another Christmas present for my Brother-in-Law and, having exhausted the out-of-the-box options for 1/48 light aircraft kits, I had to think further afield.
I did some reading and found the basic Piper Cherokee had been stretched, but this was too similar to the previous model. I then saw the Seneca and figured the kit could be adapted with an increase in wingspan and a couple of new engine pods.
The basic Beechcraft Bonanza could also be converted into a Twin Beech, so those would be some nice projects and keep the Present Stash stocked for a couple of years.

On one of my jaunts to Auckland, I was in a model store and found some second-hand kits of the Bonanza and Cherokee, so that was that sorted.
On opening the Cherokee box, I found it had two wing sprues, so that made life a whole lot easier!
I also did some more looking and pondering, and saw that the Bonanza fuselage could be used for the Seneca, which would give me the required fuselage stretch without major work.

I cut off the Bonanza tail end with the tail surface slots and the matching part of the Cherokee, and after assembling, detailing and painting the interior, attached the Bonanza tail cone to the fuselage. It needed a bit of reprofiling, but nothing some plastic card and a bit of file work didn't fix. I then cut out a slot for the new side windows and found some clear school rulers and set squares, heated and bent them to the correct profile. After gluing in place and filing and sanding to the correct curvature they were restored to clarity. I made up side and top profiles for the new nose and packed the spaces with putty, with a card box for the new nosewheel bay. This was filed and sanded to the correct profile and the fuselage was basically done.

Both sets of wings were assembled and the end sections from one were attached into the second, to give the required increase in span. I used a nice, big brass bar for the main spar, to give the new wing a decent amount of support. Notches were cut in the leading edge for the new engine nacelles and after scratchbuilding two, these were fixed in position. New main undercarriage bays were cut in.

The fin had the leading edge removed and a new L-shaped section attached, to give the increase in chord and height; this was filed and sanded to the correct airfoil profile. Wing and fuselage were mated and filling/filing/sanding occurred.

The main undercarriage was lengthened and a new nose wheel assembly found from spares. New u/c doors were scratched for all 3 wheels.
Final assembly, little details, etc were added.

The propellers were from the spares box, with 1/72 bomb noses for the spinners.

The windows were masked and the model was sprayed white; flaws were corrected and it was resprayed. Further masking happened and the yellow was brushed using GW paint. Detail painting and a clear gloss coat and she was done.

Base is another chunk of MDF sprayed black.*

All of which left sufficient parts for a Beechcraft conversion...


*No it's not, at least in these shots... that's the lid of the box I delivered it in... *sigh*

[Rick Lowe]

More wips...

These are actually the Bay Super V on the go, must learn to correctly label my photos...

[Rick Lowe]

1/48 Bay Super V  **Real World**

With only 9 made, this is a rare beast indeed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_Super_V

http://www.airbum.com/articles/ArticleSuperVTwinBonanza.html

I was going to model a Beechcraft Baron, after finding a conversion article on Hyperscale, but it was a sight more work than a standard Twin Beech looked to entail. I then found there were sufficient small details that would have to be amended, which made the Twin Beech more difficult than I desired to tackle. On looking further, I found the Bay Super V which was really just a cargo nose and a couple of engines added onto the basic Bonanza design. The earliest versions even used the same size tail surfaces.

This was essentially the same conversion work as the Seneca, but there was no increase in the wingspan.
The fuselage was short, so the Cherokee parts were a good substitute.
Windows were, again, clear school rulers & set squares heated and bent to shape, glued into a slot in the fuselage, filed to shape and restored to clarity.

The nose was again from card profiles and putty, the engine pods scratchbuilt and the propellers were from the Bonanza and Cherokee kits with, again, 1/72 bomb noses for spinners. Undercarriage was from the spares box.

The model was sprayed white and after masking, the spraycan red was applied. I found some stick on characters for the Real World registration, which was all I could find at the time at the correct size, and gave the finished model a gloss coat.

And Done.

*Though the Baron conversion could still happen, should I run out of other options...

No photos of this one as yet; it would seem I had them on the camera I lost. This will be addressed in due course.
Though some of the wip shots in the Seneca post are actually this one, so at least I have some of them.

[NARSES2]

Looking good 

[kerick]

Very nice kitbashing! We don't get many civilian builds so this is a great change of pace.

[Rick Lowe]

Thanks, Guys. 

[Rick Lowe]

1/35 Sdkfz 247 (4-rad) Armoured Command Car **Real World**

This vehicle was developed just prior to WW2 as an Armoured Command Car for senior officers, an improved version of the earlier 6-wheeled vehicle that was based on the Krupp truck chassis.

This version was based on the standard 4X4 Heavy Car Chassis, as also used for the Horch & Steyr personnel carriers and (reversed) for the Sdkfz 222/223/260 family of Armoured Cars.

Not made in large numbers - various sources state under 100 made in two production runs - it served early in WW2 but was quickly replaced by the Sdkfz 250/3 Half Track, which had better off-road capabilities.
There are photos of some soldiering on until quite late, 1942 or so, presumably in rear echelons or for internal duties.

The model is based on the Tamiya Sdkfz 223, which is what I had, though the '222 would work just as well.
I found side view in the old Milsom book (mentioned in the References section) and a set of plans on the net (although there are some slight differences between them - different production runs or even different vehicles? I don't know), as well as some images from Google.

I drew up a true-view of the lower angled hull sides and cut them from .5mm card. These were laminated onto the existing hull sides, with the kit's rear becoming the front end, as this vehicle was front-engined.
The excess portions of the kit sides were cut away and I was now ready to make the upper hull.
This was mainly made from close observation of photos and a goodly amount of 'guesstimation', but I think it has come out fairly accurately.

The main problem was that this is an open-topped vehicle, so little in the way of internal bracing/strengthening was able to be used and such that was, had to be cut away later.
Still, the pieces generally held each other in place until the glue had set.

Internal detail was taken from various sources;
a '250 for the firewall/dash, steering wheel, seats, radio unit, rear seat/stowage bin and front vision blocks;
a '251 for front vision hatches and MG swing-arm mount;
the '223 width poles, mudguards (front units modified) and lights (on scratch brackets);
Tichy Train Group bolt heads on the nose and front sides;
various sources for weapons, tools, fittings.

Unfortunately the vehicle's hatches were larger than the '223 ones, so I couldn't use the kit's and had to scratchbuild new ones, but was able to use the kit hinges and interior catches.

I found after I'd cut out the hatch openings that the original ones weren't actually symmetrical, so had to fill one and cut a new opening - more annoying than difficult.

The kit spare wheel was missing, so that had to be built - again, not difficult; an X of card with a strip wrapped around the sides and a circle on top, the edges filed off, and tissue glued on to depict the canvas cover.

Time for Paint. The base coat was Tamiya Panzer Grey acrylic, with brushed on lines of Testors Green enamel over, followed by an overspray of Tamiya's Panzer Yellow acrylic to represent a vehicle serving in Russia, 1943.
The '223 kit number plates were used and artist's acrylics were used for weathering.

Final detailing was initiated; headphones, a clipboard and various bits of stowage were cobbled up or sourced from spares.
The model was attached to a base consisting of an MDF plaque, papier mâché groundwork painted with the same acrylics used for the weathering, and Johnson's Klear puddles.

The side hatches and mg mount were installed, though the latter was left removable for transport, and final fiddly bits sorted.

Mistakes?

We all make them. Aside from the Side Hatch issue already mentioned, I didn't find the plans online until the main body was basically built and had gone too far along to fix any discrepancies without remaking the whole thing, so I decided I was happy enough with how it looked to leave it as is.
The kit is some 5mm shorter in the wheelbase than Tamiya's own Horch Heavy Car kit, even though in real life they shared the same chassis.
My model is an additional 5mm shorter in the body than it should be, but it looks enough like a '247 for me - especially as I wasn't going to play the 'resin game'.

Interior fitting of the actual vehicle was left up to the unit it was issued to, so (within reason) there are a lot of options. I went with the fit I saw in an online image, but with some additional 'guesstimation' of other bits that seemed logical and what I saw in other command/reconnaissance vehicles.


Is it Accurate? Not entirely.
Am I happy with it? Yes.
Bottom line, I had fun with it.

References:

German Armoured Cars of WW2 by John Milsom

Plans and photos from a Google Image search.

Note: there are a couple of reenactors vehicles out there based on Land Rover chassis, but I'm not convinced of their accuracy - they seem to replicate some of the inaccuracies of the old Sovereign 2000 resin kit and are probably more approximations than 100 percent accurate replicas. Though that said the owners are probably more than happy with them, so to each their own.

Kits used:

Tamiya: Sdkfz 223 - chassis/running gear/lower hull, most of the detail parts (thanks go to Tor Riley for providing it)

            Sdkfz 251 - front vision hatches, mg swing-arm mount

Airfix: Sdkfz 250 - most interior fittings
(though having seen the Zvezda Sdkfz 251 Command kit's radio, I would say use that as it's much nicer and more complete.)

Various sources: Tools, Stowage, Weapons.

[Rick Lowe]

And some completed shots...

[Old Wombat]

Nice!

[NARSES2]

That's come out well. Particularly like the camouflage   

[Pellson]

That's good work!