1/48 Classic Airframes Boeing P-12E (2 Viewers)

[Grant Barr]

This next build is an old(?) Classic Airframes kit of the Boeing P-12E. Unless you have an old Aurora kit, this is basically the only game in town when it comes to 1/48 scale versions of this aircraft. I did build the Matchbox 1/72 scale kit of this aircraft back when Adam was a boy, but my eyes and fingers just can't cope at the smaller scales these days. Minicraft/Hasegawa do have one in 1/32, but I don't have enough space for the big scale stuff.

As you would expect with a short-run kit (and as the makers helpfully state on their instructions), there will be lots of cleaning up of parts, dry fitting and scratching up enhancements/replacements/fixes along the way. After looking closely at the sprue trees, I think that the clean-up and fitting work will form most of the time I spend putting this one together.

So, what do I get for my hard-earned cash?

The excellent box art is from the late Don Greer and pictures an aircraft from the same squadron as that I built with the Matchbox kit so many years ago.

The instructions are basic, with guidance on the placement of parts a bit "arbitrary". Thankfully I have been able to source quite a good number of old photos (mostly from the Boeing website) which provide excellent real-world detail on what goes where on the aircraft.

As for the parts themselves, if you zoom in a bit on the sprues, you will see that the moldings are a bit "blurry" around the edges and there are a lot of mold seams and flash to be dealt with. The other thing I really noticed was the massive mold fill point "lugs" on the inside of the wings, fuselage, and engine cowl. Will need to get the trusty Dremel out to deal with those.

Also worth noting is the inclusion of a comment in the instructions in step 5, where the top wings are installed, advising that the outboard struts and the cabane struts are molded too long and need to be shortened by up to 6mm (for the outboard struts – less for cabane). This does seem to be perhaps a bit excessive, but I have sourced some 1/48 scale line drawings to help me with fixing this issue. However, I am still worried about how this will impact the angle of the diagonal brace between the forward and rearward struts. Will need to think this one through a bit before proceeding – measure twice / cut once!

More to come - will be slowly progressing this kit over the next few months. Thanks for stopping by!

 

[Wurger]

 

[Crimea_River]

This one will need a positive attitude with the end goal in mind!

 

[jimmaas]

Errr.....there's an upcoming P-12 in 1/48 coming from Clear Prop ( or Dora Wings, I forget which). Don't bin the Classics Airframes kit though; the new kit doesn't have the same headrest so you may want to cross-kit.

 

[Grant Barr]

Errr.....there's an upcoming P-12 in 1/48 coming from Clear Prop ( or Dora Wings, I forget which). Don't bin the Classics Airframes kit though; the new kit doesn't have the same headrest so you may want to cross-kit.

Interesting! I have a couple of P-12E's and F4B-4's so it looks like I might have some new options opening up.

Will keep on with this build - bizarrely I am quite enjoying the challenge this kit is presenting. Nothing fits properly, but forcing it to do so is quite satisfying...

 

[Grant Barr]

Before beginning, one last item to be resolved was the final colour scheme. It was very tempting to go with one of the colour schemes provided in the kit, being the 27th​ PS of the 1st​ PG based at Selfridge Field, Detroit in 1935. This is an aircraft from the same unit that the 1/72 Matchbox kit depicted and would be a nostalgic build. Certainly, the kit decals look to be in quite good condition and could be used.


Tempting, but I think I will go down another path. I have a sheet of Model Alliance decals – Wings of Stars Pt1, which I bought for another project. It just happens that this set has a rather nice representation of a Wheeler Field, Hawaii based aircraft from 19th​ PS of the 18th​ PG. I think this scheme will make an awesome addition to my growing collection of "yellow wings" pre-WWII aircraft.


The MA decals are printed by Cartograph, Italy and seem to be nice and thin and all the colours are well within register. I'll be curious to see how well they go on when it comes to their application.

 

[fubar57]

Just found this. Looking forward to it Grant

 

[Crimea_River]

Good decision on the decals. I think those kit ones, despite their looks, could well disintegrate once they hit water.

 

[Grant Barr]

Thanks guys - getting into the swing of this one now.

On to the actual building process. As normal, the build starts with the cockpit which is basically all in resin. In the photo of the resin parts in the previous post, you may note that the resin is very thin in places and there are broken edges all over each part. This resin seems to be extremely brittle; you can break off corners and edges just with a fingernail.
This was quite noticeable with the rudder pedals, so I elected to fashion a couple of replacements from styrene bits and pop them in front of the damage resin molded bits. Not technically accurate, but you won't even properly see them once the fuselage gets buttoned-up.


I was of two minds when it came to the assembly of the cockpit tub. The instructions indicated it could be made first and then inserted into the joined fuselage halves. Dry testing indicated this was most definitely not the case! I also tested assembling the tub and fitting it to one side of the fuselage, this worked well for once side but not the other. I settled on fitting the tub side walls to the fuselage halves and then made sure the front/back/bottom of the tub would fit properly when the halves were eventually joined. It was a lot of tedious fitting and shaping but I eventually got it to fit right.


The other key task was to cut and fit some styrene lugs to the fuselage to facilitate a more accurate fit once the fuselage halves are closed. Offering up the two halves indicated that there is a bit of warping in the LH half and getting all the surfaces and panel lines matched up will be a challenge.
When I went to add the instrument panel to the collection of cleaned up parts for cockpit assembly, I was disappointed with the quality of the piece. As you can see from the photo the kit part is poorly defined and when I placed into the cockpit it appeared to be slightly under scale. This meant scratching up a replacement from two pieces of 0.13mm styrene, with the top piece having holes punched through in the right places and sizes to represent the instruments. It's not perfect by any measure, but I think it looks much better than the molded kit part.


Having all the relevant cockpit parts assembled and ready for installation I managed to put down some semi-gloss black over an aluminium undercoat.


I'm happy enough with how the cockpit has turned out. Given you can only view it via the cockpit opening, which is quite limited, I think it will pass muster.

The other task I completed was to add some locating lugs for the horizontal stabilizers. The set up out of the box lacked any "positive" method to locate the stabilizers accurately and securely. For each side I drilled some 2mm holes into the fuselage location points and the ends of the stabilizers. I then inserted some short lengths of 2mm styrene rod into the stabilizers that will see them nicely located onto the fuselage as can be seen in the dry fit for the final photo.


That's about all I have for now. Thanks for dropping by!

 

[Wurger]

 

[Vic Balshaw]

Almost missed this one Grant. Nice!

 

[Gnomey]

Good work so far!