Ok - it has been some weeks since my last update, but I do have a pretty good excuse for it. Last weekend was my final Triathlon race for the summer season - a Half Ironman distance (70.3 miles or 113km) held in Geelong (just 20 minutes from where I now live). It's not my first half IM and it wasn't my best time but I am happy with progression I made over the summer given I have not trained/raced in the preceding 4.5 years (COVID etc...). I have finish line picture proof
Anyway - enough of the unimportant stuff. I am calling the He-51 done!
The last few bits and pieces were extremely fiddly and frustrating. Every time I looked at reference photos, I saw things that could/should be added to make the model look just that little bit better. All up I added things like the pilot step, a scratch pitot tube, a half scratched elevator control line tube, a scratched rear mirror and clear styrene windscreen - just lots of little details that go that bit further in making any model look just that bit more representative of the real thing.
Photos follow:
There were some more things I was thinking of adding/refining, but I am really keen to move onto the next project - so that is it.
A couple of observations about the old Classic Airframes kit. First up the plastic is now getting quite brittle, given it is a kit from the 1990's I suppose it is to be expected. The surface detail is great and the kit did not have excessive flash or mold seams. Where it did fall short was the warping of some of the larger parts (top wing and fuselage were the big ticket items here). This proved to be quite challenging, especially getting the upper wing on and properly aligned - if you look closely you will see it is not quite straight but the best I could do in the circumstances. Another shortcoming was the "scaling" of some of the smaller parts. In particular the windscreen, rear mirror and pitot tube seemed to be half a scale too big (somewhere around 1/40 would be my guess). For this reason I scratched all three. I am probably the happiest with the windscreen - I added a photo of the original so you can see how big and thick it was, were as the clear styrene one I made is much more delicate and closer to scale - it's not perfect, but still better than the kit part.
From the perspective of some skills picked up with this project - I am happy with how the rigging & aerials turned out. There are a couple of wonky bits, especially with the aerial, but I am pleased with how it all went. Not sure if I would use the same process on the next biplane I make - I think some more research and reading is required in this regard. I did also improve my masking efforts on this one. Some of the white circles are a bit "fluffy" around the edges but I think both the blue and the white area masking was reasonably successful. I also learned how to be more patient with the airbrush, not trying to get perfect coverage in only a single coat. This is my single biggest challenge when using it - the temptation is always to get a full covering on the first pass, which simply ends up flooding the surface with too much paint.
My thanks as always to anyone looking in on my projects. All feedback is appreciated and the inputs from you all help me make a better model each time. On to the next project!