Dave Goessling
Airman
This model was a 25 year "shelf queen". It's the 1979 boxing of the kit. I know I built one back in the day when it came out in the 60s, but I'd certainly forgotten how well-engineered and actually challenging it is. (Maybe that's why I put it aside so long ago!)
All brush painted, but the yellow is the raw plastic. Not perfect, but it looks OK from some angles.
You really have to follow the instructions in order: it's like a ship in a bottle.
You have to assemble, paint >and decal< the fuselage first in order to apply all the decals properly. Ditto the upper wing: it would be really tough to paint the stripes (I used decals) and apply the roundels after assembly. Since I decided to mostly rig it (I didn't do the cabane strut rigging), that meant I had to figure out all the measurements and little holes to drill way ahead of time. The old plastic was a bit brittle, thus the broken cabane strut. Which, of course is key to getting the upper wing alignment correct. Actually, that's awesome Monogram engineering: when done correctly it makes for automatically correct alignment! Genius! And of course you're gonna want to mask and paint those wheel pants ahead of time too...
So, all of that means you then have to handle all the painted and decaled subassemblies while doing final assembly. Very stressful!
Glutton for punishment, now I want the other 1/72 Hawks! These kits were way, way ahead of their time!
All brush painted, but the yellow is the raw plastic. Not perfect, but it looks OK from some angles.
You really have to follow the instructions in order: it's like a ship in a bottle.
You have to assemble, paint >and decal< the fuselage first in order to apply all the decals properly. Ditto the upper wing: it would be really tough to paint the stripes (I used decals) and apply the roundels after assembly. Since I decided to mostly rig it (I didn't do the cabane strut rigging), that meant I had to figure out all the measurements and little holes to drill way ahead of time. The old plastic was a bit brittle, thus the broken cabane strut. Which, of course is key to getting the upper wing alignment correct. Actually, that's awesome Monogram engineering: when done correctly it makes for automatically correct alignment! Genius! And of course you're gonna want to mask and paint those wheel pants ahead of time too...
So, all of that means you then have to handle all the painted and decaled subassemblies while doing final assembly. Very stressful!
Glutton for punishment, now I want the other 1/72 Hawks! These kits were way, way ahead of their time!
