Tiger By The Tail: Part 2
With the lower wing and
tail assembly attached to the fuselage and the Tiger beginning to look like and
aeroplane on its gear, it was time to start planning the paint and decal
sequence. Using PolyScale Flat white, I sprayed the wing and tail surfaces that
would get the checkerboard treatment and the cowling.
This was masked off then the entire model was sprayed with PolyScale Deep
Japan Yellow which was as close to RCAF Trainer Yellow as I could get in acrylic
paint. The masks were removed and
all components were sprayed with my favourite Gloss coat..Not Future, but again
PolyScale.
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Decals were next applied to the
wings and tailplanes and I must say that Mike
Grant Decals go on beautifully. The mouth and eyes were added to the cowling and set aside.
If I were doing this again I would have Gloss coated the model before
proceeding with anything else..just to protect
the decals, which are very fragile.
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Next came the struggle to
attach the struts to the upper wing. The
cabane struts were glued in place, the fuel shutoff assembly added and
everything looked great. Until I
tried aligning the upper wing to the fuselage!
The 2.5 degrees dihedral in the upper wing had slowly sagged and with all
the interplane struts in place, the cabanes looked to be about 3/16 inch too
short..until I noticed the lack of dihedral.
The trusty razor saw along the fuel tank/wing root took care of the sag
and everything was glued up and set aside for a couple of days to harden
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During the drying time for the
fuselage/wing assembly, I started detailing the engine using photos of Bill
Orbeck’s Tiger as reference. Completion
of this chore was not as gratifying because
I noticed that the kit cowling was for the Brit version with no provision
for a Canadian cowling. At this
stage I said nuts!!! And closed up the cowling around my neat little Gypsy
engine.
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The canopy was tackled next. Polished and masked, I sprayed a couple of very light coats
of Alclad II directly onto the bare plactic..Note the very light coats.
Canopy handles attached, this was set aside while a Canadian exhaust
system was fabricated from plastic rod and tube..
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The cowling was next attached
to the fuselage and the rigging was started.
Initially I used stretched sprue, but not very impressed, I decided to
switch to .015 steel wire. This
went in very nicely..except for dropping each piece at least twice onto the Shag
Monster That Eats Everything! Having
predrilled all the rigging holes helped immensely.
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Next came the control cables to
the elevators and rudder..and here I found that
CA glue is only instant when you get it on your fingers.
This was frustrating to say the least. Next I fabricated the pitot/static
system from brass rod and attached it to the starboard interplane strut.
The fuel filler came next, then the fuel sight tube.
This was made from predrilled clear sprue which was stretched then
painted.
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The entire aircraft was then
sprayed with three coats, misted very lightly, of PolyScale Gloss Coat.
With this dried, I put the canopy on the Moth and attached the prop. The
last items required were the elevator and aileron counter balance weights.
These were made from airfoil shaped strut material that I had been
hoarding for many years, and repeated drops of MicroScale Krystal Kleer added
for the weights. These were then painted gloss black and the monster was
finished!!! After 3 months of daily
work, my old Tiger Moth was finished. Not
flawless, but certainly a fair reproduction of an airplane that I had owned so
many years ago.
Would I ever do a project like
this again? Probably not! It was too time consuming and at times very frustrating.
I hope that all of you on ARC enjoy my Tiger Moth.
Happy
Scratch building..Barney
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Matchbox Tiger Moth Part 1
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