This was an
old Academy kit from before the company became Minicraft. The parts had a
lot of flashing and mold release marks. Not counting the masking and
painting, about half of the work was restoring the parts and the other half was
adding scratch built details to hopefully make the model more realistic looking.
I wish there were more models available of nice, everyday type private aircraft
that we can see at any airport or fly ourselves on the weekend.
For scratch building
details, the landing and nav lights are of epoxy or glue with chrome foil
backing for brilliance. The windows were glued in, sanded flush and then polished
back to clear to attempt to give a realistic flush effect and clear up the
defects and waves molded in. The front gear has a small piece if chrome
foil on the oleo strut to imitate the actual chrome finish. Foil was also used
on the propeller spinner and for the silver and gold Beech emblem on the
right fuselage side. Many other small aircraft details were added, perhaps
not worth mention. Pictures provided guidance for the painted details such as
the black rubber wing to fuselage seal, the front gear detail, the non skid
custom mixed paint on the wing and step and the instrument panel details.
Fortunately the
decal sheet provided has slanted round edge numerals which is a popular and
attractive font on private aircraft. I then searched the web for a good
looking paint job that would accept the white numerals and not have too much
small detail that would be too difficult to reproduce in 1/48th scale. The
paint scheme chosen is a vintage 1977 to 1979 V-35B Bonanza version paint
scheme with my own selection of home mixed metallic blue and silver grey
colors.
John
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