Hello
guys, I'm here again as promised with an old Heller 1/48 Fiat G91 model,
coming from an Ebay auction for a few euro. Well, the quality of the kit
is really bad, the worst part is the cockpit and the seat, absolutely
without any detail. So, nice challenge !!
First
of all I decided to upgrade the ejection seat and the cockpit utilizing
only scratchbuilt accessories. So, safety belts are strips of a
thin lead foil, (coming from a wine bottle) all the hooks and
ejection commands are made with electrical wires of different diameters.
Also the cloche is a rigid copper wire. I added also the collimator,
built with 2 small metallic wires plus a drop of Kristal clear. In the end,
the result was not so bad and I decided to keep the canopy open, adding
the rear view mirror. Click on
images below to see larger images
Building
the rest of the model was not so difficult, considering that the kit is very
simple, with not too much putty was used. After a first airbrush painting with
Humbrol enamel and 2 coats of Future, I prepared for the decals,
absolutely terrible and with the colours out of register. Ok, no
problems. After all the decals were applied, a new coat of Future
and a weathering sessions utilizing oil colours in white petrol.
The
scratchbuilt items I added were the position lights (Kristal clear drop painted with a
permanent marker), the pitot (hypodermic needle + guitar string), the guns (Hypodermic
needle), the camera windows on the nose (squared hole + Kristal
clear).
The result is
not so bad, and overall I learned a lot of tricks building this model. And this
is the only positive thing in this product!! If you can, avoid it! Next model, a very old Matchbox Vickers Wellington, 5 euro in a old things market.
See you soon.
Franco
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