Reviews - David Heck
 

 
Home
Welcome
Meetings & Events
Models for Baghdad
Galleries
Articles & Reviews
Resources
Reference
Contact Us

This balsa kit is made by Guillow and has an impressive 28" wingspan. It took around four months of building, working on it off and on, and it was the very first time I ever covered a model using the heat-sensitive plastic covering! It came out very good considering I was learning as I covered it (no practice beforehand). The decals had problems so I had to use Elmer's Glue for the roundels on the wings and the fuselage, and the rudder stripes I hand-painted on after the decals shattered when trying to use super glue to tack them on (thus the use of Elmer's afterward LOL). It took all the clay I had in the kit - plus a penny - to get it to balance out for flight.

However, I used two types of super glue - the runny stuff in the blue bottles and the gel in the red ones - to hold the vinyl wood-substitute wing struts into the wings and fuselage, and this combination somehow made the vinyl brittle enough to shatter when landing in the snow (March). I recommend being careful with this kit and using some model airplane plywood to make new wing and landing gear struts , and pitch the vinyl ones. I didn't get any balsa deforming with the iron-on covering either (Hangar 9's Ultracote, Piper Yellow color), and  I used regular plastic model paint to paint the parts that I thought were metal on the real thing.

 

   
 
Aleutian Tigers | IPMS Member| Fairbanks, Alaska 99701
aleutiantigers@hotmail.com
 

Title image Copyright © Steve Crampton

Copyright © 2006. Aleutian Tigers. All rights reserved.