A Moth, a Moth and another Moth

[Darius at Home]

...Metal, Gipsy and Cirrus to be exact.

I couldn't resist these when I saw them listed at Hannants and having received them I decided to build all three simultaneously - well sort of.

The kit parts are reasonably well detailed but being A-Model the sprue gates are many and all attach to awkward positions leading to the need for lots of clean-up - not as bad as a Battleaxe kit thank goodness but still a bit of a chore.

The plastic is much like the sort you get with ICM kits - a bit "flaky" in that you can never manage to sand it down to a really smooth surface.

The fit of the cockpit parts is a bit hit and miss but some dry fitting and trimming helps.

The engine firewall does not fit well at all and would need quite a bit of trimming. I am minded to discard this part and go for a butt joint between the separate engine cowling halves and the main fuselage. Some filler will be needed on the cowling joints. And the joint between the cocpit floor/lower fusleage and the fuselage sidewalls.

The one-piece lower main wings have a single locating lug to the fuslage, which is a bit weak - especially as there will be rigging later. I decided to cut these off and drilled holes for steel pins to pass completely through the fuselage. These will locate in holes drilled into the wings and should hopefully result in a much stronger joint.

The fusleage interiors have been painted interior green - in the absence of any other info a Google and Airliners.net photo search would appear to indicate that this is the common interior colour - A-Models instructions give no guidance alas. Having applied the paint I suspect that I will now be flooded with images to the contrary... Once the green paint has dried the wooden panel and silver areas will be painted and the controls picked out in black and silver.

Darius

Edited September 5, 2010 by Darius at Home

[CliffB]

I'm very jealous. Proof that you cannot have too much of a good thing.

Will you be doing the box art schemes Darius? If so, the Metal Moth looks particularly nice, but maybe a bit tricky?

Cliff

[Darius at Home]

I'm very jealous. Proof that you cannot have too much of a good thing.

Will you be doing the box art schemes Darius? If so, the Metal Moth looks particularly nice, but maybe a bit tricky?

Cliff

Hi Cliff,

That's the plan. My intention for the Metal Moth is to spray the fuselage with white primer. Then mask to paint the blue first. Once that is dry, mask to paint the black leaving the white cheat line between the black and the blue.

The intention is to add the pre-painted wings and tail once the fuselage has been painted.

Darius

[ollieholmes]

I spotted these kits on Hannants to and im very tempted by them.

[bigbadbadge]

Can't wait to see these when complete, lovely aircraft, will watch this one with interest.

All the best

Chris

[kspriss]

very nice so far, of some beautiful airplanes

steve

[John Aero]

Darius

Can you confirm that the wing rib spacing is different on the early G and the M, Because it should be.

John

[Darius at Home]

For reasons passing all understanding the designer of these kits has chosen to provide the rudder and elevators with separate control horns.

I glued them on with cyano - hopefully they will remain attached.

The fuel tank is made up of four separate parts - just to make things difficult. The tank sides do not fit the top and bottom halves and so I sanded off the internal moulded ridge for a flush fit.

Instrument panels painted. Mike Grant decals added and then glued into the starboard fuselage halves.

The front cowling will not fit over the engine unless you crop the front corners of the engine base. It is easier to glue the cowling halves together, fill and sand the joints and then slide the

engine and base in from the front - rather than follow the A-model instructions.

The fuselage halves do not fit together very well. Using cyano throughout I started with the lower floor to fuleage connection progressing straight to the tail - to avoid that banana shape.

I then closed up the centre. Some shims were required as the cockpit parts were designed to fit some other kit.

You may gather that I am a mite frustrated with this build. I was not expecting a great fit becuase I have read of others A-Model experiences. It does seem to me that whoever designed this

kit has gone out of their way to make the assembly overcomplicated and in places just plain bad. There are times when I would gladly and repeatedly zap A-Model's kit designer in the badoobies

with a cattle prod!!!

Darius

[Darius at Home]

Darius

Can you confirm that the wing rib spacing is different on the early G and the M, Because it should be.

John

John

There is a common sprue in all of the kits for upper and lower wings and so the rib spacing is the same across the board.

Looks like A-Model skimped on their research and/or decided to save some tooling costs. Where's that cattle prod...

I dug out your recent injected Dh60M for a wing rib comparison with the A Model Dh60M and here is the result.

Darius

Edited September 6, 2010 by Darius at Home

[John Aero]

John

There is a common sprue in all of the kits for upper and lower wings and so the rib spacing is the same across the board.

Looks like A-Model skimped on their research and/or decided to save some tooling costs. Where's that cattle prod...

I dug out your recent injected Dh60M for a wing rib comparison with the A Model Dh60M and here is the result.

Darius

Hi Darius.

Thanks for that. By the way the wings you have for my kit are the wrong ones for the M (they're early G) so I will send you another set with the moulded in slats. PM me with your address again just in case I can't find the other one.

Regards

John

[shark 64]

I am always in awe of modelers being able to build more than one aircraft at a time. I wish I had that skill.

Great start on your planes.

Oliver

Edited September 6, 2010 by shark 64

[Darius at Home]

After untaping the fusleages after a days curing and re-glueing the subsequent popped floor joints I filled the seams. All of them need filling - its that kind of kit.

The undercarriage forward struts are quite weak - one was already broken on the sprue so I replaced these with brass "Strutz" cut to the correct length. Using photo and drawing references I drilled location holes in the fuselage for the forward and main struts. I also replaced the thin plastic tail skids with brass ones filed to shape.

The kit supplied cabane struts were glued to the fuselage. The starboard rear strut of the Dh60G made a successful break for freedom and was immediately swallowed up by the tile monster - there being no carpet in the work/dinging room.

These kits are proving to be b*st*rds on so many levels!!!

That's it for today - I will fashion a replacement strut out of spare Aeroclub strut stock tomorrow.

Darius

[Silver Fox]

Fabulous work Darius, I am watching this in awe. Keep up the great work and don't let them get to you.

[keefr22]

I did fancy getting one of these. Now I think I'll just admire your's Darius! I have enough other A-model kits to fight with over the next few years!!

Great work (& perserverence!) so far!!

Keef

[Darius at Home]

So I'm working at home today and also looking after my Mum's Yorkie whilst she has a day out in London. I had my lunch and took the dog out for his walk. Get back in, replace his water, give him a doggy chew strip thingy and get back to my "office" in the spare room. A few minutes later I hear panting beside me and look down to see "Alfie". I reached down to give him a pat and low and behold on the carpet by his feet is the missing strut from 2 days ago!!! This is in a totally different room to the one it disappeared in!!!

Thing is I replaced the missing strut with a brass one earlier this morning...

Darius

[Darius at Home]

The kit wheels are molded with separate outer hubs which should have made painting a doddle. The trouble is that the hubs do not actually fit into the recesses in the wheels. At first I thought that this was due to the thickness of the paint that I had applied, but that is not the reason. The hubs as molded will not fit into the wheels - they are too big. The solution is either (i) to sand the outer rim of the hubs to reduce their diameter - and probably make them go out of round; or (ii) to scrape out the inside edge of the wheel tyres with the blade of a Stanley Knife. I opted for (ii), which seems to have worked.

What is the Russian for: "Dear Mr A-Model, the designer of your kits is a complete pillock!!!" ?

On a more positive note, the fuselages have been painted - no real problems with that!!!

Darius

Edited September 15, 2010 by Darius at Home

[Enzo the Magnificent]

These builds are quite superb! I'm thoroughly enjoying watching them - and learning a few things as well.

[keefr22]

Yep, they're all looking very pretty!!

Keef

[Darius at Home]

Wheels on and fuselage decals applied. Next comes the fuel tanks, cabane strut bracing wires and rudder & elevator control cables.

The kit decals are delicate but superb and went on with no silvering - perhaps a saving grace but there you are.

Darius

[Darius at Home]

Starting to take shape now...

Darius

[Darius at Home]

The kit supplied main wing struts are too long - see the photo below:-

Par for the course with these kits but at least it is better than their being too short!!!

I shortened them to the appropriate length and re-profiled the ends.

I have been rigging the wings today - and re-attaching the parts that keep popping off. It seems that the plastic does not like being glued - its as if it secretes an oil that prevents the glue from bonding. I washed the parts with washing up liquid before starting to remove any mold release oil but the plastic seems to have a natural surface greasiness that even the primer paint cannot penetrate.

Looking forward to having these off the workbench so that I can start a more pleasurable kit.

Still, I have started so I will finish!!!

Darius

Edited September 19, 2010 by Darius at Home

[Tigerausfb]

Hanging on in quiet desperation......

I admire your perseverance with these!

Andy

[Darius at Home]

Finished at last!!!! I will never again criticise anyone who says they cannot build an A-Model kit and I greatly admire those that have. This started out as fun but became less and less so as the build progressed. I am glad these are now off the workbench!!!

Darius

[lasermonkey]

*cheers and whistles*

Lovely job there!

Cheers,

Mark.

[Tigerausfb]

Lepidopterist-tastic. I particularly like the Cirrus Moth.

Andy