Lancfan's Horton GO 229 ***FINISHED***

[lancfan]

I decided to go ahead with the 1/72 scale Revell Horton Go 229 for this GB as it has been screaming to be built for some time.


David.

[TobyC]

Interesting choice. Not as big a kit as I first thought.

[iggie]

It's a nice build; goes together very nicely

[TobyC]

I'm tempted to get one of these as I'm about to have a major overhaul of my stash.

[lancfan]

It's time to begin this model, tonight I will start on the pre-painting.


David.

[TobyC]

How's it progressing?

[lancfan]

It's not moving at all ATM Toby, I need to finish my third and final p-47 build before continuing. It has been pre-painted on the sprues and work will resume on Friday.

David.

[lancfan]

The pre-painting has been done, this mostly meant applying various greys but looking at the info I culled from the internet the key to this model later will be in the painting and not the construction. I had hoped to finish this model as the Smithsonian example but this is not to be restored, instead it will be "conserved" as it now appears so instead I will model this as a whiff build of the smithsonian aircraft as I think it could look if it was fully restored for future display.


Work on other GBs has kept me away from this so far but with my Thunderbolt builds now out of the way this can be pushed forwards.
Work on the interior has begun and the wing halves have been glued together. The results of the first session last night is shown below.




When building up the interior I had a slight brainstorm and decided to scratch build one engine to be fitted into an open engine bay. To speed this up I took an Oyumaru impression of the interior of this area of part 4 and from that made a Miliput copy of the part 4 section, this was then built up and smoothed down wet to form a mould for an half round Das Clay blank of the exposed engine.




Whilst waiting for the Miliput to dry I cut away the engine cowling for the planned engine details.


David.

[TobyC]

Nice work so far. I think the Smithsonian one is basically just the cockpit and engine nacelles IIRC

[lancfan]

They have a pair of wings from another aircraft which they will combine with the (originally unfinished) centre section as a composite airframe.

David.

[lancfan]

This picture shows the upper half of the centre section with one kit engine in place, unfortunately there is no bottom half to the rear engines included with the kit so to create these I have used the Oyumaru mould to make three of these from car filler. the picture also shows the mould with car filler spread over it, a second engine after removal from the mould and a third one after it has been trimmed and sanded to shape. The assembled air intakes have also been fitted to the nose section.


I had originally planned to build up the engines from Das clay within a Miliput mould but the drying time would have meant that this would take too long. As an alternative I decided to make up the remainder of the engines from more car filler using a new Oyumaru mould, to do this I filled a plasticene mould with car filler to make a blank for the front engine part, This picture shows the filler in the plasticene block and the remaining two engine pieces ready to be joined together for the completely scratch built, exposed port engine.


Using the new mould I cast three half engine parts, two to be joined together for the port unit and one to be fitted as a half starboard engine which will be visible from the nosewheel bay. The picture shows the mould, the assembled but incomplete port engine and the starboard half engine fitted to the centre section and filled before it was sanded to the final shape.


Both engines painted and installed.


The exposed engine viewed from above.


With the centre section glued together and strapped up to dry most of the work has now been done.


The centre section has been unmasked and the joints have been smoothed down ready for assembly.


The wing roots have been painted to represent the details that can (almost) be seen when the wings are attached to the centre section.


The wings are now glued to the centre section, the flaps will be fitted next before painting the airframe.


David.

[TobyC]

That is very impressive to say the least. The exposed engine is an excellent piece of modelling.

[lancfan]

Thanks Toby, car filler is wonderful stuff.

David.

[iggie]

That is far above and beyond the call of duty David; superb modelling

[lancfan]

Thanks iggie.

David.