Dollar's PBY Catalina

Pre-1980 boxings of any kit, but preferably hard to obtain -- something that would make a collector cringe to see built.
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dollar19
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Dollar's PBY Catalina

Post by dollar19 »

It's a chilly rainy morning here in Virginia. The perfect day to start on my Airfix Cat.
A quick inventory tells me there are a few pieces missing from the clear sprue, which should pose no problem to remedy.
My plan is to jump around a bit in the building basically making up the instruction sheet is of the exploded view variety. I find I easier to build section by section and the bring them all together later.
I tried to post some pictures last night and got nowhere. No mattter how small I resized Imageshare kept saying they exceeded 1024 pixels. I'll try again later.
dollar19
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Re: Dollar's PBY Catalina

Post by dollar19 »

dollar19
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Re: Dollar's PBY Catalina

Post by dollar19 »

Still can't get Imagepost to work for me so I joined up at Flickr.

Maybe now I can get to the model!
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jssel
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Re: Dollar's PBY Catalina

Post by jssel »

If this is any help I resize in Paint to 800x600 and upload with Photoimage using the link provided .

Easy Peezy at least for me.
Besting 60 years of mediocre building of average kits in the stand off scale
dollar19
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Re: Dollar's PBY Catalina

Post by dollar19 »

I did try that and even went down to thumbnail and no joy. Thanks thought for the advise.
On another sad note..... as i got started glueing up all the flying surfaces, I have now found out that the top of one and the bottom of the other horizontal stabilizers are missing! Pondering a solution as I key this. Needless to say I'm bummed!
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splash
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Re: Dollar's PBY Catalina

Post by splash »

Can you scratch build the missing parts using the other parts as a guide?
My work bench is starting to look like Portsmouth Naval Dockyard.
dollar19
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Re: Dollar's PBY Catalina

Post by dollar19 »

Already planning on how to make a mold of the pieces I have and making a resin casting to replace the missing pieces.
In the mean time I spent the morning work on the wing
. I took the top 3 pieces and taped them down to a piece of glass and glued them together to make sure the outer panels stayed true to the center section. Then I did the same to the bottom three pieces. After a good hour I glued the two halves together and got a very reasonable fit. My luck it starting to return!!
Now it's on to the wing tip floats. I'm going to depict her in flight. Gear up, floats up. I really don't have shelf space for her so she will be hanging from the ceiling. I'll take a pic or two soon.
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splash
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Re: Dollar's PBY Catalina

Post by splash »

That's a good tip about using a sheet of glass to stop the wings warping whilst the glue sets.

I will remember that tip for the future.

Regards Splash
My work bench is starting to look like Portsmouth Naval Dockyard.
dollar19
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Re: Dollar's PBY Catalina

Post by dollar19 »

here's a peek at todays progress

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dollar19
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Re: Dollar's PBY Catalina

Post by dollar19 »

Missing pieces count as of today..... 2 fuselage windows replaced with acetate, of course you know about the one upper and one lower stabilizer halves, and now one of the nose gear well doors. That I made out of one of the elevator halves that belong to the missing stabilizer.

This morning was most productive, coffee and a shot of MEK. The cockpit such as it is was installed, the fuselage windows and the support for the nose turret installed and the fuselage brought together. I actually got some sanding dond on the fuselage as well.

Here's some pictures of the progress so far. the wing is only stuck on with some blue tac for the pictures.
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splash
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Re: Dollar's PBY Catalina

Post by splash »

Great work on the pilots.
My work bench is starting to look like Portsmouth Naval Dockyard.
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Gregers
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Re: Dollar's PBY Catalina

Post by Gregers »

Great progress Greg. This is going to be more than a bit special.

All the best.

Greg
Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe.
The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.
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dollar19
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Re: Dollar's PBY Catalina

Post by dollar19 »

Thanks! We will have to see how the stabilizer issue works out.

I'm ashamed to say the piolots were a stab in the dark. As with vintage Airfix the figures are little more than blobs of plastic. Just some kakhi and brown for the flight suits an a dab of yellow to suggest a Mae West and they were done. Won't see much of them once the canopy is on.
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VickersVandal
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Re: Dollar's PBY Catalina

Post by VickersVandal »

That is ripping along!

Cop a load of those rivets, eh...
Must.....build....ALL the Sopwith Camels!...

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jssel
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Re: Dollar's PBY Catalina

Post by jssel »

Great progress so far.
Besting 60 years of mediocre building of average kits in the stand off scale
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