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1/72 Italeri Sunderland III

I had a good laugh about the pins and holes its so tipical of Italeri to mess something up on theyr otherwise great models.

Looking forward to the next instalment :popcorn
 
Nice update Garry . Love the idea for the floats :good:

Really , the PE is blue instead of interior green ? How strange .

Looking forward to more . Cheers, Christian B)
 
Yep, the color looked like a good match for the blue green used in Soviet aircraft cockpits, at least the instrument panel was black and not some weird color.
 
And just so everyone knows my interior will NOT look like this

airfix1.jpg


airfix2.jpg

Oh c'mon Garry.......You know You Wanna
Bananeyessss.gif
:D

Looks really good :good:
:drinks
 
Hey, I'm an old guy, I won't live long enough to finish anything like that ! :laugh:

Anyway, when the paint had dried down I started adding the PE parts to the fuselage, amazingly I lost none of the parts ! :woohoo:

Pilot's side

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Copilot's side

sunderland-b15.jpg


Then it was on to the flight deck. Again I managed to get all the throttle levers in without loss, not all as straight as I would have liked but that seldom happens. The seat back parts had me worried but there is a plastic piece that fits inside and it fit so snug no glue was required and this piece slotted to the floor so no super glue was need and it all fit like it was supposed to. A light wash and some silver pencil for some wear and tear and it was all done. I got a little sloppy with the wash down the stair well but didn't notice till after I took the photo, will clean that up before it mounts in the fuselage.

sunderland-b19.jpg


sunderland-b20.jpg


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And fitted to each side of the fuselage...

sunderland-b23.jpg


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I wasn't going to put anything in the lower deck but there is a chance it might be visible through the bomb aimers window I'm going to go ahead and install the anchor and gaffing hook. Next up for the fuselage will be punching and installing 36 porthole windows.

Looking ahead there are some things I'm not real keen about, both the front and rear turrets need to be inserted prior to fuselage assembly which in my mind is never a good thing, also there are 3 porthole in the the top of the fuselage that are on the seam line and even if I use the kit parts, that sounds like trouble as well.
I need to get all the turret parts painted and start working on the engines. I need a good photo looking into the cowling from the front in case anyone has one. And speaking of turrets, looking at the guns they appeared to be a bit large to me, not uncommon in this scale, just for the heck of it I took a photo of the kit guns next to the outer jack of Master's 1/48 scale 50 caliber barrel...yeah I think they are a bit over sized, however it they were the right size they would be extremely fragile so I have some 1/72 30 caliber Master barrels on the way.

sunderland-b18.jpg


Thanks for looking in !
 
Nice update Garry . Love the idea for the floats :good:

Really , the PE is blue instead of interior green ? How strange .
)

Eduards ain't it?

Well Bob, I've realized Eduard have measurement problems long ago but this is the first time color blind entered my thoughts .

Might as well go for the unpainted ones and save a buck. Cheers, Christian B)

I could show you a couple, the Wildcat being one.

Gary those barrels are going to be a major improvement. Cockpit looks great now! :popcorn
 
The barrel I showed was a 1/48 scale to show how much too large the kit parts are. My new 1/72 barrels showed up today

sunderland-b25.jpg
 
Hello Gary! I just stumbled across this thread! Like you I have way tooo much going on and it feast or famine. I have always enjoyed watching your builds, and to say the least Im going to be hooked on this one! Having cobbled together AIRFIX'S Sunderland a few years back, this is really going to be a treat for me.

I just wish I had the space to display another one, because I'd love to tackle the Italeri kit. But I'll just have to get my jollies watching you have all the fun.

Awesome so far!!
:dude
 
Time to start getting this one finished up. I filled in the diagonal bracing over the fuel cells on the wings...

sunderland-b26.jpg


And since I wasn't going to have any weapons deployed I covered over the openings in the bottom of the wings...

sunderland-b27.jpg


The landing light openings in the front of the wing were very rough and as can be seen the lenses supplied are a bit undersized.

sunderland-b28.jpg


I squared up the edges and boxed in the area with styrene but even though the openings are not a deep the lenses are still way to small. Not sure how I'm going to deal with this but I may try using clear packing tape. I have never done it in 1/72 but it has worked well in other scales. Time will tell.

sunderland-b29.jpg


On the fuselage I was not happy with the clear parts supplied for the portholes, they fit loose and many of them had large bubbles or fish eyes. I found that my largest Waldron punch was almost a perfect match for the size so I punched all new ones from clear styrene. These fit real snug and I could get them mounted very flush to the outside surface. Once glued in and masked I could start install the interior. All I had left to do was install the anchor. I don't think this will be visible but one might get a glimpse of it through the bomb aimers window. I did not install the bomb sight as there seemed to be no mounting for it in the location shown in the instructions and it appeared to be too tall as well. The kit supplies a length of thread for the anchor but it didn't want to cooperate so I replaced it with some solder.

sunderland-b30.jpg


With all the interior in a test fit showed no interference fit issues. Only thing needed now are the turrets and I can assemble the fuselage. It was there I hit a snag. When I went to mask them I discovered I had the mask set for the Mk I which had no top turret and a different rear turret. After looking at all the tiny pieces of tape I would need to cut to mask them I bit the bullet and ordered the correct set. It should be here yet today or tomorrow then maybe I can get it closed up and on to the paint shop.

sunderland-b31.jpg
 
Hi Gary. Hate to hear about the clear parts not fitting . I had hoped this would be a good kit.

For the landing lights , I have at times glued in an MV lens and super glued over the whole thing.
Just sand back down and future over it . Looks pretty convincing .

Cheers, Christian B)
 
Well Christian, the fit of the portholes wasn't terrible but a few didn't fit flush and the fact that many of them had bubbles in them turned me off, might not bother others though. The super glue fix would probably work but me and super glue have issues and trying this would scare me ! Not sure about the landing light lenses, maybe mine were short shot. I could make a master and vacuform them but I don't need another project right now.
 
Wish I had suggestion for the landing light issue Gary, if I ran into that I'd be coming here for help. It's looking great though! :popcorn
 
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