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Lublin R.XIII Ter (1/48 Spojnia)

Need a little assistance......

I've been looking at some other builds of this plane on line and checking over some of the reference photos lying around on the web in regards to the colours of this aircraft.

What I've found is that this plane was painted in a Polish light blue which I think translates to an almost "Sky" colour. It looks like most people paint the cowl and floats aluminum but from the photos I've found below, it looks to me like the floats were left natural or painted aluminum and the cowl was a different colour. Perhaps a grey? I was wondering if anyone had any information otherwise (or thinks similar to what I do)? "710" is the one I am modeling. I'm thinking it would have been kind of foolish to leave the floats a natural aluminum, unless they only operated from fresh water?



It looks like there was definitely some metal surrounding the cockpit as well which was a different colour than the rest of the fuselage too. Almost looks like the underside of the wing could be lighter but that could just be a shadow effect.

 
I think it's clear the in the second picture that the floats are unpainted, wonder if that was taken prior to them being painted for service? But I look at the first picture an that theory goes out the window. Looks to me that you have three colors on the aircraft, one color for the overall, another around the gun ring and lower panel behind the cowl and the third color on the cowl. Also looks like the underside of the wings are lighter than the upper side of the fuselage.

I know that don't help a bit...:bang head
 
moon puppy said:
I think it's clear the in the second picture that the floats are unpainted, wonder if that was taken prior to them being painted for service? But I look at the first picture an that theory goes out the window. Looks to me that you have three colors on the aircraft, one color for the overall, another around the gun ring and lower panel behind the cowl and the third color on the cowl. Also looks like the underside of the wings are lighter than the upper side of the fuselage.

I know that don't help a bit...:bang head
Click to expand...

It helps confirm what I was thinking as well, at least I know I'm not seeing things!

:gogo
 
So, here's a quick view of my solution to the floats!

All of my reference images seem to show that the floats were left a natural aluminum and that's what I was going to try and model.

Here's what I started out with...



The panel lines are quite heavy and there are a lot of them! Looking at images of the real planes, it looks like the company tried to mold all the rivet lines on the floats.

What I did was essentially cover the floats in aluminum tape, piece by piece, after filling in the old grooves with putty. Each section on the float was 10 mm wide, so I would measure off an 11 mm section of tape and then put it on, beginning from the back of the floats and working forward. Each piece would overlap the previous piece by 1 mm to give a little definition between panels. Then I used a riveting tool to mark in the rivets, section by section, lining them up with the putty filled lines still exposed. After that, I anded the tape with an 80 grit sanding sponge so the aluminum looked worn and not newly polished.







It looks different in different light and actually much better than I can capture in an image. I still have another float to go so I'll show some progress pics with the next one.
 
The float and cowl was paint on silver.

152e1af49ba3b92b5ee243869888c5d5.jpg


d1a4c331d07b7f57720565ef8c9b41e0.jpg


rxiii_ter_hydro.jpg


Lublin%2BR-XIII%2BHydro.jpg


305px-Lublin_R.XIII_bis.jpg


0.jpg
 
Been awhile since I worked on this!

Thanks for the comments guys!

Dwetus, thanks for posting the drawings! I appreciate it and that will certainly help later because the Spojnia kits instructions aren't as good. It still looks to me like the floats are different from the ref pics I have so I'm going to keep them aluminum and paint everything else silver.

I finished off the new intakes for the engine tonight. I'm using some solder for this and just shaping it with a rat tail file and a pair of forceps. Had to cut out parts of the engine block to let the solder fit. (sorry, this is a little blurry)



With that done, I checked the exhaust pipes from the kit. I won't be able to use them because the way they were molded the mold must have been off and each side is askew, they're not round. I'll see if I can find some hollow sprue tubes to replace. I drilled out the exhaust tube attached to the body as well.



This should look better than nothing....



Then started a little work on the wing supports. Almost done the floats in the back ground as you can see.



The struts need a little cleaning up but I think they will work fine.



The tabs to attache the main struts to the body don't look that good so I cut them off, drilled them out and I'll pin them later.



That's it for tonight!
 
The push is on to finish this by the 31st!

Exhausts!

As I mentioned, the kit exhausts were small and a mess so I decided to try some brass tubing. I first made a rough bending jig to get the desired curve. Could have been better but not bad. Just some finish nails in a block of wood.




I tried using Precision Metals 1 mm x 0.225 mm tubing first but found it to be too small. So I went with their 1.57 mm x 0.355 mm tubing. Going from top to bottom: original kit part, small tubing and then the larger tubing. I used a small bit of wire to pin it in the kit part.



I filed it down with the metal disc on the Dremel and after I had the desired shape I cut it off.



they're a little rough but should do the job!





Then I got the tail on and the gunners cupola and a few other bits.



Starting to come together! Should have it on the floats soon!

 
Very cool. One thing I had luck with for exhausts was plumbers solder. It was big enough to replicate the pipe and easy to bend. The only problem is having to drill it out.
James
 
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