I’ve been going through my stash of kits, trying to decide what I want to build next. I’m thinking of finishing some of the kits that went back in their boxes for one reason or another. I seem to be on a Classic Airframes kick at the moment !
This is Classic Airframes 1/48 A5M “Claude” cockpit and engine. The pit had been painted, washed, drybrushed, and assembled. When I went to put it in the completed fuselage, the instrument panel sat WAY too far forward. On reopening the box, I cut the forward part of the sidewalls back to the first vertical line. The panel will now sit in the correct position.
The 'pit was painted with Humbrol Bronze Green, which is a close match for Mitsubishi cockpit color. The instrument panel is resin, so I had to paint the dials with a sharp #000 brush. I added a seat height lever from wire and tube. Many Japanese pilots at this stage of the war (China, late '30s) didn’t use seat harnesses. They preferred open cockpits, nimble aircraft, and no belts.
I added pushrods to the resin engine from solder, and ignition wire from fine copper wire.
I wonder what else I’ll find when I go through the boxes of unbuilt kits !
The Claude is an awesome plane, and your cockpit looks great. Not having seatbelts would freak me out, but I guess it makes getting out of the plane a lot easier.
The Claude is one of my favorites. Keep posting pictures and hurdles you come across as you build. They will be helpful when I finally splurge on a Claude.
Lufbery - I read that somewhere at j-aircraft. It seemed so unusual, that’s why I remembered it. They did have a sense of over-confidence in their armed forces, though.
mucker - there are fit issues (they aren’t “problems” unless you let them beat you) with the vertical stabilizer and wingroot. Dryfitting, filling, and sanding cures it.
Thanks ygmodeler, Steve-O, Rick, falcon, and Fred !
Steve-O - what’s with the linguistic lessons of late? Have you lost your command of the King’s English?
falcon and Fred - I spend 30 to 50 hours a week at the bench. With that much time, I get to pump them out quite frequently. Enjoying what I do keeps me coming back to the bench every day.
Quagmyre - I didn’t know that there were sites like that. Very interesting !
This kit has some very nice resin parts. The seat is thin, and you can see where it cracked on the front of the seat pan. Gotta be careful with these parts.
Joe - I have a digital video camera, Adobe Premiere editing software, and a DVD writer. I’m going to make some techniques videos in the near future (if I can slow my building enough to do the camera work).
