Yep, another one of my second hand shop finds, laid out 500 shiny pieces of copper for this one. It only comes with one marking option, but the decals look to be in very good condition. They are for a machine flown by French 16-victory ace Edmond Marin la Meslée.
Cockpit is SPARSE to say the least, so I’ve gizmodofied some goodies to go in there.
I don’t even know WHY I started this up right now. It could be done easily… but I’ve already started scratching goodies for it. Landing gear will need some work too.
A little slack on these instructions compared to some of the old Heller kits that border on art! C’est la vie…
Canopy, a little rough but actually quite thin. A little buffing + Future & it should be quite useful.
The tape-fit is mostly good. The 2 fuselage halves have a slight mis-match on the bottom near the rear of the wing, hoping some plastic tabs can help that.
A little shim work to avoid a step on the wings. Wonder if that will throw something off at the wing-fuselage join??
Engine is… Basic. After looking at this pic, I’m now tempted to see if I can scratch something like I did with the Goose. It won’t be all that visible anyway through a fairly small cowl opening…
Kit’s seat, masking tape belts, rudder pedals added to the bumps that came on the piece. Control stick stolen from an Academy Me163 and then added to the top of a random scrap of sprue to get a decent height.
And a completely fictitious instrument panel to fill in the void that is left in the kit. Still needs a couple doo-dads to fil in empty spots.
Your new hobby is scratch building Vance. Someone give this guy a box with a fancy pic on it, 2 wings and 2 fuselage haves, and Vance does the rest! Good start. Those instructions look like engineering drawings.
~chuckle~ Yep, when you’re dealing with old Heller kits of lesser-known machines, there is NO aftermarket! And the instructions on these earlier kits anyway, are all like that, text instructions with exploded-view diagrams nearby. This one isn’t so hot, but some of them are quite attractive all on their own.
Thanks guys. And yes mississippivol, I would expect a little family resemblance in there to the P40. I’ve built one of those Warhawks before, wonder what happened to that one?
Great work thus far there, Vance! I’ve long been a fan of Heller kits - even with their sparse detailing. Like yourself I love to doctor them up with scratch built details here and there. The web is a wonderful place for finding photos of obscure details on and inside of aircraft. It took me months to build up my Breguet 693 and that interior was completely scratch built with the only aftermarket products used being evergreen sheet styrene and an Aeroclub white metal gun in the back. (I hope Aeroclub’s products get picked up again…)
Thank you SirTenzan! To be honest I was just going to build it as-is for a quick build, but then I got into the cockpit. “some masking tape belts will dress it up easily enough” turned into “I can’t leave that big opening where an instrument panel should be”… And if I’m putting time into that, the landing gear can’t be left as they are… [whstl]
I’m a bit of a Heller fan myself. Yes, they have raised details that put some folks off, but they are generally really well done. I stumbled across a rather large pile of kits at a local 2nd hand store a few years ago. The bigger name kits went quickly, and I did pick up some ProModeler and Italeri kits as well, but the bulk of what I bought were these older Heller kits that everyone else was passing on.
I actually have a pile of WW2 French machines, including that Breguet 693 - you should post some pics of that one!
lol, “Gizmodofied” was coined by Hans Von Hammer, whom I haven’t seen in here in ages unfortunately. This is definitely a kit that can benefit from some extra goodies, whether they’re completely accurate or not.
second hand shop finds, laid out 500 shiny pieces of copper for this one. It only comes with one marking option, but the decals look to be in very good condition. They are for a machine flown by French 16-victory ace Edmond Marin la Meslée.
And the instructions on these earlier kits anyway, are all like that, text instructions with exploded-view diagrams nearby. This one isn’t so hot, but some of them are quite attractive all on their own.
Will also be adding some hydraulic / brake lines to busy it up.
