building a Seagull

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October 3, 2015
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October 3, 2015
The fuselage of the real airplane was constructed of a steel tube frame covered with panels. The tube frame was visible in the cockpit (as could be seen in several photos) therefore I decided to scratch build this part of the frame.
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October 3, 2015
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October 4, 2015
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October 11, 2015
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October 11, 2015
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October 30, 2015
Scratch-build instrument panel, rebuild pilot's headrest and smaller loop antenna (the first I built did not fit in to the canopy!)
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November 18, 2015
Since the canopy provided in the box is quite thick, I reproduced a "vacuformed" one from a transparent PET foil by using the thick original canopy as "mould".
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November 18, 2015
Left: the scratch-built canopy. Right: the original canopy.
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November 18, 2015
a last look in the open cockpit
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November 18, 2015
the canopy is glued on the cockpit and some adjustments are made to the joints
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November 18, 2015
The engine provided in the kit has enough detail for the fun/accuracy ratio of this project. So I painted it without any additional detail.
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November 18, 2015
Left: some detail on the tail wings made from wire. Right: the original tail wing.
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November 18, 2015
I added small rings from brass wire in the lower part of the upper wings (and on top of the lower wings) for the rigging.
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February 11, 2016
the wheels provided in the kit are without the wheel covers, which were self-built from slices of sprue.
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February 11, 2016
The worst thing I did to this kit was sanding off the raised panel lines and trying to reproduce the suface detail on the fuselage by adding strips of styrene. Far from being satisfied with the results, I moved on. Next time, I will try something else.
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February 11, 2016
Since the decals in the kit went bad after so many decades, I reproduced some markings with painting
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February 11, 2016
For the rest of the markings I reprinted the decals on a white decal sheet (right). On the left the yellowed original decals. Notice the true color of the tail is black and not red.
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March 10, 2016
Other decals were printed on transparent film. I downloaded the "USN stencil" font type from dafont.com/ and reproduced the yellowed original decals with the Paint software on Windows7.
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March 10, 2016
At first I tried to reproduce the rigging using the classic sewing thread (left)... HORROR! Using stretched sprue provides a better solution (on the right)!
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March 10, 2016
Here we are. Almost finished!

Peter Klin Автор
The kit is from the 70-ties, I bought it recently on e-bay. From a collector's point of view the box is in less than good condition (at least this is my opinion), but I believed the kit inside had worth a chance to become "alive". I like to work on these kits which waited several decades for someone to build'em!

5 October 2015, 08:36

komoras
Great work! 👍
Nice how you pulled of the vacuformed canopy

18 November 2015, 15:33

Peter Klin Автор
Thanks! Actually I did a lot of tries before reaching an acceptable result with the vacuformed canopy.

18 November 2015, 21:41

Wim van der Luijt
Cool project! Count me in for the rest......nice work on that canopy

18 November 2015, 22:13

Roberto Rocat
So nice!

11 March 2016, 20:35

Peter Klin Автор
thanks! The american planes from the 30-ies with their yellow wings can give a lot of satisfaction to the modeller.

12 March 2016, 20:13

Mike Grant
Nice work on that old kit, I see you even masked/painted the fuselage nos. in 1/72! Most impressive. Are you going to post more pics of the finished model (please)? 👍

22 February 2017, 13:57

Project info

an old Seagull

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1:72

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Curtiss SOC-3 Seagull

US Navy (1794-now)

N.M,, Yellow, Red

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building a Seagull

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Curtiss SOC-3 Seagull

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