Hasegawa Egg Plane P-47 Thunderbolt

This weekend, I decided to take a small break from building normal kits to build something simple and fun. I've been super busy with work lately after moving into a new office and I was thinking that a kit from Hasegawa's egg plane series would be a nice decoration on my new desk, at least till my 1/24 scale Spitfire has been completed.

Instead of just building the kit through the normal procedure, I decided to insert a small electric motor for the propellers. I had previously bought some motors and for this kit, I inserted the smallest one (about 1cm in length) which can be typically found inside cellphones and are used for the vibration/silent mode.

Photos of the building process :

Surprisingly, the motor fits right into the engine. Only needed CA glue to fix it in place.

The model is going to be displayed as being in flight on top of a wooden base so I drilled a hole at the bottom of the fuselage and hot glued an aluminium pipe which acts as a stand as well a tube for the wires.

A dry run to see how the model sits on the base.

As the build is pretty straightforward from here on, I just went along and completed the model without taking any further photos of the building process.

Here are photos of the finished model, painted and weathered.

2 holes have been drilled into the base, one vertically for the pipe and another horizontally for the wires. I soldered the wire ends onto a couple of jumper leads so that whenever I want to have the propellers spinning, the batteries can be connected to the motor through a jumper cable without the need for a switch.

Perhaps later I'll build a small box underneath the base high enough to fit the battery case and add a small switch as well.

Here's the setup.

... and lastly, a video of the propellers in action.

* UPDATE

I ended up adding a simple box underneath the base to house the batteries and a mini toggle switch. I spent about an hour making the box and it's made from PVC foam board, primarily used for signs or displays.

The screw is just aesthetic, to cover up the hole where the wires initially were.

1/24 Airfix Supermarine Spitfire Mk1a - Work in Progress

I am currently building an Airfix Spitfire Mk1a in 1/24 scale. Being a bit tired of building tiny 1/72 scale models, I decided to take a break and build something large. After careful consideration of what I should build and at which scale, I chose the Spitfire because of it's size and relatively cheap price. Also, I wanted to have a model which I can put up for display in my new office.

The 1/24 Airfix Spitfire Mk1a was first produced back in 1970 and the quality is pretty bad. The kit has fitting issues, requires tons of flash removal, putty work, and some of the parts are a bit warped but due to the sheer size of the model, it isn't really a difficult kit to build as the details are minimal. Although I had previously decided not to purchase old kits especially from Airfix, the 1/24 is an exception because of its uniqueness. 

Photos of the building process :

First part of the build is the Merlin engine. I fitted a DC micro electric motor (powered by 3v batteries) using hot glue into the engine to have spinning propellers while on display. To give the propeller a smoother spin, I fused two metal ball bearings in the front side of engine, one just behind the propellers (as seen in photo) and another one inside the gear box. The propeller is connected to the motor shaft via a steel rod and held in place using a heat shrink tube (yellow tube). The spring is there to prevent the propeller from moving forward while spinning.

Here's the DC micro electric motor. I bought a few (and even smaller ones for 1/72 models) from an online electronics store for later projects as well and they cost about 2 dollars per motor.

... And a video of the engine in action. With sound effects added. :)

Instrument panel, gunsight, controls built and painted.

Pilot's seat.

Engine painted and weathered. I might just glue on the engine cowls rendering this whole painting process completely useless.

Fuselage halves painted and weathered. I chose not to do any scratch building for extra instruments inside the cockpit as I do not have the talent nor time to do so. 

Fuselage halves joined. There are some gaps which require putty work.

The engine fitted and held in place with some additional cement.

Bottom part of the cockpit section with the motor wires sticking out.

To be continued...

1/72 Airfix Avro Lancaster B.II - Completed

The Lancaster has been completed! It was actually completed more than a week ago but I was only able to take photos of it last weekend as I was busy with work. I've also built a new paint rack and started building some new models.

Some photos of the Lancaster's final building process and my paint rack. I put it together using 5mm foamcores (form boards). My workstation now has more work space and tidier!

Underside of the aircraft painted and undercarriage added.

Photos of the completed model. I messed up on the decals yet again and I've forgotten to remove masking tape from the fuselage windows.