Thought I would tackle one of the nine or so Connies I have on my shelves and keep track of her as a blog. I never really took a liking to the Connie until I took a peek in the pages of Historie and Collections book on her. I was totally blown away by the paint schemes and configurations this aircraft had. Especially the military variants of her. After reading the book, I have since decided she was the most graceful aircraft to fly the skies. We have a 1:1 version here in Coloado Springs that is about 95% restored, inside and out which provides me with great reference material anytime I need it. While this one won't be in military colors, there will be others that will follow and will be. So far I've filled the window openings in the fuselage with white resin as I plan to use decal material for the windows instead of the plastic inserts. The inserts never really fit well, and you can see into the empty fuselage. I was initially going to pour clear resin, but it wasn't curing quick enough. I need to finish this by the 13th for a contest on the 15th. I got a 12 hour road trip to get there, so time is critical. Anyway, this is where she sits thus far. I will probably use the later style engines (kit) and save the resin early ones for future builds after I make molds of them for casting later. She will be painted as a TWA livery. Gloss white over aluminum with chromed props and spinners. Thanks for looking, stay tuned!! "Q"

Matthew -

Looking forward to your progress on this for 2 reasons;

a. I have a couple Connies in my stash and I love the "Golden Era Propliners".

b. I want to see how you handle that "problem" at the wing/fuselage joint. I'm hoping it was mostly shadow and isn't as bad as it looks.

Good luck!
Steve

Steve, Thanks for the encouragement. I have 8 or so more of thse on the shelves. One of my all time favorites especially the military variants. The seam at the wing root is mostly shadow. The fit is quite good. On the bottom joint it is even better. I am doubting that I will even have to use any filler there. The biggest problem thus far has been the horizontal stabs. There was about a 1/32 gap at the trailing edge. I tried and tried to sand the insides down, and it worked to some degree, but not enough. I had to add a strip of styrene in the gap and sand it all out flush. It looks good, but I couldn't get them to fit right. The wings went together well which is always a plus on these large birds. Hoping to get some work done on her tonight after work. Thanks again, "Q"

Matthew -

Glad to hear the joint was just shadow. I checked my stash and I have 3 Connies, 1 in 1/72 , 1 in 1/144 and one that I'm not sure of cause it's a old Monogram Heritage kit and there's no scale listed on the box - doesn't seem big enough for 1/72.

I got interested in the Connie when I read a biography of Howard Hughes. He bought the first Connies for TWA.

What brand of kit are you doing......and please show some pictures of your progress. If you'd like, I'll take a little jaunt down to Wheeler Field and see if I can get some photos of their Connie. It's in TWA livery.

Steve

Steve

Then you'll love the Historie & Collections book on the Connie. Without a doubt the best books I have yet to look at. Lot of color plates, history, evolution etc. I paid about $40 for mine and it was well worth it.



It's the Heller kit. I believe they are the only one to do the Connie in 1/72 scale. The odd scale one you have from Monogram is probably 1/96 scale. I may be off on that, but that's whats coming to mind. I've seen that one around quite a bit. Would love to see some color photos of that Connie! I will be updating my build log as I go. Wasn't able to get anything done last night. My daughters car died and I had to rescue her as soon as I got home from work. Didn't get in until late and went straight to bed. Hoping to get something done this morning before work, and when I get home this evening. Thanks for the interest in the build. Looking forward to seeing the pics of the TWA bird! Thanks. "Q"

Matthew -

"Looking forward to seeing the pics of the TWA bird!"

I can get down there the weekend of the 15th. Is there anything particular you want a picture of?

I'd go this weekend but we have to haul one of our cats out to K-State to see if her legs is bolted (literally!) back together properly.

Steve

Anything on the TWA will be fine. Engines, wheel wells, any of the lumps and bumps that are visable. Antennas etc. I can use the pics for later builds. Much appreciated. Thanks, "Q"

Alrighty then, contiuing on with the Connie build. This morning I got the horizontal stabs cleaned up and discovered some more gaps and or seams to deal with. Applied some Mr. Disolved Putty and then went to work.

Luckily my boss cut us loose early and I was able to get in a little more time with the ole girl tonight after dinner. I clean up the putty from this morning and it looks pretty darn good at this point. I added the vertical stabs and found I will need to add some putty and or Mr. Surfacer here as well. Not bad, but it needs to be a smoother joint.

Also did a little work on the wing. Namely dressing all the leading edge seams, and where the outter panel pieces join. Why there is a break here baffles me. It would have been so much easier to mold this as one piece like they did the upper wing. Beats me why its this way. I got the cockpit primed, painted and installed. Nothing fancy as not much will be visible once the fuselage is sealed up. I added a piece of sheet plastic painted black behind the opening into the fuselage to block off that view which would be visible thru the front glass.


I did some looking at the engines and saw that I had missed some rather nasty seams and ejection marks on the inside of the nacelles. I tried to dress these, but it was a wasted effort.



Luckily I have several of these kits on the shelves, one of which is a parts kit, so I opted to just re-do the engines. I can add the engine faces once the nacelles are closed up. I cleaned out the ejection marks, and glued the nacelle halves up, then added some more disolved putty to the seams. Once dried it will be an easy matter to run some sand paper over this area to smooth things out, then polish it out.

So far so good. Just a minor set back with the engines, but this only took about 15 minutes to correct so I'm not off my time line too much. Should be able to get the fuselage closed up in another day, maybe sooner. Thanks for looking, stay tuned! "Q";)

I got up bright and early this morning to get some time in on the Connie before work. The work I did last night on the engines paid off as the seams and knock out marks are gone. These will look good under paint. I found some minor pin holes in the putty, but some Mr. Surfacer 500 took care of those. Added some more Mr500 to the vertical stabs as there were gaps at the bases.


Also began cleaning up all the putty work I did on the leading edge of the wing. I'll need to go back in and round off the leading edege as its lost some of it here and there. An easy fix. I hate silver plastic. It is really hard to determine where seams are and aren't with this stuff. I primered the leading edge and was rewarded with lots of areas to fix

Not a problem. I anticipated this. While I did find things to fix, I also found areas that came out fine such as these.


Also found a crack in the wing I hadn't noticed. Some 150 grit paper made short work of this. Some scratch filling primer will help here too. I smoothed things out with some 320 grit followng the primer.

I got the fuselage halves together last night before heading off to bed and began dressing those seams this morning. The tape helped protect the surrounding panel lines. I'll replace what ones I lost in the sanding later. The top seam is coming out great. thus far. No steps and no gaps. Once complete, I'll hit her with some automotive primer with sealer in it to help fill any scratches I might have missed.


The kit requires nose weight to keep her on all three sets of landing gear. With the massive hole in the bottom for the wing attachment, adding this is easy after the fuselage is closed up. I poured some lead shot into a piece of foil, rolled it into a ball, wrapped that with some super sticky packing tape, then epoxied the whole shootin match onto the rear bulkhead and over the nose gear well. She should have no problem staying on her legs.

That's about it for this morning. CSI is a new episode tonight,:p so I don't know if I'll get anything done tonight or not. Thanks for looking and stay tuned. "Q"

Hi Matthew -

Looks good. You have Mr. Surfacer in jars - all I can get at the LHS (when they have it) are spray cans and the pressure is so darn high about the only thing I can use it for is overall.

You mentioned that you were going to use auto primer - what kind do you use?

Keep on truckin'...er...flyin'

Steve

Whew... Just spent the better part of 45 minutes sanding the fuselage back into round and removing all the panel lines. Decided to remove all of them and draw them back on when its done. Easier than trying to replace them with stretched sprue etc. Got the wings sanded as well, and removed the hugely overscale de-icer boot demarcation lines. Wing is attached at this point and the fit is excellent. Will require a minor amount of filling, but it won't be too hard to do. Pics to follow in the morning when I have some better light on the bench. It's beginning to look like a Connie...finally. Thanks, "Q"
ps. Auto primer I use is by Duplicolor. Great stuff. Fast drying, sands easily, and it fills all kinds of scratches making for a nice base for follow on color coats.

More progress on the Connie. After letting the wing dry overnight I was happy to find the wing roots nice and even with no steps, and no gaps. The fuselage was short shot on one small area that I will deal with with a small amount of putty of a piece of scrap plastic.



Where the bottom mates to the fuselage, I had some filling to do and a little block sanding, but again, nothing major. I also found a sink mark I hadn;t noticed before and added a wee bit of putty to it. I imagine if I was not under a time crunch I could probably have solved these issues with some sanding and more test fitting. I will definitely take this to heart on the next one or 8 I build. I can make this one work though so I will drive on.


I cleaned up the mating surface of the windscreen and the fit was very good with only a small hairline gap across the very bottom that I can fill with Krystal Kleer once its ready for paint.

I detailed the nose landing lights with some sheet plastic and MV lenses. I cut a disc large enough to fit inside the nose cap. Drilled two small holes for the MV lenses to sit in, painted it flat black, then white glued the MV lenses in place. Once they were dry I dropped the clear nose piece over the lights, and added a drop of liquid glue (Tamiya super thin) to hold everything in place. Once the lens area is masked and the surrounding area is painted, it will have a nice look to it. The lenses were LS-29 in case anybody wants to do the same thing.






I clean up all the putty work and seam lines on the horizontal and vertical stabs and test fit them. They are really snug so I will need to do some sanding to ease the fit somewhat. The port side stab is fouling somewhere, but I can't determine where as yet. I'll address that when I get home from work.




So, thus far I have the windscreen and nose glass installed, engine nacelles cleaned, props cleaned and primed, fuselage together with all panel lines removed on this and the wings, and the horizontal stabs cleaned and ready to install. I'm hoping to have some paint laid on by Sunday at the latest. Keep your fingers crossed and thanks for looking. "Q"

Thanks for the trip down memory lane,i built the Navy`ies warning star version of this and it looked fantastic in navy blue and white (it got donated to a local museum when my parents sold their house).
The TWA version looks pretty sweet,love to see the pics when you`ve finished her.

Glad I was able to facilitate the trip! I have three of the EC-121's on my shelves, along with a couple of the MATS birds, and several of the liner versions. Hoping to get some paint on the TWA bird this week end. I am planning an all out build on one of the 121's at some point in the future. I'm in the process of gathering all my needed goodies for it now. Stay tuned for that build and thanks for the kudos. "Q"

After priming and sanding and repriming and sanding some more, the Connie was ready for some paint. Because of the size of this kit, I knew it would take more than one can of Tamiya Gloss White to cover it, and at the price they charge for that stuff, I decided to go with a large can of Gloss White by Valspar for plastic furniture. It's worked out rather well. Initially I thought it was ruined as it fish eyed on me, but leveled out after a few minutes. Still a few more coats to go at this point.
This is the first two coats that have gone on the ole girl. Several more to follow. So far so good. I'll mask off the white and spray the silver once the white is good and cured...hopefully just a day or so.Stay tuned. Thanks for looking, comments welcome. "Q"
ps. Yes she's a little big for the paint booth!

Just in primer.



Gloss White added

Just a few more pics of what I got painted today such as the propsm gear doors and gear legs. The gloss white is dry enough to handle, but it still feels far too soft to try and mask etc, so I will leave it for a few more hours, if not over night before I do anything else to her. The props/spiners will be Chromed with Alclad II hence the gloss black finish on them now. The gear legs and such were painted with Tamiya TS 30, Silver Leaf. The remainder of the plane will also be finished in this color. I am really happy with the way the gloss white went down. It took several coats (5-6) but the results are great. I need to redress the seams on the nacelles as there are some problems that are pretty apparent. Hopefully I'll be able to get them taken care of tonight and repaint them. Thanks for looking, comments welcome. "Q"

Progress continues for the Connie. She's been masked and the silver has been sprayed. Landing gear legs have been painted and detailed, as well as the tires. I got started on making all the windows for her this afternoon. I punched discs from some Bare Metal Foil to simulate the metal framing, applied them, and then punched slightly smaller discs from black decal film for the windows to apply over the BMF pieces. Worked pretty well, although I have some rough edged frames on a couple of them. I'll use something else next time. Still looks good, just don't get real up close and personal The props came out excellent. Not a scratch to be found on any of them. Really happy with this part. Once all the decals are dry, I will shoot another gloss coat over her to seal them and so I can add the remaining TWA decals. She should be finished soo. Thanks for looking, comments welcome. "Q"

I just shot a nice good coat of Future on the ole girl and now she is sitting patiently waiting for her final bits and pieces. I'm almost tempted to stay up late to finish her, but the inner voice is saying to stop so I will. Would hate to tank her at this stage. Will add the antennas and fiddly bits tomorrow and barring anything unforseen, she should be finished. Thanks for looking and comments welcome. "Q"



The engine and chromed props look killer installed

Matthew -

You have done a magnificent job of capturing the character of this big beautiful beast.

Since the decals are placed, can we assume that your not going to try to make some of the panels slightly different in color? I've seen this done on many models but have been reluctant to try it myself - afraid I'll screw it up.

Terrific job with the decals. Any particular problems there?

All that sanding, filling,sanding, filling may seem tedious when your doing it but it sure pay off.

Following progress closely,
Steve

Thanks Steve. If I had more time I would have highlighted a few of the different panels, but will probably call this one good. I may paint the control surfaces a different shade though as I still have room to do so. Decals were a mixed bag. Some responded well, others didn't and I had to touch them up with some paint. All of the deicing boots are Microscale decal material. It was huge help to have this stuff on hand as painting all those would have driven me insane. I have taken notes along the way of what I will do differently for the next COnnie to come out of the hangar. I'll send them your way once I'm complete. I got them from another guy who built one and the tweaks he did make sense and are pretty cheap too. If you have any back issues of Fine Scale Modeler lying around, look for the Feb 1991 issue. There is a great build/conversion article in there on the Connie too. Gotta get to work....argh. Thanks again for the kudos. "Q"

Matt:

I just saw this post. I love connies and yours looks great. Gloss white and NMF are the most unforgiving colors when it comes to showing defects. Your finish is looking superb. I have built this kit before, and you are making it look easy.

Taylor

HaH!! If you knew the half of it. Thanks for the kind words Taylor. Much appreciated. I'm having some difficulty as of late. Seems she wants to sit on her tail. I had to drill a hole in the bottom of the nose just forward of the nose gear and add a bunch of split shot until she cooperated. I cut a round piece of .010 to cover the hole, and will use it as a not-so-correct-but-its-hiding-the-hole-antenna-base. The anttena leads are giving me fits. I am using EZ line for them and they keep pulling the mast free from the top of the fuselage spine I tried it three times and three times it went zing! Going to cut them free again, and go back to my invisible thread. At least that stuff won't have the tension on it like the EZ line. I need to clean up around my hole patch, do some spot painting, and she should be done. Always seems to be the last few items that hang these projects up....go figure. Thanks again for the kudos. "Q"