Jessie C just did the JAL marked aircraft and I have the Pan American Airways bird that I will be tackling. I made my start shortly after finishing up the Austrian PC-6 this afternoon. So far so good. I had some noticeable warp front to rear on the fuselage halves, but nothing that I wasn't able to overcome. I took my time and worked inch by inch with Tamiya super thin cement and blue painters tape. Thus far I have the wings and fuselage assembled. As you can see in the pictures there will be some gaps to deal with along the wing roots and at the bottom rear where the wings and fuselage meet. There also seems to be an area along the bottom where a substantial amount of filling is going to be needed. It looks like the bottom has a channel or "V" where the fuselage halves come together. Not a problem....
I drilled out the exhaust stacks as well. I plan on building this one in flight with wheels up and props spinning. Should be fun. More to follow soon.

Thanks, "Q"
ps. Wings are just dry fit to the fuselage for test fitting at this point..

I see you're running into the very same fit issues I did. Roden is nothing if not consistent

Strangely enough I've been having the urge to do my PAA kit in flight as well. What technique are you considering to portray the spinning propellers?

Either leaving them off entirely, or cutting clear discs and painting faint indications of the props on them. Haven't decided as yet. "Q"

Why not set them up so they really spin? Ok I'll go sit in the corner. . .

A small update..alas with no pics, but those will follow shortly. This is beginning to become a putty sponge. Seams along top and bottom have been filled, wing roots, leading edges, and where the wings meet the fuselage underneath have all been lathered up to fill the voids. I'll get some pics up soon and hopefully get to sanding this afternoon....
Thanks, "Q"

Regarding the spinning props, have you considered Propblur....?

http://www.propblur.com/

Thanks for the link Mike. I have seen those before, but don't much care for them. Going to go with just the spinners. Something along the lines of a desktop model.
A small update. I have filled in the wheel wells as this will be an in flight bird. Looks kind of rough at the moment as the putty is extremely fast setting so I had to work fast. It will sand down easy enough. More than likely I will have to go over this with some spot putty to finalize things. Sorry for the delay in updates but being in class 6 days a week really takes up a lot of time not counting homework etc. Luckily one of my classes finishes up here shortly and I'll gain an extra day. Thanks for looking, more to follow. "Q"

Finally got a little time in at the bench to get the putty work cleaned up. Some of the putty didn't set up so I had to carve it away and replace it with new stuff. Not a big deal, just a minor set back. I used the time to inspect the remaining seams and get those filled in as well. Should be ready for some gap filling primer soon. Also assembled the engines and worked on getting the engine faces reduced in diameter to fit into the nacelles.
The white tube sticking out of the bottom will be for the clear acrylic rod used to suspend the model in its flight configuration. Once it has dried sufficiently the excess will be trimmed down to match the fuselage. Slow but steady progress....
Thanks for looking. "Q"

While waiting for some additional putty work to dry I knocked out the display base. A small piece of pine was selected from several I have on hand. A hole the same size as the tubing used on the bottom of the plane was then drilled in one corner of the wooden base using several different sized bits and then finally smooth/honed out with a fine sanding drum. A piece of styrene tubing was then glued into the hole using CA and some filler to bond everything securely.
The clear acrylic rod slips into the base and also the bottom of the plane. I made the insert on the plan at an angle to give it a little more character. As you can see by the pics, it all fits well. More to follow soon.
"Q"

More progress..yay. I had some small divots where the putty was used to fill in the landing gear wells. Rather than use more of the same, I opted to use Tamiya's light curing putty. It is the small yellow patch in the picture. Great stuff. Apply, then hold the part up to a light for a few seconds and viola, it's cured and ready to sand shortly there after....
Engines are assembled, cleaned up and installed. I assembled the spinners, filled the holes for the prop blades with the same putty, sanded them to shape using my Dremel, the hit them with a coat of gloss black in preparation for the Alclad II Chrome that is going over them. Should be shooting some scratch filling primer over the entire thing here in the next couple of hours. More to follow soon.
Thanks, "Q"

And yet more progress for today...
She now wears a coat of filling primer. Everything looks good. I think I will have a few small areas to touch up tomorrow, but should be moving into the paint booth for color coats tomorrow.
Thanks, "Q"

I like it!

Thanks Stephen. After letting the primer set overnight, she is ready for some knock down sanding, touch up filler and hopefully a coat or two of color. More to follow soon.
"Q"

It looks as though that divot above the copilot's side window is another mould signature for this kit. Take a look at this nose section; it's not there in real life.

Good work Matt on a less than perfect kit for sure. Russell

Thanks all. Jessie, you are correct about the divot, but I just shot the gloss white and I'm not relishing having to dress that area to fix it so it will be a one off for this go round. Going to let this set awhile to cure out then mask for the gray and aluminum. I shot the spinners in Alclad II chrome as well, but couldn't get my little point and shoot to focus on them hence no pics. They look good though. More to follow soon.
"Q"

The great thing about Tamiya lacquers is their fast drying time I masked of the white upper fuselage sections, sprayed the gray lower rear section of the fuselage, masked that off, then shot the aluminum over the remaining areas. I'll give this 30 minutes or so to dry so I can safely handle things to unmask everything. Hoping to have some decals making their way onto this thing by the end of the day. More to follow soon.
"Q"

It's beginning to look like an airliner. I need to do some spot sanding as I ended up with several red micro fibers on the plane. Not sure where they came from as I don't have any red cloth or red anything for that matter around my paint booth. Will gloss back over the entire model to tie everything back together once that has been taken care of. The decals performed better than the last set of Roden decals I used still had me making up new colorful words. As soon as they hit the model they stuck. Even with a liberal dose of water slid underneath them, they were reluctant to move. A couple of them broke and I had to piece them back together. The stripes around the nose were particularly tedious to get to conform. I ended up having to paint match a small strip right down the middle. Luckily it blends pretty well with the decal material and should look the part when tucked into the back corner of my display case. Once she is clear coated I'll add the spinners and she'll be done. More to follow soon,
Thanks, "Q"

I'm calling this one done. While Jessie went a little more, okay, a lot more in depth with correcting the short comings of this kit, I opted for a more OOB build with the exception of building it wheels up with no props. I didn't address the incorrect exhaust set up. I was lucky in that there are only those antenna's on the top of the fuselage to deal with. Nothing was shown for the bottom. What you see is what came out of the box. The spinners came out well for what I was trying to impart....an inflight aircraft. I did follow Jessie's lead with the antenna mounts though. I retained a good portion of the sprue gate and drilled corresponding size holes to mount them in. Worked like a charm. I used EZ line for my antennas. She looks good paired with my DC-6 in United markings.
Thanks for having followed along. "Q"

Wow! Matt you really did this one justice! Nicely done!

Thanks Stephen, much appreciated. "Q"

Stunning builds Matt, excellent work and many thanks for the build log. I enjoyed seeing your work immensely.
All the best.
tim

Thanks Tim. Glad you liked it. "Q"