Looks like its coming on well, despite your troubles. It really is a tiny model

Mikael

Turning to the cockpit, we find that it's pretty basic. The seat had a giagantic air bubble right on the top edge, and when I tried to fill it with gap-filling superglue, I washed the blob of glue down onto the seat cushion when I put the accelerator on. I was left with an unusable mess of a glue-filled seat that stll had a divot out of the upper edge. What's a girl to do?

I turned for solace to my trusty plastic card and hobby knife and carved out my own seat. Take that, Zap-a-Gap!

The rudder bar is going to be interesting to remove from its pour stub, and the foot loops are seriously tiny (not to mention that the carpet monster appears to have got one) which means that I'm likely to make up replacements from wire.

This strange bent thing appears to be the joystick. It doesn't look anything remotely like the drawing in the instructions. I don't know whether to mount it with the bend facing forward (angling the stick at the pilot's stomach) or aft (angling the bottom of the stick sort of upwards and back). Or make a replacement. Any clues or ideas out there?

Turning to the bottom of the fuselage, you can see the extent of filling and sanding that was required. Well if the picture wasn't blurry you'd see it; it's difficult to focus on something so tiny.


The main landing gear strut is in the shape of an И, not an N. The distinction is important.


The Kitten appears to have been fitted with streamline fairings between the struts that fill the landing gear recess when the gear is retracted. The kit merely gives us an open void, so I cut two triangles from scrap vacuform backing sheet to fill it up and fit between the struts. Each is slightly different so care must be taken to get them in the right places and lined up correctly.

After neglecting it for a while, it's time to play with the kitten again. No, it doesn't chase after string, but it does manage to annoy nonetheless.

I covered the outside with Mr. Surfacer and sanded it down

The rudder bar, foot loops and seriously bent joystick are in place, soon never to be seen again

The seat has its seatbelts, but before I put it in...

The rear cockpit bulkhead has a great huge ugly gap to fill

I'm going to cheat and use a piece of plastic card cut to fit

Which is now trimmed and wearing its plywood undercoat

Well, Jessica, it looks like a real bear (tiger?) to work on. You do rather amaze. With all of your builds going on, wherever do you find the time? Inbetween life and work- plus friends who always seem to need help doing something - I might manage a couple of hours at the table. Anyway, can't wait to see the finished Kitten purring.
Happy Gluing, jt

Definately a tough fit but you handled it in fine style. You almost "have to use" vacuform building techniques on some of the rougher resin kits. But they get the job done. Model On please!

I'm a great believer in concurrent activity. I'll work in stages on several builds at once. While I'm waiting for the parts I've just glued to kit A to dry, I can putty kit B and then paint kit C and so forth. Each building session advances several kits along the path to completion.

More adventures in modelling as we return to the Kitten.
First the lovely little instrument panel. Take a good look...

And the seat in place in the cockpit. Say goodbye...

Because now the lid goes on and lookng inside becomes very difficult.

The fit is pretty good on this side, but on the other side I had to insert shims under the upper fuselage and at the joint behind the nose. The nose joint was more than 1mm wide. It took a lot of filling. I was so discouraged that I didn't take a picture before I slathered the Mr. Surfacer over it all.

Moving on, we come to the wings. And more fit issues.
The wings and the centre section are supposed to be the same chord. None of the pieces match. Since I didn't want to mess around with that sharp trailing edge, I got that lined up and left the excess at the leading edge, which is thick enough to withstand the sanding back I'm going to need to do. The wingtip ailerons are less than the size of a fingernail, and about as thick. Getting them drilled and pinned was an adventre, and as if that wasn't enough, they had bubbles at their corners. I sanded them to a straight edge and superglued in tiny triangles of scrap plastic which I sanded back to the proper airfoil shape after the glue cured.

Once again my fathful hobby knife serves for scale.

This build is definitely shaping up to be an exercise in "some modelling skills required".

Back to the Kitten, I have it looking more or less like an airplane now.



It turns out that I had to mess about with that upper wing trailing edge anyhow. It looks a lot better now. The tailplane struts were provided as thin little resin wafers, but I cheated and used piano wire. It'll keep everything honest.
Soon enough I'll be able to start painting in ernest.

Some modelling skills required* Hmmm understated. You're doing a fine job, I'd have pushed it aside by now


Keith

Jessica,

I was oof for a while, but I can see that you are doing great job with the Kitten (what a strange name for a beast, wouldn't you say?). I agree with Keith... I would have probably leave it aside as well. Nevertheless, I do admire your zeal with everything on the site (but this was already mentioned and pointed out many, many times)


All the best,
Entoni

Kittens always land on their feet. Now mine has legs at least.


And a coating of Tamiya deck tan for the linen covering. I put a really thin coat over the metal areas. It looks more transparent in person.

While I wait for the oil paint on the cabane struts to dry, I'l turn my attention to those funky Art-Deco wheels.

You know now that I think of it, these wheels remind me of those used to turn water & steam valves on & off on large steam driven boilers. They often had curved stems from the boss hub to the outside rim. I remember Wingnut doing his WNW Albatros and posting a link to the company that did the scale tools and it was there I saw some PE frets with these wheels of scale valve machines.

Vectorcut

Those are funky wheels and bits

Now for the first stage of my own funky wheels. I cut apart a blister pack and dropped on two substantial puddles of Future, then dropped a wheel half into each.

Once these are dry, the other halves will go onto the other side, with an axle through them to keep them honest.

Jessica,
Neat trick with the future, never noticed it before this. I'll keep it in my "Tickle Trunk", particularly for use on PE and other cockpit bits.
Cheers,
Lance

Nice looking pair of wheels (and nice PE fret)... Nifty trick with the future.

Mikael

More progress


And just for fun, the kitten faces off to the Baron's Albatros in a similar state of finish

I'm soooooo close to finishing.




Some last pieces of photoetch and the rigging need to go on, then I can do the touch up painting and call it done.

Some build Jessie, and even looking at the model I still can't see where 2 machine guns would go. Just for interest there is a 80% scale Fokker Eindecker on the Full size circuit which must weigh less than 115kg and flies well on 26hp. It can be done, but not with machine guns!

I'll bet that Eindecker isn't constructed from plywood, steel tubing and angle iron. I'll also bet that it has a much larger wing area than the Kitten and still doesn't do much more than fly in straight lines and gentle turns. That was the original Eindecker's downfall; it really couldn't get out of its own way, much less that of a tuly manoeuverable fighter.

The only places I can think to put two Lewis guns are on the sides of the fuselage firing just above the cylinders. They'd probably mount to the outsides of the cabane struts, making getting into and out of the cockpit that much more difficult.

Of course we could fix that by making the aft strut of the centre section a quick-release so it swings upwards from its trailing edge for entry and exit.

It's as finished as it's ever going to be. I won't say it was a bad build, but I still think it could have gone better. Somehow at the last minute I got the upper wing on out of line with the lower Yesterday it was fine, but tonight when I was rigging it I popped the left wing off the struts. When I glued it back I must have jiggered the allignment. Then when I was putting on the wingtip skids one vanished into the 8th Dimension, so I took the other one off because I noticed that I had glued it on upside down. Shucks and related comments.

Done airplane is done. It shall plague me no more.

Jessica,
I've followed this one since the beginning and "sense your pain".Only two things to say........Gawd, it's an ugly little beast", and you deserve a medal!
Compliments on finishing this one, less dedicated Folks would never have stuck around as long as did you!
Cheers,
Lance

Nicely done Ms. Jassica.

It makes me think we should have a thread on builds that have been unusually taxing. Difficult jobs and that name "Ugly little beasts" may just be the very description for a title.

At any rate congrats on the finish.

I sense a campaign idea brewing...

"Aircraft that look like caricatures of themselves"

Sweet build Jessica, totally agree on "ugly little beast" though !

Cheers, D