I have entered a period of increased hobby activity lately and thought I might approach the 'slammer' concept that the automotive side of kitmaker does from time to time. I've seen Jessica espouse this a few times and finally decided to try.

A slammer is, as I understand it, a kit built super quickly. I think the necessary ingredients are:

-a disposable kit one astrokit resin Saetta. Check.
-an easy build very few parts here. Check.

So here we go. The kit has superb surface detail and panel lines, the engine ain't half bad either. This ends the praises I have for the astrokit Saetta.

Now there is a lot of detail in the pit and the gear bays. But it's crudely sculpted. And all the fiddly areas suffer from generally poor moulding. Bubbles abound. The sheaths around the SAFAT mgs are good. But the barrels themselves protruded crosseyed. So I nipped them off and stuck in some wee brass.

The fiat a74 is pretty good from the front. The less said about side-on and behind the better. Suffice to say it's fantastic so long as you don't plan on displaying it with the cowling off. The speedy approach here is spraying it silver, then a dense blackwash. Then swiftly brush painting the pushrods, ignition wires and other gubbins. And wrapping it up with another of the same blackwash to blend the brushwork and darken the thing to a satisfactory level of griminess. So far I'm at blackwash #1.

The pit is the result of green paint, hastily brushed details, grey wash and then highlights with white and silver pencil. Snapped control stick replaced with wee brass, and the la-z-boy affectionately known as the pilot's seat may be replaced with a (rough) scratch one if that goes smoothly.

So far I'm like... Forty five minutes total on it.

Hi Rick

This is an interesting build! I've never seen the Astrokit Macchi C.200 before. I'm surprised I missed it, because it looks just my "cup of tea". I guess it must date back to just before I started buying much stuff over the Internet, and I never spotted it in Hannants' Colindale shop or Dorking Models (both of which are great for imported stuff).

All the best

Rowan

Richard, I've heard of weekend builds, but never heard the term Slammer builds before. Guess it's not exactly "my cup of tea". To relax, I actually build slower.

Joel

I like the slammer approach, Richard. It relaxes one from the intense and precise building approach. With +/-45 minutes of fun, your doing a wonderful job on this one.

I'll sometimes do a slammer for my grandson, which soon becomes a slam-dunker anyway. They can be win-win builds.

Okay so first progress since my last post as I have had hand, foot and mouth disease. Which I had never heard of before my son got sent home from daycare with it Friday before last. He totally brushed it off. This disease is nothing to write the mayor about.

Unless you're a full grown man who has never ever been exposed to it. God's teeth I have been ill with all manner of strange and unusual symptoms. Fevered dreams, painful sores on the hands, feet and in the mouth. And the uncanny sensation of severe pins and needles in all my extremities for two days straight.

I tell you a regular "open the sluice gates" flu is the riviera compared to this one.

Anyway. I just thought I'd share my week out of a bible story with you all.




The thing is together. Butt joints all, with much ca glue. I put a small amount of squadron green on the fuselage seam under the cockpit and at the underside wing roots. But that should be it. All the other fit issues will only need gap filling ca I think. Don't assume the fit is good though, it is only so-so. All the joints are quite open, but not gaping.

The cylinder heads were shaved considerably to get them into the cowling. It looks quite greasy in this photo but I can assure the motor looks pretty nice in person. This progress represents about 30 minutes of work...