Well here we go, I've signed up for the lottery Campaign and my subject is build a "Danger Bay:- build a Canadian bush plane" and while doing research on the web I found a picture of Northwest Flying's model 18 on FLOATS! Well that sealed it for me, I love planes on floats and the model 18 is a gorgeous aircraft, so I contacted Shane at Northwest Flying and got pictures of the aircraft concerned.
Needless to say Shane was chuffed that I wanted to build one of his aircraft and he supplied me with pics for the build. I'll get Mal's help from Mal's miracle masks to create the masks I need to paint the call sign and stripes on the aircraft. So here are some pics to start off with, it'll all be straight forward till I get to actually attaching the floats then the fun really starts!

Well after several hours of work I've gotten this far. The large locating pins haven't proven to be a major problem providing good positive fit and reasonably good alignment of the two halves. I glued the wings together to make the cut through the nacelles easier, which actually worked out pretty well.

I glued the interior together and placed inside the right hand side of the fuselage to line everything up which again worked well and provides little trouble. Next I remove the resin cowls and engines from their respective backings and cleaned them up. Again no real dramas removing the resin parts although care is needed when removing the cowls and engine crankcase and backing.

I then proceeded to glue the cylinders to the crank case, I was worried as there was no positive locating pins for the cylinders even though there were on the crankcases. I toyed with the idea of drilling holes and using wire but realised that it would be fiddly and there would be little margin for error so I proceeded to glue them directly to the crankcase while the crankcase was stuck to some masking tape to eases handling them. with a little clean up the cylinders went straight on and were easy to line up with the crankcase everything went together well and when all were attached I sprayed kicker over them to set them in place. Bingo .... damn good looking engines way past any detail the original moulds had produced.

Here are some pics of the progress so fay you be the judge.

Good work so far. Pretty poor of them not to have any locations marked for the cylinders, but the resin is a nice improvement, as you say.

Surely this is a Beech 18, not Lockheed?

Oh hell! Is my face red! Yes it is indeed a Beechcraft! LOL oh well can't do anything about it now! Nothing to do but to continue onwards.

Chris, Nice start, especially with the resin engines and cowls. Looking forward to your next update.
Joel

Okay here we are a little further on I've got the engines painted (although I'll have to repaint as the kicker for the super glue dissolved the enamel paint!) I've got them attached and I've started to figure out how the floats need to be attached. I've drawn a scale diagram that I'm taking measurements from and if I'm careful it should be easily repeatable for both sides. More on the floats to follow. So here are some progress pics to keep you amused.

Chris, you're making steady progress. Don't envy you with all the re-scribing up next. I'm terrible at it, and make as many errors as corrections. Looking forward to your next update. Hopefully we'll see some paint on it then.
Joel

Hi Joel, not many lines need rescribing however some do need correcting and that requires filling and rescribing. Some of the panel lines on the underside describe a rather distressing kink in them as they didn't line up to well when the two halves were glued together. but that's a Pioneer kit for you. I've built two of their 1/72nd scale Ta154 and they require almost as much filler as they have plastic in them. LOL I've figured out what to do with them though, I glue them together and then run thin superglue around the parts, this fills and fairs them all together nicely.

So is this kit an Encore of the older Hobbycraft (Canada?)kit or an entirely different tool? I've got one in the stash somewhere C-45, SNB?

Neat to know there's real AM available for it.

I think the original plastic is a PM model from Turkey.

Perhaps you'll want to build a simple jig?

And then a beautiful plane emerged from the dust of sanding..... Those resin cowlings look very impressive.



Jelger

Hi Jessie I'd forgotten about that particular tutorial my thanks for the timely reminder, I was actually considering going the leggo block way.

Hi Jelger yup the resin replacement cowls and engines are light years away from the detail on the plastic parts. The kit is straight forward and lends itself well to aftermarket resin, now all I need to do is find a suitable resin interior!

Oh .... and keep on the look out for a decent 1/48 scale model of this great old lady of the skies.

Well I'm a little further along now I'v got the floats attached and the resin control surfaces in. The tails were a bit more of a challenge than the wings but that's because of the of the way the tail control surfaces are contoured. But with careful use of a scribing tool the came off fairly easily. I've got the resin ones in place after removing them from their pour stubs and again it was another job that had to be done carefully. But they do improve the look of the model. I've got some remedial paint work to be done on the engines still to do and I'm still deciding whether to try and build the resin props as I don't have a means of accurately replicating the angle of the prop and getting them uniform. I may wimp out yet! So here are some more pics to be going on with! I removed the left engine and packed out the outer edge of the nacelle as the engine wasn't quite lined properly, probably not immediately visible to the casual observer but it was annoying me, so off it came and with a little addition of plastic back it went again!

Looking good Have fun Phil