Ok - I've hit the wall and I declare it DONE. I took a diversion from my usual diorama building and tackled Guillow's DC 3. This was a huge Challenge, it's a multi media kit, balsa, tissue, wire, vacuform styrene.
The construction was pretty straight forward and easy. Tissuing went well. Then came adding the detail plastic and metal I've grown so used to plastic on plastic or metal on plastic, suddenly I've got a joint that has wood, tissue, AND plastic - good goo, what glue, what putty, what a task. Then sanding down seams, you have to be supper careful not to go through the paper or wood. The you have this whole world of dopig the kit and tissue sag and shrinkage.
To top it all off, this thing is BIG, the wings span is 36". Try and fit that in a conventional spray booth

Take a look ONLY for pleasure - this was a purely 'for fun' build - Lots of things to comment on (mre in the gallery).

Hi Scott
I checked out your gallery shots and the DC-3 looks good
Every once in a while I think about trying one of the balsa kits. It's a totally different kind of animal than the plastic kits we normally work with but those look like they sure would be fun to do


Nice Job and good modeling,
Wayne

Wayne
Thanks
It was a blast to build and yes - TOTALLY different. If you have some time, I'd recommend one.

Looks great Scott. I'm wondering abut painting the thing. Masking over the tissue would have scared me to death, did you have any problems with the delicate tissue surfaces?

Martin,
The masking was fairly straight forward, I used masking tape (I stuck it my pant leg first to make it less sticky).
The tissue created interesting problems when it came time to sand down putty, I had to be very careful when I used a metal file, rips right the the tissue. Even some of the coarse sandpaper created problems. Once you sand into tissue paper it frays the paper and makes a mess of the thing.
After you get it all tissued and assembled you have to 'fill in' the tissue - balsa guys call it doping. The paper by itself is VERY porous and you can't spray it with out some type of dope (I tried - I failed ). There is a specific product that you can buy and paint brush on. Since this was a for fun project - I opeted for the white glue/water deal. You mix up the glue and paint it on. Once its dry it stiffins up the plane pretty well and makes masking fairly easy.

The vacuform pieces really test your ability to 'make a piece work' When these are 'are the sprue' it's hard to tell what each piece is and just how it needs to be prep'ed and cut and sanded. And there are not guide pins either

Scott,Oh no the balsa and tissue bug bit you too. I used to build those kits as a kid. And just before I started building armor again I did a guillows me 109, have a spitfire ready to be covered, and a focke wulf fw190 on deck. These are a great diversion for something different to do when doing plastic models has hit a snag. By the way that is a beautiful bird you have there

Kevin

Kevin - why am I not suprised that you build balsa AC's also???

What you 'dope' your models with? And how do you deal with seams?

Scott, it was from building these planes that got me into doing the balsa buildings. To be honest though I think its the building of the bulldings thats going to make me a bettre airplane builder :-) . For doping I use aerogloss dope. Mine are flying models not for static models so I just do the 2-3 coats. As for the seams, I sand real well before I apply the paper. Then after the wetting it and letting that dry and the first coat of dope I hit the seams again. Dope again and sand again. tiresome for modeling I know but a very good deviation from dio's and plastic

Cheers, Kevin