"You know, if you were to ask me, "Do I hate Fine Molds models?", I'd have to say yes. They cost too much and they do not do enough models of proper subjects.
With that in mind, Dorothy Pace, Charlie Pace's wife, called me over to the vendor booth at Richmond and said Charlie sit this one aside just for you. Then she handed me the Find Molds 1/72 Curtiss R3C-0 kit. I could have dropped.
At first thought I had envisioned converting it to the true R3C-1, but alas, the fuselage was too long and the tailplanes too small. So hey, being who I be, I say hey, they Navy needed a damn floatplane fighter in 1926! So I built the bastards one!
It's all complete using invisible thread aerial radio wiring. The gunsightis a reserve Fotocut P/E ring gun sight with a fine wire bead.
Other than the instrument panel and seat belts, none of the decals that came with the kit were used. National Insignia are from Aeromaster with the rudder markings and prop stripes done with white, insignia blue, and insignia red decal film. I did all text insignia using Long Beach Font in Adobe Illustrator and printed them on Testors clear film. They were set with Krylon Artist's Fixtif after the ink had dried, which works much better than Testors Decal Bonder.
Rigging is 0.015-in wire, which is really stripped model auto spark plug wire. It fits exactly in a #80 drilled hole. BTW gang, I have 8 pin vises and not one of them would hold a # 80 bit. So I fixed that. I got a 25 gauge hypodermic needle and cut off a 1-in section. Cleaned it up and bored it out. A #80 bit fits precisely in the open end of a 25 gauge hypo. So I slid the bit in up top the cutting portion and CNAed it in place. My #80 bit has never worked better. Why hadn't I thought of that 15 years ago!
Paints are Polly Scale, Aeromaster, and Alclad II unpolished Aluminum. Prop is done with MM Insignia Red and MM Buffing Aluminum Metalizer."
