The project: 213th Squadron - the kit

The kit I'm using for this build is the 1/72 Spad XIII airplain [sic] kit from Academy.

I was able to pick up six for about $6 plus almost nothing shipping - the main reason for choosing this kit. I'm building a flight of four planes in this project which gave me two extra so mini-me and I put together two of them already. We did it in an afternoon and painted them up freestyle. Mini-me's has already taken a lot of battle damage flying around the house but here are a couple of pictures of mine:

 I had some lozenge decals and a new "magic blue" paint I wanted to use so I painted up a captured Spad.

 ...and the underside...

I didn't put any rigging on this one but I plan to in the current project. More about that in a later post.










It was a pretty quick build as you can see; only 5 steps in the directions.

 In doing my research I found someone else also had the same idea. You can see his work at http://uamf.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=5567 and yes it's a "dog" of a kit but hey, a buck a model? Can't beat that. And I've already said I'm not trying to build a museum piece here or anything. I just want to try a flight build and give rigging a shot. I don't think I'll use human hair though. Or animal hair for that matter either.

There is quite a bit of cleanup to do on these pieces as you can see. Especially troubling was the elevators; I was going to have to carve out a little spot of the scalloped wing.

BEFORE

 

 

 

 



AFTER
Didn't turn out too bad.

I was also worried about cleaning up the exhaust pipes since they are so tiny and thin but I was able to make it all the way to the last pair before I broke one. But I got it back together and once painted you won't be able to tell. I started test fitting pieces and I could see there was going to be more modification and cleanup as I go.

So here I am so far:

 Next I'm going to be working on rigging the struts and filling in some holes near the exhaust connections, hiding seams, and those little mold spots on the wings.

Thanks for reading and please leave some comments.