At
the 2001 IPMS Nationals I was fortunate enough to come across a firm from
Canada who make the Kristen Eagle II in 1/32 scale.
I
had never even heard of the company before, Airshow Models but once I cast
eyes upon the model they had on display I new I had to have one. To this end I
got my hands on the Eagle and decided that I would like to make the single
seat version of this light aerobatics plane.
Airshow
Models make the conversion kit to make the single seat and I added this to the
basic kit. As you will see in the accompanying photo’s there are a multitude
of small parts which have been made from mixed media and each part is made
from the most suited material. Just for the record there are parts made in
resin, white metal, clear plastic, etched metal, lost wax cast brass, plastic
aerofoil section and Decals.
On
opening the sturdy box one thing that strikes you is the fact that all of the
major resin parts are extremely well cast with no warping and very few air
bubbles. After some searching on the web I found some reference and printed it
off for later. I have included some links at the end of the article.
As
with any kit of this type the first item is to remove the casting blocks from
the resin parts. This I did in the conventional way of razor sawing the part
off and then final sanding with some 50 grit aluminium paper. As I am sure you
are all well aware please be careful with the dust produced, I like to wear a
mask and Hoover the dust up as soon as possible afterwards.
The
way that this model has been produced means that there are some seams to deal
with; these are easy enough to deal with by using a flexi file with a medium
grit. All of the seams are readily accessible with the exception of the one
behind the exhausts. In this area I used a small medical chisel to remove the
flash.
Construction
follows a logical sequence and within a few minutes of completing the clean up
I was attaching the engine to the front of the fuselage. Through out the build
of this model I used Super Glue from Eduard, in some areas I used accelerator
spray to aid the adhesion time. Be
careful here as I found the thin lip covering the exhaust was easily broken. I
had to mend mine with a careful rebuild from Milliput.
John (Tigger)
Wilkes
To visit
the Airshow Models website - click on their logo above.
To see
other coverage of these excellent kits, take a look at our previous articles
here
and here
