H
aving recently
completed SMER’s
1/48 Piper L4 Cub (aka
“Grasshopper”, but that’s
confusing, because just about
any light observation aircraft
in American WWII service,
capable of operating from
unprepared grass fields, was
called ”grasshopper”), I was
delighted to find this model
of the civilian version for sale
at the Yeovilton Model Show.
I had one of those “Oh,
heck” moments when I
checked inside the box once
I got it home. As is usual for
Hobby Craft kits, the box was
way bigger than it needed to
be. Lifting the lid off I saw,
as expected, just one large
sprue of grey plastic parts
and ... no fuselage! But just as
the first wave of mild panic
threatened, I realised that
the fuselage was moulded in
clear plastic and I’d just seen
right through it! I gather this
was common with HobbyCraft kits, although it was
the first time I’d encountered
it. Up to that point, I was
quite a fan of their models.
Also in the box were a
small sheet of rather crude
decals and two instruction
sheets. Once upon a time some
poor devil had got one with
no instructions, I suppose.
Construction begins with
the cabin, which is – to put it
mildly – basic. Most strangely,
the seats slope down towards
the foot end. I did momentarily
contemplate cutting the seat
supports off and turning
them around, but my moment
of madness swiftly passed.
I did cut a new cabin floor
from plastic card, just to
give a level surface to work
with – the floor as moulded
has two large steps right in
the middle, and a prominent
location point under the
instrument panel, roughly
where the pedals should be!One must be very careful with
what sort of glue one uses for
the parts that fit directly to the
clear fuselage, because superglue
will fog the clear plastic, and
normal polystyrene cementwon’t work. Mostly I used De
Luxe Materials Glue ‘n’ Glaze,
which holds parts quite firmly,
but it does take a while to set.
With the new floor in place I
was at least able to use normal
modeling glue to fit the seats
and control columns to the
floor. The instrument panel and
rear bulkhead did need Glue ‘n’
Glaze, though. The instrument
panel is completely featureless,
and no decal is provided, so,
even though very little can be
seen, I detailed it with a few
dials from the spare decal box.
Photo-etch seat belts were also
sourced from the spares box.
The fuselage halves were
glued together with Glue ‘n’
Glaze, although a drop of thin
CA glue was run into the tail
fin join; this was far enough
away from the windows to not
have to worry about fogging. I
fitted the main undercarriage
supports (which come as one
piece that fits into a space under
the fuselage) with CA glue,
feeling this would help keep the
fuselage halves firmly together.
Once this was set I added
the rest of the undercarriage
struts, which needed aCUB
A Civil
Hobby Craft 1/48 Piper J3 Cub by Dick Clark
82 • NOVEMBER 2017 • SCALE AVIATION MODELLER INTERNATIONAL
PIPER J3 CUB
082-87-FEAT-ClarksField-1117.indd 82 16/10/2017 16:03