wing and fuselage needs some
attention and a bit of careful
sanding to keep it symmetrical
and perpendicular. I suggest
gluing the lower part of the wing
to the fuselage irst, followed
by the upper part, but even then
some puttying and re-scribing
lost panel lines is needed here.
There are three types of spats
included in the kit, but if you
are building the US Secretary
of Treasury’s personal aircraft
you will need to modify one of
them to create a fourth type.
Thankfully, there are locating
ridges on the lower wing for the
spats but again, some puttying
and sanding is inevitable here.
I now installed the horizontal
empennage units. These it
perfectly but you will need to
thin the trailing edges. There
are also some tiny actuators,
but their location must be
guesstimated, again on the
basis of painting schemes.
Similarly, the location of all the
aerial masts and the carburettor
scoop must be guesstimated,
as there are no location marks
anywhere. All these tiny bits are
designed to be just butt-joined
to the fuselage surface, which is
not a good idea as it inevitably
leads to losing them during later
stages of construction. The same
issue applies to the perfectly
reproduced but extremely
fragile tail wheel unit.
To reinforce most of these
small items I drilled a hole and
inserted a piece of thin wire, which
itted into holes drilled into the
fuselage. With regard to the tail
wheel unit, it is better to get rid
of its shock absorber at the outset
and re-create it with a piece of
wire installed straight to the wheel
with a blob of thick CA glue to
make a far stronger assembly.
PAINTS AND DECALS
There are three marking options
supplied in the kit: the box top
scheme is a camoulaged Delta used
by the RAAF, in dark brown/dark
green over sky, while the second
scheme uses an even darker brown/
olive drab over natural metal used
by the US Army Corps of Engineers
in Eritrea in 1942. Being a fan of
civil aviation in general, I chose
the third scheme, a natural-metal
Delta used as the personal plane of
the US Secretary of Treasury from
1935-1940. Actually, it oicially
belonged to the US Coast Guard and
wears the colourful badge of this
service plus red and white stripes
under a blue bar on the rudder.
I masked all the windows, which
is quite simple as they are all lat
and more or less rectangular. I gave
my model a coat of black primer and
prepared the surface for a metallic
inish, puttying and polishing and
priming it repeatedly until it was
perfect. There is a small dent in
the engine cover, which is not an
imperfection, but an indication
where the top is and where the
carburettor scoop should go.I gave a try to AK Extreme Metal
paints with this model, and these
are just awesome. The paints are
alcohol-based, airbrush-thinned,
quick-drying and can be put on
in several thin coats, giving good
control of the inal efect. But they
must be covered with a protective
varnish as soon as possible,
as the metal inish can be very
easily scraped or rubbed of.
As I have said, the decals are
perfectly printed, thin, lexible, and
the adhesive is of very good quality.
But the longer pieces, like the titles
on the sides of the fuselage, have a
tendency to fold over on themselves
or stretch irreversibly. The same
problem afects the lettering that
goes on the underside of the wings.
If you choose to make the
Treasury aircraft I suggest cutting
these long decals into smaller
pieces, using rather warm water
and waiting until the adhesive
loosens the designs almost free
before applying them. With the
more compact pieces, like the US
Coast Guard badges and the rudder
stripes I had no such problems.CONSTRUCTION CONTINUES
I now painted and weathered the
engine before installing it; this
is quite easy, as there are some
indentations that help to postion
the engine properly. There are
a number of diferent exhaust
pipes, depending on the version
you are modelling. Again, these
are butt-joined to the engine
cover, but their location must
be guesstimated as there are no
marks anywhere to act as a guide.
Preparing and painting the
main wheels is easy, but gluing
them in place is not. There are
tiny supports that are attached
to the short axes moulded on the
wheels. These supports should be
installed to the internal walls of
the spats, but the walls are simply
too thick. In fact, the openinginside these spats is just a little
bit wider than the wheel itself.
The best solution would be to
measure and cut some grooves
inside these spats before gluing
them together. But I found this out
too late, so I had to carefully make
my grooves on the assembled spat
with a dentist’s drill. This is not
hard, but doing it on an almost
inished model made me sweat!
Next I added the reinforced
tail wheel and an aerial made
from stretched sprue.
Finally, I prepared, painted, and
decaled the propeller and installed
it into the pre-drilled hole in the
crankcase cover to inish my model.
(After I made photos for this review
I realised that I had forgotten to
install the pitot probe on the wing!)CONCLUSION
This is definitely a short-run model.
A very good quality short-run kit,
but still, it is not for a novice or
anyone with a deficiency of patience.
Finishing the Delta took me much
more time than I had expected
upon opening the box for the first
time. It was not a problem of the
fit or the parts, which are almost
perfect save the spats and main
wheels, but rather a lot of time was
spent on estimating the location
of parts or determining a way to
strengthen the joints between parts.
This notwithstanding,
finishing this model was a real
joy and overcoming all the small
challenges undoubtedly advanced
my modellers’ skills a bit further.
Having successfully completed
this Delta I am now seriously
considering purchasing Special
Hobby’s single-pilot version.
My thanks to Special Hobby
for giving me the opportunity
to build this model.KIT REVIEWS
WWW.SAMPUBLICATIONS.COM • DECEMBER 2018 • 59