top, that should be removed’.
The instructions suggest to
open the triangular hole in
the forward top area and glue
a dedicated part there, with
some moulded ridges removed
beforehand. After consulting
the colour silhouettes and
images of the real aircraft
I decided that it would be
wrong and unnecessary. The
suggested part is probably the
machine gun position needed
for Zeppelin incarnations of
the same kit. As there are no
locating pins, I employed the
method used with vacuum-
formed models, that is, gluing
small pieces of plastic card
inside to align the main body
halves. Next I primed the body
grey and masked few areas
painting some of them black
and some white as a kind of
pre-shading. It is a simple
and efective method, giving
subtle diferences in the
metallic inish when looking
at the model from diferent
angles. After all was dry I
painted the the entire model
with Duraluminium from the
AK Interactive Extreme Metal
range, which I cannot praise
enough. After giving it a coat
of transparent lacquer I then
put on the decals, representing
the front cockade and tail
tri-colour stripes. The decals
for these areas are given
in sections, and being a bit
thick and they react slowly
to the softening liquid, so
aligning them correctly is a bit
troublesome. Next, I painted
and attached the stabilisers
with CA glue. There are some
locating pins, but a careful
itting and some correcting
of the shape of their mating
surfaces is needed here.
Attaching these at this stage of
construction, however, helps
determining the correct and
symmetrical placement of the
remaining decals. There are 16
small pieces of decal dedicated
to rudders’ and elevators’
actuators, but I decided to
brush paint them with Vallejo
paints instead, what – I
believe – spared me much time
and stress. The transparent
decal base of black letters is
extremely thin, so I strongly
reccomend giving them a coat
of lacquer beforehand. After all
the decals dried I gave wholea next coat of transparent
lacquer and moved to tiny bits.
After removing and cleaning
the appropriate gondolas from
the sprue, I attached a piece
of thin wire to each of them.
These served me as handles
during painting and inally
assured strong joints when
glued into the holes I drilled
later on in the airship’s body. I
painted gondolas light gray and
Aluminium and put the decals
that represent all the windowsand doors. By carefully
examining the colour proiles
and counting the lines on the
body, I determined the correct
placement of the gondolas and
attached all the remaining bits,
such as the struts, coolers and
propellers. These are oversized
for the scale, but it would be
next to impossible to produce
them in adequate size and
attach them afterwards. Every
piece was carefully glued with a
drop of Micro Cristal Clear glue.
Finally I brush painted these
tiny bits aluminium, black
and maroon appropriately.
I then spray painted the
stand light blue in order
to keep it as invisible as
possibleand then applied
the Union Jack decal on it.CONCLUSION
Assembling the R34 model
was as simple as it seemed,
hovewer, its is not beyond the
skills of the average modeller.
Painting and attaching all the
tiny parts is surely the best
excercise in patience I have
had recently, but the reward
is an eye-cathing model
of an important airship.SCALE AVIATION MODELLER INTERNATIONAL • APRIL 2019KIT REVIEWS
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