Fiat CR.32 "Chirri", Italeri 1:72

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I started adding some extra detail to the cockpit. Scratch built belts are made of thin aluminum foil and copper wire. You can see the original detail on the wall. 

Some extra wall detail added, made of polystirene and copper wire. Notice the central pillar with a crossed styrene strip, to ensure a precise fitting for the control panel. 

When I tried to dry-fit the control panel in place with blu-tac, I realized how difficult It would be to set it in place with precission. The central pillar helped a lot with that. 

Control panel with scratch built dials and diagonal struts, as can be seen in actual pictures of this plane. The styrene strips behind are handles to accurately place the control panel in place when the fuselage halves are already glued. This proved to be very helpful. 

 

 

Paint job in port half. 

Starboard half. 

Seat in place. 

Detail of the central pillar 

I wanted to add the leather protection that surrounds the cockpit access. For that, I used a styrene rod, but I needed to carve out one quarter of it's section all along, so it would fit in place naturally. I built this simple rig, placed the rod tightly inside, and carefully carved it longitudinally with a scribing tool. The rig keeps the rod in place while carving. 

This is the result. 

And the rod in place. I think it turned out acceptable. 

 

I painted the control panel black, and then did my best painting white markings inside the dials with a fine pointed brush. 

 

The trickiest step was placing the wing struts in place. I filled the oversized holes on the wing with styrene discs, so I could drill a small hole in the center of them. Then I attached small copper rods at the end of every strut, so they fit in the drilled holes of the wing. 

When I built my first biplane I didn't care for alignment between upper and lower wings until it was too late. This time I built this rig to ensure a more accurate result. It's made with foam panels, the leftovers from a 3D puzzle toy. 

Let's start painting! I wanted to try the black & white technique I found in a wonderful book by José Luis López. 

Painting all the ribs was the most time consuming task of the painting process. It's achieved airbrushing thin layers of Tamiya Smoke over a strip of masking tape for every rib. 

Result from above. 

Before airbrushing Smoke, I masked certain elements to enhance contrast and simulate the inner structure of the wing 

 

 

I also added some stains leaking in the front area, as a pre-shading. 

 

This is how base yellow looks on top of the B&W. The effect is subtle. Color must be thinned a lot, and applied in a few airbrush passes. 

After such small scale camouflage is finished, the effect of the B&W technique is hardly noticeable. Note the copper rods added to the undercarriage structure for a tighter bond with the fuselage. 

Decals added. I was very happy with the behavior of this kits' decals, in contrast with my last experience with Italeri and it's Eurofighter Typhoon IIB. Those were very thick and some of them really off scale . This ones fit the model perfectly and adapt to the surface detail as expected. 

Some satin varnish, and then a little bit of weathering with enamels. 

Port side. Same stage.