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Roland Sachsenhofer
These four pictures begin a project that should result in one of the largest models I have ever attempted. Not the biggest - the 1:32 Liberator holds my record here - but close!
However, the impressively large box contains surprisingly little and, also surprisingly, large components such as the fuselage, wings and tailplane are already assembled. Incidentally, these are made of fibreglass and require their own treatment.
These parts are also stable and clean. A bit of filling was required, as the traces of glue and filler on the seams are very rough and show air pockets. This will now be sanded, the cockpit sawn out and the windows drilled - well, modelling a little differently than usual! 🙂

Gergő Takács
This looks like a cool project! Following.

Treehugger
The panel lines look ok I guess. I mean, I would be happy with those panel lines.

Mr D
Like it , nice project.
I'm working on the Beriev Be-6 Armoured Flying boat,
Revisiting a kit after 33yrs.
All the best with yours...😃👍👍

Robert Podkoński
A true behemoth it is. I will surely follow this build with utmost interest!

gorby
Looking forward to seeing this take shape. 🙂
I believe the last Mars had it's final flight two weeks ago.
Youtube Video
Youtube Video

Nathan Dempsey
Oh my another giant. Following 👀

Robert Podkoński
BTW. Do we see the finished Fairchild in the background, Roland?

Roland Sachsenhofer
I am very happy about all your interest! In fact, I also started this project because of its topicality; the pictures of the last flight of Hawai Mars are always a heart-warming pleasure; this one in particular, thanks Gorby for posting it!

Today I drilled the openings for the windows in the fuselage; I determined the diameter of the holes from kit glass parts. They seem a bit big to me, but we'll see. As I'm not going to use the clear parts from the kit, but want to make them with Klearfix, I could reduce the diameter quite a bit.
The next steps will be to finish sanding the fuselage seams - now only the top side has to be done - and then to glue the wings and stabilisers to the fuselage. To do this, I'm cutting solid steel rods to length, which I'll glue in place with a two-component adhesive.
The Mars should be ready by mid-October: I want to take it to the Euromodel in Ried, Upper Austria.

And yes, In fact, the more or less finished Fairchild F.91 had to serve as a scale model in the background! 🙂

Thomas Mayer
Du bist echt eine Bau-Maschine, Roland! Und immer kommt etwas sehr schönes raus! 👍

Roland Sachsenhofer
Danke für die Einschätzung, Thomas! 🙂

Roland Sachsenhofer
The construction of Mars is progressing: I'll show you a few construction steps in a little 'time lapse'. Attaching the wings and tailplane with 2k glue worked well; the materials could be sanded smooth and fine afterwards. However, the brittleness of the fibreglass caused some difficulties; parts kept splintering off and had to be filled, sanded and re-engraved. As I always do the whole thing standing up, wearing a mask and under running water, this always turns into an almost athletic exercise 🙂 But now it seems to be over and the Mars is ready for its first encounter with colour... I took the two crew members under the cockpit canopy to make the proportions clear and to keep my options open for presenting the finished aircraft - who knows, maybe it will take off or fly?

gorby
It's a bit of a monster! 😮
Doesn't look like an easy build but you seem to be beating it into shape. 🙂

Robert Podkoński
You're the brave man, Roland, not me...

DerMattes
Das schau ich mir weiter an 🙂

Mr D
Looking good Roland 👌
Be a nice bird when she done, pilots look smart 👍👍

Cuajete
Wow... an unusual and gigant model... It seems like fiberglass is difficult to handle.
Great job so far, Roland!

Michael Kohl
Na, da hab ich doch auch nen Blick drauf

Roland Sachsenhofer
Thank you very much for your motivating feedback and your interest, mates!

Łukasz Gliński
I have to follow that behemoth 👍 I don't think I'll ever find enough space to build one myself 😄

Thomas Kolb
My goodness, your models are just getting bigger and bigger! I cannot wait to see it finished!

Finn
Looking interesting, I'm in

Ray Loch
Following as well. Just saw its retirement flyby and landing in Pat Bay, Its Huge.

Roland Sachsenhofer
Fortunately, the Martin Mars has reached the stage where the colouring and surface design will be the main thing; so far I've been 'plugging holes' again and again: the fibreglass surface proves to be quite brittle, damage is difficult to putty, and when re-engraving the lost panel lines it quickly happens that it cracks again under the carefully guided scalpel blade - and a new hole has already appeared. The new pictures show a few such construction sites, for example at the bow under the cockpit glazing or on the back of the fuselage between the wings.
But, all in all, in retrospect it's all half as bad, now I'm looking forward to the paintwork!

Thank you, mates, for your interest and feedback! Ray, I would have liked to have experienced that too!

Ben M
👀🤯

Cuajete
Roland, I was unaware of these problems with fiberglass and it is a shame that these kits are so expensive considering the quality of these materials. I think the worst is over. You can feel proud of the work done so far. The effort was worth it. Go on!

Roland Sachsenhofer
Those are encouraging responses, yes, Cuajete, I think so too. Thank you both for your interest and comments!

Mr D
How big is the model??
Is it cast in fiberglass because it's to big for injection molding??
Nice to see the update 😁👍👍
The vent in behind the cockpit done now.

Mirko Römer
That's what you call a project!👍

Nicolas
Cool project, following.

Roland Sachsenhofer
Thank you friends! The Mars as a 72 model measures 84.5cm in wingspan and has a length of 48.5cm: huge, but not so huge that it couldn't have been made into an injection moulded model. The B-24 Liberator from Hobby Boss in 1:32 that I built this spring, for example, was significantly larger and yet still injection moulded.

What is now proving to be a challenging issue is that the acrylic paint I used does not seem to want to adhere properly to some parts of the resin fuselage and wing panels, even though I have meticulously and accurately cleaned the surfaces. And another thing: after I sprayed a first coat of white paint on the fuselage today, something became apparent that hadn't appeared before: the resin surfaces are covered with small air pockets, i.e. holes.... 'Much enemy, much honour' as they say in German! 🙂

Ben M
What are you using for primer? I almost always use tamiya spray primer as it usually adheres even to challenging surfaces. I have had trouble occasionally on some resin surfaces where I've resorted to krylon plastic compatible spray paint as a primer.

Ben M
👀

George Williams
Nice model of one of my favourite sports cars.

Christian W
Mine too! Nicely built. Very nice paintjob and finishing. Beautiful.

Spence Wilson
Nicely done. Beautiful paint.

Neuling
Beautiful!

Emanuele Matteucci
Wow....

Alister Curnow
Thanks everyone! It's refreshing to build a model clean and without weathering haha. An enjoyable hobby indeed. Thank you.

Steven Van Dyck
I never paint the hull parts separately, because they need to get sanded along the seam to get a perfect fit. But it would ease the painting of course.

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