Flugzeugschlepp Cmelak tows Blanik

Ok, my planes arrived and - of cause - I could not resist to start (not that my workbench is not crowded with other projects 😉 ).  

With only a few parts but some modification expected I took out the Blanik from Special Hobby first.  

Checking fit of the canopy revealed some serious fit issues. 

to narrow the canopy or to widen the fuselage?  

I opted for option two and added some 0,4 mm styrene straps. A wise decision as the course of events revealed. 

Finding glider pilots in scale 1:72 proved futile so I had to be creative. Two WWII Czech Jeep drivers from my Attack Jeep kit had the right body shape to fit into the seats. So that was a start. As there is no arm room in a gliders fuselage some adjustments were needed. Last step was to demilitarize them by scraping off collars, epaulettes and breast and side pockets of trousers.
Not happy with one of the heads though. Maybe I find a better one... 

With the widening of the fuselage some more adjustments were necessary.  

Amazing which effort this 5 piece kit requires just to put two pilots in. Leg space is tight, arm space even tighter. So, some more modifications necessary to fit my two volunteers in.  

I repeat myself. Quite an effort on plane and pilots but now they fit.  

And after widening the fuselage and some sanding and tweaking even the stubborn canopy seems to settle.  

Now I am really anxious to color interior and pilots  

Instrument panels had to be modified as they would not fit into the widened body anymore. Next step will be instrument decals that I punched out of all kind of decal leftovers I could find.  

Puh. Progress is slow, but it is there. 

Pilots took further shape and color 

The projects fashion advisor insisted on prints on the T-shirts. To fulfill these requirements some spare decals were reappointed. 

After ages of tweaking and dry fitting I was finally fed up and painted and glued the two halves of the fuselage together. Now I gotta squeeze the pilots in somehow. 

One or two details. Then the cockpit will be done. Getting those two guys in there was quite a mission. 

I fashioned safety belts from masking tape strips and PE parts 

Finally some progress here: canopy was sanded into an acceptable fit, polished inside and detailed a bit. 

Damn! Canopy adjusted and the seams filled. But when sanding the canopy flush to the fuselage, sanding dust entered the cockpit via the hole for the wing support. No way to get the dirt out without removing the canopy again. Grrrr. 

I want to show the glider flying and to do so I intend to support it from the tip of the wings. To achieve a stable attachment I carved two grooves into the lower side of the wing and placed two cut hypodermic needles in it. 

After fixing them with super glue I covered them with sprue-gue. 

To achieve a more stable connection horizontal and vertical stabilizers received locating pins. 

I think - and hope - that the main hurdles are passed. Starts to resemble a glider. 🙂 

Canopy finally flush with the fuselage. 

After sanding with fine grit. Polishing left. 

Test assembly. Getting there. 

Thats the rough idea for the dio. Though not sure yet about whether to attach the glider that way. Still pondering 

with quite a bit of tweaking and bending of my support strut I finally managed to achieve a positiv dihedral. Thanks again to Ludvik for pointing it out. It really adds to the overall impression of the glider in flight. 

With sanding and polishing the canopy I lost most of the frame. So I have to recreate it with color. For that purpose I masked the frame first. Then I will mask the rest of the canopy and remove the frame maskes to recreate the frame itself with color then. That is at least the plan. 

Masking of the canopy completed 

The base was covered with cardboard, sanded and varnished. 

The Blaniks canopy frame was airbrushed and masked again for the main paint job 

I could not manage to put my plane on one foot as intended, as the wheel axle is quite flimsy and the rotational force such that it rotated the wheel out of line - no matter how I positioned it. So, I altered my approach and placed another support pin into the second wheel, drilled holes in a piece of wood, inserted metal tubes to house the pins and glued the wood piece into the cutout at the base.  

simple ground work with plaster of paris, white glue, cheap acrylic paint and finely sieved earth 

next: grass! 

Now gras. I did some grasing for a friend but that looked too uniform and artificial. So for this part of a gras strip of an airfield I wanted to have a more varied and interesting look. These are the materials I used.  

And this is what I came up with:
1st step: unto the groundwork, into which some tyre marks of a crossing path have been pressed before it was completely dry, some very fine scatter was unevenly distributed. 

Then 2 mm fibers of different colors were sprinkled in an uneven fashion. I used diluted white glue to spray or pipette the areas where I wanted the fibers to stick. 

At the side of the landing strip, where the grass is not kept short, longer fibers have been used 

to create the impression of longitudinal tyre marks from the planes I repeatedly pressed the small side of a cardboard into the grasswork. 

Where the path crosses the strip I used the grass fibers sparingly.  

And here is the Cmelak taking off from the gras strip. 

First NMF coat with airframe aluminum sprayed. Control surfaces are silver as this metal bird has fabric covered control surfaces. Some variation will follow. 

Some color variations with various aluminum shades added.  

I will blend it in a little bit more with a thin final layer of semi matt aluminium 

Decals are done. I am not too happy with their printing quality. The red has no sharp edges and the letters are a bit blurry.  

I should have started on the underside of the wings to practice. Now my mistakes are quite visible. 

Things worked better after I started to cut the long decals in half. Some tuch ups are needed before I can seal them with gloss varnish. 

As I did not find fitting veneer I applied my wood rendering technique from plastic modelling to the sides of the base: some cheep acrylic sand paint followed by different shades of brown oil paint. Some areas need a little redo, but bottom line I am quite happy so far. 

the uncut grass area received some detailing by the addition of parts of collected plants 

Finally some progress. 

The masking was removed and the canopy frame was touched up together with some imperfections of decals and paint. 

The landing gear was installed,... 

...so that I will call this one done. 

Now I just have to bring it up into the air. 

The first attempts to do so failed, but I have another idea - and a neighbor with the appropriate tools. 🙂
So, stay tuned. 

Despite quite a few flaws it is nevertheless a good feeling seeing this one ready for take off... 

After a couple of futile attempts, it looks as if I might be successful this time. Bending the acrylic rod took a couple of trys before I managed not to warp and not to stretch it. Then it was surprisingly difficult to drill a hole into it. High revolutions with my Dremel melted the material, low ones caused the drills to get stuck and some even to break. But finally this worked out too. Here you see my setup to glue the receptive tubes where the pins from the wings will enter into the rod using clear resin. Let's see whether my precautions to prevent the glider from getting stuck will work. Tomorrow the resin should be hard enough to test it. 

Finally, the Blanik flys. 

Some tweaks are needed but basically it works.  

I do not like the sides of the base anymore. So I will give it another try with veneer. 

Veneer is applied, sanded and blended in. Now receiving a coat or two of wood stain. 

I am calling it done. 

As you see, the propeller blades have been clipped off to make it look a bit more dynamic. Maybe I will try Rolands technique of blurred props later on.