Airfix U-6A Beaver - VNAF pysops

The latest rendition of Airfix's venerable DHC-2 Beaver kit, back on the market as a Vintage Classic. Great idea Airfix! 

I’ll be building a VNAF psyops Beaver fitted with a couple of big-*ss loudspeakers that I need to scratch build. I measured the dimensions from screenshots of a Youtube movie covering my subject and devised a highly sophisticated assembly jig... 

And it worked! Sort of. I ended up with two more or less equally sized speakers. Good enough for me. The door replacement was cut from a piece of scrap styrene with a little leaflet hatch scribed in. 

Door panel with speakers assembled and started on improving the instrument panel a bit. Also filled holes for unneeded seats. At this point I had not yet discovered that the seats are set back way too far. 

Just like with other Airfix kits of this age the transparencies are a problem. 130 scale mm of wavy armor glass. As with an earlier Airfix O-1 build I sanded the windows until they were flat and much thinner 

A coat of HG51 restored the transparency of the windows, though I had not been patient enough and some scratches remained. 

Installed the windows with UV glue to prevent them from popping out during later handling 

And safely masked, big hurdle taken! 

Interior ready for closing up 

Wrestling the fuselage together, fit is so-so, could not prevent a nasty bottom seam. That means some fun ahead with filling and restoring riveting and all… 

The bottom seam was indeed the nastiest one which took ages to fill and still not quite right. 

The top seams were much easier to handle, with little detail lost. Installing the windscreen was a challenge however. 

All masked up and engine installation in progress. Elected to mount the engine on a stud so that I could thin down the cowling rear edges, which are open on the real thing. 

Thinning the cowling edges and filling in progress. Added punched-out disks to the main wheels, as my subject has wheel covers. 

Adding the smaller bits and pieces and adding antennas. With hindsight I should have removed more of the bits and bobs moulded on the roof. Oh well. too late now… 

All ready for painting 

First a coat of Tamiya primer to check the seams 

Sprayed the anti-glare panel and pre-shaded the rest. I had frustrating struggles with my airbrush. 

Sprayed the wings with AK Interactive ADC grey. Great stuff. Especially now that I discovered I had my airbrush pressure set way too low before. Duh.. no idea when I did that. 

Installing the wing. Discovered that one of the roof windows stands proud of the surface. How the … did that happen??? And won’t budge either due to this fancy UV glue. Darn. 

Wing installed, filling the aft seam, some more masking to do before spraying the olive drab 

Olive drab done, got a new nozzle for my airbrush which now behaves much better than in the past. Did a mottle coat first, with light subsequent coats which gives a nice uneven appearance. 

All followed up with a gloss coat to prepare for decaling 

Decaling done, there were not that many decals but they were thin and vulnerable 

Some weathering with pastels 

Applied the final matt coat and off with the masks. Windows and windscreen are okay-ish. 

Installing struts, wheels and other remaining bits. Had to shorten the struts considerably to fit. 

And done! Imperfect as it may be, I am still quite happy with the result.