A little Piper

bughunter
Does anyone know photos or references of the Piper NC38601, n/c 7132 ?

Marcel Klemmer
Unfortunately I can't help you, but I can watch well and take a seat…

bughunter
Welcome Marcel!
There are so many combinations possible inside, black struts, yellow struts, grey struts. And I found no information about the provided kit marking. May be I will do another serial.

Robert Podkoński
Taking a seat too.

Thomas Bischoff
Nice choice! Goes well together with a Storch 🙂 I hope one day we see a Super Cup in 1:48

LucLuke B
I'll be following your build. That's one I'm planning to work on some time soon. Youve got to learn from the masters.

Bernhard Schrock
Nothing represents wood in 1:48 as wood itself! A seat in first row please! 🙂

Pepe
At the moment it looks great.... As usual... I hope you're excited to see how it progresses!!!

David Taylor
Back in.

Ben M
👀

bughunter
Oh, a lot of seats in the first row are occupied. A warm Welcome!
As a German footballer said: Always this insane, immense, unbelievable ... pressure!
. . . to deliver a nice model.

@Thomas I miss already the Storch, or more the metal wing spar inside. The wings mounted only to clear parts (+ some thin struts inside) looks very fragile here. I guess it is more robust once the outer wing struts are mounted, but one need to paint and apply decals before!?!

Bernhard Schrock
Hej. Versuchs mal hiermit über den letzten Besitzer
airhistory.org.uk/gy//reg_N79.html
Sicher dass die FAA Nummer NC38601 ist? Vielleicht N38601?

Bernhard Schrock
Eben noch eine Suche über Airliners net gemacht. Nix: weder unter NC38601 noch N38601. Schreib doch vielleicht mal den Bausatzhersteller an, woher er die Vorgabe für Decals hat.

bughunter
Thank you Bernhard!
I found also your link and there it is listed as NC38601, with the same serial as Special Hobby said, 7132 (very close to the end) Owner was "Roper Aircraft Holdings Inc /KS".
There is also a drawing spec for the markings, and this show also a marking with "NC", but it describes all numbers in black. SH give the tail number in red?
Please click on the kit in the project bar and see the linked manual page 13.

Ricardo Reis
One seat for me also! 👍

bughunter
Welcome Ricardo, nice to see you here!

It looks like that Special Hobby is right! A mate in the German flugzeugforum.de found a site with the b/w picture of that Piper. The "3" and the number on the tail are shown in another gray as the black strip.
Here the page, scroll down:
members.tripod.com/a..ds_TX_FtWorth_SE.htm

Ludvík Kružík
Another surprise from bughunter. Looks like you've expanded the boundaries of your scope to include somewhat more modern machines. First it was a Storch, now it's a Piper. And you've announced the F-35 Lightnig for November. I'm curious to see what comes next? 🙂
Anyway, the Piper is a good choice and I am supremely confident that it will turn out to be another hilarious model in your hands.
I wish you a lot of fun in your modeling work and I will be happy to follow this build.

bughunter
Thank you Ludvik and nice to see you here!
Yeah, I like some icons of aviation. In this case I have the Piper in my cabinet, but as 1:72 Stripdown (see my projects) so it would be nice to have a "completed" one in my usual scale. BTW for the Storch it the other way around: I have the Stripdown Storch in my stash, but not yet build.
I was a bit out of motivation with my other projects so I started a new one. Let's see if I can bring this to a good end. I'm not very experienced with clear parts as my biplanes don't have those in most cases (may be foil as windscreen). And here they have to hold the wing.

Regarding F-35 and November: Tamiya announced a new F-35B for November (after the A last year), so I corrected the kit here as this was set to state "Released" already.

bughunter
The engine is painted. A picture search comes up with a lot of different looks of the engine. I know that early engines was mostly black, also cylinders and head covers. But as this would hide many of the details I took the artistic freedom to follow a newer style.
Also some work on the fuselage and the first clear parts are glued in.

Erik Leijdens
Awesome job on the engine! The fit looks good also. Great to see you starting this kit, so normal people can use yours as benchmark 😄

Erik

Ludvík Kružík
So I misinterpreted your report on the F-35. I originally thought you bought this kit and were going to start building it in November. Now I get it.
But I'd still be interested to see what a modern military or civilian aircraft would look like in your rendition.

Work on the Piper is going well. The silver engine looks very good. Especially knowing how small that engine really is (I built a Piper L-4H two years ago).

bughunter
Now a piece of soldering art: With a bit of luck I was able to create a bearing with axle for the airscrew - no solder was going inside 😉
A little wooden propeller has also reached its raw shape.

Alex K
It definitely is a real pleasure watching masters like bughunter (and Ludvik before that) dealing with Piper's little classic...

bughunter
Thank you Alex, and don't miss the wonderful video I linked in the project.

Michael Kohl
cute plane. Nice start. The engine is a gem.

Greg Baker
Oohhhh... something... different. And yet... still amazing.

bughunter
Thank you Michael and Greg!

Now I converted this Special Hobby kit into a Tamiya build 😉 I was deeply impressed with the metal wing spar and construction on the Tamiya Storch built recently.
The construction of this wing mounting is really nice. SH provided a complex shaped wing spar with many trapezoidal surfaces which may can hold the wings especially once the struts are added. But during paint job and applying decals you need some care I guess as the struts are not yet in place. The whole thing looks flexible, so you may get some force onto the clear parts (the wings are glued to them).
I like a robust model for safe transportation and I would hate to find out later (after paint job, on the completed model), that the wing spar construction was not strong enough. So I will go the extra mile to create a metal replacement.

bughunter
And after a transport damage I decided to rebuild the tail wheel assembly, all from metal.
The little intricate brass part left the tweezers with an ugly flinging sound and fell off. I looked for it on the floor for a long time, but it wasn't there. In the end I found it in the airbrush compressor housing, under the tank!
Let's see how mates follow may way to build this kit 😉

Martin Oostrom
This is very nice Bugsy. A bit modern when compared to your regular builds. I still like it! 👍🏻

bughunter
Thank you Martin!
All the scratched metal work inside the fuselage is complete and in place. I'm really not sure if that was necessary, but at least it seems very robust now. The outer wing struts are only there for decoration later and don't need to carry any load.

Martin Oostrom
Someone let the interior light on in picture 32 😉

bughunter
🙂
The pictures have a lot of reflections from my macro LED ring light.
Or do you mean the white/brass on top? Here I scratched the paint away for better grip of the glue.

bughunter
I applied half of the MR Paint bottle "Dark Chrome Yellow". Yellow is not easy to paint, but it looks ok now. Should have spend more time for sanding and surface preparation.

Martin Oostrom
A grey primer is more forgiving with yellow. Try pink primer the next time!
Looking good Bugsy

Greg Baker
I concur. In fact, I just painted a little pink plane yellow myself… with one coat 🙂

bughunter
I have heard of the Pink Primer, but I was afraid that the chrome yellow would be too reddish. Of course, I could have tested it.

Erik Leijdens
Looks very good in Yellow bughunter!! Coming along very well

Kyle DeHart
I have clearly been remiss on here. Having nearly missed the wonderful beginnings of this project. I really like that chrome yellow. Have heard good things about MRP and it is possible to get them over here, perhaps I shall try some out sometime. Looking forward to what's next.

bughunter
Thank you mates and welcome Kyle!

Ludvík Kružík
That yellow color really suits Piper. It makes the whole plane glow.

Nathan Dempsey
Lovely work. I too love the yellow.

KyMustang
This is very impressive! I used to fly a couple yellow J-3s like this and seeing yours brings back memories. That leaf spring on the tailwheel.....wow!

I bought this kit to build a copy of N77500 that I used to fly. Following your excellent build with interest for sure!

bughunter
Thank you very much mates!
I love to scratch build parts in metal. So idea of the leaf spring is a copy of another (unfinished) project, see here (and the other pictures around) how I made this: WIP - Ansaldo S.V.A. 5 | Album by bughunter (1:48)
The bad thing is, that I realized now this is more a tail wheel of a PA-18. I think I will look at the ref video again and modify this part a bit.
The metal wing spar worked perfectly while handling this model during painting. The outer struts will only be decoration 😉

If you have the kit already you should check regarding quality: the instrument film (see pics, I reported that to SH) and the decals. On mine the logo is wrong, the CUB is not white (or accidentally covered with red) 🙁 I will try to use other decals. I found also drawing about application of NC reg numbers on the CUB, but the SH decals seems to have higher numbers?!
I'm also not sure, which registration I will use. May be I will mask (plotter) and paint the big numbers.

This build will be on hold for a moment, as I will visit an exhibition and another things, and wait for new decals.

KyMustang
I admire your attention to detail. I will say that if you're building a modern airplane then don't worry so much about font and marking size. There is no standard. When the planes are re-covered they'll get as close as they can and move on.

Now if you're doing a specific plane, then yeah, go ahead.

bughunter
This project was on hold for a while as I had no time for modeling and was waiting for a new decal set.
Due to the great help of Kyle (Thank you very much my friend 👍 ) it arrived and all markings are applied now.
After the decals are completely dry I will add a layer of clear coat.

Kyle DeHart
You are most welcome, my friend. Glad I could assist. And it has paid off!! Your little cub decal is most excellent. In fact all the decal placements and numbers look spot on. It looks like it will be ready for flight soon!!

KyMustang
Looks quite good. Kyle, where did you get that decal?

bughunter
See this project page, there the decal is listed. You can get it only on the homepage of DRAWdecal, as it is printed on demand.
Please note, that there was only one number stripe of spare numbers for the tail (see picture), so only 41982 or a very limited number range was possible at all. I contacted them and they promised to change this. But if you want to do your N77500 you will still need more then one sheet.

Christoph Kunz
Why did I missed this until today?
Anyway, great work again. 👍

KyMustang
Perfect. Added to my wishlist for the future.

bughunter
Welcome Christoph! Better late than never 😉

Ludvík Kružík
In your rendition, even a small plane can be made into a "big" model. 😉

bughunter
Thank you Ludvik!
I just added the next batch of pictures, struts and rigging are done.
But this is far from done, some details and all control wires needs to be added. The tail wheel and some robust struts for the landing gear are missing too.

Thomas Bischoff
A yellow beauty - the colour suits her well 👍

bughunter
Thank you Thomas!
Yes, the colour shade is very special: if I work on this model in the dark evening, it looks like green patches on it below my working lamps 😮
But below a normal light bulb, in day light and - very important - in my cabinet with LED lights it looks nice!

bughunter
A new batch of brutal macros has been uploaded - please be merciful 😉
In addition to a few other details, all the control cables have been added. Fortunately, the elevator was controlled internally.

bughunter
Now the engine is hidden by added cowlings. Luckily we have the pictures in this build log as a keepsake.

bughunter
After a rework of the already created tail wheel assembly I'm happy with the look. The tail is now complete.
Impressive, how much details can be added to such little sports plane.

Ethan Flory
Looking very nice!!

Agnius
Very very nice!

bughunter
Thank you very much mates!
The ToDo list is getting shorter and shorter 😉

Kyle DeHart
Yea Frank, coming along really excellently. What a lovely little bird this will be.

bughunter
Thx Kyle!
The propeller is finished and mounted. A test run was successful 😉

Daniel Klink
Beautiful and rare Canary you accomplished here! Very impressive Mate 👍

KyMustang
This is impressive. Just looking at the detail is bringing back memories of doing preflight inspections!

Erik Leijdens
Wow bughunter the little Piper becomes more impressive every time I see it. The struts on the tail are a very nice addition en so well executed, as is the tailwheel! That is a piece of art, just as the whole Piper. Great work mate.

bughunter
Thank you KyMustang and Erik for your kind words!
If this model makes you think you're doing a pre-flight inspection, I've probably added enough detail. I was surprised myself at how much still needed to be done after painting.
In meantime I finished the landing gear so the model is finished now 🙂 I have also re-added all the PE parts I found on the bench. I need my good old trusty CA glue back!
Some pictures will follow later today.

bughunter
I just uploaded the last pictures of this build log.
The look of the covers is ok for me. You can even find them in 1:1 on ebay "Piper Cub bungee cover".

Thank you for accompanying me on this journey!

KyMustang
Owning this kit and seeing how small it is, plus having experience flying the real thing, I can say this is one of the most impressive models I've ever seen!

inkilas32
what an insane build

Ludvík Kružík
Piper looks great, congratulations on completing another amazing build!

bughunter
Wow, what a great feedback, Thanks!
Yes, it is a nice model, but not perfect. Compared to my other models (see my projects) I think it is not the best.
Those of you who have been following my projects for a while will have an idea of what now follows at the end 😉

Kyle DeHart
You say it isn't your best Frank but it is still surely a fantastic result. Great work on this build and I look forward to the album with the glamour shots.

Alec K
Following the "better late than never" dictum, I am adding my congrats to this project. Just an outstanding level of detail and surgical attention during execution. Looking forward to the outdoor pics 👍

David Taylor
Smart as always.

bughunter
Nice to read your comments mates, Thanks!

bughunter
Luckily, I was able to use a few dry hours with sunshine behind thin clouds for the usual outdoor shots - don't miss the final pictures here:
Finished Piper Cub | Album by bughunter (1:48)

Alex K
Now that the finished model album is on, no need to let the wip album sleep away... It's a real blast watching little detail after little detail being added... Fantastic work!

Nicolas
Great work.

bughunter
Thank you Alex and Nicolas!
Yes, many details are better shown on the macro pictures of the building log than on the pictures of the finished model.