C.714 "Cyclone" - Greg Baker (WHIF) - Build Log

Bart Goesaert
Nice aircraft with regards to shape, not so nice with regards to fit etc... but on the other hand you don't see this one being built often, so... I'm in

Wim van der Luijt
Count me in too! This plane is beginning to grow on me

Edgars Bizūns
Always love to enjoy a good Heller project.. I'm following!

Jean Pierre CULIS-FERY
Bonjour. Joli début. Attention avec la structure que tu as bâti derrière: elle est un peu trop en avant elle doit être alignée sur la marque verticale sur le fuselage (se sont les rail de guidage des panneau latéraux de la verrière. Sur cette structure à gauche (en regardant vers l'avant de l'avion) il y a une trappe d'accès à la radio qui se trouvait à l'intérieur. Sur le devant et derrière le siège, il y avait une plaque de blindage.

John Thomas
Nice start. Greg I dont know this airplane what type is it?

Edgars Bizūns
That's a french fighter I believe, John!

John Thomas
OK Thanks

Jean Pierre CULIS-FERY
@John Thomas: It's a light french fighter: it was a try to transform a race plane (Caudron was a specialist of the "Coupe deutch" ) as a combat plane (this program is know in France as "Jockey fighter program). It was a disaster because the race plane were plane very light, but ths plane with the armament and military equipement had very bad performance. In 1940 these plane were affected to the polish pilot, some of them had Victory with this plane. Some of these plane were given to the finish army, but the finish aviation judged this plane as Dangerous and stop the flight whith this plane. Sorry for my bad English, best regards from France.

Edgars Bizūns
Very nice cockpit work! Will you make the included version?

Greg Baker
Thanks guys! I know the C.714 was a terrible failure as a fighter... but at least it LOOKED good. 🙂 I'm not sure why, but this kit just called to me and I decided to temporarily put aside some other current projects so I can participate in an "Old Kits Group Build" (whatifmodellers.com/..49121.html#msg749121) - feel free to check out the lengthy "What if" background story. This project has a tenuous connection to the rest of my Area 88 mega-project as well, so I figured two birds... one stone. 🙂

Greg Baker
Jean Pierre - Merci beaucoup pour l'information - c'est tres utile! La structure derrière, est-elle correctement alignée maintenent? Je crois que oui. Je ne savais pas qu'il avait une plaque de blindage, mais c'est pas trop tarde de l'inclure... je m'excuse pour mon français mauvaise. Ça fait bien des années depuis que j'écrit en français, mais pas de problème de lire! Alors soyez comfortable et continue à m'aider. 🙂

Greg Baker
Y'know, someone said that the Heller kits were the Tamiya of their day and I believe it. Bart is right... it's missing a LOT of details, but it is a great canvas for a bit of scratch-building. I'm glad John's following along too... 'cause as I was building I was thinking "John's gonna LOVE these crazy pedals".😉

Greg Baker
Edgars - As a What If build, I don't plan to make the included version, but it'll be close enough. I'm thinking a desert cammo style paint job if I can manage it.

Jean Pierre CULIS-FERY
@greg: Ta structure est désormais bien positionnée, joli travail! Et ton français est probablement meilleur que mon anglais 😉. Tu as raison de dire plus que si l'avion était raté pour les performances, les caudrons sont de très beaux avions.

John Thomas
Greg, you are right. I also liked the Academy's Corsair instrument panel. Scratch-building is fun right. If you are thinking about a "What if" Plane may be a High Gloss Racing style finish and marking like those Race Plane of the 1930's with GUNS. I have built only one Heller kit the P-40 back in the day. I have a few in my stash. The Heller P-51, P-39 and the F6F Hellcat.

Greg Baker
Heh. You should be happy then. I cut another Academy control panel in half and trimmed 1/4 off the bottom and used the two halves on the side walls! Scratch building IS fun, but I'm beginning to think I didn't pick up enough Evergreen styrene bits when I was back home... especially the really small diameter strips. 🙂

Greg Baker
I do love the old racing planes, mind you... I'd love to get my hands on a a Macchi M.52 in 1/72 too! The M.72 seems a bit easier to find, but I like the bigger nose on the M.52.

John Thomas
Greg, I am quit happy. I do the same thing using spare parts to update older kits. The Evergreen stuff is very handy. I have a boat load supply of it from over the years of using it. Is there any model railing road shops in Korea? That is were you mite find it or online.

Łukasz Gliński
I don't like whatifs to be honest, but I'm very curious what can be done with Heller's Cyclone

Greg Baker
John - there are plenty of model shops here in Seoul. None of them are focused on rail roads though, nor carry Evergreen products. For strips, tubes, cylinders, etc, there are some options from both Tamiya and a local company called StyleX. I particularly like StyleX's offerings but they don't really offer much in the way of patterned sheets (other than thicknesses). I'm always surprised at how much I misjudged the size I need. I always seem to buy too big... 'cause it looks so small in the store!

Greg Baker
Thanks for paying attention Tim!

Greg Baker
Lukasz - this probably won't be too wild a whif project... and given the small number of planes to reference, there's not a ton of choice for real life accurate anyway. Hopefully you'll like what I'm doing. 🙂

Łukasz Gliński
Well, in case you decide to go back the real Cyclones, for sure you're gonna find some nice Polish or Finnish examples😉 I'll keep on having a look here anyway

Greg Baker
Oh, I have seen a few very nice ones. I've been scouring the internet looking for reference pics and am only copying the best!😉

Greg Baker
Yesterday was a bit frustrating. My plan to use plastic paper to box in the wheel wells ended in gooey disaster. I think the idea was good, but I didn't include enough support for the flimsy paper and it went all over the place. I think I'll put in some posts and string it like a fence. That might work.

Bart Goesaert
you can try to "harden" the paper first with thin superglue. you'll need to fix it afterwards with superglue also, but it will be more rigid. After this treatment you can also sand it, and to remove the hairs like wood that was painted for the first time.

John Thomas
Greg, here is an idea for our wheel wells. just glue our Evergreen board and batten sheet flush to the inside of the bottom wing over the wheel well open. it is the quit way for adding detail work in wheel wells and you dont have to add sidewalls. It may be a little shallow but it works. I have done it a few times and I liked the look.

Greg Baker
Thanks for the help guys! I decided to give a more robust rough boxing a go. I glued a bunch of plastic around the perimeter and then covered it with 0.1mm Tamiya PlaPaper and trimmed with a razor blade. I added some pics.

John Thomas
Greg, our wheel wells look much better than my idea.

Greg Baker
John... that was definitely Plan B.... which I very nearly caved on after my first disastrous experiment with the plapaper sidewalls. These still need to be gently trimmed, filed and sanded into submission... so we'll see.

Edgars Bizūns
Looking good, mate. Really like the cockpit! Kugw!

Greg Baker
Alright. The cockpit is done. I need to lightly sand the inside of the wheel wells smooth, but it all fits together so far. Other than the underwing gun pods, I think. I made all the external fuselage modifications. It's coming along now.

John Thomas
Greg, our cockpit is looking real nice. You have done some fine work

Greg Baker
Thanks John! I'm trying to finish this for an "old kit" group build that I started late on, so it's been my main focus lately. Following the stuff you were doing really helped see the possibilities.

John Thomas
OK Thanks

Wojciech Kucza
That's some serious work involved here, but it's all looking very well in this old kit 🙂 Keep it up, great job so far!

Erik Leijdens
Some nice scratch work. Looking good 👍

Greg Baker
Thanks guys! I'm a little nervous about cutting up the canopy, but I want the interior to be visible, so he who dares, wins... or gets a vacuum form!

Greg Baker
Well, got the cockpit basically done. Since it's pretty much completely scratch built, I'm pretty happy with howitzer turned out. Now to get it glued in place.

gorby
That cockpit looks excellent Greg. I've seen less detailed 1/48 pits.

John Thomas
Greg, your cockpit and wheel wells have turned out very nice, your hard work shows

Greg Baker
Thanks gents! After I got it all packed inside, it took a bit of work to get the fuselage glued together and aligned as properly as possible. I added some plasticard to the engine intake and the slots I cut out and then glued and clamped my life away. What I learned from the experience is that I need better clamps. 🙂

Greg Baker
The Pla-paper sure has come in handy. Besides the wheel wells, I also used it to replicate the slightly raised armour(?) panelling on the outside of the airframe. I used my handy dandy rivet wheel on the small strips and then glued them in place and primed the whole thing. I probably could have done a better job, but I rushed it a bit because I wanted to see what it would look like. Oh well, sometimes. Good enough is good enough.

Greg Baker
Feels good to get some paint down. Masking the windscreen took a long time.

Greg Baker
Suffered a bit of a setback. I used some sticky paper to mask the second camouflage coat... I thought I took enough of the tackiness off before I applied it, but guess not. Pulling it off left quite a mess. I was able to get the glue off with just a bit of water and some gentle rubbing, bug it left me with a weathered look to the paint. I was going to do that anyway, so no real problem, however it also ended fogging my canopy somehow. I'm a bit picky about how the canopy looks, so I declared a "do-over", but that means another round of masking - properly this time! Toaddinsult to injury, when I was installing the landing gear, I ended up poking a tiny hole through the wing... not even noticeable, but large enough to let a mess of gluey sprue juice squirt through onto my paint job. Luckily it's pretty localized, so a tiny bit of gentle sanding, a carefully placed camouflage template and a careful bit of painting should get me back on track. Sigh...

Wim van der Luijt
crap on a cracker! luckily you didn't destroy the model in frustration... 😄

Greg Baker
No kidding! After I sat down and had a good manic cry... I decided I could work my way out of trouble."No dammit! It's weathering if I SAY it's weathering!" 🙂

Jean Pierre CULIS-FERY
Ils ont utilisé des caudrons 714 au Vietnam? Encore un truc que les autorités nous ont caché! It's a very nice job Greg.The raised armour is not an armour it's the cover for the canopy mecanims: its slide in the side of the fuselage (left and right).

Nils Steyaert
looks good already, love the camo 🙂

Greg Baker
Alright. After keeping the updates under wraps the last few days, the end result can finally be revealed. Check out the completed build here - scalemates.com/profi..bums&album=31667