After
about 4 months of basic assembly and 2 subsequent months of major surgery, I can
finally lay to rest perhaps my most involved model-building project to date.
The 1/48 scale Dornier Do 17Z by Hobbycraft offers almost limitless
possibilities in the way of improvements. Taking
for granted that the model would be reasonably accurate (had previously been
building Tamiya 1/48 aircraft…..which are on a whole other level as far as
detail and general accuracy are concerned), I constructed it out of the box
initially. As the Dornier was near
completion, I finally decided to do some good photo referencing (Why I waited
until the end….I dunno). I also
visited the ARC Forums for the first time and felt inspired by the works of Mr.
Webber and “crystoffer.” The
end result was what you see here….surgery having been performed on some of the
more prominent exterior features (I didn’t do much to the interior…save
added seat belts and buckles).
I’ll
outline some of the scratch building and after-market products I used to bring
this bird up to a more presentable level. The first order of business was
to replace the stock canopies with the Squadron vac-form ones. The canopy
framing is definitely more accurate with the Squadron products. You must
remove a large rectangular section of the forward fuselage to make room for the
vac-form piece that relocates the right side windows and bombardier’s window.
For someone like myself who hasn’t had a lot of experience cutting up his or
her models, this was a royal pain. Made somewhat easier with a Dremel
rotary tool, there still was quite a bit of trial and error in fitting the new
fuselage section. White glue and Squadron putty helped secure this piece
and cover up the damage.
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images below to see larger images
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The engine push rods were
enormous as supplied by the kit, so were removed and replaced by thin copper
wire painted black. The pentagram
style bracing struts that attach the engine to the cowl (not represented by the
kit) were scratch built using wire from those twisty-tie things you sometimes
find with kids toys that hold the toy against the cardboard backing.
The incorrect cowl flaps were puttied over and re-painted.
Thin strips of styrene were used to represent the cowl access panel
hinges on top of the cowling. I
also bored holes into the cowl where the exhaust stacks would protrude and
replaced the kit exhaust stacks with ones cut from small diameter aluminum
tubing. Finally, I replaced the
props with resin/metal ones manufactured by Noblekraft.
The
ADF loop antenna supplied was way too big, so one was constructed from brass
wire wrapped around my hobby knife and mounted to a small cylindrical piece of
styrene. The base of the kit radio
mast was sanded down and a new antenna mast made from styrene was mounted to
this. The little white stripe
around the antenna base was made from an old white insignia decal cut to size.
The MG mounting ports were made from real small shoelace eyelets I found
at Michael’s (arts and crafts store my wife likes to shop at).
I simply bored a hole in the canopy until the eyelet would pop in.
No adhesive required! I also
picked up some .5mm elastic band from there as well and used this to construct
the side MG caging bars. These were
attached to the canopy using white glue. The
sense antennas underneath the fuselage were scratch built with small styrene
bits and thin copper wire. A new
pitot tube was created from an ordinary sewing pin (little ball head removed)
with masking tape wrapped around the base to form the tube sheath.
I used some pliers to bend the pin to the appropriate angle.
Cavalier resin MG15’s replaced the kit-supplied machine guns.
Some spare Eduard photo etched ring gun sights were added to these.
Wire brake lines were added as were mudguard supports constructed from
styrene. Finally, the antenna was
made from stretched nylon fiber and insulators added by using drops of some
gooey adhesive made by 3M.
Decals
for the model were from Techmod, depicting aircraft “A” from 9/KG76 based at
Corneilles-en-Vexin in July 1940. I’ve
heard that Hobbycraft released a new version of this kit.
I’d be curious to know what changes (if any) were made.
Hope I was able to throw around a couple ideas that someone might find
useful for this kit or another one. Enjoy!
Scott
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images below to see larger images
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