1/48 Massi Model Fiat RS.14   part 1

 Fast Maritime Reconnaissance Seaplane

by Matt Swan

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       And so it begins, another large scale project. As with any models kit prior to beginning construction the parts should be washed with warm soapy water to remove any mold release agents or debris from the manufacturing process. It is even more important that the parts be washed with a resin kit, as the possibilities of heavier release agents being present are great. I mixed a small amount of liquid dish soap in a large glass baking pan with hot tap water, about 140 degrees Fahrenheit where I could swish the parts and not worry about losing any small pieces. Each piece was rinsed under cold water and set on a cotton towel to air-dry. That is pretty much how day one of construction went.

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      I spent several hours carefully examining the parts and removing flash with a razor knife, fine sand paper and diamond files. I removed casting blocks and pour points off of the larger pieces and cleaned up all the connecting points. As with any conventional model, construction will begin with the interior. The directions list four general color codes and for the interior that is “Sky”. I coated the interior with a good coat of Testors primer gray then applied the Polly Scale Sky. The cockpit floor pan, seats, control columns and waist gun positions were done with Sky. The floor pan and completed seats were coated with Future then washed with a sludge wash to highlight the details.

      My reference book shows a chain drive system over the top of the control column for the aileron control. Since this was a very visible item and would be easily seen from outside the model I looked for ways to replicate it. Ultimately I ended up cutting a thin piece of foil off my stock material, laying it over a block of modeling clay and using a razor knife to make impressions into the foil. This piece was then bent into a long “U” shape and super-glued over the control column. I was careful to not apply a lot of pressure to the foil so as to not remove the knife blade impressions. I painted this piece with Gunze-Sangyo Burnt Iron.
       As the kit interior is very plain I started to collect some detail parts to make it a little more “busy”. I still had some brass seat belt buckles left over from the Koster Fw-200 so those were combined with some foil strips to make seat belts. Considering the time period and type of aircraft I just made lap belts, no shoulder harnesses. From the parts box I found some leftover brass rudder pedals that came with the Fw-189 and was lucky enough to come up with four to complete the pilots and co-pilot position. I used some short lengths of fuse wire to make the posts for the rudder pedals.

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       The instrument panel is the next area to get some attention. I really like to bring instrument panels to life. This panel is painted sky on the backside and flat black on the front. The instrument faces were done with flat white then Reheat instrument faces were applied with a liberal dose of Micro-Sol setting solution. There are three small panels that go in the nose for the bombardier station and they got the same treatment. The side panels in the nose have no detail cast into them at all so I painted the faces white then used some of the larger square decals from Reheat. After the Micro-Sol had dried I touched up the edges with some flat black on a fine brush.

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       Continuing with my mission to dress up the cockpit I am using a selection of fuse wire pieces painted in various shades of dark gray to make umbilical cables. The first cable will run from the front side bombardier’s consol along an overhead beam and into the body of the plane. The pictures I’ve found show a complex bombsite that I will replace with a spare PE bombsite from that leftover Fw-189 sheet. This I attached to the front bombardiers consol in a similar position to the one in the reference picture. More fuse wire is used along the sidewalls in the nose. Using more scrap brass and some plastic sheet stock I constructed a small instrument panel to mount above the bombardier’s position per the reference photos. Another thin piece of fuse wire runs from this panel into the body of the plane. Another heavier piece is set onto the backside of the main dash and fed under the floor pan. A few more odd PE parts are attached to the side of the bombardier’s seat slide as release or adjustment levers and the dress up program is complete.

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       The cockpit assembly was super-glued in place by laying a good bead of glue along the interior alignment tabs, holding the assembly in place while putting a drop of accelerator onto the bead. The halves were dry fit immediately to be sure everything was lining up properly then additional glue was applied to the back wall area of the cockpit. I test fit the dash to find that my rudder pedal addition was going to cause some trouble. I had to trim the bottom edge of the dash just slightly to get it to clear the tops of the rudder pedals then it was super-glued in place. Again the fuselage was dry fit to make sure there was no binding going on. So far all the pieces are fitting very nicely and looking into the front window areas the craft has a nice, busy look to it.

       To quickly sum up the additions to the interior we have:

1.        Simulated chain on control columns.
2.        Foil seat belts with brass buckles from spares box.
3.        Reheat instrument faces on all panels and dash.
4.        PE rudder pedals from spares box.
5.        PE bombsite from spares box.
6.        Scratch built secondary bombardiers panel.
7.        Fuse wire umbilical cables added in various areas.

     Continuing with typical construction methodology I’m moving on to the waist gun positions. I am not happy at all with what the kit offers here. The kit gun tubs are rectangular with both long sides bowed in whereas the actual gun tubs were more rounded, mounted flush to the exterior wall of the fuselage and had two small support legs. The armature that the kit provides to support the gun appears accurate. At first I thought I might try to salvage the kit gun tubs but have decided that I will be way ahead of the game to simply scratch build them. I don’t feel like doing that today so I will take a look at the wing connections instead.

      I learned my lesson with the S-38 and super gluing large pieces. It may be just fine for sticking the little things together but when it comes to the big stuff you’ve got to go with the epoxy. I’m using Loctite five-minute epoxy to attach the wings. A couple of fit problems are coming to light right away along with a larger problem. First, there is a small step on the top of the Port wing and I’m trying to adjust for it by sanding a small amount off the tops of the mounting pegs. I’m also sanding the top of the fuselage joint lightly to try and blend the seam in. The bigger problem is the wing size itself. The entire wing is about 3 millimeter narrow overall. There is a step back at both the front and the back of the wing to the fuselage and to make matters even worse, the end of the flap carries onto the fuselage part of the wing root and the panel lines do not meet, not even close and this is apparent on both wings. I’m going to have to shave the fuselage to meet the wing, fill the panel lines and rescribe them.

     The directions show the fuselage being assembled then the wings going on. From the earlier interior pictures you can see that there is an alignment/mounting stub on each side that will protrude into the cabin area and be visible from the outside when completed. The prospect of covering this up with dental tools through the cockpit windows is not very appealing. I taped the fuselage together securely and test fit the wing to check how the dihedral would set up and was pretty happy with it and this prompted me to attach the wing first, clean up the interior area then close the fuselage, hope this approach works because I used a bunch of epoxy to attach those wings. I also cut a little off each of the forward mounting stubs to facilitate the final clean-up. Although the epoxy set up well it did remain soft for a while so I set the entire assembly aside to cure overnight and will start sanding tomorrow. I’m going to have to get back to those gun tubs shortly also.
       To rectify the gun tub situation I am using a selection of Evergreen plastic strips and rod. I’ve measured the general length and width of the area I want the tub to cover and cut out rectangular pieces of heavier strip for the flooring. The two outside corners were filed down then thin strip was bent around them and glued to the edge. Using my sprue cutters I cut the strip off at an approximate angle then inserted the tub into the fuselage to correct the angle.

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     I glued a piece of styrene rod to the tub floor with Tenex 7R then leaned it over to the correct angle with the fuselage wall while the glue was still setting. The excess rod was cut off flush with the bottom of the gunner’s window. The gun and gun armature will be mounted after the model is painted. The gunner’s cushion is formed from some heavier Evergreen strip with the hard edges and corners filed off. At this point I was considering just how much interior detail work I really wanted to do so I closed the fuselage and looked through the windows. From what I could see just about anything additional that I did would be hidden upon completion. The gun tubs and cushions were painted and super-glued in place. The short support legs were fashioned from heavy fuse wire.

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     Now I’m moving back to the pesky wing fit problem. The trailing edge was fairly easy to deal with by just shaving it down with a razor and thinning the new trailing edge a bit to match the wing. The forward area was much thicker and required some judicious work with a Dremel and teardrop grinding stone. Once the majority of the excess material was removed I shifted over to medium grit sandpaper then a fine sandpaper to finish it off. The lower flap lines needed to be filled with superglue and re-scribed but we’re only talking about less than a half an inch of line on each side so it’s not that bad. I’m also starting to work on the engines. Each bank of cylinders gets mounted on a toothpick for handling and painted a base coat of Model Master Steel. I added ignition harnesses from fine red fuse wire and assembled the engines per the instructions. The interiors of the nacelles and the front and back of the mounting plate were painted RLM 02. The engines will be sludge washed and put aside for later attachment.
       It’s time to close the fuselage permanently. I’ve run a good bead of epoxy around the edges of the fuselage except for the window framing in the nose. This I will secure later. The fuselage halves were lined up and wrapped with masking tape and small clamps. Pressure was applied to a few strategic areas to help things line up properly and five minutes later the epoxy had set. The window frames in the nose were now lined up by gently flexing them with tweezers and super-glueing them into place. The elevators were attached with super-glue and accelerator. The main seam was first cleaned with a razor then sanded and looked pretty good with very little work. There are still a few small seam areas that need more attention but it is coming along rather nicely.

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I set the model on my work surface and aligned the rudder perpendicular to the table then measured the wing tips for dihedral - right on the money!

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    I spent nearly an entire evening going over the seams carefully cleaning them up with a razor knife and various grades of sandpaper. Finally, satisfied with that part of the job I can now turn my attention to the floats. In the reference pictures there are two things very visible; first is a fine cable that runs in the opposite direction of the cast support cable and second are short rudder control cables. For the main float cable I simply drilled through the top-mounting pad and threaded a piece of invisible thread into it. One end was secured to the top of the float with super-glue then, while putting some tension on the thread the other end was glued. The rudder cables will be short pieces of fuse wire.
      After the floats were tested for fit I had to sand the contact point of one just a little then applied a good layer of super-glue into the contact point and set it in place. I ran a drop of accelerator into the joint and the placed the second float in the same manner. I was a little concerned about the weight of this model on the float legs until I took a good, close look at the white metal struts. Usually when we talk about white metal parts we’re thinking of soft pewter but these struts are actually made from pot metal and are very hard. If I had really been paying attention I would have drilled out the mounting points for the struts but I was not paying attention. Rather than try to drill these large holes now that the model is nearly complete I simply cut off the tabs from the struts and glued them in place. I carefully worked some glue around the connecting points with a dental pick and set it with accelerator. This blended the contact points in nicely. One needs to be careful here, the struts are of two different sizes; the sort ones are for the front while the long ones are for the rear. I of course installed both long struts in front then was wondering why the heck the rear struts were so short. Fortunately the super-glue had not set up completely and I was able to break the struts free and start over again. The armament tub was glued on at this point also.

Matt

Photos and text © by Matt Swan