Shagbat MK I. 1:72 – Matchbox – Part 2.
Let's continue the Walrus story. Here are some pcs pictures from the painting and further assembly stages.
The Shagbat is a relatively difficult airplane to build. Every parts have it's own direction - the dihedral is different on the lower and upper wing (if You screw it the struts won't fit) the engine is offset to port by 3° and so on and so on. The rigging also is on the difficult side (especially for a WW2 two bay biplane). As you will see I had to plan every step because some areas had to be painted before assembly and assembly was extra difficult if parts were already painted - so it was a slow task with many-many "dry-fits" and measuring. But - in reality - I enjoyed it a lot 🙂
Gabor, you are doing wonders to this old kit.
I'm with YOU, Simon...an amazing job indeed.
Yes I don't know of anyone who would have taken so much trouble (and care) to improve a kit like this. Interesting, though - keep up the good work!
This is fantastic to follow!
Magnus
The rigging of the floats alone is impressive! Very nice work!
Simply outrageous! Ok - gotta ask - what did you use for the rigging, including the insulators that slide over the line?
Now I'm both intimidated and inspired! I've got this old kit, and plan on attempting to execute at least some of what you did to bring it closer to realistic. Thanks for showing so much "in-progress" details!
Thank You All!
Greg: the rigging were made via 0.15mm fishing line this time. Caenis fishing line is a bit better choice and I use EZ-line on some occasions but in 1:72 this old school method satisfies my pretensions. The insulators are really simple: heated Q-tip stem 🙂 Just keep our hobby simple 😉
Thanks! I'll take note of that and see how it works for me!
Gabor, thanks for the unbelieveable interior detail on this, and in smallish scale, to boot.
I had the old Merit 1/48 one, years ago, which I think SMER has. Alas, it met an untimely demise.
One of those British designs that you look at, and think, "Nah!"
Like the story about Udet. He was a the Paris Air Show sometime n the 30s, showing some folks around the various aircraft. He go to the Westland Lysander, and asked "Remember the pteradactyl? British design!"
Hard to beleive that this one designed by Michell, the same man designed the Spit :). There are some good story about the Shagbat also: this plane was so strong that - theoretically 😉 - could makeaerobatic manouvers without restrictions :). During the experimentals one time the pilot landed wheels up (forgot to retract them) on grass withoup any special damage (MK 1 with metal hull naturally 😉 ) the plane was so strongly built because of the catapult launching. Also a good fact that on water landing and take offs the squirting water on the uncovered huge radial engine made large vapor clouds so the crews also call the Walrus the "steam pigeon" 🙂 - and the strange wooden propeller: they build the plane with it because the shortage of metal propellers needed to bombers and fighter to build... Mitchell beleived that the engine large enough so it doesn't matter 😀 "British design!"
Your Walrus is an amazing piece of modelling. Outstanding job
Thanks a lot! 🙂