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Frank Cronin
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Air France Catalina

August 25, 2016 · in Aviation · · 11 · 2K

This is another addition to the “Water Wings” Group that I did a while back. Bear with me I will have to enter each photo individually to post them. Hope it works.

This is another restoration of a model for the gentleman that collects airline and manufacture models. It is made from metal of some sort and is very simplistic. It is unknown who did the casting of it or exactly what the metal is but it is heavy. It is very close to scale so I robbed a Monogram kit to add some of the detail to it. It came to me in sections and had to be epoxied together. It originally had the gun turret nose so I had to file off and reshape the nose section to make it a civilian aircraft. He provided the decals for this and they are “R Flight” by renaissance-models.com. The moulding was exceptionally rough with large pits and scratches all over it. I filled it and sanded it then used a lot of automotive filler primer then painted the white also with automotive paint. From a rattle can.

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4  Awesome

5 additional images. Click to enlarge.


11 responses

  1. Another "silk purse" as it were...nice restoration work, Frank.

  2. 🙂 ... Greetings ... 🙂 :
    Nice clean work Frank ... very good restoration.

  3. Wow Frank. nice job on what looked like a sad case.

  4. Frank, great restoration! Another swords into plowshares. Where did the Air France markings come from? I picture this aircraft wandering the back areas of the South Seas, Tahiti and beyond, where the plane comes in once a week, or the tramp steamer. Forgotten outposts of the Empire Francaise.
    We probably won't see another of these again, so thanks for showing us.

  5. Great job again. The Cat looks very different without the bulging "eyes" of the side blisters, but it also looks very sleek without them, and with that eye-catching paint job.

  6. Beautiful restoration.

  7. Looks very sleek, especially with that wonderful white finish and Air France markings.

  8. your a magic man...well done

  9. Frank, your restorations are nothing short of amazing and I'm honored to have you post them to our group build. They may as well be full builds for the work that goes into them.

    Just a little bit of trivia - the Catalinas with the turrets removed and modified noses are said to have "clipper" bows.

  10. thank you everyone for the nice comments. Much appreciated.

    Frank

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