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paul teixeira
98 articles

Vintage Lindberg Model: 1/72 Curtiss BFC-2

June 12, 2018 · in Aviation · · 8 · 2.1K

This is a real vintage kit I built some time ago. I always love these pre-war Naval aircraft and try to build all the examples produced in a main-stream kit regardless of how old, and vintage it is. I had this one sitting in my stash for a long time but one day decided to build her. It was a straight forward, fairly easy build with very minimal parts counts and details.

I needed to add a few scratch-built details to busy it up a bit such as some wires on the engine, some detail bits to the cockpit, and of coarse some rigging. I also opened up some vents, and carved some more details. The most fun I had with this build was the colorful paint job which was straight-forward with no fancy weathering or extensive pre-shading.

In finishing this short article I would like to share a happy ending regarding this simple, no-frills, model. As many of you know I sell most of my models on an auction site. This one was no exception and I wondered if anyone would even want it. After a few days of being posted someone made a full-price offer. When closing the deal I had to know why the customer wanted this model. Always curious to the fate of my sold models. It was a women who was responsible for building a museum display at the Jacksonville Florida International Airport. She shared with me that it was being used as a display piece to help illustrate the aviation heritage and history of the Jacksonville Florida area and it was the last piece she needed to complete the display. I thought "wow" I always wanted to show one of my models in a museum setting but who ever thought it would be this simple project that made it to the "big-time"...LOL! Anyhow if anyone is flying into, and/or, out of the airport please look for my little Curtis.

Reader reactions:
8  Awesome

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8 responses

  1. Outstanding Goshawk, Paul - and congratulations on selling this model to be used in a museum setting!

  2. A beautifully done vintage project! I love working with these old (and usually cheap) kits - sprucing them up a tad and bringing old plastic to life. You did that very well here!

  3. Nice work, my friend...I like it!

  4. Great job on the ancient kit! Nice ending to the story, a museum, wow!

  5. Paul a stunning build of a vintage model and a big bucket list tick - doesn't get better than that! Perfect!

  6. How did you do the flat rigging and the rigging attach points that look so scale?

  7. Wow, I dont like my rigging work at all on this model. If I was to build this today it would be very different. Anyhow, nothing special at all. The rigging wire is fine piano wire purchased at Hobby Lobby. The wings and fuselage are just drilled out to receive the fine wire. The wings have drops of CA glue to build up and fill the attachment holes. The rigging is not flat at all as it should be, it is all round wire. Other then that I do not recall doing anything special. If I was to do it these days I would just use various diameters of EZ-Line.

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