I came across this partly painted model when I dug out the S.79. The Macchi C.202 is actually a favorite of mine. I have always wanted to build it in 1/32 but was disappointed in the shape of the PCM version, which I bought and finally sold. Hasegawa's little 1/48 version is well-detailed and accurate and well worth building. As you can see, I partially painted the True Details resin cockpit but had originally used MM Acryl Pale Green. Today, while repainting the S-79 pit, I decided to do the Macchi as well. I am so impressed with the detail possible in this scale that I decided I would finish it. I gave it a shot of Tamiya Clear over the newly- applied XF-71 and will do detail painting and an oil wash this week. I haven't cut the resin out yet but that should be doable after painting. Since I also have an Eduard detail set, I am prepared if the resin pit doesn't fit well. Good to have a back up,so I also painted the kit cockpit pieces.

With enough decals on hand from Sky and Super Scale I can make almost any aircraft possible for the DAW.

The kit decals are actually quite nice, too. Here are three profiles in the splotch camo I prefer (over the usual "smoke rings"). My plan is to use the Macchi as practice airbrushing Italian camo in this scale before I paint the S.79. They will also be nice companions for this GB, particularly displayed side by side.

Fantastic choice, Colin @coling
The 202 is also a fantastic looking Italian airplane.
Looking forward to your chosen scheme.

Yeah, got the same kit and the wonderful Sky decal sheet. Not only it offers a bunch of options but the decal quality itself is also quite good..
looking forward for the next steps Colin

Thanks for your kind comments, Spiros. The Hasegawa base kit is really nice. I will use the True Details set as a kind of experiment as it has been years since I did a complete pit with resin. This is also practice before I do the Cutting Edge P-40B pit from the same kind of materials. Feel free to do the Tauro kit for this GB. Can't have too many Macchis.

Thanks, John. Hope you like it.

Thanks, George. I think the camo will be fairly challenging to prefect at this scale. Even with my best airbrush, I may still make stencils for the splotches, at least experimentally. One advantage of that approach is tight control over the pattern.

Thanks, Pedro. I used Sky decals on my Hasegawa Ki.84 build a while back. They are indeed high quality, if a bit fragile.

Thank, Erik. The C.202 is indeed a classic Italian/German hybrid. Funny that the Italians got the best out of their designs by grafting on German engines. You would think with all of their pre-war Schneider cup experience they could have done better with home-made power plants. I hope you will be happy with today's build progress (see below).

Hey there @coling - glad I noticed this posting on the headlines page. I have the Eduard limited edition of this kit which I felt daunting particularly when it gets to the painting stage and never started it. So it is with great interest I will be following your Macchi journey starting now. That seat and masking tape belts look superb. I’m going to try that. Off to a great start!

Serious work done, Colin @coling
Your scratchbuild straps, in principle the entire seat, looks very nice.
Sidepanels are great as well.

Thanks, Eric, Spiros, John and Tom for your kind comments. I haven't updated this build in a while but I have been busy. The Tempest and Bf-109 have been getting quite a bit of my attention and I will update those next.

I added some more detail to the pit before finally closing up the fuselage. Specifically, this was a thin leather pad for the seat - very clear in museum examples and some period cockpit pics. I made the pad from Tamiya tape and painted it MM Acryl Semi-Gloss Black. I also created a single strap for the lap belt part of the weird harness. This was done with Tamiya tape, spare etch and a short bit of chain clipped from the excess for the shoulder harness.

I am quite pleased with the accuracy of the belts I made, however, others might want to use the many aftermarket options from Kits World or Eduard.

I sealed up the fuselage in stages to make sure it all wrapped around the cockpit insert, starting with the spine and waiting a couple of days before joining up the fuselage halves on the underside. For the next construction stages, I decided to glue on the upper portion of each wing half. This preserved the correct dihedral and eliminated potential gap or alignment issues with the wings. I also wanted to create a clearly defined space for building up the area behind the engine in the central wheel bay.

Museum walkarounds clearly show a veritable maize of plumbing for the DB 605 engine, The kit provides a simplified molded piece with one large duct and a thinner bit of ducting in a tuning fork shape (see photo).

I started by painting the kit ducting red brown and black and "metailizing" this with rubbed on graphite. I decided to collect a variety of thicknesses of solder and copper wire and paint them to represent all the other different kinds of tubing and wiring behind the engine. I used RLM 02, Red-Brown, Black, Copper, and Dark Brown acrylics to paint different strands. Green and Blue were used for the hoses meant for engine coolant and air. I also had some brass wire, which I left in natural metal for one length of duct. I drilled holes in the firewall piece to glue in lengths of painted wire before I carefully bent them into curves and overlapping layers that matched museum pics. The kit provided bracing over top of the ducting, which I painted with Rub N Buff silver. I took special care with getting this to fit well, look authentic, with sufficient depth and with some hoses having very specific color and placement, such as the green coolant hoses from wing tanks and the blue oxygen hose (or possibly blue for compressed air for the cowling guns).

Being happy with the plumbing, I assembled the wings and fuselage to lock in the detail, The first pic shows how I attached the wires and solder through drilled holes.

The other pics show the full assembly with the air hose added and one pic of the full model at this stage. I have been experimenting with my airbrush for the splotch pattern camo, which I will also share in a near future update. For now, I want to get on with other updates.

I hope this looks good to you. I have never attempted such an elaborate bit of plumbing in this scale before. It was fun learning some of the functions of the elements. It reminded me of doing small engine mechanics in High School by taking apart, sketching and reassembling engines.

Thanks. John. Getting started on that detailing held up the build for a while. It was quite relaxing to do though when I finally took it on. It is interesting working on a 1/48 single engine prop for a change. The model seems so tiny compared to 1/32. Hopefully I will proceed to painting this week.