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Greetings!

'A gaping silken dragon,/Puffed by the wind, suffices us for God./We, not the City, are the Empire's soul:/A rotten tree lives only in its rind.'

Friday 7 June 2013

Imperfection...

... and perfection.

The Revell Arado is, as I feared, turning into a 1970s horror story. It fits where it touches. Which is almost nowhere:


Just look at the horrible gaps around the float struts! And, of course, when I fill these it will be a devil of a job to sand without snapping off the struts.  But that's not all. Wing roots any one? -


Now I know the Arado 196 had folding wings, but I can't imagine the fit was this bad.

But I will persevere. I've been thinking about the finish for this kit. I know a few Arados sported Japanese markings (they were for the defence of a German U-boat base in the Far East), but I don't have any Jap markings in my decal box. Also, finding reliable information on these few aircraft is difficult. Another alternative was suggested  by this:

'As a ship-launched airplane on board Hilfskreuzern, which were conducting anti-maritime shipping operations in the Pacific and Indian Oceans the Ar 196 flew their missions without any particular markings other than a light blue paint job,'  Dabrwoski, H.P., & Koos, V., Arado 196; Germany's Multi-Purpose Seaplane (Schiffer Military History, 69, Atglen PA, 1993). 

The same book carries a photo of a unmarked Ar 196 in a pale, uniform, finish minus its entire engine, which had broken off in heavy seas. It may well have been the Arado 196 embarked on the auxiliary cruiser Orion as that same ship embarked a Nakijima E8N in early February 1941 - was that a replacement for the engineless Ar 196 in Dabrwoski and Koos' book?  So, I might well give my imperfect Ar 196 an overall blue (hellblau?) paint job.

And after the imperfection? Perfection. Climbing roses in my garden, photographed this morning before setting out for work:




5 comments:

  1. You have my sympathy - I'm just doing a older Tamiya plane, and it's the same story with ill-fitting parts. Luckily I don't have struts to worry about though...Good luck!

    The garden looks terrific! :)

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    1. Cheers! Yes, it's amazing how poorly engineered some of the old kits were - takes me back to my horror in the early 1970s when I saved up to buy an Airfix Wellington, only to discover the most incredible chasms between wings and engines. Happily, we are more spoilt now. Good luck with the Tamiya model.

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  2. Hi Steve,

    I posted a pic of an overall-Hellblau Arado here

    http://falkeeins.blogspot.co.uk/2009/12/arados-in-hellblau.html

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    1. Excellent - many thanks for this, just what I was looking for. I was worried that the photo I had might not really show overall hellblau, but might have been an accidental trick of the camera.

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  3. Wonderous roses especially the picture with the gothic looking window...

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