In the light of latest events - rising up the only remaining "pencil" Dornier from the seabed of English Channel, I picked plastic model of this elegant plane from Revell in 1:72. Just bought it at Cosford (every time I visit RAF Museum at Cosford is better than last one!), despite so many promises made to myself not to get anything new and start building already piled up projects - two Panzers (IV & V), Flak AA guns (37 & 38) and some other vehicles (Sdkfz 250, Kubelwagen, BMW R75, Zundap KS 750) in 1:35 scales. I will replace crew from another kit by Revell, as all four supplied within the kit are exactly the same.
It is probably years until we will see fully restored Dornier. The whole process will take place at Cosford, I do hope Conservation Centre will open it's doors to the public once again, this time displaying undergoing works on "the flying pencil". For now the aircraft is being lifted up from seabed.
The plastic model has surprisingly few parts, or maybe it is just me, who got used to plenty components supplied with card/paper kits. I do have also card version of the Dornier from GPM in 1:33. I am going to wait patiently with assembly of card model until the aircraft is available for general public, or at least it's nose with crew section. This model will be the first in line for my bigger project, Battle of Britain. I have been gathering resources and references for this purpose for some time already (Mosquito, Hurricane, Spitfire, Halifax, Do 17 and Heinkiel 111 all card models in 1:33 plus few more in plans I don't have in my collection yet, some maybe plastic in variety of scales).
The assembly started with preparing the fuselage and cleaning flash lines. Next step was painting cockpit along with other parts (few as it is, dash board, pilot's floor, 4 seats, steering rod). I used Shadow Grey instead of suggested olive color, it is a little bit too dark after reconsideration, will have to stay that way though. Had little trouble fitting dashboard which is located at the front of the fuselage, when fitted it, turned out to be too wide and cause panels to go apart (when top was fixed bottom connection went apart) Moreover, space where dashboard should be fitted had connection joint that had to be removed (that comes down to design).
Construction of this aircraft is unusual, the wings are fixed on top of the fuselage rather than on the bottom. Here I had another problem with fitting, top wing panel does not exactly match bottom panels, there is rather huge draft on both engine connections. I put my hopes with superglue and fixing it in sections - bottom panels will have to be bent a little to avoid drafts visible on finished model. For a second I thought about filling the gaps with putty, quit that idea as wide drafts may cause next parts not to fit properly or stick out. Even super glue did not harden quick enough to keep right shape with no drafts, so I used rubber bands to hold it together. All this started me thinking about plastic as modeling medium to be rather difficult to work with. Paper is soft, easy to form and easy to replace. Plastic gives no chances for any alterations without using modeling fillers not mentioning replacing lost or damaged components, hence extreme caution and precision is necessary. I do rather prefer fixing my own mistakes with incorrect cutting or folding rather than struggling with incorrect casting eating my own teeth during assembly process. Soon will see how many & what kind of surprises are awaiting with so few components :)
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