Re: Hadley Page O/400 in 1/72, Neuport Tripe, New Magazine

Bill Shatzer (aw177@freenet.carleton.ca)
Thu, 18 Aug 1994 04:23:09 -0400

Actually it was Airfix, not Matchbox that did the Handley Page
0/400 and a beautiful kit it is. Some of the nicest Lewis Guns
*ever* in 1/72 and generally an accurate and attractive kit. The
only problem is the bloody thing is *unbuildable*!!

Airfix, in its corporate wisdom, decided to make the rigging easy
for folks that didn't like that sort of thing. Thus, they molded the
leading and trailing edges of the upper wing integral with the under surface
of the top wing and the leading and trailing edges of the lower wing
integral with the top surface of the lower wing.

The theory was that you could assemble the whole kit except the bottom
of the lower wing and the top of the upper wing and just kinda threaded the
rigging between the two wing surfaces. Then, when you were done,
you just glued the two remaining wing surfaces into place and, *voila*
a perfect rigging job! Unfortunately, the net result is that you have
about an 1/16" crack running from wing tip to wing tip on the top of
the upper wing about 1/4" aft of the leading edge and a similar crack
just forward of the trailing edge right out there in plain view.

Well, you can fill the cracks - if you don't mind trying to smooth it
in with about 70 wing ribs and don't mind sanding off all the detail
on both the upper surface of the top wing and the lower surface of the
bottom wing. But, after two aborted tries, I'm not convinced it can
successfully be done. If anyone has successfully built this kit, please
share your techniques.

Cheers, Bill

--
"Don't honk as you pass me on the information superhighway - I'm
 pedaling as fast as I can!!"

Bill Shatzer - bshatzer@ednet1.osl.or.gov - bshatz@aol.com