Aerographics 29" Miles Magister for Rubber Power - revived

[AndyB]

This is a revived and slightly abridged thread from October 2020 - it was built on an off until about October 2022 when it was covered, but there were problems with the tissue covering and the wing fairings so it was chucked in a corner in the spare room and has been staring accusingly at me ever since. Anyway, I seem to have suddenly acquired the energy and gumption to just get on with the wing fairings, so I thought that it might be a good thing to revive the thread by re-posting

The kit - which I must have had for something like 6 or 7 years - is at first sight quite comprehensive, incuding decals and a pair of 1 1/2" main wheels which I am 98% certain are SLEC items intended for r*adio c*ntrol models. The laser-cutting looks pretty good, although the laser-cut wing spars and leading edges required replacing because the wood on those sheets was only about 5.5-6 lb cu ft. The strip wood seemed to bear no relation to what was required to build the kit, so I stripped some more from some scrap stock of about the right density. There were no 1/4" x 1/8" trailing edges supplied, apparently you're expected to cut your own from the spare parts of the 1/8" laser-cut sheet.

The ribs all required careful trimming from the rear edges to various degrees, I found it useful to pin down the bottom spar as a build reference; some of the slots required a small amount of fettling, but nothing major, and it's all gone together quite easily so far. Having built indoor models for a while, it's a particular pleasure to laminate wing and tail outlines without having to sand down some 1/32" sheet, and the (relatively) robust structure means that I'm unlikely to break any spars or stringers during construction.

I'll probably finish it in the box-top colour scheme, no idea what it should weigh but at 29" span, I'm guessing somewhere around 70 grams.

[AndyB]

The fuselage structure took a while because - for some reason, possibly to do with childhood trauma involving a Keil Kraft Playboy kit - it seems that I'm not very keen on making two identical fuselage sides. I'm just about OK making one side, but it takes forever to summon up the gumption to make a second one. Anyway, I'm over the difficult bit so we're on the way. Everything went together really nicely although some of the laser-cut parts needed a bit of fettling/trimming (early kit, remember), the only thing you really need to watch out for is that some of the formers aren't quite symmetrical and just need a touch with the sanding block to true them up.

[AndyB]

Final few historical pictures. The covering is Dilly Japanese tissue which has the advantage that it doesn't shrink very much, and the disadvantage that it has no wet strength.

[AndyB]

I just couldn't get the fairings shown on the plan to adopt a suitably miles-magister-type shape, so the fairings are built up as shown in the pictures. They're not doped - yet. I'm playing a bit fast and loose with drying times and will get the first coat of dope on in about an hour or so.

The fairings were built using printer paper and a glue stick on some eyeballed wing-fuselage formers which aren't perfect but are probably good enough; I did take a short-cut and left out a former on the rear centre-section spar but this turned out to be a bit unwise, because it's obvious that it's missing. Also, anyone doing a similar job would do well to bond some tissue onto the carefully cut paper fairing parts because - as I have discovered - it's a quite fiddly to do it afterwards (but you all knew this, right?  ).

The original plan was to airbrush some Humbrol RAF trainer yellow onto the undersides but unfortunately, the paint is a bit solid - the pigment has properly separated. Plan B is to use some leftover Humbrol acrylic spray which is nearly the right colour but should go on well because it smells of acetone. I should be able to manage this first thing on Saturday morning as long as SWMBO doesn't find out that I'm using the garden shed as a spray booth. I bet I run out of paint, though...

[Squirrelnet]

Nice build Andy the fairings have worked well.

Good luck with the spraying 

[AndyB]

Spraying report, part 1...

Actually, it all went quite well, surprisingly, considering that it's done with spray cans. First two pics show the sprayed parts with horrendous amounts of overspray (apart from the rudder which is still drying, so I daren't move it), the third pic shows the chosen colour scheme (the Old Warden Magister). There are, perhaps, a few areas where the paint coverage isn't quite even but I've resisted the urge to even it up because it's a spray can and it still wouldn't be even... 

The shade of yellow isn't quite right (little bit pale) but it's near enough to capture the essence of the thing, I think, and although it's nominally gloss it's adopted a kind of eggshell finish so shouldn't look too out-of-place even if the top surfaces are left matt.

It now needs to go rock hard before masking the top surfaces. The next thing to do is to sort out how the windscreens are going to fit and mask off the areas that will stay yellow before spraying the dark earth and dark green. Also, I'm wondering if there are some after-market large-scale plastic model decals that I can use, otherwise there's another masking job with six sets of "P6382" and 2 x "C". Not sure yet what to do about the fin flash...

[MarkM]

Spraying report, part 1...

Actually, it all went quite well, surprisingly, considering that it's done with spray cans. First two pics show the sprayed parts with horrendous amounts of overspray (apart from the rudder which is still drying, so I daren't move it), the third pic shows the chosen colour scheme (the Old Warden Magister). There are, perhaps, a few areas where the paint coverage isn't quite even but I've resisted the urge to even it up because it's a spray can and it still wouldn't be even... 

The shade of yellow isn't quite right (little bit pale) but it's near enough to capture the essence of the thing, I think, and although it's nominally gloss it's adopted a kind of eggshell finish so shouldn't look too out-of-place even if the top surfaces are left matt.

It now needs to go rock hard before masking the top surfaces. The next thing to do is to sort out how the windscreens are going to fit and mask off the areas that will stay yellow before spraying the dark earth and dark green. Also, I'm wondering if there are some after-market large-scale plastic model decals that I can use, otherwise there's another masking job with six sets of "P6382" and 2 x "C". Not sure yet what to do about the fin flash...

If you know what size the roundels, serial numbers and fin flash are, and the scale of the model, I could make you some decal masks. Makes life very easy then.

[AndyB]

Many thanks, I accept your kind offer. PM sent.

A.

[Arnold S]

That looks very tidy Andy....

Andrew