Herr Pitts Special

[Monz]

That's a nice looking Pitts Tim, thanks for the pics. Do you know what size/weight it was?

Progress so far...

I've been working on the nose and noseblock sections. I was going to go with a sheeted top and carved blue foam bottom, but the kit's shapes are incorrect for a Pitts so I decided to sheet the bottom too, overlapping it with the top sheeting to give a more scale shape and look. Sheeting is light 1/32nd I still have to route out the intakes to the scale shape, soon as I find my mini sanding drums.

The only thing left to build is the rudder, then I can sand the stabs and get covering. You can see the mock ailerons I've added to the bottom wing. I didn't want to go with detached ailerons as with their size, even the slightest movement or bump would induce quite a powerful roll. If I need to I'll add acetate for trimming.

Weight so far is 49g, so probably looking at flying at 100g. Hopefully less though. My DVII is 88g and flies great so hoping to get to around that.

[Robert Pajas]

Will be good flyer! I am sure!

[deniscullinan]

I've just been surfing the SFA site and saw this terrific pice of craftsmanship. Nice going!

[Monz]

Thanks guys.

Some more progress...

Got the fus covered up and shrunk. Then realised that I'd not left any way to get the glue onto the cabanes under the sheeting. Luckily it was a an easy fix by cutting out a small section of tissue at the bottom of the fus so I could get the glue inside. Then just a quick tissue patch job and sorted.

I went for the obligatory mockup shot when I saw that the stab and elevator have badly warped. Not sure why - I used pre shrunk tissue, shrank it another few times will weighted down and banana oiled it. So next mission is to make another on which I'll use the domestic tissue I have which is much more predictable.

Before any building could commence, her majesty first had to removed from her throne...

[Monz]

First time I've done a cockpit coaming and quite pleased with how it turned out

Coaming, headrest, canopy rails and LG fairings fitted, almost ready for some paint.

[rgroener]

Wow, it looks great. As you sad, the coaming came out very well. Is ist wire isolation?
Looking forward to some colour.
Roman

[Monz]

A few detail bits being added I spent the evening spraying and masking and spraying. I'm using Tamiya acrylics for the first time. Taking a bit of getting used to. Need lots of coats to build up the colour, especially the red which is not very opaque. I'm going to have to dump some primer on the nose and then respray the red to get coverage. I took a bit of a gamble with the colours, but they seem to be matching up well to the photos.

[Pete Fardell]

It's looking great, Monz! I don't know how you can build fast and yet still be so neat and accurate. That coaming for instance- I've tried that trick with cutting a slit in wire casing and it never goes on as beautifully as that. And the masking and spraying would take me hours of faffing about, as would all the balsa sheeting and filling, and the end result would be far less tidy. Videos of you working are what we need!

[uhu]

Monique, great build! What's the dihedral you use?

[Monz]

Thanks Pete, uhu.

Pete, videos?? I'd have to tidy the workbenches first...

uhu, I'm going with scale dihedral - a couple degrees on the bottom and flat top wings.

Bit more painting done. I was originally going to use decals for the bottom wing check pattern. My original supplier was out of stock so I tried a different paper from someone else which was terrible. The printer toner wouldn't stick to the decal paper and I ended up with a smudged pages. So the checks were done the old fashioned way - mask and spray. Tedious work but with a satisfying result. I had quite a bit of bleeding of the red which I had to touch up by hand. Next is the registration and then onto the top surface starbursts.