ZTS "Plastyk" 1/72 scale RWD-6

 (The post of the already built model is here:
http://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2013/07/rwd-6-zts-plastyk-172-scale-completed.html:)

Those nice little kits
Not long ago I received a mysterious package from Lübeck, Germany. The sender’s address read: “Zönke Evil Empire, Sekret Lair Under the Volkano”. Intrigued –as the reader may have guessed- I opened the box and found a certain number of kits, of varied fur, quality and degrees of unbuildness. Some have been already started, some were pristine, some were arcane, some were known. Many treasures laid amidst or inside the battered boxes, bread crumbs, sandwich leftovers, insects, Helga portraits and plans for death rays.
I selected one to start the pile, the object of this article.

I love nice little kits, even if they require, as it is certainly the case with this one, a not small dose of love and care. The “Plastyk” Polish brand of kits was not totally unknown to me, although I had only the vague reminiscence of having seen an ad or two. They also released an RWD-5 and an RWD-8, among other subjects. Opening the box revealed the contents, which for the original –and current- price are a total bargain. The images that illustrate the article convey the idea of the items included: a number of detailed and not-so-well-molded parts, thick, scratched but not bad transparencies, a comprehensive decal sheet, extensive instructions, and a free visa to Poland, stamped in blue. Or may be that could be the quality control tag, who knows, I don’t speak Polish although I love Polish food. As you can see in the close-up images some effort was put in representing surface detail. There is plenty of it and even the fuselage internal sides have some detail. The fabric texture is just a tad off, and some raised panel lines are not really very subtle. You could sand them, over-prime them, or leave them as they are. There is an aftermarket photoetched set made by PART (PART S72026 1/72 RWD-6) that could be used to complement the nice kit, I didn’t think it was a must for me. Browsing the net showed a high number of these kits completed - some to a nice level of quality and detail - and posted, which is always a good sign.

The RWD-6, although in the right time-frame and mind frame, is not a subject that aligns with what I normally build (or should I say abnormally build), but it is a stress-free divertimento that I take as a relaxing vacation from the hardships of the life of the scratchbuilder. If you do an Internet search you will find plenty of background info and images. Perhaps its most famous appearance was in the Berlin Air Show of 1932.

In starting the kit some cleaning, refining and adjusting are in order, and perhaps a few parts should be better replaced with card stock, airfoil stock, or in some cases scratched; that is not really a necessity, but more of a personal choice. The wing panels’ trailing edges are a tad thick, so I sanded the aileron down on the intrados and separated the flaps, which allowed me to thin them down too.

Building notes:

The model as said presents two options. Single wing struts for the "-6", or “V” wing struts for "-6bis". Choose accordingly.

In photos I can see a bulkhead after the seats, closing the cockpit, absent in the model.

There are two protuberances on each wing tip that some modelers have mistaken for nav lights. They are actually wrongly-depicted tie-down holes, surely misinterpreted from a plan, since the holes are visible in photos.

The Engine shield has a cutout for some engine element. The kit part depicts the cutout but said element is not provided.

The kit does not provide instrument decals, but does present a little panel that goes on top of the coaming. Photos show both panels as having a black or dark grey background, three instruments for that little top panel and several for the "normal" panel bellow it.
The clear parts once glued showed to be a tad bigger than their fuselage contact surfaces in width, about half a millimeter each side.
The decals are bad for many reasons: the images are not good quality; for example, the edges of the registrations are a bit wobbly. The carrier is excessive (way beyond the images), thick and not really transparent. The decals take a long time to be released from their backing sheet, so be patient. They do not conform well to relief on the model's surfaces, even with decal solution. Trim your decals to eliminate as much carrier as you can.
The Stanavo logo on the decal sheet is the wrong color, it should have a red background.

 Fabric representation as some sort of granulation, not bad, but not really good:

 Upper wing halves. One is molded a tad short and will show in joining the lower half. Easily corrected with putty.

 Flaps separated for both the sake of thinning and a bit of "extra":

 The wing halves have being glued, the interior is assembled and a base coat applied:

Fuselage closed, parts' cleanup:

During the tidying process I managed to break a Townend ring half and a prop blade. Easily repaired. By the way, you get two props (for the "6" and "6bis" versions). Neither is actually very good. Consider replacing them, or do a good clean-up, thin-down and enhancing job.

The fuselage seams and right wing small voids have been puttied and sanded, a bulkhead was installed as per photos of the 1/1 thing behind the seats:

Instrument panel decals applied in both upper and lower panels:

The Transparencies as said were not bad, but not really good either. They are thick, although have some nice clarity, but are marred by scratches. The upper edge of the windshield does not match the front edge of the clear "roof". The latter will have to be sanded a tad in the vertical plane to happily marry the equally vertical edge of the front part; in sum, as it is, there is no surface of contact (gluing) but two edges. The geometry of the transparencies is not that complex, and really adventurous modelers may try a clear sheet solution. My blessings to them.

The roof clear part has the "ears" where the wing panels lock, but the tongue does not insert inside a slot, as you may have wanted too, but as a surface-to-surface joint with the wing under surfaces. This will leave a visible join that is not present in the 1/1 plane:

As said, the version 6 had only one wing strut; correspondingly the second hole underneath the wing should be filled in, which I did with styrene rod of adequate diameter and cut  flush once dry: 

 The model propeller (two as said come one for each version) was cleaned, cut and re-inserted in a home-made hub, as it was not really good the way it came:

The engine needs a few passes with the sanding stick to be able to fit inside the Townend ring. The engine shield needs all its "petals" thinned in order for them to fit amidst the cylinders. It has molded in relief the three characters "RWD", may be too prominently. They were sanded down and decals will be put in place later on:

Clear parts cleaned up of their abundant flash, touched-up with the sanding stick and put to dry after given the Future bath:

The pattern for the wheel pants mask is prepared:

The hole for the Pitot on the upper wing is too prominent, so it was filled too:

 The a smaller hole was drilled:

 Pins were inserted into the oleo struts:

The engine needed pushrods (the original was an Armstrong-Siddeley Genet) so they were made from sretched sprue and attached:

 The Aluminum base color is applied:

The engine exhaust is added and painted:

 Front is drybrushed:

 Future coat applied over the aluminum color:

 Tail feathers painted white:

 Decals applied on the engine shield:

 Tail feathers masked. The tape stripes for the horizontal stabilizer were 2.2 mm, the ones for the vertical stabilizer 2mm, that gave the correct number of stripes and spacing:

 Windshield is glued in position:

 Red paint applied:

 Masks removed:

Prop bands applied (prop on the right). The decals have a very large carrier, so it should be trimmed closer to the images:

Roof of canopy sanded to fit and glued in place:

 Horizontal stabilizer glued in place:

 Wing decals in place. The are not good at all, read above in "building notes":

 The Stanavo logos were the wrong color, so home-made ones were printed:

Decals cut individually to eliminate as much as possible the carrier:

 The parts before final assembly:

As explained before, the wing halves do not "lock" in place, there is a tab in the cockpit roof that is glued flat against the underneath of the wing halves. That complicates things a bit at the time of attaching them. I finally used styrene glue to be able to adjust and propped the kit to get the wing panel vertical and aligned. Alu decal covers were later placed on the tab:

Then I glued a Contrail wing strut, since both struts in the kit fall short of the gap they should span.

The kit has another inaccuracy: strut and oleo strut go into different holes, one on top of the other. In the plane they attach to the same point, which I followed. Do not forget to paint red the small strut fairing underneath the wing :

Two new Pitots were scratched as the kit's were too big and chunky:

 I still don't know what to do with the Polish visa that came in the box: