AZ Model 1/72 Boeing P-26 as a civil Boeing 281

 (The completed model is here:)
http://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2013/09/boeing-p-26-172-az-model-finished-as.html

The chubby but charming shape of the Boeing 281 (as the civil, unarmed version -for export- of the P-26 was called) has always pleased me.

Nevertheless, there were only two 281s -of the 12 made- that I was interested in, the first, X-12771, and a second machine without visible regs. Statements about their colors differ a bit (how surprising!) giving green and yellow or black and yellow for the first, and the same options with a black/white or red/white triangular design on the fuselage and pants for the second.

Look at photos to base your work upon. No antennas are visible and no armament was present in these machines.

I have built time ago the venerable Revell kit with its entire rivet galore, still a nice little kit if you deal with the surface detail, but I am glad this new renditions are out. The exchange of additional info on this particular version with Jim the Pugetmeister of Boingland prompted the possession of a new 1/72 release by AZ models of this emblematic plane. There is another kit of this type released by Pavla, reviewed by the Pugetmeister himself here:

http://www.internetmodeler.com/2004/january/first-looks/Pavla_P26.php

I did not see any reviews of this new kit from AZ Model online, so here I’ll give it some coverage in the form of photos and brief comments. There is quite a complete interior, a piece of printed film to make the windshield, a resin engine and the usual sprues with an alternate tailwheel; the kit has recessed panel lines and overall good detail. The decal sheet seems nice, but I won’t comment on it since as usual I will have to make my own decals for the machine I want.

The parts as you can see are all well defined and well detailed, but have almost no locating pins and holes. There is no flash as per se present, but some parts do show mold lines and sometimes slightly rough edges, there are also a couple of sink marks on the tailwheel arrangement. In general, I am very satisfied with the quality/price ratio.

Some other kits of this plane had issues with the dihedral, not this one as you can see in the ex-profeso photos. 

I am planning this build as a vacation from the just finished and quite exhausting conversion of another AZ kit, the Beech Staggerwing, so I won’t add or modify anything, which in turn will make this article/posting a good reference for modelers regarding the kit. Especially for those modelers that want civil(ized) airplanes, since this one -and the other civil livery- only require a few easily-made decals.

Will comment on fit and such as I go.

 Box:

 General view of contents:

 No dihedral problems with this one:

 Flaps present:

 Fuselage sides with some detail:

 The resin engine, not superb, but good enough for 1/72:

 Some detail parts:

Same parts need a bit of clean up:

The interior painted and ready to be enclosed:

 Some clean up and drilling:

 The fit of the engine is perfect inside the Townend ring:

More surface detail can be seen on this pic:

Ready to close:

Drilling the rigging holes:

The fit on the wing/fuselage join was not good at all, and had to be worked out with a few tools, carefully, to make the parts align and match:

 Little by little it was adjusted to a good fit, testing every time:

 And then the wing was glued:

The wheel spats come in left and right halves. Only one half has a pin for the wheel of each pair, so, what would you do? Match of course a pinned and pin-less parts. WRONG. Whoever put the pin, choose the wrong halves, so you have to pair the two pinned for one spat, and the two pin-less for the other. OTHERWISE THEY WON'T really match. I nevertheless removed the pins, since I do not find practical to paint a wheel inside a spat, nor clamp it painted inside an unpainted spat. I usually add them after all painting is done, gluing them with a stopper if needed on top, or just putting a little dollop of 5-minute epoxy inside the spat and dropping the wheel (once the epoxy is clay-consistency) to the right depth.

At these point new, fatter wheels of the same diameter were rescued form the spares bin and substituted for the somewhat skinny kit's originals, as per photos of the real thing:

  The pants halves are glued together using little clothespins spawned by the normal-size clothespins:

General view of the sub-assemblies and detail parts:

More rigging holes were drilled on the fuselage sides and pants. They are clearly marked on wings and fuselage, but not in the pants -that I could tell-, so study photos. NOT PLANS. The bay for the wheels inside the pants was slightly enlarged using a Dremel (watch-out, do not overdo it, the walls are thin) and one wheel cut in half to be later glued in. A styrene rod section is filling a hole on the top front fuselage that won't be used (gunsight):

 Some gaps are filled with thin plasticard:

The instructions wrongly portray the engine upside-down, with the oil sump on top.

The exhaust "bridge" is seen in some planes, but on top (with the engine rightly positioned, that is the opposite side of the oil sump).

They omitted to mold the two exhaust pipes that exit the fuselage after going into it on both sides.

The 281 did not have that exhaust bridge, therefore the number of little "trumpets" provided (7) won't be enough,  and is noted in the plan as "get your own rod for this one" -actually, it should be both sides.

They omitted in the view from bellow the wires that go from one spat root to the other spat foot:
Images from the AZ model instruction sheet, annotated in red by me:

 

Sub-assemblies:

Landing gears legs in place:

First coat of primer applied, now blemish-fixing and polishing should ensue:

The primer is sanded and the blemishes corrected:

 The primer is white because the flying surfaces will be yellow and a grey primer would be a not good as a base coat:

White paint is airbrushed. This will be later masked to preserve the white areas of the scheme on the fuselage and spats and will also provide a good base for the yellow color of the flying surfaces:

Masks are patterned and transferred to masking paper:

 Masks are applied to the model:

 Yellow paint is airbrushed:

Yellow now masked and model ready to be sprayed black together with the Townend ring (the engine shield will be painted red, the last color to be applied):

Black color is airbrushed, now red will follow:

Decals were crafted and printed at this point (together with the parallel project Boeing 100), registrations for two machines were made just in case I get another AZ kit:

The red color is applied as decals and some hand painting:

The underneath and leading edge of the stab halves was covered in thin rubber to minimize damage cuased by flying debris. Therefore a decal was sprayed dull black, a pattern cut and decals made:

 There was a wrap-around portion for the leading edge:

 The props are painted (the Boeing 100 prop is there too) and prop logos are trimmed for application:

As you can see the model looks deceivingly finished. Not so, though. Here a few things still to do:

Add fin white nav lights, paint tail wheel, add exhausts to engine, Pitot, Venturi, Windshield, rigging and its rods (the rigging quite complex in this one), glue engine, engine shield, prop, Townend ring, access hatch, to the fuselage, etc. 

Rigging begins: 

Rigging completed, nav lights on fin, Pitot and Venturi in place, cockpit door attached, only last bits ready to go: