Miles M.38 Messenger - KP 1/72nd

 

 (The completed model is here:

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2022/11/miles-m38-messenger-kp-172nd.html

 

The Miles M.38 Messenger reminds me of the painting "Golconda", by René Magritte. British coming down from the sky with a bowler hat. That's how the M.38 feels to me, with the bowler hat-shaped canopy front, nonchalantly landing and almost uttering "Steady on, old chap", in a tone that could in turn be reminiscent of Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie in "Blackadder Goes Forth".

Kovozávody Prostějov (put to good use Word's "insert symbol" function) should be praised for releasing these wonderful civil types, full of charm and a bit of nostalgia, to the delight of us civil modelers looking to build something that doesn't shoot, bomb, or kill, as there is plenty enough of that around without us celebrating it and perpetuating its images.

Your (and my) joy is justified, as KP's kit is quite nice, has a credible interior with some detail, a fair transparency, and in general an engineering that if not innovative, at least is not awkward. But hold on a bit, my hearties, as there is work ahead: this, being a short-run kit, has little in regards to locating devices, needs some flash to be cleaned up, has sprue gates that need to be carefully removed from the parts, and the purchase of canopy masks if you don't wont the extra fuss. Other than that, the only chore after a thorough cleanup of all parts, is to sand the inner side of both wing halves, as their trailing edges otherwise would be unsightly thick, about 1mm thick.

Needless to say, comparison of the kit with photos of the real plane shows quite a few details that you may like to add (flap actuators, aileron hinges, nav lights, Pitot, etc.), so study your references and especially the plane you want to represent, if you care for some extra detail.

Contents of the box:

Aftermarket masks:

Transparency and decal sheet

A bit thick, but with fair clarity:

Parts will need cleanup:

All parts separated from the sprues and cleaned up:

The inner face of the wing halves needs quite a bit of sanding to render a thin trailing edge:

Assembly begins and some parts are readied for a painting session:

The details in red are not provided for in the kit and may be added by the modeler, the one in blue is provided, but as a not too convincing round section curved part, whilst the real one is flat, and goes through the wing appearing on the top as the flap deflects down:

You can see that KP provided an anchoring device for the wing. The fit needs adjusting a bit as one would expect with a KP kit (a bit less refined in general than some other short-run kits), but it helps securing the parts (if you still have to be very careful about the dihedral, which doesn't set automatically):

Some paint already in progress. The prop was painted white, as it will be masked to leave two thin stripes at the blade tips, and painted grey overall with metal spinner:

Notes:

As the construction advances some things need correcting, like the position the exhaust, inaccurately described in the kit on the centerline below the cowl. It should be to the right and it needs a bit of carving where it exits from the cowl to be more realistic. Bear in mind that some planes had a four-stack arrangement, not a unifying pipe.
And since we are at the cowl, the aft vent of it, open to the air in reality, is portrayed blocked, so this should be carved too.

You may notice in the plan that it actually belongs to the  boxing with the more curved aft windows, KP did not bother to actualize the instructions.

G-AKVZ (one of the kit's options) had at some point in its life an aluminium color "mustache" trim on the nose, a wind-driven generator on the left wing LE, and whip antenna. This is associated with what it looks like a black prop with yellow tips.

G-ALAI (another option in the kit) can be seen with at least two other different schemes, one with horizontal tail and wings in silver, and another overall silver with details in black and red. This plane also had the wind-driven generator (absent from the kit) on the left wing LE.

The nose has the air intake that looks into the void inside, so you may like to add a mock cylinder behind it before gluing it to the fuselage.

Two other kits exists in 1/72nd of this plane that I know of, by Pavla and Aeroclub (the latter a vac). The Pavla kit looks a bit rough.

Old articles from the Gallica repository for your perusing:

A Miles M.38 incorrectly named M.28 (the M.28 had a twin tail):

The fuselage may now be closed. Unlike most kits, this interior needed just a little shaving to fit, especially on the seats' sides. The fuselage sides match in general, still not perfectly, and some little prodding is needed:

A resemblance of a cylinder is fabricated to add inside the nose:

The canopy fits quite well, only minor touches needed, which is a great relief:

Main components assembled and seams treated. Once the canopy is installed and masked the first coat of primer will be applied, surely revealing areas that need further care:

I wish the fit in this kit would be a bit better, like an AVI, or AVIS one. As is, it feels vague and imprecise, and parts surely don't self-align. Perhaps a small price to pay for civil kits of appealing planes.

Metal color paint is applied to wheel hubs and spinner:

Canopy on. The fit as mentioned is quite good:

 

Ideal weather for modeling:

And time for an interesting movie: "Argentina, 1985", telling the incredible story of how a prosecutor could finally bring to justice the military junta murderers.

The flaps are given their control horns (absent in the kit) and what I think is the flap angle indicator (as it's located only on one side) is replaced by a flat piece of metal, as per original:

The canopy is masked, some seams are filled, a central vertical tail is added. Once primer is applied and blemishes dealt with, the actual canopy masks are going to be applied before proceeding to painting the model:

Clear resin lights will be used to add the anti-collision beacons (missing in the kit) to the model:

Primer is airbrushed:

This helps revealing the various spots that require attention. Visible are the new and correct location for the exhaust, inaccurately depicted in the kit as centered, and the carved-out section  of the cowl (rendered as solid in the kit):

The some imperfections are dealt with, and the provisional masks are removed, before installing the after market masks. I couldn't get any paper masks set, so I purchased the one below, in vinyl, which I don't favor. I like paper masks 10 times over vinyl, as vinyl ones tend to peel off, you can't see a damn thing when applying them (they are grayish and  translucent), they do not adapt well to curves, and some harsh solvents/paints usually affect them too. In this case, the partial masks for the front (you are supposed to fill the void they leave) did not adjust well, and fell short at the top, so you are warned:

Ready now for a base color:

  A coat of gloss gray is applied:

To paint the model with the flaps on would have hindered or made difficult the application in some areas, so these were painted separately:

The aluminium color is airbrushed. It will be masked and then the blue applied. The props (I made an additional one in a different shade of gray) are ready:

The decal sheet does not cover the walkways over the wings. For those I usually paint a leftover piece of decal with matte grey and then cut the shapes. The walkways differ a bit from subject t subject, and there seems to be a notch on the flaps for footing, missing in the kit, that would need a small u-shaped decal. 

With the silver masked, the blue color is airbrushed:

Masks off:

The flaps, tail wheel, main wheels are added. Also the strobe light, exhaust and aileron linkages:

With the application of decals (including the home-made walkways absent from the kit's sheet), the addition of the prop an the top fuselage beacon, the model is completed:

As final notes: the MH models aftermarket vinyl masks, as predicted and experienced many times, did lift off at their edges during airbrushing. These vinyl masks are only good when they lay absolutely flat. Otherwise, THEY LIFT. I hope this manufacturer would change to paper. As mentioned above the front windshield "frame" they provide doesn't fit properly, leaving a gap at the top.

The decals in the kit are quite nice, but, as they are thin, they are fragile. Even with utmost care one broke on application, but I was able to reposition it. They don't like very much to be moved around, so be careful.