Eurasia Junkers W.34 - Modified MPM 1/72nd scale kit

 

 

 (These photos are from the Net. The only colored tail W.34 I found that are not illustrations)

(A second build using the much better Special Hobby kit is posted here:

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2024/04/eurasia-junkers-w34-second-model.html

Besides the Era of Colonialism that started immediately after the “discoveries” of the XV Century, during the 20’s and 30’s many governments (France, Italy, the US among others) tried to extend their political and commercial influence throughout countries and territories that seemed to them for any reason strategic, using aviation as a resource. It is well known how Germany created semi-puppet airlines in South America, but perhaps less known is its Asian enterprise, whose instrument was the Eurasia Aviation Corporation. Of all the countries involved in such maneuvers, I don’t think any suffered such a degree of loss and misfortune than the German endeavor in China. This was caused by many factors, no doubt too-stretched logistics, chronic political instability in the region, conflicts between China and Japan, Russia and Mongolia, and in the end the advent of WWII. The company, established in China as a German-Chinese partnership, was basically an arm of the Deutsche Lufthansa, and used exclusively Junkers planes. The amount of planes, lives and equipment losses was staggering, having a rate of accidents that seems comical, if it wasn’t tragic. 

In the past years some hobby manufacturers have released conversion and decal sets to cover some of the planes used. You may see online a few Eurasia Junkers F.13 and Junkers W.34 so converted to civil service. Some of these scale renditions are not accurate as they used the MPM or Special Hobby kits as they are, without the needed changes (hence my recurrent litany: look at photos of the real thing you are trying to represent!) Having acquired at some point both the MPM and Special Hobby W.34, I decided to build a model of such machines in Eurasia service. Upon studying the information available (thanks Sönke) I noticed that there were several W.34 options, as seven W.34 were sent from Germany. The one you can see built by modelers already online is the quite subdued (color-wise) traditional black and aluminium version, but I found two photos of two W34 with colored fuselage tails that caught my attention. One of these is Eurasia I, the other (the photo is very blurry) could be Eurasia V or VI. There are some illustrations that show Eurasia planes with their fuselage tails colored in red and others in green. The logic behind the green color on the tails proposes that it’s the color used by the Chinese Post Office… but during the 30’s -that is Eurasia times- the color used in their logo -actually ideograms- was red (encircled in blue), and red was also liberally used in Eurasia printed materials. The green color is a relatively new inclusion. You can see online that some illustrators have chosen red, while others used green. Taking note that green can not be now adjudicated to the postal colors, as demonstrated, it’s up to you. I will go for red.

The two above-mentioned kits are not the same moldings, although they share enough similarities that one could assume they sprang from the same masters, modified.

Here is the MPM kit (released 1994 according to Scalemates), which precedes the Special Hobby kit (released 2000 according to the same source):

The vacuformed transparencies have sadly yellowed:

Flash galore. Not the subtle, easy to remove flash, but the hefty, stubborn type:

A photoetched set (surprisingly produce by Eduard) that could have been more useful by including the control wheels, the rudder pedals and the loop antenna, all mediocrely molded in plastic. The door interior is not good for all the civil versions, just for some:

The right fuselage as mentioned doesn't have the low additional window like the SH kit, which is good, as the Eurasia planes didn't have it:

Summarizing:

-Quite coarse in comparison with the SH kit.

-Less parts count (nose, ailerons, etc. are here just molded as one with the main parts).

-Flash everywhere, in windows even about three millimeters thick. Difficult to remove.

-Prominent ejector pin towers

-Intrusive and thick sprue gates 

-Comes with a photoetched set

-The transparencies are vacuum-formed, and have yellowed

-The fuselage does not have molded a low window on the right side, making it closer to the Eurasia planes.

 

The SH kit:

-Better instructions

-Finely molded

-Separate parts allowing positioning or other versions

-Comes with resin accessories (exhausts, parts for version on skis)

-Injected clear parts of good clarity

-There is a low window molded in the right fuselage, which needs filling for the Eurasia planes (but not for other civil machines, like SCADTA.

The interiors are similarly appointed and both need reworking for use as civil planes. For both kits military detail needs deletion, and placement of passenger seats and proper details (antennas, etc.). Both kits have “ears” on their ailerons, which were not present on Eurasia W.34s and should be removed.

One of the challenging tasks with both kits would be to delete the central seam line on the fuselage top. It would have perhaps been more practical to render the top fuselage as it was done with the bottom, a separate part, no middle seam to start crying about as one tries to hide it. Then there is that engraved circular section also on the fuselage top, but photos of that area on Eurasia W.34s clearly show that they did not have such feature -as they were ex-Lufthansa civil planes-, present however in other W.33 and W.34 and a carry-over from the military version with turret.

Almost any kit can be built given time, commitment, patience and skill, but if you are in doubt about which of these two kits you should buy, most definitely go for the Special Hobby one, it’s without doubt a much better kit than the MPM rendition, now outdated and not really modeler-friendly.

BUT, as a trial to gain experience with the needed modifications, I will start with the worse of them, the MPM one:

You can clearly see the thick and intrusive gates and the abundant flash. The antenna loop is a lost cause from the start (no matter as it needs replacement anyway):

Starting to remove the flash and towers:

After some time that could have been better used, all the parts are cleaned of flash and ejector towers:

I acquired two sets of aftermarket masks from Canada -one for each kit-, PAPER MASKS, and not the vinyl ones that tends to detach as soon as you start to paint:

The little button (part #5) shouldn't be used as indicated. It could be used on the engine, over the P.E. part, if no engine shield ("pie") is used:

The Townend ring was too short in diameter to embrace the engine, so a section of styrene was added and contoured to shape. Four of the six seats needed for the passenger version were made from a resin aftermarket set from Germany. They are not really good, but will do. They have molded straps, which invariably hinders painting, and no buckles, which I added from a leftover set :

A few parts were glued to the cockpit section, and a metal axle extension added to the too-short one molded in the prop. Painting will start with this group:

The cockpit yellowed transparency. Only one is provided. Some manufacturers provide two, thinking of the poor modelers:

The wing halves are glued after removing the "ears" from the ailerons. These parts need truing before committing, or problems will arise:

As shown somewhere above, the photo-etched fret includes a two-part instrument panel plus film. Not sure why, as the molded part in the sprue is among the ones that are well done. I think I will use the plastic part, as the multi-faceted cockpit transparency is not very transparent. The inst. pan. looks light grey in photos, unlike the usual black:

A back bulkhead is fabricated and added to the interior. A few sections of corrugations are glued to the cockpit sides. The instrument panel and windows are still to be added. There was a collapsible back seat for two, that will need fabrication too:

The windows were made from clear acrylic to substitute the poor kit renditions. The fuselage sides were glued and the bottom added. The fit was bad all over. The sides were twisted and bananized and had to be coerced, like the other parts, to fit, with all sorts of clamps and tapes. Seams are now being filled with putty. The harder to disguise will be the one at the fuselage top, a poor engineering choice, given how rough and poorly molded the edges of the parts are, and how uneven their thickness:

Some civil versions had a third window on the right fuselage side mirroring the one on the door, but not the Eurasia planes. 

The horizontal tail is a butt joint, so a metal pin is installed to help secure the parts. The rudder is glued previous addition of the control horn.The wing is glued. Once again the fit is iffy, to say the least. The general impression during the build is one of certain crudeness, but not nearly as bad as bad kits. Still, it makes you work for it. Quite:

The circular engraving in the corrugations on the fuselage top is obscured as much as possible with some putty, as the Eurasia W.34 didn't have that feature. Surely not optimal, but will have to do. A method I used before on the Argentinian Ju-52 of replicating the corrugations on thin alu foil and then apply it, created too visible fore and aft seams in this case. The aft seat for the 5th and 6th  passengers was prepared but later discarded, as these planes usually took cargo and mail (but the front four seats can still be seen in photos):

Eurasia W.34s had an antenna mast in the middle of the fuselage top immediately behind the cockpit glassing, and not the one on the side the kit provides. The loop antenna was in a different position, aft and slightly to the right of the top center line. The particular plane I am replicating, Eurasia I, shows none of them in the only photo I found (the header of this article). Two types of door are seen in photos, one with a plain interior that contains a folded small access ladder, and the typical that the kit provides as P.E. parts. I will go for the former. Photos show no wind-driven generator, so don't use that kit's part.

The aftermarket masks serve, as stated in their header, the Special Hobby kit. They are not a good fit for this MPM kit, but can be adapted with some trimming.

Gloss black -later masked on the nose- is airbrushed as a base for the aluminium paint, which in turn will be masked to paint the tail red:

Eurasia reputedly recycled the plane numbers (I, II, II, IV, V and so forth) so if one plane was written off or out of commision, the next one would get its number (hence you see in photos both, a mostly metal “Eurasia I” and the one I am depicting here, with colored tail. The numbers can be seen at the end of the fuselage lettering to the side of the post characters and on the wings:

With the nose and the canopy masked, the metal hue is applied. As these were planes that operated in rather precarious conditions, a slightly weathered finish was applied. Next it will be more masking and the red:

Waiting now for a clear coat to help decal adhesion on the metal corrugations:

Both the MPM and this Special Hobby kit seem to have gotten the canopy wrong. To the right is how they molded it (they are not exactly the same but follow this shape), and the other two are the configurations you see in actual photos. One Bramo-engined variant seem to have the kit's canopy configuration, though:

 Trying now to fit the exhaust pipes on the engine. No indication of exactly where they go but you can look online at the real thing. The left one (looking from the pilot's view) goes up to the top cylinder. The exhaust stacks should come from the left side of the cylinders (again from the pilot's view), below the rocker covers. Even so, the fit is poor, and there is no way to match the position of the two sides in a way that they end up running more or less converging and parallel down and aft when installed. The feeble excuse "but it's a short-run kit" is bogus, as many short-run kits have a much better fit than this one. Fiddling and cheating (as there is no way to set things right as they are in reality) will eventually render a somewhat credible positioning. It is of note that each "branch" of the exhaust has four connecting sections, when it should be five and four (as the SH kit has), for a total of nine cylinders. The locating hole on the fuselage nose for the engine -and those on the wheels- need to be enlarged. Apparently it's too much to ask that something can properly fit without fussing. 

As I completed the other W.33 in red and aluminium, and taking advantage of a new Arctic Decals set, I decided to repaint the red aluminium, and use one of the other registrations for this one, so the models will look different:

Applying the decals now:

To be continued...