Eurasia Junkers W.34 -second model- Modified Special Hobby 1/72nd

 

Junkers W.34 Eurasia, take II.

Having almost completed the assembly of the MPM Junkers W.34, 

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2024/03/eurasia-junkers-w34-modified-mpm-172nd.html

the build of the Special Hobby rendition of it has been started. As stated in the article for the MPM kit, this Special Hobby interpretation of it is far superior. The molding is much cleaner, there is almost no flash, and the parts are thinner and the fit neater. This kit doesn’t have the small photo-etched set of the MPM one, but instead offers some resin parts consisting on the exhausts, the wind-driven generator, and a pairs of skis and tail ski. The resin exhausts look starved and slightly uneven, have quite a bit of molding blemishes, a poor cast made worse for the decision of the maker to attach the pouring tabs to the visible side of the parts, instead of the hidden one. The WDG had the little prop broken in transit (not used on this particular plane anyway) and one of the skis was visibly repaired in factory due to a defective pour too. The decal sheet (that I won’t use) is better, and the transparencies are injected and with good clarity, unlike the vacuformed, ill-fitting and yellowed one on the MPM kit. But not all is roses: this kit has an extra window not present in the Eurasia planes that needs to be filled. Problem is, the fuselage is corrugated. The other issue is that, as with the MPM kit, the top fuselage, also corrugated, will have a seam at the center, another kit design mistake that could have been avoided presenting the top as a separate part, like the fuselage bottom. Yet again the engraved “circle and half moon” on the top, heritage of the military versions, is not present in the Eurasia planes (all of civil origin). And that is difficult to fix. I did some work on it on the MPM kit, but it wasn’t really enough to completely hide it, so here I will try something else. As mentioned above, this SH kit is much better although there is some commonality. Ailerons and nose are separated parts, and even the wheels have a separated hub to facilitate painting (for some reason only on one side, though). This kit’s parts were much easier to separate from the sprue and to clean. As with the first kit, a back bulkhead was added to avoid a see-through fuselage, and all military equipment was removed. Aftermarket passenger seats were added. The wing was thinned from the inside to reduce the trailing edge thickness, but the ailerons, which come as separate parts, have thick trailing edges and that can’t be fixed. The Townend ring, opposite to the one on the MPM kit, was a good fit to the engine. The engine, quite generic, is lacking the oil sump (the MPM kit had it), so one was made of styrene and added to it. 

Parts much cleanly molded than in the MPM kit:

Nice injected transparencies, instead of the ill-fitting and yellowed vacuformed ones on the MPM kit:

Somewhat generic engine lacking the oil sump (the MPM kit had that detail):

The resin skis and exhausts were molded with defects:

Aftermarket seats to install in the pax cabin:

 The too thick trailing edges are scrapped thinner:

The ejector towers are removed:

The nose parts are a good fit, but the locating hole for the engine is offset. Unlike the MPM kit, the Townend ring fits properly around the engine:

The extra window (absent on the MPM kit) needs to be filled, as the Eurasia planes didn't have that. It's plugged with styrene sheet (more on that later):

And extra bulkhead is fabricated and added to prevent see-through:

Some airbrushing:

Tried first a method that works sometimes, but wasn't pleased with the results here:

Oil sump added to the engine:

Window area masked and automotive epoxy putty applied:

Sanded flat with the rest and tape removed:

The corrugations are restored using an Olfa engraving tool:

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 seems to have had the kit's canopy configuration, though:

As mentioned the transparencies are good, but the windows were replaced anyways with clear acrylic, which has no distortion:

Each window was individually fit:

Construction advances at a fair pace. The parts differ from the MPM kit as commented above, providing better assembly solutions:

The fuselage top seam line as mentioned is a problem that could have been avoided molding the top as one part, like the bottom. As it is, being the surface corrugated, it's a challenge to fix.

A first coat of primer reveals as usual that there is much still to do:

A circle and a ring masks are cut and placed in and out of the kit's engraving for that hatch, and car epoxy putty is applied:

Then sanded down, and the masks removed:

Using an Olfa P cutter and a ruler the corrugations are restored. It's not perfect, but works well enough:

 Size comparison (same scale) with the Comper Swift:

A base coat of gloss black:

All colors already applied:

I turned my attention to the engine sub-assembly. Unfortunately, and exactly like the MPM kit, the two-part exhaust array (resin in this case) is a bad fit, even if in this SH kit they got the asymmetric five/four exhausts count right. But no matter what you do, they don't fit or align properly. For some manufacturers, "short run" seems sometimes an excuse to wash their hands of problems and to pass the buck to the modeler. I lost count of how many times I tried to properly glue and align those exhaust branches. As with the MPM kit, I will have to end up doing some trimming and supplementing to get a decent fit.

Finally I decided to cut off the deformed exhaust branches ends and add solder lengths using metal pins:

This improved things a little.

Very frustrating when you work your way up the build carefully and then you bump into a manufacturer-created issue that is difficult to fix. In this particular point the MPM and SH kits are equally flawed.

To be continued...