Brown RB-2 "Miss Los Angeles" racer - Karaya 1/72nd scale resin

 

 Building scale models is a great therapy for stress. So when I arrived to a stressful stage with the Farman F.223, I started the Short Skyvan to relax. And when I reached a prickly junction with the Skyvan, I started the Mustang "Thunderbird" racer. Having arrived to a delicate stage with the Mustang, I started this Brown RB-2 racer... to relax, you know.

The Brown RB-2 “Miss Los Angeles” is a widely known racer from California flown in the 30’s to one win and other top positions. Two things prompted me to build this racer: an amicable nudge from friend and fellow aviation enthusiast Tom Polapink -who is a fan of the design- and seeing on the Net a beautiful model of it by Piotr Dmitruk (built to his usual very high standards). I have built a couple of Karaya kits, and with some adjustments -as you compare with photos- they can become nice replicas. Their resin is of a good quality, but accuracy as said may need occasionally checking.  This kit needs a tweak of two: most notoriously the big carb intake under the cowl at the far end of it, working on the gap between fuselage and cowl and adding a sort of bar on the left side visible in photos. The cowl gap was in reality not a void gap with only engine mounts visible, but an area that wasn’t see-trough as a number of engine accessories filled the space. Also, the top of the gap was given before the race a strip cover (photos corroborate all this) and also two rows of louvers were added on the left of the cowl later on. Modifications were made as time went by, but changes on the wing and LG apparently proved ineffective and the plane reverted to its previous configuration. The kit includes a very well detailed Menasco engine, so modelers may “remove a panel” to showcase it. I am looking for photos that may show how the panels were removed to do just that. With its slim lines, its vivacious red paint and gold lettering it surely looks racy.

Things you may like to consider:

-I found no windshield material in the box (I don’t think any is provided) so you will to use a very thin clear plastic sheet to make one.

-The exhausts were not as protruding as depicted on the kit, but ended up much closer to the cowl.

- The aft locating pegs were missing from both wings in my sample. So they were deleted and replaced by metal pins which will secure the wings much better in any case. You may do the same with the stabs, although they are really thin and perhaps difficult to drill.

- As mentioned, consider adding the gap-closing strip on top of the cowl, visible in photos in actual races (but the plane is photographed with no strip too, so this is optional) Notice also the caps for what I presume is fuel and perhaps oil, that you may like to add:

and try not to leave a large gap between engine and firewall, as photos show no gap between engine and firewall (but there is a gap between fuselage and cowl, of course):

-Photos show a Pitot on the right LG leg:

-Photos show some kind of bar or conduit to the left of the fuselage close to the bottom:

Box opened: 

Contents:

The resin parts:

Nide detail:

The fuselage does actually have locating devices that work perfectly:

Parts cleaned-up of their casting blocks:

Very good Menasco engine:

Nice detail overall:

Wash:

Dry:

Pinning the wings (beware, the pins are not mirrored to avoid gluing a wing upside down):

The stabs are pinned too. Very fine drill bit, patience...and luck:

Photos showing the carb intake you need to add, and the very short, almost flush exhaust stacks that you need to crop back on the kit:

A coat of grey primer to reveal possible blemishes (found only one pinhole) and as a base for the ensuing paint:

 

 

To be continued...