I found an interesting plane model on OldModelKits.com, which I frequent a lot, both for model kits and interesting information and commentary by Alan Bussie, the owner/operator of OMK. Ok, enough praise for Alan 🤗….
I noticed a 1/48 kit of a Polish aircraft, and upon reading the kit info, I saw that it could also be built as a floatplane! I hurriedly did the necessaries, checked out, and waited to receive it in the mail. As usual, Alan did not let me down.
View of the side panel of the box, and unfortunately, I don’t speak or type Polish, as the kit is made by a Polish model manufacturer. A nice kit, with the white plastic having a matte finish making me wonder if it was resin- but no, it’s plastic. Not sure what year it was released, and also not sure if my kit was a later release or what. I only say that because of the poorly cast exhaust pipes, which were usable, but noticeably off alignment.
At 1/48 scale, it was my self imposed minimum limit for aircraft models, and the wing stuts at the top of the fuselage were very trying for me. The struts for the floats, to the fuselage were equally challenging, but I managed, and wound up with a nice little model.
In researching the Lublin, I saw a nice looking version on WingsPallette.com, of one without the cowling around the engine, which I really liked and decided to go with on my model. Incidentally, the cowling in my kit was exquisitely cast with a near razor thin trailing edge on it. Still on the sprue if I have a need down the road.
While I built it pretty nearly 100% OOB, changing only the decaling, I did add an access hole with cover to the top of each float and deepened the panel lines a bit. I also changed the area at the bottom front of the fuselage/engine area- opening it up to represent an oil cooler vent (?) and extended two of the exhaust pipes, then positioned the engine so they straddled the vent .
Not being sure of the condition of the decals, I applied a coat of MicroSol decal film, and not sure if that made them thicker, or if they were thick to begin with. Pretty straightforward with the decals, with the exception of the red/white shields- don’t know what was up with them, but each one took almost 5 minutes of soaking before they came loose from the backing paper!
Did some minor weathering, using just pastel dust brushed on. Considered spraying the model with Dullcoate, but didn’t feel like masking off the aluminum engine cover and prop. Then drilled some holes in the top of the wing to hang it….
Then shot a bunch of pictures…. (really need to make a plane specific area for photographing my model planes 😨) and put this one through Photoshop 👇
Oh well, I did enjoy every aspect of the build, and I do like how it came out. As a wonderful bonus, while building it, I thought how nice a bigger version of it would be, and…….
…. I layed the main component halves on a piece of paper and traced the outlines- full size for 1/48- but with the idea of maybe blowing up the plans 3 times to a 1/16 scale scratch built model! I almost didn’t bother finish building & finishing my Lublin in my excitement!
That inspiration led me to another one. I could trace the parts from a couple 1/48 WW1 biplanes, say a Nieuport Bebe and a Pfalz diii, into the large 1/16 scale, make patterns out of poster board and make a squadron of each, so I could have fun painting them all differently then hang them from the ceiling in a dogfight!!!
Well….. yeah, then as usually happens, my OCPD reminded me that all those biplanes would need ENGINES…..😲🤔…. So…..
…..I thought and thought and thought some more, of how I could make some fairly simple, easily made representatives of the radial and inline engines needed, and it wasn’t long before I thought of all the flexible straws I have in my scratchbuilding supplies. As luck would have it- I found the perfect size (pictured here) for 1/12 scale (or so….. lots of scratchbuilding is “or so” 😄) and I hurriedly dropped everything to come up with a plan.
Quite simple really, for both the radials and the inlines. Just some sort of “spine” for the sections of straw to slide over, and then add all the parts as I did with this radial.
I did consider maybe making my dogfighters in 1/12 scale, but that’s just a little too big….. 😅 No, 1/16 will be their scale, but 😮, this big 1/12 radial would be nice for an AEROSAN….. Oh yeah! I think I will do some looking in Google-land for some cool looking old time propeller driven sleds🤗
That’s all for now. Thanks for looking.
Later & God bless. John
John's scratchbuilding models etc 