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Guest article by Glenn Ping

This article features the magnificent Tigger Models 1/32 scale Consolidated Catalina vac-form kit, the very same kit as advertised in the SEAWINGS Flying Boat Shop today, originally conceived, molded and released many years ago under the banner of I.D. Models by master-modeler Doug Feeney as part of his then (very) revolutionary and growing 1/32 vac-form kit range. The molds languished for many years until recently, when talented scale modeler John 'Tigger' Wilkes acquired all the molds of the range and began re-issuing them. The Catalina, together with a large number of the other members of the range which also includes the Short Sunderland flying boat, an example of which is currently being built by SEAWINGS and is featured as a step-by-step guide in the SEAWINGS BLOG (accessible from the link on the front page of this site) are the two flying boats in the range.

Potentially daunting to many due to its its sheer size and the basic - yet - accurate shaped moldings, in the hands of a talented and experienced scale modeler such as Glenn Ping the kit comes alive!. Read on to see just how to get the best out of this kit and produce a magnificent example of the scale modelers art...............

(Click on the pictures to see the full size image)

Now that most of the old I. D. vac-form models are available again under the name of Tigger Models, I decided that I would like the 1/32 scale Catalina kit. When it finally arrived, I opened the big box and laid the pieces out, as in the photo at left. Note the 12” scale ruler on the right-hand side of the picture, this kit has a meter long wingspan!

Right, let’s make a start! First the Wings

As the wings have no dihedral on the outer panels, I could make a ¼” thick balsawood spar which stretched the whole wingspan, plus another piece which went over the metal/fabric joint of the wing, this was fixed down using adhesive (superglue) with a few squirts of ‘kicker’. In most of the construction of these vac-form kits, I use ‘cyano’ with ‘kicker’ as an adhesive and only use liquid polystyrene cement on some of the smaller parts. By using cyano, construction can be quite rapid, as you don’t have to leave things overnight to dry.

Left: I was not happy with the moulding of the fabric areas on the model, so decided to replace them with some embossed 20thou plasticard sheet.

Shown above, the outer wing ‘skins’ are being embossed. The ribs have been traced from the plans and transferred to the skin. Rib lines are then embossed onto the skin using a steel ruler and an embossing tool. The embossing tool can be seen at the bottom of the photo and is actually a steel rod with a small ball on the end, fitted into a wooden handle. Mine is double-ended with two different sized ball ends.

When embossing, the skin must be laid on some card which has a little bit of ‘give’ in it, I’ve found the card that is used to border photos/pictures in frames, is ideal.

Right: you can see one of the skins turned over to show the embossed ribs. This process was done to the whole rear portion of the wing, elevators and rudder.

Moving on a bit now, in the photo above here we have the completed wing and tailplane, minus the elevators which have been cut out and replaced with embossed 20thou sheet, these will be fitted later.

Above right, on the underside of the wing, the recesses for the folding floats are cut out in the outer wing panels and boxed in.

The Hull and Internal bulkheads

I then turned my attention to the fuselage. The mating edges were filed down until the correct width was obtained. The cockpit canopy is used as a gauge to get the width just right. I did find the nose area, forward of the canopy, to be too wide according to my drawings, so a little adjustment to the mating edges was needed, some squeezing will be required when the fuselage halves go together in that area. Cutting out the rudder was done using a sharp knife, as were the windows and rear fuselage canopies.

As seen in the photo above, a series of bulkheads were made from 40thou plasticard. To obtain the correct fuselage profile for the bulkheads, I used a strip of multicore solder pressed into the fuselage and the result was then transferred to some thick card by drawing round the edge, cornflake boxes give some of the best card for this use. After the shape has been transferred, it’s cut out and tried against the fuselage side for any errors. If all is OK, the shape is transferred to a sheet of 40thou plasticard and then the card is flipped over to give the other side of the fuselage. This method only uses pieces of card for adjustment and not the plasticard.

Below: once the bulkheads were finished, there was the option of opening some of the hatches (doors). I decided to half open the one behind the pilot’s cockpit and leave the rest closed. These hatches are made from 10thou plasticard. After that was sorted out, I attached the bulkheads to the port side of the fuselage and added the floors to the cockpit and waist area. As the windows are small in the engineer’s station and along the fuselage, no detail can be seen from them, so I decided to paint the insides gloss black. The same thing applies to the area behind the pilot’s cockpit.

Consideration must now be given to the wing attachment. A strong joint is required on such a large wing. My solution to this was to fix two tubes, vertically, in the engineer’s compartment, which then would fit tightly into two more, slightly bigger, tubes in the wing.

The fairings for the wing struts were filled with epoxy putty to strengthen this area as can just been seen in the photo, right above. An extra layer of plasticard (40thou) was also fixed to the inner fuselage side where the beaching gear would eventually attach, the same thing applied to the fuselage rear.

Strips of plasticard 1” long and ¼” wide were fixed along the fuselage joint to give more area and make for a stronger joint when the fuselage halves come together. Quite a lot of detail has to be put into the ‘waist’ area, as much of it can be seen from those large canopies.

Left: less detailing can be put into the pilot’s cockpit and nothing in the nose gunner’s compartment, as once the guns are in, little else can be seen.

The Wing-Tip Floats

Right: To make a change from the fuselage, I had a go at the wingtip floats. They were quite easy to construct, but I had to remember to put some brass rod into the strut arms, as can be seen in the photo. Rivet detail was done with a pounce wheel. After this photo was taken, I added some ‘hold down’ rings to the front and rear of the floats.

Engines & Exhausts - Bought in and Scratchbuilt

Above: As there are no engines supplied with the kit, I bought a couple from the excellent Vector range. These are little models in themselves and cry out for detail painting. I added the plug leads to mine, 28 on each engine! The engine bearers were made from plastic rod and tubing. Here’s a word of advice to anyone wishing to add plug leads to these engines. Start by affixing the leads to the cylinders and THEN to the distribution ring. I did mine the other way round and it took ages and a lot of cursing.

The exhaust ‘pipery’ was made from thick multicore solder, cyano being the adhesive.

My recipe for painting exhausts (plus collector rings), is first a coat of Humbrol 113 Matt Rust, which is then ‘drybrushed’ lightly with Humbrol 16 Metallic Gold. This in turn, is then drybrushed lightly with Humbrol 56 Metallic Matt Aluminium. Once that is dry, a pencil is scraped across some sandpaper and the resulting powder is gently brushed over the whole of the exhaust. A little pale brown, Humbrol 121 Matt Pale Stone, or Humbrol 148 Matt Radome Tan, can be drybrushed to the end of the exhaust.

Left: I was not happy with the shape of the front of the engine cowlings and replaced them with some resin ones copied from the Revell Beaufighter. The nacelles were built up and the cutouts for the wing were achieved by trial and error.

Rings were cutout from plastic phone cards and rims fitted, the cooling gills then being built and attached to the rims.

As I was going to display the engine cowlings open, I used some small diameter plastic rod to attach the cooling gills to the nacelles and the same to attach the cowling front to the gills. This was a mistake, as the thin rods kept breaking, brass rod would be the ideal solution here.

Returning to the Hull........

Back to the fuselage now. The interior areas were painted Humbrol 159 Matt Khaki Drab and were ‘chipped and scraped’ with Matt Aluminium to give them a used look.

At last, the fuselage halves came together, with the aforementioned squeezing required at the nose area, as seen in the photo above. As you can imagine, a lot of jiggling was required to get all the bulkheads aligned, harsh words were spoken, but it went together in the end. The joint was then cleaned up, with a few bits of filler here and there, till it looked about right.

Now came the bit I really hate – panel lines. All I’ll say is that it was done! The same can be said about the riveting. As the model I’m depicting was de-converted from an amphibian, huge patch panels were placed over the mainwheel housings, these were reproduced using some 10thou sheet.

Cutting off half the fin to take the tailplane was next on the list. This took some time to get the angle of the tailplane just right. Two pieces of ¼” balsa were fixed into the fin base to form a good strong anchor point for the tailplane. Holes were drilled in these pieces to accept two plastic tubes which had been glued into the tailplane and through into the top portion of the fin.

The interior portions were then given a watercolour wash of a mixture of Payne’s grey and burnt umber, to darken the recesses and tone down the scratched and chipped paint.

Left: Moving on, embossing the elevators and rudder was the next job. Exactly the same method as embossing the main wing was used. Having had enough of the main model for the moment, I thought I might try my hand at making the beaching gear............

............This was needed to be quite strong as it had to take the whole weight of the model. Brass tubing and rod was the only answer. Out came the trusty soldering iron, and away we went, see photo on right. I also needed some wheels.

A rummage through the spares box produced just the wheels required, the trouble was, the centres were wrong. Time for the Dremel drill to come into play. I ground the centres out and then had to rebuild them using a great many short pieces of 15thou strip. Drilling holes into the fuselage and trial fitting came next. The rear piece of gear gave the most trouble and until it was fitted into the drilled holes, it was quite fragile and required re-soldering a couple of times.

Float Retraction Arms - What a battle!

Left: The float retraction arms. To do these you have to be in the right mood. Everything has to go like clockwork ---- mine didn’t! At least three hands are needed to accomplish this job – there was no-one else around, except our dogs, so I had to come up with a solution.

Eventually, after using books and some bits of balsa wood, the job was done, as you can see.

............Back to the Hull

Back for another go at the fuselage now. The waist area, as seen in the series of photo's below, was ‘kitted out’ with all manner of things, as you can see from this series of photos. The large cut-outs in the fuselage here provide a reasonable space to work.

A word here about the waist canopies. The canopies supplied in the kit are moulded in quite thick clear plastic and the framing is too heavy. I wanted one of my canopies open, with the sliding portion of the other one slightly recessed. This required four canopies. The solution – make four new canopies.

The canopies were fixed in an upside down position and resin poured in. This process has to be done in layers, so as not to create too much heat as the resin cures or it will melt the plastic canopy. Once this was completed, the cured resin was extracted. These would form the ‘masters’ for vac-forming new canopies. I had to destroy the kit canopies to get the new masters out, so was now totally committed.

The framing on the masters was sanded off to leave two smooth shapes. Six canopies were ‘pulled’ from the masters (ALWAYS pull some extras, the ‘balls-up factor’ is high on canopies.) and trimmed ready for fitting later.

Left: Painting the beaching gear was next on my list. These items received a lot of wear, so mine were given a coat of dull silver and, once that had dried, small drops of Maskol applied here and there. A coat of red/brown was next and, when dry, the pieces of Maskol picked/rubbed off.

I always paint my tyres dark grey, NEVER black, Humbrol 67 Matt Tank Grey seems about right to me.

Waist Mounted Armament Construction

Right: Luckily, I found a couple of 0.5” and a pair of 0.303”machine guns in my spares box, which were ideal for this project.

The waist 0.5’s needed a shield and a few other bits and pieces, but were soon ready for painting.

The Cockpit, Nose Turret and Work Platforms

Attention was now turned to fitting out the pilot’s cockpit. Once the canopy is on, the view inside here is very small, so not a great deal of detailing is required. Shown here in the photo on the right are the seats and instrument panel. The nose turret was modified into an ‘eyeball turret’ using bits and pieces of clear plastic I had in my spares box. The two 0.303’s were fitted and the turret installed into the nose. Sorry, no photo.

Below: The working platforms round the engines were next. These were made from plastic sheet and rod. Plenty of photos of the real thing is an essential here.

Getting Serious!

Now we come to the serious bit.......

Right: Here the main components of the model are laid out prior to painting. Please note - the toes shown in the bottom of the photo are not part of the model at all!

Final Assembly, Painting and Decaling

From what I’ve read, these Catalina's arrived in Australia as amphibians and were converted back to flying boats. They were coloured in the, then, standard USN colours of sea blue/intermediate blue with white undersides. I have assumed that they were primed in yellow zinc chromate. In Australia, these machines were re-painted in dark ocean blue uppers(FS35044), with an extra dark sea grey camouflage pattern on the wings and matt black underneath. The EDSG faded very rapidly, and soon became a light grey.

So, out with the airbrush!.

I started off by spraying all the metal areas yellow zinc chromate Humbrol 81 Matt Pale Yellow.

Again, dabs of Maskol were applied to various spots. Matt white Humbrol 34, was applied to the underside of the wing and tailplane. More spots of Maskol came next, followed by some intermediate blue Humbrol 144, going onto the fuselage sides and fin. Yet more dabs of Maskol followed.

Very pale blue/grey went on the fuselage sides, aft of the waist canopies and the squadron codes applied in masking tape. The edges of the masking tape were then given a brush coat of Klear/Future and left to dry. This coat of Klear prevents the next coat of paint from ‘bleeding’ under the masking tape – a trick worth remembering.

A squirt of Humbrol 25 Matt Blue then went onto the fuselage side, where the roundel would appear, another squirt onto the fin, where the fin flash goes and finally, another squirt onto the top of the wing, where those roundels appear. When dry, pieces of masking tape covered these areas, followed by the Klear treatment.

I had very little Humbrol 33 Matt Black, so had to revert to Gunze Mr. Color 92 Semi-Gloss Black (good stuff). This paint dries very rapidly, so I was soon masking, ready for the next colour.

Dark Ocean Blue was the next one to go on and I found that Humbrol 96 Matt RAF Blue, with some black added, gave a good rendition of the faded colour that I wanted.

Now, faded EDSG could be a problem, I plumbed for Humbrol 165 Satin Medium Sea Grey. Some thin sausages of Blue Tac were laid across the wing and then the rest was masked. A quick squirt of MSG and all the large pieces of the model were done.

The whole airframe was then given a coat of matt varnish, to even out all the different paints used. WAIT!! Just before I did that, I applied the serial numbers, which were on a backing colour of intermediate blue, onto the rear fuselage.

Next came the highlighting of the fabric areas and the exhaust staining. After that the great unmasking ceremony could begin!

Left: Shown here are the spade shaped exhausts, these were made from plastic tubing, plastic sheet, solder and epoxy putty. Note the chipped paint.

Right: A close-up view of the finished port waist area.

At Last! The Finished Model.......

Here’s some views of the finished model.........

It’s a pity the photos don’t show up the great many wire and rod aerials carried by this aircraft. All the wire aerials are human hair (I have a friend here with very long black hair – I borrowed a few strands!) Handling this model is a nightmare, I’m so afraid of breaking one of the aerials.

Making a vac-form model for the first time may appear daunting to some - well, the only way to get any experience with building them is to have a go. Don’t go for a small 1/72 model for a start or you’ll soon get bored rubbing down small tailplane and fin pieces. Go for something a bit larger, like a 1/32 Saab Tunan or Mig 15/17 and please be careful if you use cyano as an adhesive for the larger parts, as I do.

Glenn Ping