Building a Better Narcissus by John Ovington part 2

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The kit’s engine nozzles (part #8, four pieces altogether), aside from being not quite the right shape, are pretty boring when viewed from the rear. They are flat inside, with a raised ring indicating… what? An engine bell? A head of lettuce? Initially, I couldn’t find a good reference pic to describe what’s in there. Anyway, I thought they needed more dimension. Being careful not to trash the ribbing on the inside, I drilled out each nozzle and added inserts built from 3 different diameters of telescoping Evergreen styrene tubing – 3/8″, 5/16″, ¼”.

The housings also had to be drilled out to accommodate the new tubing. The smaller tube at the back of two nozzles had to be trimmed at an angle, so it would not foul on the high engine’s sloped interior. While not at all accurate, they are more interesting I think.

Important note: I later found some photos which show that inside each engine nozzles are 3 rows of 3 smaller nozzles (shower heads, perhaps?). Maybe next time…

#3 Front Side Panels – part #s 6 & 7

• Alignment

I defer again to Olivier on these. You might not think you need it – follow his diagram D, it works. I want to emphasize, these buggers are very deceptive and are in some ways the most difficult item of this kit to handle. Definitely test-fit these pieces until you’re comfortable with how they’re going to go. Take your time, keep your wits, grow an extra hand out of the middle of your chest (very helpful).

#4 Rear Side Panels – part #s 17 & 18

• Clean-Up

All injection pin marks and tooling artifacts had to be removed from the backside to get this panel to sit snug in its niche on the main body.

#5 Side Projections – includes part #s 1,2,13,17, & 18

• Reconstruction & Repositioning

At the rear belt line there are two caps (parts #18) which sit on two left & right tubes molded into the main body (part #s 1 & 2). The Rear Side Panels each have a trapezoidal cutout to accommodate where the tubes stick out. The kit caps (parts #18) are fine, but everything else needs help. The tubes molded into the kit are the same diameter as the end caps; there needs to be a step in size between the two. Also, to be more accurate the tubes should be centered in the trapezoidal cutout, not off-center as the kit has them.

After the Rear Side Panels were already installed, I carefully drilled out the tube area, then trimmed a lot. In retrospect, this operation might be easier if done before assembling the hull halves. Then I installed a 3/16″ diameter aluminum rod flush to the edge of the belt line and sparingly puttied around my butchery. This operation took me a couple of tries, as I didn’t realize until I had the rods installed and puttied that they should also have been centered as well. I then glued on the kit supplied end caps.

Base Mount

This doesn’t get a number as it is not a necessary fix, the kit’s base can be used – if you really like that butt ugly thing. As is my habit, in an appropriate spot on the model’s belly, I drilled a hole for mounting a Plastruct styrene tube. The plastic tube is to receive a ¼” K&S brass tube for mounting/dismounting to the model’s base (yet to be built).

That’s the basic assembly, now on to the fun stuff….

DETAILING

#6 Hull Paneling & Plating

• Re-skinning

This issue is the kit’s 3rd biggest weak spot, but up until now I’ve never seen anyone address it. When looking closely at pics of the real filming miniature, I discovered it had a mix of raised and recessed panel detail missing from Halcyon’s version. The layout of the panel lines on the kit is generally correct, excepting the underside front panels which are close but miss the mark. More to the point, the kit’s panels are all flat (on the same  plane) with the edges of what should be the raised and recessed panels indicated only by etched/scribed lines – sort of like a topographic map without any actual 3-D topography.

I considered just painting the “shadowing” between and around the panels, but thought it would take too much time, and might look a little cheesy. I took a cue from the instructions for Halcyon’s Sulaco kit, where they suggest using small bits of Scotch tape to make raised panel detail. I did a few tests with some scrap sign vinyl (self-adhesive) and the results were extremely pleasing! I also knew from previous experience with the material, it would take lacquer primer well. I did a small test of that too, just to double-check that the material I had on hand behaved as I’d remembered.

Working one layer at a time, I clad each paneled face of the kit in 2 layers of clear high performance sign vinyl, bought from a local sign shop. The clear vinyl allowed visibility of the kit’s existing panel lines for trimming. The areas intended to be recessed were cut and weeded out, leaving crisp raised panels around.

It really added a dimension that was missing. The vinyl work is especially important on the nose for defining the panels missing after having reworked it.

Important note: if not doing it all in one sitting, it’s a good idea to put the kit in a Ziplock bag between vinyling sessions. Any dusty, fuzzy, or hairy debris will stick to the exposed adhesive edges of the vinyl until sealed with the initial layer of primer. Also, don’t set it on your fuzzy blanket (or cat).

When I first skinned the model, I’d gotten all the way through it before discovering addition reference photos, specifically screen captures, which showed that the panel layout was different enough on the bottom of the Halcyon kit that it would bother me. So I stripped off all of the vinyl on the left and right bottom panels.

I puttied over the kit’s panel lines and sanded it flat. After taking a good break from the kit, I set down to laying out the corrected panel lines in pencil. As before, I laid down two layers of new clear vinyl, cut, and weeded. The kit’s upper hull could have used about half as much re-arrangement, but I only did some slight alterations for the sake of simply getting on with it.

The kit’s proportions are not perfectly accurate to the studio miniature. So it’s only possible to closely approximate an accurate panel layout, thus I refer to my suggested layout as “better” only.

#7 “The Eyebrow”

• Drilling Vents
• Rescribing Linework

Even if you don’t do all the vinyl panel work, here is a simple fix that helps a lot. There is a kit supplied decal which represents the round vents above the cockpit windows at the front edge of the “eyebrow”. It has 7 big round dots while the filming miniature shows 8 holes. I drilled out the 8 holes with a pin vise rather than rely on the incorrect decal. Also, the kit’s line-work on the eyebrow is almost correctly laid out, but should extend to the brow’s left and right edges. I puttied the longitudinal running lines, sanded, and scribed in the missing horizontals.

#8 Missing Greebles

• Front Side Panels
• Rear Side Panels

The Front Side Panels are missing 3 pieces of fine detail – 2 on the right, 1 on the left. They aren’t much, and I almost skipped them. I did a quick mold with RTV putty of the detail near the cockpit window to reuse in the new spots. The RTV putty was purchased through Micro-Mark.

The new details are cast in polyester resin (Evercoat catalyzed glazing putty, a finer grained cousin to ordinary Bondo), quickly cut and arranged to fit their respective locations. They probably should be done before the vinyl step to avoid possible disasters, but I did it after.

The Rear Panels required a lot more work. The photos of the genuine article show a lot more visual activity than is represented on the kit – its a bit flat and boring. I made 8 or so quick castings of the same Front Panel details, and cut and paste just to busy the side areas up more.

The reference photos that prompted me to redo the front lower panels also showed another set of greebly detail missing from rear lower hull of the kit. Outboard of each engine and fenced in by the side flaps, there are various small rectangular and two triangular shapes engraved into the hull. Looking to the filming miniature, these shapes on the kit in fact mark the perimeter of where some greebly busy detail ought to live. With the engines and flaps already in place, this area of the hull was not comfortable to get to. So, I left this for …next time.

Next comes page 3