Nanchang CJ-6
Trumpeter (02240)
1:32

The wing of the CJ-6 has a large down facing landing light cavity. Here we can see the lower surface of the wing and the nasty sprue mark I will have to sand and buff to remove (groan, why can't things ever be easy)

The wiring looms have been made from about 5 strands of 0.125mm copper wire, twisted together. To try and simulate the cable ties I have used small sections of Tamiya tape. This worked ok, but I will try and come up with a better idea next time

Here I have most of the cockpit and fuselage parts awaiting a first coat of paint. I like to use the self closing tweezers to hold parts when painting

Trumpeter provides acetate dials (ala Eduard PE) that are designed to be placed behind the panels and visible thru the open holes. Only problem is that unlike PE instrument panels, the plastic versions are way too thick. End result would be that the dial faces are at the bottom of a deep hole and barely visible. I decided to fix this problem by putting a blanking plate on the rear of the panel

Both front and rear instrument panels have each hole filled with appropriate sized discs. These discs are easy to create using my trusty (and rather rusty I just noticed) Waldron Punch and Die set

The kit seats are not bad in shape, but come with no harnesses. I have used some Lion Roar PE belts to do the job. These belts are from a 1/48 Luftwaffe set. Not strictly accurate but they look ok (and even in scale ???)

Here is how the individual dials where punched out from the sheet. As I have a limited supply of the Reheat sheets I will need to source a new supplier (I believe Mike Grant does some sheets).

Once the instrument panels where complete the rest of the cockpit came to together quickly

I am quite happy with how the sidewall wiring looms turned out. Here the front cockpit is shown to good effect

With the cockpit complete, its time to glue up the fuselage. The clamps help to ensure no unexpected gaps sneak in

Using small lead shot (fishing sinkers) I have super glued them to the home made firewall

Last task for today was gluing the wings and seting them aside to dry

With the fuselage seams cleaned and sanded, its to replace panel lines and rivets. Here I have marked out where the rivets will go with pencil

Did I mention that this model has lots of rivets (I'm seeing rivets in my sleep). Unfortunately the molding process seems to have left almost all the fuselage and most of the wing rivets very shallow and very likely to disappear once painted. So, wishing to eventually apply a wash to the rivets, I undertook the major task of re-drilling each and every rivet (yes each one)

With the cleanup (did I mention the rivets) complete, its time to bring the fuselage and wings together. The fit really is not as bad the photo would indicate. I like to use clamps even on good fitting parts to ensure nothing un-expected happens as the glue dries

I've started the process of attaching the lead sinkers to the kit parts. Here I have used lockwire, passed thru holes in the sinker (ever tried drilling lead ?) to hold it in place. You will notice that I have not paid any attention to the detail cleanup of the engine parts as they will not be visible at all

With the tape removed, the pencil line (since sanded away) can be used to provide a guide for the rivet line. A simple yet effective method

A quick coat of black paint helps hide any sinkers or glue that may be visible between the fuselage and cowling once attached

Time for a quick dry fit of the engine, fuselage and nose wheel. The fitting revealed that a small gap resulted and was subsequently filled with 80x60thou

A simple enough job to pin the main undercarriage legs with brass rod. Its amazing how much extra stability just this short length of brass gives the model

A readily available item that can be quickly used to mask tight circular holes (like the protruding exhausts on the bottom of the cowling) is plastic drinking straws. Cut them to length and if the hole you need to mask is smaller than the straw, simple slice the straw along its length. This way it can wrap in on itself, contracting as it does so. Secure it using a small strip of tape. A heck of a lot easier than trying to get masking tape in there

The kit undercarriage (based on my sparse reference photos) seems quite accurate. The only thing I wanted to add was simple hydraulic brake lines from copper wire. Here I have roughly laid out the wire and temporarily held it in place (using strips of Tamiya tape) in preparation for gluing with CA

Trumpeter provides the wing tip nav lights molded in solid plastic. I cutaway the front section of the molded part and glued a section of clear sprue in place. When the glue was dry and the joint solid, I used a sharp knife and wet n dry paper to shape the light. This was then buffed using micromesh cloth to bring the clarity back into the clear part. These will be painted red and green appropriately (using Tamiya Clear paints)

With the Alclad metalizer safely protected under a coat of Future, its time for the chrome struts to be simulated with Bare Metal Foil. I really like this stuff for small tasks like this. It looks so realistic once burnished on and is quite easy to apply being self adhesive

With the fixed part of the canopy safely glued in place (with CA) I needed to touch up the cockpit sills with grey. I've simply masked the interior edges with Tamiya tape to protect from overspray. Note the inclusion of a paper map in the rear cockpit

The tail has also received its yellow tips and masking

I've applied the underside color (Humbrol H130 + Humbrol H127 mixed in a ratio of 4:1) and when dry used Blu Tac and tape of mask off

With the final coat of paint applied (Tamiya Acrylic X-3 Royal Blue) it was time to start doing something about the markings. I'd made decals on my inkjet printer before so with the help of a word processor and testors clear decal paper, I soon had some insignia yellow decals. The Chinese national markings would come from the kit sheet

One option was to re-print the decals on white carrier film and then carefully cut them out. A second option was to create my own masks and paint the markings. As I had never tried this before, I decided to give it a shot. I went to my local art supply shop and purchased a sheet of self adhesive, Frisket film mask. This flexible, translucent masking material, is designed for exactly what I had in mind. The photo above shows the serial numbers, printed on normal paper and held in place over the Frisket film. Using a sharp blade and ruler, I cut thru the paper and the Frisket film underneath

As yellow paint has the same problem as yellow decal unless backed by white, the first layer was Hum 130 Satin White

Given 10 minutes for the paint to set, the mask is gently removed and the end result visible. Overall I'm very happy with the result and it has the added benefit of perfectly color matching the wing, nose and tail tips

Final construction has been completed including canopies, undercarriage and other odds and ends. To dull down the high gloss finish, I used a custom mix of Poly S Flat and Satin clear. The end result is not matt, but hopefully a scaled down version of the real planes high gloss

The cockpit (with map) can be quite clearly seen thru the large clear canopy

The undersides received some restrained weathering including a panel wash