W/M SNJ - Hopeless adventure or worthwhile project

Yes, those big old radial cowls sure give a smile don't they!

I thought about using plastic Chris, but I had a lot of balsa on hand, and I didn't know how to deal with the faring that the vertical stab fits into if using plastic.  I will probably re-enforce the horizontal stab with some basswood on the underside.

I would love to paint it like this:



Still might, but it's complicated (for me at least) and I'm not sure that it's worth the effort on this busted up example at least. But it sure would look nice. But probably silver it will be.

Bob

Well, I like that paint scheme so much I decided to go with it.  But first I had to repair the broken off nipple on the fuel tank, common problem on these old plastic models.  I found the perfect sized drill bit, just right so it took some force to seat it in the tank, then I filled the reservoir around it with epoxy.



Started with metallic paint on the fuselage.  Of course it's hot and humid here today and it flashed.  Cooler and drier weather forecast in a couple of days, so will final coat it then.  Next comes yellow on the wings and flat black on the walkways and top of fuselage forward of the cockpit.  



Sandblasted the cowl and dome and painted with Krylon red which didn't flash.  I will assemble the tail section and paint off the plane then assemble.  Thinking about over spraying the whole thing with Top Flight Lustercoat when I'm finished.  

Made some progress on the plastic W/M SNJ.  I'm never happy with cloth hinges especially when you can't glue them down with dope.  



This model was painted with rattle can rustoleum metallic, Krylon semi gloss black, yellow, and red.  The Krylon seems to apply much better although we had huge amounts of pollen floating in the air that didn't help with either paint.  

We all do it - test fit supposedly.  But I think we all just want an early look on how it's going to look.



Mostly finished, just have to slide on the decals, attach some strings and see if this lead sled will ROG.  





Repaired - Cracks at both wing roots
Constructed an entire tail section.
Sandblasted "chrome" finish from airframe
Rebuilt engine
Replaced the nipple on the fuel tank
Found and replaced an original tail wheel
Constructed a missing control rod
Constructed a replacement wheel pant
and probably a few more things that I have gladly forgotten....

Thanks for all of your comments.

I added the wing insignias this morning.  The cut out and peel type as opposed to the wet and slide off’s.  I’m not sure which I like better, both have their merits.  Also cut out some white pieces to simulate the landing lights as shown in the example picture.  I also printed them out on decal paper.  



I decided not to use the NAVY decals, just too much on the fuselage but I would like to add the number 9’s just not to the cowl as they appear to be to large.  The tail maybe.  

Not completely done, but close.

Thanks all.

How may half empty rattle can paints do you have in your workshop? If your like me, plenty.

I just couldn't see buying four more cans of plastic specific paints for this project as I already had all of the colors necessary on the shelf. So far, it looks ok but maybe next week they will all begin to peel. The Krylon red, yellow, and semi gloss black all applied great, but the rusteloum metalic "silver" tended to flash and give an uneven finish.

I decided to mount an identical in all respects Testor's engine rather than the original Wen Mac .049 as the Testors seems to run better. But I'm fooling with the W/M to improve performance and will probably remount it some time in the future.