The Potez 540
was a French reconnaissance/bomber in the mid 30's that participated in the
Spanish Civil War. Wearing the somewhat trouble-maker "caqui" color (kakhi,
kaqui, and many more are also correct), which provides with so many hours of
animated conversation in the forums, and boasting thinly-framed turrets
everywhere, is a delight for modelers who want to venture beyond the usual
mustang/messerschmidtt/whatever main stream kit.
Better looking than its
review companion, the previously described Amiot 143, with a hefty count of
parts (about 130, some 24 of them on each engine/landing gear pod) that took
some time to clean-up. Several air scoops and vents were opened-up and clear
parts were sanded flat -they had some sink marks- and polished with the help of
a 3-grit nail polisher.
In general the parts are well molded, surface detail is good, almost no
flash is present and a succinct interior will please the less demanding among us
-me included-.
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Some almost credible
scratch detail was added inside, painted, and the transparencies glued -being
their skirt a little bit prominent for my taste-, and we are ready to close the
boxy fuselage.
Four long sticks that go on the front part of the cabin deck and aside
the cockpit area are levers that command the automatic deliver of omelettes to
the crew. Part 86 (a small rectangular frame) is the step for the door. It took
me a while to realize it (yeap, you know the old adagio: if everything else
fails, read the instructions).
Dealing now with what I think is the most challenging part of the
sequence, you have to face the engine/landing gear pods. One word about the
landing gear: if you look carefully you will notice tiny marks -in circular
shape- on the sides of the mudguards, that are intended as locators for the
minute braces that will hold them, so don't sand them away, And if you look even
more carefully you will see that in one of the extremes of those minute braces
there is a recess that halves the brace for you to glue that side to the
above-mentioned mudguards. The other end of the braces goes in small protruding
features of the struts. To hold that maze together while working I used Uhu tack
- a Blue tack alike product- (see image). A very nice touch, I would say, on
part of Heller. You will find the same faint circular marks on the lower side of
the stabilizers and on the sides of the aft fuselage, guiding the location of
the tail struts. Again, be careful not to sand them away, or use a small drill
bit to provide a more positive grip.
Don't forget to trap
the whole wheel assembly and the retracting mechanism in joining the pod halves.
No firewall is provided so I painted the interior in "I Don't Care"
black, a new product that I was just reviewing. Note that a panel line runs on
top of the real thing, so you don't need to erase the seem all the way. Check
your references (yeap, some times, after collecting them, you can even
look at them).
Having dealt with that I went to sleep.
That night I had a dream: ICM announced the Kalinin K-7 and the Tupolev
Ant-20 Maxim Gorkii, Italeri was launching the Caproni Stipa and new molds for
the Caproni Campini N.1 -with detailed power plant- and the Savoia S.55, while
Azur released the Farman Jabiru, all in in 1/72 scale. Airfix gave birth to the
Beardmore Inflexible and A-model finally spawned the Transavia Airtruck and the
Bellanca Airbus, being Roden in charge of tackling the other Zeppelin
Staaken, the E-4/20 passenger carrier of 1920.
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Fuselage, wings and engine pods
were painted separately to facilitate the process; especially to deal with the
clear parts framework, which I detailed with decal strips. Same goes for the
diverse turrets. After decaling, the main assemblies were put together and a few
details were added, like navigation lights. The reinforcement pieces for the
main struts had to be made of stretched sprue, since the original ones were a
tad short. Decals are a combination of those from the kit (that were better than
the Amiot 143 ones), a few home made and a a pair from the spares bin. The
markings intend to represent a machine from the Spanish civil war, although they
are not completely accurate.
I am very happy with this kit, in spite it took some time and effort to
be completed.
Now I can sit back and contemplate the job with a glass of (French) wine.
Gabriel
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