1/72 Matchbox Armstrong Whitworth Siskin IIIA

Early stages of the build.


Picture 1:Engine cylinders and prop assembly.



Picture 2: Pilot blocked in.



Picture 3: Cockpit painted.

I was going to add a rudimentary instrument panel and control column but dry fitting showed that nothing would be seen.



Picture 4: Cowling assembly. One of the struts was broken and missing…



Picture 5: …So I made one. A strip of plasticard scraped and sanded into an aerofoil cross section and glued in.

An experiment with decals… On the sheet, the decals look knackered and almost mouldy. However, following my experience with an earlier matchbox build this year, I thought I would try one to see how they behave.

Picture 1: After spraying the basecoat, I took the upper wing Sqn marking, cut it in half and cut as much of the backing away as I could.



Picture2: After a considerable soaking the decal actually came of its backing nicely and settled down well. This was repeated for the other half.



Picture 3: The Roundels however, were a different story. The white had yellowed and they didn’t look good at all. Therefore I used some Xtradecal roundels from the spares box.

They were sealed in the following day.


Picture 4: Green cowling and gun metal panels.



Picture 5: Blocking in the propeller, cowling struts, fuselage dorsal panel and cockpit edging.



Pictures 6-9: Some dry fitting just for the fun of it 😁

You're doing a good job on this oldie

Good morning chaps,


A bit more progress on the Siskin with the fuselage struts painted and more decal work. The one thing that you really have to think about with biplanes is build sequence. Often decals will be difficult to get on once building stages are complete.
Considering the kit’s age, other than the roundels, the decals have behaved so far. I’ve trimmed the Sqn markings as I did with the wing ones. I’ve done the same with the serial numbers and fingers crossed, they’re working alright.


So now the fun begins! Rigging - Something I’ve only successfully achieved once recently but hoping to get it right again. I’ve got 38 individual lengths to do so it might take a while.

Doing this slightly differently to last time.  I'm using invisible sewing thread. Here we go.

Picture 2 and 3: Invisible thread within the undercarriage frame. I struggled with the first attempt so stripped it back and re-did it. 2 down, 36 to go.





Picture 4: 0.3mm holes drilled in the underside of the upper wing.





Picture 5: lengths of thread super glued into the holes and left to set overnight.


This tested me and there were many ‘FFS’ shouts reverberating around the place. Twice I decided I was going to bin it and if this had been a more modern and easily available kit that’s exactly what I would have done but I persevered.

38 lengths of rigging meant drilling 76 holes and although all done now, I broke three 0.3mm drills in the process!


Pictures 6 & 7: Upper wing drilled and threads glued in.




Picture 8: Lower wing now fitted.




Pictures 9 & 10: Progress with lengths of rigging fitted.




Thanks for watching.

Good afternoon chaps,

Ian is quite right and this has given me a lot of nightmares... Once again the bin yawned hungrily once more… This little bugger fought me tooth and nail.

First of all, I snapped a couple of lines due to unfortunate rough handling… still to be replaced.   
Then I managed to break two of the cowling struts although the repairs weren't too difficult. 
I then lost the manifold ring to the carpet monster. (How on earth can a half inch ring of plastic with seven legs disappear completely?)  This ring is obvious and joins to the two exhausts so I made a metal wire replacement. PANTS!; so it had to be redone with plastic rod. 
The tail fin and rudder then promptly disappeared and I spent half an hour searching for it to eventually find it stuck to the back of the instructions! 
Maybe at that point I should have called it a night but I decided to keep at it.


The undercarriage frame required several hands to keep it in alignment and I seemed to have the dexterity of a drunken one armed paper hanger with a bad case of the DTs. I eventually got it sorted to then see I'd damaged one of the upper roundels requiring a repaint to fix it!🤬

Pictures below show how she looked at this stage with the metal manifold ring, but God only knows how the bin hasn’t fed again.

 
I can’t wait to get another jet on the bench again!

How do you bend plastic rod like that? I only ever use brass rod

That is a very good addition to the engine indeed

Thanks Paul. My own fault that I had to do it. To this day the kit part has still not reappeared!

Cheers Steve, this has come dangerously close to the same fate a number of times!

Magnificent work and congratulations for getting it over the finish line! That was well worth the work and time you put into it. I love it!