Building the Amodel Rutan Challenger kit.

wonwinglo

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ON THE WORKBENCH-BUILDING THE 'AMODEL' RUTAN CHALLENGER.

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If you want the more unusual subjects for model building then you have to look a bit further afield for them,as the larger manufacturers have tended to keep to their best selling Spitfires & Bf.109 kits to boost up sales,it has been left to the smaller cottage industry to cater for the esoteric aircraft much sought after by those whose interests go wider.

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The AModel Bert Rutan Challenger is a good example of this enterprise and the end result after a bit of work is a delightful little 1=72nd scale model of this famous machine,the full size aircraft now hanging up in the Smithsonian museum was the one that flew non stop around the world after a shaky take off where one of the wings grazed the runway and Rutan had to shake off the offending vertical wingtip in flight.The high aspect ratio wings and the push-pull design certainly make for an eye catching subject and it is thanks to the manufacturers that we can tackle this subject for our collections.

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Firstly dont expect to rattle the box and fit this one together overnight ! far from it as the parts need a lot of fettling and cleaning up before you can even think about opening the adhesive,as with all cottage industry subjects you get the very raw parts with plenty of free flash thrown in,the type of tooling and moulds cater for hundreds rather than thousands of model kits aimed at the masses,all it requires is a bit of time and patience to bring the parts up to standard,the best tools are a set of Swiss files whereby you can get into the delicate nature of the sprues,once this has been done then finish off with wet and dry paper with plenty of water used in the process.

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In the case of the Challenger kit there is plenty of scope for extra detailing and re-working the parts,although the miniscule cockpit canopy does not allow much detail to be actually viewed incorporating the two seats and control column will fill a void nicely.Some distortion of the boom parts was noticed but nothing that could not be pulled back into shape with a bit of tape and bands whilst the adhesive sets,the secret of assembly on this model is to assemble the parts as modules ie booms,fuselage,tailplane,do a dry run first as always to establish a good mating surface then use the adhesive,pay particular atention to aligning up the booms making sure that the tall tail fins are perfectly vertical,to this end a simple card jig can be made up to make life easier.The small undercarriage will need a lot of cleaning up also,for the cross braces I used some pre-stretched sprue carefully positioned with a pair of tweezers.

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Regarding the finish this is all white overall,I tackled this by firstly giving a coat of Holts white primer,then sealing any joints that were not satisfactory with white Squadron putty,once everything is nice and smooth apply more primer to these parts,then a coat of gloss white auto paint will finish off the anti glare white of the original.

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The decals looked very thin so before application I gave them a coat of gloss varnish allowing to dry out for 48 hours,this paid out as they slid off well once submerged in water but were noticeably thin still so go easy with them,I have a feeling that the registration and stripes are slightly oversized but this is not too evident once in place and carefully positioned.

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All in all a very attractive and above all unusual subject that certainly stands out when on display,look out for this model in the more specialised shops selling kits,you will enjoy the challenge of building one.

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Note for manufacturers,distributors etc-If you would like your product reviewed here please contact the webmaster,your kit would be built up as here and given a fair and honest appraisal.

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