Back to the Spats! Building the Fiat C.R. 42 Falco in 1/72 from Revell

       This is a benchmark aircraft; Italy's last biplane fighter and the last biplane to score a kill in aerial combat; plus it is really cool looking!

 

ah, the good old days when box covers were real artwork

I always wondered what happened to the original paintings

 

       Italy brought the C.R 42 into service in May of 1939 eventually producing over 1800 of them. It served on every front where Italian forces were engaged (and a few where they weren't i.e. The Battle of Britain). It had a reputation for being a robust and agile fighter, despite being slower and under-armed. This model from Revell dates back over fifty years, closer to the time of the Fiat's last aerial victory than to today!

 

the kit and the instructions

 

 

as is so common with these old Revell kits the parts-fit is very good

 

the engine is nicely detailed 

even though you will be hard-pressed to see it in the tight cowl

 

 

this is where things got complicated; the folks in engineering went to great lengths to ensure that the VERY complex wing-struts  were reduced in number and made fairly easy to assemble only to see the copy-writer in charge of the instructions reduce their to work to the "Cement part # # # #  into place" I would have been livid! As it was it took me about fifteen minutes to figure out what was going on

 

 

first I installed the long "W" shaped struts

 

 

the the cabane struts connecting the upper wing to the fuselage

 

then I added the second row of interplane struts

 

and then I spent the next ten minutes 

making sure everything stayed aligned as the cement dried

 

 

the breakdown of the struts was really rather cleverly done

 

in comparison the landing gear were a breeze

 

mmmm, just look at those spats

 

giving everything a look-over before priming

 

 

first coat of the base-color

 

yellow cowls, I hate them, yellow paint covers so poorly

 

 

then I had to paint about a zillion green and red dots all over the plane

 

I will admit, I enjoyed this less than the wing-strut assembly

 

I took a break and painted Antonio

 

I could have left him out except that he is the ONLY detail in the cockpit

 

gloss before decals, Future as always

 

the decals were a bit thick and problematic

 

 but I wasn't expecting too much, this is what the decal sheet looked like

lots of very warm water and prodding with a stiff brush broke the decals free from the backer

they were still rather yellowed and rather thick

 

 

to help settle them I soaked them with Walther's Solvaset, this made them curl up and wither,

 desperate action was taken to save them and they were pasted onto the model using Future  

would anyone like a bottle of Solvaset, this is the third time this has happened and I'm giving up

 

Future seems to have solved the problem

 

the rest of the decals went on without incident

 

 

 

 

strangely, this time the color of the backdrop

 didn't seem to alter the color of the model in the photograph 

       All in all a fun little model that was very cleverly designed. If you need air support for your Italian Desert Force (or anywhere else they were fighting) this is a great little model .