Avanti!

Julian Herrero aka Yuri
Good work so far ,,, I'm in

Oleg Bogolei
want to see it. 🙂

Łukasz Gliński
Welcome Gentlemen 🙂

Łukasz Gliński
Currently the side windows are drying (because of Micro Kristal Klear). Unfortunately some of of them already show they won't be as transparent as I expect...

Oleg Bogolei
i have some problems with windows on my amodels falcon-10 as well..

Łukasz Gliński
Well, hopefully nobody will be able to see interior any other way than throught the windscreen

Burkhard D
Ah, I got stuck at the same stage. Kristal Clear won't work due to the curvature. I'll try to cast windows in situ using clear cast. If that doesn't work, inserting the individual windows will be a challenge, but appears doable.
I assembled the interior end-to-end in one piece. There is little guidance inside the fuselage halves, so it would be difficult to align everything individually.

Gordon Sørensen
Interior looks really good, Lukasz! Always thought the Avanti was a cool looking aircraft...

Łukasz Gliński
Current state: added the seatbelts from EC-135, finishing the details of the cockpit (the wire will be used for headphones hanging on the wall behind the pilots) and filling/sanding the gaps between fuselage halves after gluing them together.

Łukasz Gliński
Cockpit has been finished, but the fit of the canopy is disappointing...

Kees Kleijwegt
Following!
A very cool plane with a unique sound. You can hear it's the Avanti from miles away

Łukasz Gliński
True story, Kees 🙂

Thomas Ehrensperger
Very nice project. Looking forward to see it finished.

Gordon Sørensen
Not a very nice fit of the canopy! Bit of filler needed there!

Łukasz Gliński
Started to sculpt the engines, as you can see the fit is typically amodellish 🙁

Glenn
The fit of the parts looks really bad. This is so disappointing for a modern kit. Plenty of filler and a angle grinder needed 🙂

Bart Goesaert
Enjoy sanding... A-model quality, but in the end you have A special Model

Łukasz Gliński
Thanks gentlemen, didn't start yet, hopefully I will start it during the incoming weekend

Łukasz Gliński
After making the engines look acceptable, I spotted the right one is not straight. I have to think what to do now - ignore, break down the engine again or play with the wings...

Oleg Bogolei
horrible... hard choise

Gordon Sørensen
Unfortunately, you know you won't be happy unless you correct the engine position. If you can get a blade between the wing and the nacelle, it might come up not to bad...

Burkhard D
Unfortunately, there is no positive guidance for the nacelle position relative to the wing and fuselage. Amodel kits require extensive rigging to assure correct alignment.

Łukasz Gliński
True story Burkhard. Anyway I started the surgery 2 days ago, currently the nacelle has much better position (used kind of wedge/blade tchnique - thx Gordon for the inspiration). Currently extensive sanding takes place. But tomorrow I depart to the land of Orange for a week, will continue the updates afterwards.

Łukasz Gliński
Hopefully it looks better now - just reattached the right wing to the rest

Burkhard D
That did the trick, looks good from here. 👍

Łukasz Gliński
Thanks, macro distorts it a bit, but I think it's acceptable

Gordon Sørensen
Looks better, Lukasz! Did you just butt-join the wing sections, or put in a pin of some sort?

Ray Seppala
Interesting project Lukasz. I have just started an AModel Learjet and am having similar issues with no locating pins or tabs.

Markus Antonius
HOLY *** .. now thats why i don't buy amodel-kits anymore ^^

Łukasz Gliński
Thanks guys.
Gordon, I used pins cut accordingly, otherwise it was very difficult to get a proper alignment.
Markus & Ray, I confirm that, but I just had to have few of their unique topics, like this one 🙂

Bart Goesaert
nice work... I agree, A-model is a pain, but they have intriguing models...

Burkhard D
Finished their Beech Starship and have both the Avanti and the Learfan in progress. A thorough dry-fitting exercise... 🙂

Łukasz Gliński
Did the most tricky part last weekend - spraying the red between the lower fuselage fins. First caasualties here - when tried to mask, I ripped off part of the decal and the painting ended up with a lot of overspray. Hint for the future Avanti builders: you'd better brushpaint the missing red part, it's on the belly anyway. Now time to cover the overspray with few layers of white by brush 🙂

Bart Goesaert
Nonetheless looking really nice...

Łukasz Gliński
Thanks, but I regret painting it with Vallejo white - it's not meant to be polished, polishing results in lots of small pieces of dried paint everywhere...

Oleg Bogolei
great result! i'm making now the same model but without windows)

Łukasz Gliński
Thanks, that's much smarter approach than mine, I should've thought about it earlier on 🙂

Łukasz Gliński
Trying to correct the red lines after masking attempt. Currently the state of the build is hopeless - my hands are to shaky to get straight lines, the crappy Vallejo white gets sticky after few minutes of holding the kit and the white paint is already dirty all over the place...
Seriously considering throwing this kit away or buying another Caracal set and painting it from scratch. I'm definitely not good with white planes...

Bart Goesaert
Just try to cover the white and red with some clear or varnish as a protection. Should make it easier to clean. Vallejo imho is good for brushpainting, but for the airbrush... Nah

Łukasz Gliński
Thx Bart, I did it before masking at it wasn't good enough. Now I know to avoid the Vallejos in the airbrush, but this was one of my lessons (the other being X-29). I'm considering overpainting the red bands with white a bit, then spray the red using the Aizu tape, which used to be quite delicate...

Cuajete
I'm sorry for what just happened, Łukasz. At this point, maybe you should paint first white, then protect with varnish and then paint in red, after masking with Aizu. Good luck!

Burkhard D
To remove red overspray on white, I'd try remove the overspray with micromesh or a razor blade and then overspray with white as needed. Red is nasty - will likely shine through.

Oleg Bogolei
or maybe choose another paint schrme?

Łukasz Gliński
No way! Must be this one (of course 🙂 )
I did use Aizu today, sprayed the red once again. It is a bit better, though I probably wanted too much😉 and it wasn't perfect.
Currently I corrected the lines well enough I think (will upload more pics tomorrow), time for the belly corrections - the crazy idea from Caracal's designer to let builder paint the belly part seems still ridiculous to me 🙁

Łukasz Gliński
Found a bug in the Avanti decal set by Caracal: the leaflet asks the user to use decal 18 to have double white stripes on each propeller. The problem is there are 6 decals for 10 propellers... How hard can it be? 🙁

Oleg Bogolei
on mine there are no decals for the propeller strips at all...

Łukasz Gliński
So you won't be dissapointed and won't have to clean the propellers to repaint them😉

Flop_Se
Nice and clean build so far!

Łukasz Gliński
Spent last couple of weeks correcting the nose stripes (the decals are simply straight and the nose ... well, it's not!). What did I use? Brush and hands😉 I consider it good enough (pics 34&35) and will move to the propellers next. In the meantime the white Vallejo colour got a bit dirty here and there, so I have to paint it over, but this time I'm gonna use the brush and Vallejo white.

Flop_Se
In my opinion valejo white is not the best choice for large areas! But i'm confident you'll make a good job! 🙂

Łukasz Gliński
Ordered the white stripes from Xtradecal to finish the rear finally, putting this on hold until the delivery.

Alberto Michieletto
Very nice scratchbuild and buildibg!

Łukasz Gliński
Thanks, would've been even better should I have avoided using Vallejo white... 🙁

Eugen P.
One of my favorite Bizzer.

Łukasz Gliński
Mine too 🙂 That's why I didn't throw it into the bin yet😉

Łukasz Gliński
Decided to wash off the Vallejo's goo (almost finished, except for the panel lines), ordered second set of Caracal decals. While they are being deliverd I'll paint the kit again using GX white paint around Xmas.
Anybody wanting to buy a spare Caracal set without Polish decals?

Nathan Dempsey
Very interesting aircraft. The air ambulance makes it even more interesting!I always have problems with Gloss White and have sometimes resorted to painting everything in matte then adding several coats of gloss finish. As far as Vallejo goes, I've had several bottles that refuse to be airbrushed. It happened enough to put me off the brand...

Oleg Bogolei
Never give up!)
as for me, the best white color Mr.Color has.

Łukasz Gliński
Thanks Oleg, doing my best, currently it looks a bit like your Hammerhead😉 (that's the Citadel's grey primer actually)

Felipe Belalcazar
wow love it! theres an avanti based here in YYZ and the sound is unmistakable. im new to airbrushing and use vallejo (i actually love it - never had problems) but i read alot about the paints being lousy - what is it exacly? what should I be looking out for? I have two colour sets and the metallic paints. im also fairly new so not nearly you guys' level of execution here. cheers!

Łukasz Gliński
Thx Felipe 🙂 The problem (difference?) is, that the Vallejo paints are kind of 'wall paint', the acrylic cleaner is unable to dissolve them, only makes them soft enough to be peeled off. Forget any polishing. And as I use 0,2mm airbrush nozzle it's extremely hard to brush smoothly longer than 1-2 minutes - then it starts to clog the nozzle (and it's hard to clean the nozzle without dissolving the paint).
I understand people use it, cause it doesn;t smell, but I prefer lacquer based paints, they dry quickly, you don't have to clean the airbrush completely every few minutes and just in case you can polish the surface after all.
But the Model Air series is awesome when it comes to brush painting 🙂

Martin Oostrom
I always thin Vallejo approx 40-60 with acrylic thinner and a few drops of vallejo flow improver. Works fine for almost every colour, black can be the exception.
For cleaning I use Revell's aqua color clean. Strips Vallejo as well.
Use a Harder & Steenbeck 0.2 Evolution.

Mixing with thinner is trial and error based on humidity, moisture and temperature and pressure. Good luck 👍

Very nice Piaggo Łukasz !!

Łukasz Gliński
Thanks Martin

Stefan Schacht
very nice so far, how could I miss this?

Łukasz Gliński
Vielen Dank Stefan, probably there are so many topics on this site...😉

Felipe Belalcazar
Thank you for the explanation Lukasz, i'll look more into this - i think my nozzle is wider - i have a badger patriot airbrush and a pasche compressor. Cheers!

Julian Herrero aka Yuri
I've never been able to airbrush std Vallejo paints properly .... they are vinyl based (rubbery like) and clog the nozzle after a while. Some fellows thin them with plian water ,,,but I have not succeded ...

Łukasz Gliński
Fully agree with Yuri, I don't like them for the very same reason. In the meantime, I sprayed the propellers and primed the plane itself. First layer of GX1 is just drying, but I already see few places that need corrections.

Oleg Bogolei
glad to see your progress!

Zsolt Czegle
Great work! 👍

Try to use some drying retarder during the airbrushing the acrylic white color.

Łukasz Gliński
Thanks, Zsolt. I have to admit, that GX paint + levelling thinner don't seem to need one (so far) 🙂

Łukasz Gliński
Today it was another surgery-day as I found the right engine inlet was definitely lower than the left one. I must have taken the wrong angle at the first operation. Now I'm back on track, only need to get the front fuselage smooth enough as it's still quite bumpy in front of the windscreen.

Erik De Smet
Quite a challenge Lukasz,

Łukasz Gliński
@Erik: It's A-Model, isn't it?😉

Cuajete
Nice re-progress, Łukasz!

Łukasz Gliński
Thanks, it's sort of tango - 1 step forward, 2 steps back 😄

Bart Goesaert
looks more like the Echternach procession to me...

Łukasz Gliński
At first I thought you meant 'eternal' 😉, but then I had a quick look into the internets and found this:
"At one stage the pilgrims would take three steps forward and two steps backwards, thus taking five steps in order to advance one; at another stage the pilgrims would repeatedly stop at the sound of the bell donated by Emperor Maximilian, falling to their knees before moving forward a few more steps."
en.wikipedia.org/wik..ession_of_Echternach
That actually sounds very similar to my progress on Avanti 🙂

playtime 222
Following. Already reminded not to have too many A-Model kits in the stash unless I have a bathtub of filler 😄

Łukasz Gliński
@playtime 222: Welcome, luckily Perfect Plastic Putty makes the filling way easier and faster (still impressed by its behaviour) 🙂
Today it was the decalling day, nose has been corrected after I took the pictures (will upload it soon).

Daniel Klink
Awesome work Lukasz! 👍

playtime 222
Cool 😄

Ray Seppala
That is coming along nicely Lukasz, nice work!

Gordon Sørensen
I figure being as the fit of Amodel wasn't a jaw-dropping, the decals not being a good fit either is kind of justified...

The picture you have is of SP-MXH, but looks like SP-MXI doesn't have the registration marks on top of the wings eithet...
[img1]

Eugen P.
Looks very pretty!

Łukasz Gliński
Thank you guys.
@Gordon: Many thanks for that pic, I couldn't find SP-MXI pic from above, so I had to deduce it😉

Cuajete
Well done, Łukasz!

Łukasz Gliński
Gracias 🙂

Łukasz Gliński
Short update - masks removed (of course corrections were needed), red part brushpainted, propellers assembled, started painting all the small details that are not white (antennas, undercarriage, various inlets here and there) and started washing (using light grey wash as Polish Avantis are very clean).

Cuajete
Well done, Łukasz!

Nathan Dempsey
Those props look great.

Łukasz Gliński
Thank you. I used chrome Alclad instead of polished steel one to make it look more spectacular😉

Oleg Bogolei
how did you glue windows? they look very nice

Bart Goesaert
it's becoming a real beauty, and considering the effort you've put into this one, it is well deserved...

Łukasz Gliński
Thank you, I do my best not to screw it all again😉
@Oleg: The side windows on the photos are hollow, the Micro Cristal Clear is drying as I write this. Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to take pictures of filled ones. Windshield on the other hand is the original one from the sprues, but bit matt due to sanding (as it's original scribing is not symmetric).

Erik De Smet
I wonder if the cristal clear will dry transparant. I used 5 second fix UV cured glue some time ago for making windows and the result was quite good.

Łukasz Gliński
Well, it turned out not so bad. My main issue are the bubbles, hence I have to replace two windows unfortunately. I intend to seal them using multiple thin layers GX gloss varnish after all, I already experimented this way on my Plasticarts Yak-40.

Łukasz Gliński
Added promised pics with windows. The starboard side looks bit worse than the other one, I still have to correct the leftovers from masking.

Cuajete
Windows looking good, Łukasz 👍

Łukasz Gliński
Nice to see the original theme of your build flying overhead sometimes 🙂 (pic #56)

Łukasz Gliński
Last update, hopefully. 🙂 Luckily I bought 2 decal sets, I needed two sets of windows, one was not enough for my agile fingers😉 Wheels on, dischargers added, Micro Cristal Clear has to dry to mimic the fuselage and tail lights and then I only need to seal it all with a varnish.
Update: Ugh, I just found out the canards in the kit are not drooped as they are in the original, I need to think about it tomorrow.

Cuajete
Nice upgrade!

Łukasz Gliński
Thanks mate 🙂
Hereby I announce this odyssey finished 🙂 I'll take more pics tomorrow, in the (forecasted) sun.

Gordon Sørensen
Looks good Lucasz! Seemed like you fought it the entire build but won in the end! Did you bend the forward canards down a little?

Bart Goesaert
splendid work... and a real pleasure to follow... and most of all, you survived and finished an A-model kit

playtime 222
This - most of all, you survived and finished an A-model kit 😄

Łukasz Gliński
Thank you all, indeed it was my first A-Model ever to be finished 🙂 Please wait for more pics tonight.
@Gordon: yes, I re-glued them at more convincing angle (see pic #61).

Matthew A
Brilliant well worth all your effort. I'm surprised the Avanti didn't sell better (that's the real thing not the A-model)

Adam Gudynowski
Very nice 🙂 [img1]

Łukasz Gliński
Thank you 🙂 I know it's not perfect, but once somebody prints a decal set for SP-MXH I'll try another one😉
@Matthew: I like its shape too 🙂

Thomas Ehrensperger
Really nice ... perfect Jop 🙂

Stefan Schacht
very nice result, thanks for sharing.

Łukasz Gliński
Thank you Gentlemen😉
I uploaded pics of Avanti in the spring sun - in close-up (pic #63) you can see I'm still having problems with air pressure in the airbrush, but I think I'm improving and it's better than with Karaś or Yak-3 🙂
Now, it's the hard part - I need to select another project to be started 🙂

Oleg Bogolei
Congratulations, fellow-suffer) very good result.

Bernhard Pethe
Elegant plane, clean built. 👍

Eugen P.
A very nice little italian!

Łukasz Gliński
Thanks once more. Could've been cleaner, but its shape really stands out on the shelf between Vipers and Hornets 🙂

Bart Goesaert
For your next project: that other one 😉

Matthew A
How about your Vought F7U-3 Cutlass or Škoda D.1

Chris Greathouse
Very cool 🙂

Erik Leijdens
Amazing job 👍

Łukasz Gliński
Many thanks y'all 🙂 Really glad to see you like it.
@Matthew: Good point, I almost forgot about my Cutlass. So now I have a dilemma: Dakota or Cutlass😉 Škoda's on hold, till I lay my hands on some alco-based Agama paints.
@Bart: I have no more Avantis in my stash😉

Erik De Smet
The Dakota is a piece of cake, even if you are building lights and motors in it, as I do. The Cutlass will be more challenging. Nice use of your famous hangar background, Lukasz.

Stefan Schacht
Hallo Lukasz, the Dakota please 🙂. Cheers Stefan

Cuajete
Very nice, Łukasz! The effort was worth it. Congrats!

Łukasz Gliński
Thanks guys, I know Dakota should be easy (especially w/o any electric equipment), so I went for it 🙂 Cutlass stays in the queue.

Klaas van der Wielen
Great subject. And it's a beautiful little model! Congratulations!

Łukasz Gliński
Thanks a lot Klaas, it's not a big one, somewhere between Viper and Hornet (as it shares the shelf with those)

Dmitriy Andreeshchev
I love that plane very much. You've really gone through some rough work here, but the result was worth it!

Alec K
Great job Lukasz 👍

Treehugger
Nice work on the canopy area. Looks nice and clean.

Adam Gudynowski
Looks very good 👍

Łukasz Gliński
Thank you Gentlemen, appreciate it.
To be honest the windscreen is not as clear as I wanted it to be. In case you dare to build this kit, I recommend making your own vacu copy of the windscreen (Rob Taurus, are you reading that?😉 ).

Slavo Hazucha
You fought a worthy battle with a kit that appears to be more than sub-par in not just one area... The results look truly great when viewed as-finished, but seeing the history provides quite a few "revelations"... Congrats on a rare gem in your collection 👍 🙂

Łukasz Gliński
Thank you Slavo, it's a rare topic indeed. It reqired a lot of patience, but unique topics are my favs 🙂

Christian W
Holy moly! You did a very good job on this nice plane. I looked through the pictures and really have to say:
I think, if I'd built this, it'll be in the shelf again because of so much issues with the fitting, the decals, the paintjob.... Well done! Very good.

Łukasz Gliński
Many thanks Christian. I have to admit I'm even considering building another one in the future😉