Hanroit HD.3. 1/72 Rosemont vac kit

[Tim Mixon]

Hello all! Happy early New Year!

My current project is this excellent vac and resin kit from the OOP Rosemont Resin.
This aircraft was a very late war development. It entered service in only one escadrille before the war ended. By all accounts it was an excellent fighter and support aircraft.
Small little package with the huge Salmson 9z radial engine.


The vac details are very crisp. The resin engine cowl is a work of art!


I started with the fuselage interior. Painting all the appropriate parts metal, wood, and silver doped fabric. I added the wooden stringers from Evergreen strip. Next I cut out sheet plastic discs and made fuselage bracing forms. I punched discs to represent the spare Lewis gun drums and scratch built a storage rack.



I added both seats but realize the observer probably only had some fold out bench seat. It would be pretty hard to maneuver around a seat in combat!



Seatbelts are painted Eduard French WWI PE. I scratch built the controls from plastic rod and wire.



I scratched up an instrument panel and various other cockpit details. I have no interior reference photos so all is just conjecture.


Ready to close it up now.

[Tim Mixon]

Part 2.

Fuselage is closed and sealed with CA glue. The poor fit is entirely due to my added scratchwork


The top seam was filled with plastic strip and rod sanded to shape Perfect Plastic Putty was added to the seams and sanded when dry.



The engine access panel should not protrude out so much. I sanded it off and added a scratch one from thin plastic sheet.



I filled the gap between the crew and then added cockpit combing by gluing elastic thread around the pilots opening.



The shell ejection chutes were cut out and Evergreen channel inserted on both sides.



I added the resin engine cowl and Vickers guns.
After sanding off the fuselage louvres, I penciled in the locations and began adding Archer louvre decals.



This will be a slow, tedious process.
Thanks for following along!
Tim

[enathan]

A great kit of an interesting aircraft, I will definitely follow your build.

[RAGIII]

Awesome Start on an unusual Kit!
RAGIII

[DaddyO]

Well someone's been busy 
Great start on an unusual prototype Tim with some lovely scratch work as well; what's not to like?
I've noted the channel for spent cartridges from evergreen channel and the Archer louvre decals (which it'd be handy to get hold of, but I presume they are no longer available) 

Paul

[NigelR]

All those louvres! My eyes! Seriously, this is a great start on what looks like basically a very nice vac for its time. A very interesting project and wonderful modelling skills on display.

[Tim Mixon]

Part 3.

Thank you Enathan, Paul, Rag, and Nigel. This is a kit I have wanted to make for years after seeing the masterful work by Matt Bittner. Finally I have the opportunity.

Finally, after several hours I have completed application of all the louvres. These were a pain to get on. Because they are printed so closely together, I had to cut them out individually and apply. They do not adhere well to any surface. I tried Tamiya extra thin but it didn?t work well. Next I applied super thin CA glue but it often lifted the louvre off the model and instantly adhered to the head of the pin I was using 🤬. If I did get it to work, often the louvre would move slightly and be glued on crooked. Anyway, here is the final version:


.


Next I took a good look at the Vickers machine guns. They looked as if they were pointing outward at an angle


I decided to cut them off, drill out the channels to mount Aeroclub Vickers guns. These seem to have anemic water jackets so I added PE ones from a PART PE set.


.
 

The next thing was to remove part of the rear fuselage and construct the exposed frame and tail skid.



We?ll have to see how it all looks under a coat of primer.

Thanks for looking in!
Tim

[Dirigible-Al]

Well done getting those louvres on. I have a Salmson vac in the stash and haven't started it because of the thought of doing what you somehow managed to do.
Alan.

[NigelR]

Wow, lovely work! I was glad you upgraded the MGs, because when  I saw the photo of the resin ones in situ I was a bit underwhelmed. The scratchbuilding around the tail skid is masterful, bravo!

[Brad Cancian]

Wonderful work Tim, what a great subject!

[Allan31]

Great stuff as usual. I use a coat of Future to stick things like louvers in place.

[mbittner]

Looks great! I built one eons ago but unfortunately it was destroyed when the display case holding it crashed to the ground. Sigh...

[Tim Mixon]

Thanks Alan, the louvres were a bit of a challenge. I built the Wings 72 vac Salmson many years ago. It built up fairly well, but I would suggest getting the AZ kit. It?s not crazy expensive and the parts are much more detailed.
Nigel, I think the PE adds a lot to the metal guns. I?m still working out how to scratch build the cocking levers though. I?ve used up all the ones included in the PE fret!
Thanks Brad and Allan. Using Future is a great idea!

Matt, welcome to the forum! I?m honored to be included in your first post here. Awful news about your model and all the others I?m sure were involved. I?m referencing heavily your build article on Internet Modeler. Definitely my inspiration for this project.

Part 4.
Here you?ll find I have attached the lower wings, tail fins, and made the wing supports from brass strip. 




I used the template on the vac sheet to scratch up the landing struts.


I applied them and scratched the spreader bar and axle. I also added elastic bungee cords.
Primed with Tamiya flat primer. I need to make a lot of refinements to the seams and between the louvres.



After a lot of filling and sanding, I painted the bottom color Tamiya flat aluminum. Then I added some pre shadow between the louvres in preparation for the French five color cammo.



Thanks for looking in!
Tim

[Brad Cancian]

Looking great Tim!

One thing I have always wondered is how do vac form builders go about the strut attachment points on the wings? I am guessing the wings are a single sheet of thin plastic, so drilling into them to create 'seats' for the strut ends is unlikely to be successful... how do you go about this part?

One day I must get around to trying my hand at a vac form kit...

Cheers!

BC

[Tim Mixon]

Brad,
My technique for upper wing attachment is to mark strut location with a pencil, then drill a small divot with a Dremmel tool. A lot of vac kits already have location points established but not this one. The plastic is probably thicker than you imagine. It certainly isn?t the strongest join but works fine if you?re careful. Most of the weight bearing and rigidity comes from the cabane struts.
I hope you do decide to build a vac kit someday. So many cool subjects that will never be produced by main stream injection molding companies.

Thanks,
Tim