Pavla 1/72nd Boeing Stearman PT-13A Kaydet
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History
I don't have any information on this aircraft, aside from what I found
while searching for information to build this kit with. I was asked to
build this kit out of the box, so aside from finding some information
to help me through a few areas, I wanted to keep it as true to out of
the box as possible.
The Kit
The kit consists of 39 injected plastic pieces, 22 resin pieces and
four vacuformed windscreens. There are three schemes that come with this
kit - an N2S-2 that flew with the US Navy based at Pensacola NAS 1941,
a PT-17 Israeli scheme in 1949, and the scheme I chose, which is for a
PT-13A, USAAC machine based at Randolph Field Training Base, Texas, 1937.
What's really nice is that Pavla lists references for each and every scheme.
With that information in hand I looked for the USAAC bird in the Monogram
book The Official Monogram US Army Air Service & Air Crops Aircraft
Color Guide, and there's a nice large picture of it.
Construction
 I
decided early on to build this kit out of the box - or as close to it
as I could get. I was going to detail out the cockpit, but thought the
task a bit daunting, and out of the box it isn't bad. Sure, everything
can be improved but at this time I thought what the kit contained was
"good enough". There was some work involved getting the separate
side panels to sit flush with the molded-on top "rod". Plus
close attention is needed to the instructions to be sure where these side
panels fit into the whole cockpit scheme. The resin seats and control
columns were extremely well molded and with the proper wash and drybrush,
the molded-on seatbelts pop out wonderfully.
Now that the cockpit was complete the fuselage halves can be closed.
I ended up sanding each fuselage half like it was a vacuform kit but only
slightly. This helped the fit immensely and resulted in not many seams
to fill. With the "stringered" fuselage - both top and bottom
- I was worried that the center-most stringer would have to be replaced
due to sanding and elimination of whatever seams may show. Luckily this
was not so. The bottom seam/center stringer came out perfectly with some
careful sanding - no seams to fill and the center stringer was not removed.
Unfortunately not so on the top, but luckily the top, center, stringer
isn't as long as the bottom, so re-creating with .010 plastic rod and
Mr. Surfacer was all it took for a decent re-creation.
I now moved to adding the lower wing. Again, the center portion of the
wing was "stringered" so my concern grew again about elimination
of whatever seam along with re-creating of lost stringer detail. While
there was a definite seam here to fill, I tried to dry fit and sand enough
so the rear-most seam would be minimal so as much as possible stringer
detail could be kept. This meant that the seam in the front was a little
more than expected, but filling in first with sheet plastic followed by
CA helped eliminate this seam. The rear seam was dealt with some putty
and very careful sanding. No stringer detail was lost, thankfully. The
lower wing-root seams also needed filling and care again needs to be taken
so as not to remove any of the surrounding detail.
 So
far so good. In fact, I'm quite impressed with how this kit turned out
with all the "stringered" detail that could have been lost with
seam elimination. I had the best of luck in that regards with this kit
- if only it was so with other "stringered" turtledecks and
the like I have dealt with.
Now construction moves to the horizontal tailpieces and with careful
dry fit and sanding, little to no seams present themselves when gluing
these parts on. Some light sanding with 400 grit sandpaper eliminated
any problem spots. Some may want to add pegs and holes to the horizontal
tailpieces as they are butt-joins, but I decided not to and haven't had
a problem yet. As long as I don't knock around the tail, the pieces should
stay on.
Although some may not add these until later, I decided to glue together
and add the gear legs to the fuselage prior to painting. I'm glad I did
because this area is the worst of the kit when it comes to gaps. First
there are gaps to be dealt with when the two halves of each gear leg are
glued together. Then there are the gaps that need to be dealt with once
the legs are added to the fuselage. For strength - and to help hide the
gaps - I used thicker CA to fill in all gaps in this area, after I glued
the legs on using liquid plastic cement. Even though these could be considered
fragile and thought to break off easily, with the amount of liquid cement
and CA I used I think these would be last to break off in the event of
a fall.
Final Construction and Painting
 Now
that major construction was complete it was time to paint. Since yellow
is one of the most difficult colors to spray I decided to paint the blue
first (using Polly Scale's "USMC Blue" as a good match for the
USAAC "True Blue"). Once that was dry - about two days - then
I masked the blue and sprayed the yellow. Don't forget that part of the
rudder and the fin were painted yellow and the demarcation was not on
the rudder hinge line.
After the yellow dried (which was an old Aeromaster Warbird Acrylic)
for at least two days then I sprayed Future over the whole model and let
it dry for two days. Then it was time for the decals. I had little trouble
with the decals until I got to the starboard rudder decal. For some reason
(gremlins, probably - or lack of proper reverence to the modeling gnomes)
this decal decided to split and fall apart on me as I was adding it to
the model. This was in no case indicative of the decals themselves; instead
this was a case of human "hand-fistedness". The decals are very
decent albeit a bit translucent. In fact, when I replace the rudder decals
(with hopefully more kit decals at a later point) I will spray the rudder
area white where the decals are to go. I also used decals to represent
the black walks on the lower wing close the fuselage. I took these from
an old Scalemaster sheet.
When I decal I usually don't use any setting solution. Instead I use
Future as my decal "setting agent", putting a puddle of Future
under the decal, as I'm about to slide the decal off the paper backing.
The biggest problem with this is that the Future dries quickly so you
have little room for maneuver. Once the decal is on and in the right place,
then I use a Q-Tip (cotton bud) to squeeze the Future from the center
of the decal outward toward the edges. 99.9% of the time this eliminates
any decal edge that might show later. If the Future starts to dry around
the decal, a little bit of "human spittle" on the cotton bud
will help remove any built-up Future.
 Now
that all the decals were on it was time for weathering. Since US 'tweeners
(between the wars aircraft) were normally kept very clean little weathering
is needed. I did do a slight oil wash not only to bring the panel lines
out but also to show some forced shadows and highlights in and around
the "stringered" detail. I wanted to be sure it was very subtle
so it appears that there is no weathering. Which is just about right.
I now added the interplane "N" struts and then glued on the
upper wing. When I went to glue on the kit's center struts I noticed all
four of them are too short and won't fit between the fuselage and the
upper wing. So I had to scratch these out of Contrail/Aeroclub strut material.
The handholds at the rear of the fuselage were discarded and after drilling
the holes all the way through were replaced with wire. Since Pavla left
out a very prominent feature - the oleo scissors - I took these from an
old photoetch set and added them to the landing gear. The engine was assembled,
painted and weathered and added to the front of the fuselage using epoxy.
Rigging is .005" stainless steel wire that can be found at Small
Parts. The model was then given a Polly Scale flat overcoat and once the
replacement Aeroclub prop was added the model was finished.
Be aware when adding the vacuformed windscreens. The fuselage is pretty
"rounded" where the windscreens fit, so plenty of dry fit is
needed to be sure the windscreens conform to the fuselage. I had plenty
of problems in this area, but that was primarily due to my own problems
of not dry-fitting.
Conclusion
At first I wanted to go "all out" on this kit but due to time
constraints decided to keep it as close to out of the box as possible.
I'm really glad I did that as the build took less time for me than normal.
I was worried when I opened the box about losing the "stringered"
detail to seam removal but was pleasantly surprised when I had only a
very small section to recreate on the top of the fuselage. This is a very
nice kit and one that goes together reasonably well and is definitely
recommended.
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