1/48 Hasegawa Macchi C.205 "Veltro"

Gallery Article by Lorenzo Cassinadri on May 27 2010

 

This is a model of a Regia Aeronautica Macchi C.205 "Veltro" Serie I of 360° Squadriglia, 155° Gruppo Caccia in Chinisia (Trapani), Sicily, in July/August of 1943.

The Hasegawa kit is a good one, very easy to assemble, correct in shape and dimensions and with nice surface detail.
Some work, though, is necessary to improve the model.
The cockpit looks a little "sad" and the undercarriage legs have ugly ejector pin marks that must be filled and sanded.
The only part of this kit I really didn't like are the engine exhaust stacks which are undersized and so shallow that they are impossible to drill out.  Better to replace them with resin parts or with leftovers from a late Bf 109 if you have them in the spares box (the Fiat RA 1050 "Tifone" engine was basically a license built DB605 A1).
Small parts like the pilot's seat, oil and coolant radiators, supercharger intake and landing gear covers will look a lot better if refined and detailed a little. 
Also, it's important to study the reference photos of the a/c you intend to build, because the Hasegawa moulds for C.202 "Folgore" and C.205 "Veltro" sport a wide array of access panels, openings, hatches and gills that are often wrong in shape or layout (or both) in relation to the version of the a/c you are going to represent and they need to be erased or filled in and rescribed accordingly.

I built my "Veltro" without any aftermarket parts.
I tried to address the above mentioned inaccuracies and added only scratchbuilt details in various areas, especially in the cockpit and wheel well.
The latter represented quite a challenge with its intricate pipework.
After having studied some reference photos and how other fellow modellers have tackled this part, I opted for thick solder wire to recreate the two main lines of the cooling system that are arranged around the engine bearers and the landing gear actuators. The rest of the tubing is made from thin electric cable insulation. The layout and number of these tubes is "fictional", so to speak.
I kept on adding and shaping pipes until the area looked convincingly "busy".  The plumbing's color, though, matches the reference chart of Italian aircraft that identifies the various subsystems with the relative color:
- Green: coolant / - Brown: lubrication / - Yellow: fuel / - Black: exhaust gases / - Blue: air / - White: oxygen / - Red: fire extinguisher.
Luckily, the thin cables had just the right colors which saved me from painting every single line. A wash with oils and a sealing coat of flat acryls was all I needed to get a credible enough wheel well area.
In the end, I spent some hour dealing with fiddly bits and balking cables but in my opinion the result was well worth the hassle.

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Time came to tackle the dreaded "smoke rings" camo scheme.
I used Humbrol 118 for Nocciola Chiaro 4 (light hazel 4), Tamiya XF-13 J.A. Green for Verde Oliva Scuro 2 (dark olive green 2) and Humbrol 127 with a couple of drops of Hu. 65 for Grigio Azzurro Chiaro 1 (light blue grey 1). 
First I sprayed and then masked off the white fuselage band with Tamiya flat white, then I preshaded the undersides with dark grey.
About the upper tan color, first I preshaded the panel lines with dark brown then after having sprayed the base color, I retouched the center of the panels with a mix of base color plus about 20% of white.
However, after having painted the smoke rings the effects of this process are barely visible.
I painted the ringlets freehand with the paint thinned to about a 70/30 thinner to paint ratio, keeping the pressure low and spraying as close to the model surface as possible. The color was airbrushed on slowly, carefully drawing the outline of the ringlets first and then gradually building up their thickness.
I couldn't avoid a little overspray here and there and some rings turned out better than others but I'm pretty satisfied with the outcome.

A couple of coats of floor wax prepared the model for decals.
As a side note, here in Italy "Future" in not marketed so I use Emulsio "Facile" floor wax as substitute with good results.
I used the kit decals, although they left me pretty disappointed.
They have rich colors and perfect register but they could have way better adhesion. Despite many applications of setting solution and repeated poking and dabbing, some of them still had the face to show some silvering. Nothing that a few touch ups with a fine brush couldn't fix, but it annoyed me nevertheless. Moreover, my sheet had a printing flaw in the other version's emblem (some letters missing in the "Incocca, Tende, Scaglia" motto) that makes this alternative almost unusable.
Also, remember to cut away the last two digits to the roman numeral "III" you find in the stencil on the vertical stabilizer: 3 - 360 was an early "Serie I" bird with the wing mounted 7,7mm machineguns.
Last but not least, if you follow to the letter the marking instructions you 'll end up with the squadron numerals applied in the wrong order. The red "3" is fore of the white band on both sides.
Hey, looks like Hase & Cartograf goofed this one a bit!

Another couple of floor wax coats sealed those balking decals for good (although some silvering is still noticeable...).
A pin point wash with dark grey / raw umber oils followed to profile the panel lines.
At this stage, I added some wear and tear to the model by spraying the exhaust stains and adding some "dirt" to the undersides aft of the engine and around weapons' muzzles and ejection chutes.
My usual method consists of a very thinned mix of black / grey / brown oils and turpenoid and a couple of drops of Humbrol Matt Cote. The Matt Cote acts as "gripping agent", preventing the highly diluted mixture to form tiny rivulets and flow away unrealistically. It also gives the stains that "chalky" texture you often see in pictures of real aircrafts.
I added some paint chipping with Humbrol Aluminium in the usual spots (on wing roots, engine cowling fasteners and guns access panels), but without going overboard with it because wartime photos show a rather well mantained aircraft.

After having installed the landing gear, canopy, prop & spinner and pitot tube, a last protective coat of Humbrol Satin Cote wrapped up my work.

I take the chance to thank Mr. Steve Bamford for all of his work and I hope you guys enjoyed this build as I did.

All the best,

Lorenzo Cassinadri

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Photos and text © by Lorenzo Cassinadri