Most serious
modellers wanting to build the French MS 406 would probably opt for the Hasegawa
kit, but as an exercise in display of "different" markings, and
certainly as a departure from the usual Finnish or French markings, Hobbyboss
offers an example commandeered by the RAF and flown by Free French pilots,
in Egypt from 1940 to about 1942. Black and white photos of this machine show
that it was well-maintained, and sufficiently polished to have reflections of
the aerial and fuselage on the wings. I finished the model in 8 days. Some could
doubtless do it quicker, and it was my intention to do so.
Click on
images below to see larger images
You are
probably familiar with the level of detail in a Hobbyboss kit. I added a
ventral aerial, seat belts, rudder aerial post, Aeroclub rigging thread
for the wire aerial, and a pitot tube from stretched sprue. I replaced the
gunsight with a fabrication of stretched sprue, and relocated it to the
starboard side, forward of the windscreen. The kit item is ok, but
centrally-mounted, and my example was not particularly round (mismatched
mould). Most of the work in the filling of the seams was in the
wing/fuselage joint, which was stepped. The wing panels of the MS 406
featured raised joint details. Hobbyboss represented these with parallel
recessed lines, which I think is acceptable in this scale. I thinned the
undercarriage bay fairings. The kit's items are thick, but tapered on the
edges to appear thinner than they really are. The undercarriage is
simplified, but acceptable.
I sprayed the
camouflage using a Badger 360 in gravity mode. I mixed Tamiya paints according
to the recipe provided for Tamiya's 1:48 Dewoitine D.520. The upper grey is one
part XF-2 to two parts XF-25; the upper green is one part XF-5 to two parts
XF-49, and the upper brown is XF-10 (easy). The lower grey recipe was one part
XF-18 to two parts XF-53, but I substituted Gunze Sangyo Mr. Aqueous Hobby Color
Neutral Grey for the XF-18. The white is XF-2, and the black is XF-1. As per my
usual practice these days, I did not coat the entire model in Future prior to
decalling - I just dipped the individual decals in Future. The decals generally
behaved well, but were fragile, and two spilt while applying them. The wingtip
roundels needed some application of Micro Sol to settle down due to the compound
curvature of the wingtip. I did not apply Future to the canopy - it was
sufficiently clear out-of-the-box. There's not much to see inside, anyway. On
completion of decalling, I sprayed a mixture of Future and Tamiya Flat Base to
give it a satin finish.
Bruce Grayson
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