The Martin M-130, the first of the great "Clippers" of Pan American Airways that crossed the Pacific from 1935 to 1945. Three M-130s were built; The China Clipper, Hawaii Clipper and Philippine Clipper. The cost of a ticket was $950 - this was in 1935!!!
I long admired the romantic nature of the great Clippers, but always focused on the B-314. Unfortunately I was never able to find a model of the B-314 that was available or a reasonable cost (for me). Recent Google searches alerted me to the Martin Clippers that preceded the B-314. I mulled it over. Would I be satisfied with the original, albeit smaller, "China Clipper"? I think at the end of this post that question will be answered.
This is the Glencoe Models "China Clipper" Although labeled China Clipper any of the three can be built with the decals included. My brother warned me about Glencoe (Old molds and a mite crude). But as noted above I have long wanted to build a Clipper, so I found one and ordered it.
As soon as I pulled the parts from the bag I knew what Bob was talking about. In particular, note the flash surrounding the tail piece. This kit takes patience and much trimming and adjusting for elements to fit and create a model display. My task here is more than a kit build but a guide and forewarning for those that may follow, as well as suggestions on adding detail. There are not a lot of parts to assemble. My final product will depend on how much scratch detail I want to add.
One positive is the decal set - a good brand and they look new. I decided on the Hawaii Clipper with the big American Flag waving on the nose.
Back to the model. The motors/cowls are separate and simple with no engine detail at all. I get it, it's old 144 scale molds, but for us Wings of Glory game players, collectors and model builders we know you can put a lot of detail into 1/144 scale aircraft. So I snipped off bits of 0.020 inch styrene rods to simulate cylinders. Fiddly but not too difficult.
After gluing them in I daubed in some flat black. A significant difference I think.
There was no reason I could think of not to put the wing halves together. The fit was not bad. It took some trimming but very little sealing of seams. I press fit the cowls on for a dry fit look see.
I went ahead and assembled shafts and props to the motors/cowls by first highlighting the simulated cylinders with silver and painting the props in Aluminum (added black dots too). My only problem was that the kit came with only three props - AHHHH! I guess this kind of thing was rather routine as the instructions contained a warning that parts can be missing "it happens". Fortunately Glencoe is still a going concern and a voice mail message I left resulted in a response about looking for spare parts and about a week later a spare arrived in the mail - Thanks Nick!
On to the fuselage halves. The kit does not include any cockpit glass. The instructions call for the use of Elmers or White Glue or any window glue that dries clear. Fortunately I have Testors window glue with which I am familiar and have used extensively in the past.
I cut out the window in the forward ingress/egress hatch and applied window glue there!
Actual cockpit photos show the "moon" glass panels above the cockpit seats. They were simple panel lines in the mold just like the access hatch window, so I cut those out as well which can be seen later. This took extra care since they were so close to the edge of the fuselage half..
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I attached the Sponsons and Tail. The tail/elevators fit well (after all the flash trimming), the Sponsons, not so much - big gap to fill. But adding these appendages made handling the fuselage halves easier.
The fourth prop arrived so I went to work painting and assembling all the motors, including full silver on the cowls.
Unlike the cockpit, strips of clear passenger windows was included. Easy to install I painted the backside to resemble the window curtains.
Doesn't look too bad!
I started painting the inside of the fuselage in order to block light from diffusing through the thin fuselage walls. Yes, I had the idea of lighting this model!!
To test my internal paint coverage I kept testing with my reading light!
To that end I also cut and fitted my wine bottle foil in the starboard half for a cabin ceiling, bulkheads and cockpit floor.
The Evans Designs LED chips arrived and I glued them to the wine foil ceiling and fed the wire out through the flight stand opening. The switch and battery holder will need to be attached to the stand base, but that is yet to be figured out.
For the time being I just tape to the fuselage to keep it out of the way.
Upon testing out the LEDs I was satisfied to the point where I closed up and glued the fuselage halves
A test with the lights off show that my bulkhead between the flight deck and radio operator is successful. Only the radio compartment shows the light and not the cockpit.
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I painted the bottom with gloss black (I don't like gloss) in accordance with instructions but beware it easily mucked up with clumsy fingers!!
A close up of the cover art is the best picture of the tail rigging I could find. I have to do it, so I drilled all the required holes and threaded my go to monofilament through the holes. I glued down the port side in calculated stages and it looks pretty good. Now the starboard side will be trickier.
It looks fine. I am doing it now hoping that if I spray Silver the monofilament will accept the paint as well. Now comes a tricky part I have been anxious about.....
.....the cabane struts - Sponson to wing! They seem not to fit the way photos indicate although they are identified with sprue disks marked RF (right front) for example. I had to trust the kit and glued in place within the circles scribed on the Sponson. For the rigging I cut a notch in the ends of the struts and glued in monofilament before gluing the struts to the Sponson. This worked out really well. The rigging was in and secure before the wing is attached!
The moment of truth! I set the wing on the fuselage. The gaps that I feared can be seen on the Port side, but not as bad as I thought they might be.
The starboard side is a better fit.. I think this will work - Whew!
The struts are not parallel as seen in photos, but it is the way they fit, so I am going with it as is!
As I searched online for a bright silver spray I decided to fill small areas around windows and the struts to avoid later touch up. I would simply mask the strip of windows, frames and areas between windows. More on that later.
Silver applied around passenger windows - rigging too!
I finally pulled off all the tape holding the wire harness and worked out the necessary cut outs in the flight stand and arm to allow the leads to exit the fuselage, travel down the arm and enter into the base.
A 1/4 inch hole drilled into the base allowed me to mount the push button (LED) switch - glued in place for easy on and off. Now I continue my search for bright silver!
Well I found my silver! It was that little Testors bottle I had all along. Yep, I am hand painting - AGAIN - instead of spraying. Not that I did not want to spray, I just could not find the right color. When I did find a Tamiya product that looked like what I needed it is for Polycarbonate - RC cars and not to be used on plastic!! I just gave up and tried continuing with the hand brushed silver. The Corrugated portions of fuselage took the hand brushing quite well (corrugated aluminum was used on the Ford Tri-motor but developed by Junkers in Germany)..
Before trying hand painting the wing I tried installing the clear landing light lens provided. The first one fell into the wing - GONE. The second one fell into the gapping maw of the Carpet Monster - GONE (I didn't even bother looking for 2mm x 2mm piece of clear plastic). All I can say is thanks for Window Glue!
Now for some decal work. They are good - once I got all the pieces in place!! The first applied was the black glare shield. It broke into three pieces coming off the paper. I have to say here that the decals release quickly but they are rather thin so extra care is required. The flag came next - All in one piece - YES! The flag was on the Hawaii Clipper - my choice for the build. It has some interesting history as you will see later on. The remaining decals on the fuselage and tail went on with little problem. Perhaps I was just a bit clumsy with the glare shield - I hope so. I did have some trouble with the black walking stripes on the Sponsons. My fear is what will occur when it comes time for the big decals for the top of wing.
Back to the base. Upside down shows the center position of the switch - plenty of room for the leads and battery compartment. Note the six fishing line lunkers that have been contact cemented to give extra weight to the base. I am hopeful this will keep the center of gravity in the middle and minimize the top heavy Clipper from nosing over.😀
The moment(s) of truth. It was time to commit to the stand so I notched the fuselage lug to allow the LED leads to trail down the stanchion. as previously mentioned, and similarly at the base I notched out the lug on the bottom end. I tied the wires together under the base and......
.......Pushed the button.
Now that everything is working it is time to work on finishing the wing. The painting and application of flag and numbering on the underside went well enough - only one break at the end of the numbers so I was encouraged, but it was false courage at best.
Perhaps if the material was thicker, but with the size and complexity I should not have expected the three large wing decals to come off the paper cleanly. In hind sight I would cut the center section decal into three to four pieces. It would have been much easier to piece together than the jigsaw puzzle I ended up having to work with. I gave up on recovering several small bits and knew that I would be hand painting in what was missing.
Here is another view with the outside segments completed. They came of the paper better, but still in pieces (three on the starboard/numbers side and two on the port side). I waited for drying and then tackled trying to fix what was missing.
This is the best I can do. Whatever gaps remain will need weathering as cover up. A topcoat on the wing will be needed to keep the decals down.
I loaded the wing onto the fuselage. The following morning I flipped it over and glued the struts (down) to the underside of the wing. What remains is the antenna mast with guy wires and the radio wires themselves.
The antenna mast has been inserted into a hole drilled by me (not provided) along with holes for the guy wires and the radio wires to the vertical stabilizer. The monofilament has been lightly brushed over with the Testors Silver. Touch up and weathering are added to the engine cowl and overall wing decals to cover over the small areas of flake-off when applying the decals (as they broke apart). I have the LEDs turned on for these final photos. I will try and take glamor shots in the future but I still need to seal the decals with a topcoat. Note that I painted over the glare shield in front of the cockpit with flat black.
Nov. 29 , 1935 - the first flight of the China Clipper at Manila.
The Hawaii Clipper was christened with coconut milk, May 3, 1936
Here is the Hawaii Clipper lifting off. She was the only one whose fate is still unknown. She disappeared from radar at 12:15AM on July 28, 1938 between Guam and Manila. No wreckage was found. Conjecture is that either Japanese spies highjacked the Clipper to a base in Japan to keep money from being delivered to China or that a catastrophic failure occurred in a freak storm.
Here is my Clipper on my Coastal WoG game mat. After all the issues, I am happy with the result. My DIY efforts paid off for me😄
