Kenn Borek's Twin Otter

[Uros]

Hi everyone!
Here is my next project. It's a comisioned build for a guy that flew to Arctic expeditions with these. It will represent the plane from his last expedition.

I started with windshield. The one in the box is too small, so I made biger opening and inserted clear styrene, this was then cut in half so I could work on the interior. Pilots side windows were also replaced. Cabin windows are originals glued in and sanded flush with surface from outside.


Inerior is also finished. I made some detalis here.




Fuselage halves are now glued and I'm working on the engines now.

Thanks for looking!

[Graeme H]

Oh lovely, and this should be a masterclass in fixing the Matchbox Twotter, because you have straight up done one of the most obvious.

I have had one of these on the go for about 20 years, keep meaning to get back to it, this may be the inspiration I need.
It's just I have so many on the go at the moment.

Where did you get your Instrument panel from?

[Adam the Akrodude]

Uros, you continue to impress, humble and inspire us with your master modelling skills - you are a civvie modelling god sir! Lots will be watching this build with very keen interest! Great work so far mate!

[Uros]

Thanks guys! I'm flattered. I didn't know there would be so much interst for this. I will try to explain every step and if someone has a question, will be happy to reply.

Graeme, this is Revells rebox with excelent decals and IP is from this a decal set. What I forgot to mention is, the IP needs to be exteded a bit and moved to the front.
Here is a photo from my previous Twoter build.


And here is progress from curent one.
First I focused on the wings.
I made landing lights with leftover clear resin.

New airvents(not sure if it's the right name for those).


And theese pieces. Don't know how they are called, but I know they are too thick out of the box so I made new ones from beer can.



Also propellers are done. I replaced originals with some leftovers sanded to right shape.

And glued them in feathered position

All lost panel lines on the fuselage were rescribed and I added door hinges.


Can't realy see it, I know
Wings are on and thats it for now.

Thanks for looking!

[Ansett A330]

And theese pieces. Don't know how they are called, but I know they are too thick out of the box so I made new ones from beer can.

Graeme will know but they look like Wing Fences to me but then again if they are made out of beer cans "wing tinnies" or "wing slices of a slab" are probably more accurate.

[Graeme H]

Uros you are doing some really good work there,

one small thing is that Matchbox tapers the fin off too much towards the top, that is 6" Rotating beacon on top, and in reality there is hardly any taper at all on the real thing, if you can split the leading edge and put in a spacer it would help



I like you, did the Wing fence thing only to later discover on the real thing it is actually a "V" shape to the fence in that it is much wider at the bottom than the top, unusually matchbox are not that far off the real thing with it being fatter at the bottom, probably the Matchbox one needs the top thinning down, but that's all.

and please don't forget the Dihedral, which is significant on a Twin otter, not the flat way that Matchbox would have you do it
A head on shot


and here look at the aircraft in the background



The photos I have date from the 1980's probably about '85 and were taken with a Haselblad that my friend had just acquired so we went and got a few, feel free to take any you need to help

[Uros]

I wasn't avare of this problems. On photos I have, it's not noticable. Fin and wing fences are staying as they are and don't worry about the dihedral. I know it's there, and am pretty sure the wings are glued in the right position. Thank you for your input and nice photos. They're already on my hard disk. I have at least two more Twoters to build, as I want to have a collection. I already have one on wheels. Missing are one on skies and on floats. Will try to fix all problems on those two. Btw, do you know of any other shortcomings?

[Graeme H]

One small one is the small round engraved fuel tank fillers on the Starboard side in real life they are only on the Port side, you probably knew about those, just fill and sand

[Uros]

Graeme, those were sanded of emediately
I'm making nice progress on this one. I made new fuselage reinforcements, that were sanded of. I used leftover vinyl mask sheet from CL-604 build.
First I took some measurements with masking tape.

Then I transfered that to sheet and cut them out.


aplied.

also made this little air intake.

I replaced plastic parts for wheel atachment with metal ones.

Ski and wheels construction. This is what I started with.

Front nosewheel looked a bit to small, so i added two layers of strene to the circumference than puttied and sanded to shape.
front ski and wheel parts

back

and asembled


Model is in primer now. It needs some touch ups and few more details, then it's paint time!

Thanks for looking!

[Graeme H]

Some more really impressive work there Uros, I like how you did the skis