1/32 Arado Ar 196 A-3

[bravo1jon]

I am so excited to do this build. I built the sister plane the Arado 196 Ar 196 B about 2 years ago and fell in love with the kit. I did a ton of research and found that they launched this plane from a catapult. I made a feeble attempt at scratch building it but my skills at the time fell short but I did find out that HPH Models made a kit. Its was out of production at the time so I shelved the idea till one just showed up on eBay in the USA. So here we are. I gathered just about everything I could need to make this a lot of fun. The only thing still on the way and also from HPH is new canopy glass.

Hope you guys like the build.

[JCON]

I remember the sister build... it was stunning!!! I'll gladly follow along!!!

[JED]

I'm in for this,with all those extras and the etch I can see it will be another masterpiece, bring it on

[Dukemaddog]

This will be interesting to watch. Bring it on man!

[dogfish7 (R.I.P.)]

This will be exciting to watch!

[bravo1jon]

Thanks for the inspiration guys. I'm super stoked to share this with you. 

The HPH Catapult.
Overall the resin is some of the best I've seen apart from some pin holes here and there. Easy fix with putty.








That's real steel pipe. Crazy. I bet getting this kit through customs was interesting fun.









I am starting with the Catapult because I know what to expect from the plane. Besides I've waited too long for this. LOL 

SAFETY NOTE: I am certain most of you have worked with resin before but in case there is someone new to this resin is VERY toxic and harmful if you inhale a lot of it so wearing a mask is required. If i am doing a lot of heavy sanding I will sand over a container of water that will collect the dust. Also you MUST wash with soap and water after and a wipe down of ISO is nice too. Resin is very soft so take extra care when sanding. A little goes a long way. Basically what ever you are use to with plastic cut that in half and your about there. Lastly you Must use a coat of primer. Resin can contain contaminates which will lead to bad paint jobs that none of us enjoy. 








Yes, that's real 3/4" steel pipe. The process of building these reminds me of watching a movie when they have to resort to building pipe bombs from household goods. Everything fit real nice and I was thankful they deburred the pipe ends. 


In step one it asks to glue down all 4 square braces. Leave the one the pipe goes through loose.  Pass the pipe through and glue all of them down once you fit them in place. 







I used 28 AWG Hook Up wire for the cable. If you want to have one continuous line from where it connects under the cat to the launch cart on top you will need at least 38" long each side.




There were many tries at this until I got the styrene rod to bend this way. I think 1mm soft aluminum would have worked better I just didn't have any.





Notice the thin white strip of styrene. Its very important to line this up correctly so refer to the picture in the instructions. The launch cart rides on the grove created so it has to be straight.



A rock I found a long time ago went in as weight. I hot glued it in place.



The handrail that goes around the base and so far the most challenging step so far. You have to manually drill a small hole in the tube they provide. I used floral wire for this because of its strength. I used .09mm styrene rod as the rail. 




I added a power supply unit. Its not in the kit.
Ok that's a good place to start. having a ton of fun.

[JCON]

Looking like a great start Jon!!!

[JED]

Great job, I forgot what scale I was looking at until I saw it in your hand,it is BIG!!

[dogfish7 (R.I.P.)]

Have never seen any kit like this. Way cool.

[tojo72]

This promises to be real good,will be checking in on this one

[bravo1jon]

The following is the catapult mostly complete. I have to apologize I am still training my brain to stop and take pics so there is a gap. Not to worry though its pretty smooth sailing until the handrails. The handrails are very challenging for me anyway to build. They provide small resin tubes the same that connect to the main hub rails. Getting the rails exactly the size they need to be is rough. I needed 3 more hands. I noticed later that there are pre-made holes on the top platform. If I was to build this again I would use those holes to build the rails directly to the platform. Also I think scratch building some of your own rails would look better but in this case I stuck with what the kit gave me. Something else I still need to fix is the ladder, I want to make this long enough to reach the main deck. I plan on building a base section of the ship for the display so I think it will look more legit that way.

NOTE: Please check that the top rail is square. Mine was not and I didn't notice until I almost glued it to the platform. I had to take apart most of the rail just to get it level.

After assembly I applied a generous coat of Ammo by Mig One Shot grey primer. As far as painting here is my process:
Mission Models Nato Black, Panzer Grey, light Sea Grey and Medium Sea Grey.
Spray the panel lines and dark areas with the Panzer and modulate with the Nato.
Spray the whole thing with a light coat of medium sea grey and highlight the hot spots with the light sea grey.
Apply a wash of Flory Models dirt and Black wash.
Apply a coat of Tamiya clear
Now the fun stuff begins. I use a series of oil paints from Abteilung ( I use Abteilung because of the low lindseed oil content. This allows for the oil to dry faster.) : Burnt umber, Smoke, Black, Raw Umber and Yellow Ocher. I also use Mig Fresh oil, Light rust wash, starship streaking and Europe Earth pigment. I also use Revell Steel and Anthrazit paint for chips and Scratches.

The last pic shows where I'm at so far but I'll wait till the Plane is connected to finish so everything looks uniform.

Thats it for the Catapult on to the Arado.

Thanks again for all the kind words.

[Steve Ski]

So, my first question is, do you ever get any sleep, Jon??? That is some fast work, excellent work, I might add. I like the incredible details, impressive, and this is going to be a biggin too, wow! bookmarked!!!


Cheers, Ski.

[JCON]

May 8, 2021 10:02:41 GMT -6 Steve Ski said:

So, my first question is, do you ever get any sleep, Jon??? That is some fast work, excellent work, I might add. I like the incredible details, impressive, and this is going to be a biggin too, wow! bookmarked!!!


Cheers, Ski.

You saw his other one with me Ski in Spokane!!! 

[bravo1jon]

Sleep? Who needs sleep LOL. I model every day. Pretty much all day. If I wasn't modeling I would be painting but do to circumstances that changed how I was trained to paint I can no longer paint portraits. So the good Lord gave me scale models. The hardest part and still is for me is construction. Thank you for your comments I really appreciate it.

[dogfish7 (R.I.P.)]

I find this interesting to how a pneumatically assisted launch mechanism could help propel a loaded, armed aircraft on such a short distance. The G force had to be quite substantial.

[bravo1jon]

I launched aircraft on the USS Independence CV62. Our CATs ran on steam and barely got the job done so I agree with you. They must of had to put her into some serious wind to get loft. One thing that helps is this aircraft is extremely light weight. Most of the skin is canvas.

[dogfish7 (R.I.P.)]

I guess that helped and how did they get it back on the catapult again?? Maybe it was a one way ticket?

[bravo1jon]

They have a 12 ton crane that picked it out of the water and set it back on the catapult. I will be building one from scratch to go on the display.

[ARMORGUY]

AWESOME modeling, I had top rub my eyes!

[dogfish7 (R.I.P.)]

Wow! Look at the size of that thing!