Six-Footers

When I start a model, I usually decide at the outset if I want to make a really nice display model, or if I'm just going to make something that will hang from the garage ceiling. I call these latter models "six-footers" because they look pretty good at a range of six feet.

The decision to make a model into a six-footer is usually determined by objective circumstances. Sometimes the kit is missing an important part, usually the canopy. Other times the kit is just really nasty, like the alleged F-84F Thunderstreak that Testors was hawking for a while. Or it's a kit that just doesn't seem to benefit from cockpit work, like the SR-71. You can do all the cockpit work you want, but you won't see any of it, so why bother?

Six-footers usually have their landing gear put away and no cockpit detail at all. I usually paint over the canopy when I paint the model, and later hand-paint the "glass" blue or black and cover it with a few coats of Future to make it glossy. This greatly reduces the amount of work required to finish a model, and I can concentrate on the things I like doing - overall painting and decaling - and avoid the things that I don't much like doing - masking canopies and working with landing gear.

This weekend I finished an MPM P-63 King Cobra, a Dragon Tornado ECR (the 1/144th scale one) and an Emhar F-94C Starfire. They were all six-footers, and all for a reason. I lost the canopy for the King Cobra and the Tornado, and had to carve passable replacements out of Durham's putty. I didn't like the level of detail in the F-94's landing gear or cockpit and decided not to bother.

This probably drives the purists nuts, but that's okay. Purists don't hang their models by fishing line from the ceiling of their garages anyway.

I have an old Arii P-51D Mustang that I was going to make into a six-footer, but as I looked at the parts it struck me that it was actually quite a nice model, and I put it back on the pile. Someday I'll finish it as a nice display model, unless of course I lose the canopy. Then all bets are off.

Also on my workbench is an old Dragon He-219 Uhu night fighter, which is also getting the six-footer treatment. Several parts were missing from this kit - remind me someday to tell the story about the dust storm - and I had to carve a new canopy and belly cannon tray out of Durhams, and tonight I made replacement "stag horn" radar antennae because I also lost the photoetched parts. It won't be as nice as it would have been had I not lost all those parts, but I did lose them, and now it's a case of having a fairly nice six-footer He-219 or throwing it away, because I won't buy aftermarket parts for it.