Shorts S.23 C-Class Flying boat, Canopus, Hugh Beyts, 1/575 Promotional Item for Kellog's Corn Flakes

This model of the Canopus Shorts Flying Boat was originally in a series of six Civil Aircraft given away with UK Kellogg's Corn Flakes, about 1985. The others were a 747, Concorde, Viscount (I think), Viking and Atalanta. A really inspired range. The sprues were about 3" x 1" so scales varied. Canopus is about 1:575. I have another example unbuilt and the tooling is subtly different around the windows!

I threw away the props as being over scale and having incorrect spinners, removed the plate that represented the float struts and substituted the finest "Strutz" material I had. Once assembled everything was thinned down and fine wire substituted for the prop bosses. Various shades of silver were applied and plate lines hinted at with a fine pencil. Rigging is from hair attached with thick varnish, one end at a time with about 24 hours to cure for each end! Markings and windows were generated in word and photocopied down and finally photocopied onto clear decal. The base is a cut down Kenco Coffee top painted black with a disc of clear blue ripple glass cut to shape by a mystified glazier (no charge). It is painted blue underneath. Wake is from white coloured epoxy with cotton wool which is teased out once the glue is dry.