1/48 Tamiya Mosquito B Mk IV in captured markings

[Kahunaminor]

Hello all,

I have been unmotivated of late with my 1/32 Spitfire XVI, so as I was moving it to the shelf of procrastination, I saw this sitting there and decided to bring it up to speed. It has sat there, partially started for about 12 months:

 

 

As a bit of a gee up for one of my club mates, I am going to finish it in the markings of a captured aircraft used by the Luftwaffe's "Zirkus Rosarius":

 

 

Eduard PE, Ultracast seats, mudguards, exhausts and wheels will be used:

 

 

When I left it the cockpit area had been started and was at a base coat position. The nacelles and wings had also been commenced. I basically went to work on installing the remainder of the cockpit:

 

 

The bomber version had both an inner and outer door in the lower half of the fuselage for the crew to enter and exit. The navigator/bomb aimer's legs would lay across the inner door when he was engaged in bomb aimer duties. Tamiya supplied the door on their sprues (F4 I think) but it is not mentioned in the instructions. I had PE for the outer door (which I gave to the carpet monster) so whilst scratching that piece, I did some for the inner door mechanism. The cover was drilled out for the window and Micro Krystal Kleer would be added to make the window:

 

Here you can see the door in the sealed up cockpit:

 

 

More to follow

Regards,

Edited November 6, 2015 by Kahunaminor

[Kahunaminor]

Ultracast seats were painted, washed and flat coated. The armour warning marking was masked and sprayed on the rear of the pilot's seat:

 

 

Airscale instrument dials and placards were added as appropriate into the cockpit area along with the Eduard PE and then it was all sealed up:

 

 

The port fuselage side was carefully attached, trapping the cockpit and bomb bay sections:

 

 

The wings were added. I had to sand down the round locating pins on the spar to get them to fit inside the wings and enlarge them to allow the two wing panels to fit. This leaves me a slight gap on the wing/fuselage join but nothing a small amount of Perfect Plastic Putty will not fix. The glasshouse nose was masked and added without problem as was one of the fuselage windows. The port one cracked in half as I was applying it. I have affixed it and will try to remove the crack  or I may not:

 

 

I will prepare the canopy pieces for spraying the interior framing and once that is done, add the pilot's seat and close the canopy prior to tackling the seams. That way I hope to keep most of the dust out.

 

Regards,

Edited November 6, 2015 by Kahunaminor

[LSP_Kevin]

Lovely work, Kent! Cool scheme you've chosen as well.

 

Kev

[Kahunaminor]

Thanks Kev,

 

I appreciate you stopping by and commenting.

 

Regards,

Edited November 6, 2015 by Kahunaminor

[ClumsyDude]

That's some really neat work, Kent. Most impressive, especially as it a worthy 1/48 counterpart to some of the 1/32 masterpieces people are turning out at the minute.

 

Cheers

Jim

[Kahunaminor]

Thanks Jim,

 

It has sat on the shelf of procrastination for a while. The many excellent builds of the 1/32 version have piqued my interest. I am using it as a practice run at my big Mossie, which is sitting there at the moment.

 

Regards,

[Kahunaminor]

Onwards!

Using the Eduard masks, I masked the interior of the canopy frame work in preference to the decals that Tamiya give you. I had to do some minor modifications or additions but they came up pretty good:

 

 

 

You may note that some of them look a bit dodgy and incomplete. I went back over a couple but hopefully once I apply the masks to the exterior, it should all come together. A couple of small PE pieces were added to the canopy and then it was secured to the airframe:

 

 

In doing so, I managed to get a glue print on the port upper canopy. Thankfully all the paint is inside so a judicious application of graded sand paper followed by some more Future remedied that one! 

 

A fellow modeller posted some photos of this aircraft which revealed the spinners and props were not attached as the aircraft was only a display and never flown. This meant (a) cutting off the props and attaching the spinners anyway or ( some work on the exposed oil cooler faces in each engine. I chose route ( . Using my Olfa circle cutter, I cut a circle just smaller than the face of the engine nacelles from .005 card, punched a hole in the centre and affixed them to the faces. I will have to add some small gizmology to dress it up but I am happy with the result thus far:

 

 

The photos also appeared to confirm the decal sheet reference in that this aircraft had only single wing navigation lights, so the relevant wingtips were added as well as the rear stabilisers:

 

 

Masking the canopy exterior, I was careful to completely enclose the areas where there should only be internal framing, which meant covering some areas totally. I will use some liquid mask to ensure a seal:

 

 

Next up seams and priming, thanks for looking.

 

Regards,

Edited November 9, 2015 by Kahunaminor

[Kahunaminor]

Moving forward,

 

I continued to prep the aircraft for priming. I filled the forward ID light just aft of the bomb bay and made a new one just forward of the other two:

 

 

The engine front plates were painted aluminium, then masked and BIG sprayed around the fronts.The canopy also had some liquid masking to ensure a seal and the BIG was sprayed on the exteriors:

 

 

Some area received some Perfect Plastic Putty to eliminate seams. The wingtip lights were installed and  liquid masking agent applied. The first coat of Tamiya Extra Fine Primer was laid down:

 

 

I let that cure for about 24 hours and I was happy with the majority of the coverage. Some areas were shown to need a little more work (forward of the canopy, rear engine nacelles, lower window insert and some others): so I sanded these back:

 

 

 

 

Happy with the results, I will re-prime to check but the majority of the aircraft is smooth.

 

More to follow.....

 

Regards,

[Out2gtcha]

Looks lovely Kent! I really like the raised detail on the inner wings.

[Kahunaminor]

Thanks to a fellow modeller, I obtained these three photos of the aircraft I was building:

 

 

 

 

Which allowed me to discern a number of things including lack of antenna on upper fuselage, the props and spinners were not on the aircraft and the outer exhausts contained six pipes. Obviously the kit has a five exhaust piece. This then lead me to an interesting in progress thread by Jason C over on BM, which then lead me to Jennings' informative piece on HS concerning assymetrical exhausts fitted to some Mosquito B Mk IV. A couple of PM's and I had a set of two stage nacelles and an extra set of six exhaust pipes on the way. This would mean some minor surgery to turn the outer exhaust openings into the longer, squared off version. The small intakes just below the outlets would need to be removed and longer ones made. I would also need to fill the offset square panel on each outer nacelle:

 

 

Not pretty at the moment but with the arrival of the parts from Jason last night, I have used 2mm rod to fill the outer exhaust openings. This will be sanded back and filled to allow the more squared off opening. Hopefully, all being well, I may see some paint on by the weekend.

 

Regards,

[Out2gtcha]

Bit nice that

[Kahunaminor]

Some post surgery pictures of the exhaust openings:

 

 

 

 

I have test fitted them and it should look okay once the exhausts are inserted. The new inlets are 1mm plastic rod with the ends bored out. I will shape and fair them to hopefully resemble the original. 

 

Regards,

[Out2gtcha]

Looks great! 

[Uncarina]

I'm just catching up, but what an original subject for the Mossie! Great work so far! I did the same mod for my BOAC Mossie, using Jennings article.

 

Cheers, Tom

[ollieholmes]

Nice work so far. Ill follow this with interest.