karimb Posted May 20, 2017 Author Share Posted May 20, 2017 Gang, This update is going to be very quick and i apologize for that... First of all let me say i am deeply humbled by all the comments and encouragement you guys have shown me, so a really heartfelt thank you to all I have been swamped since our last build update. yesterday i had my annal linecheck flight to Riyadh, today i was the whole day on standby (but didnt get called to fly lol!) and tomorrow i have a very early Dubai roundtrip then i have two days off... i worked today all morning on the cockpit assemblies and i pushed on to the point where the weathering on most of the components is complete and some of the assemblies have been already flat coated... what a joy this kit is to work on... Today i have also managed to go to the mall and finally bought a proper camera to photograph the models as i am finding the iphone pretty limited in scope specially the white balance and focus and the such, so in comes the new RX100M3 from sony which was recommended by a friend of mine...hopefully this will improve the quality of the photos i will be posting... Off i go to catch an early night's sleep Will continue work on the AEG tomorrow if am not too tired and will try out the new camera and update everyone tomorrow night ! Till then stay safe and happy modelling! Karim Girlscanplay2 and Uncarina 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monthebiff Posted May 20, 2017 Share Posted May 20, 2017 Bring on the pics Karim......... Regards. Andy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Peterpools Posted May 20, 2017 Share Posted May 20, 2017 Karim my Friend Absolutely brilliant work. I sit here at a loss for words and just marvel at your creativity and abilities. I'm just totally blown away by the seat - and who in their right might gets so excited about a seat but it's just incredible ... just a perfect match for your woodwork. Keep 'em coming Peter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karimb Posted May 24, 2017 Author Share Posted May 24, 2017 Bring on the pics Karim......... Regards. Andy Coming your way Andy! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karimb Posted May 24, 2017 Author Share Posted May 24, 2017 Karim my Friend Absolutely brilliant work. I sit here at a loss for words and just marvel at your creativity and abilities. I'm just totally blown away by the seat - and who in their right might gets so excited about a seat but it's just incredible ... just a perfect match for your woodwork. Keep 'em coming Peter Peter my friend! Thank you so much for being so kind in your comments... i am really happy you guys are liking how shes turning out... it's a real privilege to have you along for the build Peter! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lothar Posted May 24, 2017 Share Posted May 24, 2017 I'm kind of addicted to "karimb" builds, can't see enough of them !!!! Lothar Girlscanplay2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karimb Posted May 24, 2017 Author Share Posted May 24, 2017 I'm kind of addicted to "karimb" builds, can't see enough of them !!!! Lothar Hey Lothar! Thanks for such a kind comment... just about to start on the update. Cockpit is done so i hope you guys like it ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karimb Posted May 24, 2017 Author Share Posted May 24, 2017 Hey guys! First of all thanks again for everyone who's tagging along and leaving comments. I am glad everyone is having a good time following the build and i hope it will be useful to anyone who is wanting to build an AEG in the future! I have been busy at work flying around and i had the last two days off...tonight we start again on the road going to Singapore and the day i come back i have 20 hours of rest then straight off to Munich then i am going home to see my daughter during my 5 days off roster, so i squeezed in almost two full days of work on the cockpit and i am happy to say it is done, minus some work i have to do on the LMG14/17. I also have taken the plunge and went and bought myself a new camera and a 80cmx80cm lightbox. I've always used the iPhone 6 to take photos of my finished builds but have been finding it harder and harder to maintain a constant quality in the focus and white balance of the photos and also in bringing out the details i want to showcase so i decided to buy a Sony RX100mk3 which was recommended by a friend of mine. The camera can go full manual and has a lot of advanced settings you can tweak to your liking from focus to white balance to shutter speed etc... It is a steep learning curve compared to point and shoot but i am enjoying the experimenting and also the tentative outcome below... The great improvement comes from the lightbox which i should have invested in a long time ago. I made sure to buy one big enough to comfortably fit 32nd scale kits with some elbow room to maneuver... Well, back to the build... next on the list were the PuW bombs on either side of the back of the cockpit and the rack below the passageway that leads from the pilot/commander seats and front to the back. I cleaned up the residual mold lines, and decided to paint them tamiya light blue instead of the wnw paint mix in the instructions (i have found the mix to be a bit darker than my liking). I also painted the nose fuses with mr metal color brass and didnt buff the brass up to keep the brass color dull... Now in photos i have found online of the PuW displayed at the Brussels Army Museum, and from references, you can notice when those bombs were primed they had a pin across the brass part of the nose. I decided against replicating that on the bombs in the racks as when the rack covers are on you just cant see the bomb tips... I have weathered the bombs by dabbing some light gray with a sponge to simulate chipping, an oil wash, chipping from a lead pencil and i wrote some random numbers on some of the bombs as ive seen in some of the reference photos. The fuel tanks. Just a simple wash, then satin coated to have a different sheen from the matt coated floors. I also added two pipes that run out of the caps on top of the tanks. I have tried to find where those two specific pipes run to but to no avail, so since the turtledeck will be covering most of the area and you can only see a bit of it later on, i just ended up adding those two pipes and snipped them off vertically at the angle where you cant see them anymore. the rods are made from brass wire from Aber (any wire would do!). I also added the three pipes that run out of the pipe that joins the two tanks to the filler caps on the left fuselage to make that area busy and painted them tamiya rubber black. The instrument panel. This part requires the sanding off of two 'British instruments' and i cant but thank wnw for pointing out their mistake (how thoughtful is that)... the instrument on the right side you snip off leaves you with a hole which i filled with styrene rod that i then cut to size and smoothed in. I also managed to sand away the small embossed placard below that instrument and just fashioned a replacement made out of sheet styrene cut to size. Panel was painted first black then gray green in a splotchy fashion so i did not get any uniformity in the coverage. The bezels were painted black and the switches in gray, titanium silver and brass as per wnw instructions. Glossed then the decals went on and behaved extremely well. I used walther's solvaset (although not really needed) to get the decals to really snuggle down into the nooks and crevices (a word of warning, do not use solvaset undiluted on the wnw decals as it will eat through them, ask me how i know. i dilute solvaset with a dot or two of water straight on the decal and it works much better). After the decals were dry i added multiple layers of AK's glass coat gauzy to give the instruments a glass face. Pinwash added from brown oils on the backside of the panel and black on the front. The control column. Wnw gives you the option to have the commander's controls removed, and since i had decided to have the seat stowed i thought it would only be natural to have the controls removed. I cut the commander's control stick off as per wnw instruction (to be later stowed in the turledeck) and drilled where the stick is supposed to be inserted for added detailing. That plug area was lightly rubbed with a lead pencil for scratches and a metallic sheen. Wnw gives you the 'thread' that link the steering yoke to the bottom of the pilot control in the form of pe. instead of painting the part, i blackened it with Uschi's burnishing liquid and then lightly buffed the part. Also attached the commander's rudder pedals to the separating wall in front of the pilot as he will not be using them for the time being! The yoke itself was painted with red brown then drybrushed with sand and then coated with a mixture of clear orange and clear yellow. The details were picked with nato black and with Mr metal color iron. Seat belts. I used the awesome HGW textile set (with the not awesome at all instructions). You have to assemble 8 sets of belts, each made up of 7 parts. Once you get into swing it starts feeling like an assembly line. The instructions have the part numbers labelled wrongly and i will put up an annotated correction here if you guys so desire, but i ended up modifying on part with a punch set 0.7mm as i had run out of straps with 'holes' in them. otherwise i am all praise for the hgw textile belts and harnesses and i think they really add alot to the builds. I also blackened the pe parts with Uschi's burnishing liquid and then buffed them to a nice gray metallic sheen. Weathering the belts is a bit trickier but i have my way of doing it (there was a thread on general discussion if i am not mistaken that was up for that very purpose not long ago). The way i weather my textile belts is by using Florymodels's clay washes. I load up my finger with your selected wash, then dab it until it is dry and then drag it across the belts. make sure you do not have a wet finger as the textile will soak in the wash and it will be unremovable. Done right you end up with really nice and grimy belts. I also flat coated the belts after that, and before adding the burnished pe parts. Of note, if you want to have some of the belts dangling like in the Kanzel or the back gunner cockpit, make sure you paint the backside of the lap belts (i used sand) so you don't end up having a white backside showing... Teddy bear. From the spares box (another wnw kit) painted with tamiya colors. Adds a bit of life to the cockpit. Still wondering wether to add a map to the rear gunner compartment shelf or not...we'll see Overall weathering and assembly. Weathering was done with oils for the side panels. I used quite a few shades of brown gray and black for the general grime and streaking (will go into details if anyone wishes). I also weathered the floors with Florymodels's clay wash grime which is a nice beige gray color and dabbed most of it off after it dried up. All flat coated afterwards. The fuel tanks were weathered with a black wash, oils for the grime and 'fresh engine oil' and 'fuel stains' from AK. I deviated from wnw instructions for the assembly sequence, as i added the furthest back wall first and the furthest front separation wall second then added the left sidewall. after that came the pilot seat, the pilot's compass, the control column, the middle angled separator and crossing plank and then the right sidewall... after that i added the ancillary items remaining. I had already rigged the front cross braces to the flooring (from EZline) and then rigged them to their locations on the top (Using Bob's buckles, thanks VonB). Bomb release cables CAed then trimmed. Otherwise, the assembly is very straight forward and i have no issues to report there, just the fit of the panel in front of the pilot to the flooring is a bit tight, make sure you scrape the extra paint off and the tamiya extra thin lubricated everything in position. Armament. Started work on the LMG 14/17. The wnw lmgs are really good and have no issues to mention at all but i decided to purchase the master brass barrels for the top two guns and use the wnw kit one for the bottom pointing one. Work has started on that one and once it is finished i will be able to call the cockpit completely done (cheating eh). Also in the matter of armament, i have painted the six drums that go onto the middle angled wall black and weathered them with a drybrushing of Mr metal iron... Well guys to be honest that's pretty much what i have done on the kit up to now (long with jumping ahead and filling in the three sinkholes on the outside fuselage, and filling in the pinmarks on the inside fuselage halfs). i am taking my time not rushing things because this kit is very special to me and i am hoping to have it sitting as a centerpiece in my display cabinet! I do have a couple of questions for some of you guys in the know, i have been trying to figure out if the turtledeck is supposed to have a panel line where you join the two parts and to see whether the nose gunner/commander's top fuselage part is supposed to have a panel line or not and i haven't really found any answers to that from the reference material i have at hand... i'll point it out in a photo ill put in the post. The photos have different backgrounds and different qualities so please bear with me as i finish my transition from phone to cam and work out the backgrounds and the lighting! Thanks again everyone for your comments and participation. Below the photos in no special order, from the earliest ones (dryfitted fuselage components) to where we are at present Till next update stay safe yall and happy modelling! Karim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karimb Posted May 24, 2017 Author Share Posted May 24, 2017 (edited) New photo gallery uploaded after my migration to Smugmug PART 3 Edited July 4, 2017 by karimb Girlscanplay2, tucohoward, Gazzas and 2 others 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobs Buckles Posted May 24, 2017 Share Posted May 24, 2017 One of the finest looking cockpits I have seen....ever! Well done, K Von B Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karimb Posted May 24, 2017 Author Share Posted May 24, 2017 One of the finest looking cockpits I have seen....ever! Well done, K Von B Baron Thanks for checking in on the build my friend! and thank you for such kind comments... to be honest it is one of the best if not the best cockpits i have built to date and i am glad you like it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DeanKB Posted May 24, 2017 Share Posted May 24, 2017 Not too shabby, not too shabby at all. Except for the poor bloke sat in the back, I'm not sure his seatbelt would do him much good as he's facing the "wrong" way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LSP_Kevin Posted May 24, 2017 Share Posted May 24, 2017 Fantastic work, mate. For the record, I think I like the white/light background the best. Kev Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gazzas Posted May 25, 2017 Share Posted May 25, 2017 That cockpit is beautiful! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jasta 14 addict Posted May 25, 2017 Share Posted May 25, 2017 This is just fabulous work you showing us my friend. That cockpit is simply said, extraordinary. This is really top notch work, and i'm curious about the rest of this build. Greetz Danny Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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