Lothar

I'm quicker than some, slower than most... I think.  And I like having two projects going.  It allows me to have something to work on when I'm in the paint drying or otherwise waiting phase.  I can also shut down one build to concentrate on the other when I get to certain phases or moods.
 
Gonna jump right into the deep end with this one!  The engine!  I have some thoughts and preliminary ideas about the engine but I think the most critical thing is how the engine fits into the fuselage.  And there is no way to do that until we make the necessary cuts. So...

 
 
With the nose halves taped together, I've drawn the cut line just above where it should be to give me room to trim neatly down to the actual line of demarcation.

 
 
Razor saw made pretty quick work of the required surgery. You can see the panel line just below my cut line that I'll eventually have to get to.



 
 
The ironing board-shaped casting block extends along the entire bottom.  I don't have the necessary cutting tools to deal with such a large block but cutting the tip off the ironing board was enough for preliminary testing.

 
 
With the front tip of the casting block removed, and some minor shaving of the fuselage interior right at the front, the engine block seems to slip into position pretty well.



 
 
I've not attempted fitting the radiator intake parts but I'm going to assume that removal of the engine casting block will be necessary for those parts to fit.

 
 
I performed this surgery right away to help answer a question that I have in the back of my mind:  Do I consider using the Barracuda corrected cowling and spinner?  How will the reduced diameter of the spinner and fuselage section at the forward end impact the placement of resin engine?  Is it worth an attempt?  At this point, my mind is saying no, don't bother but I'm going to sleep on it.

Okay, I'm gonna spin up another build.  I purchased this one quite a while ago but after admiring the contents of the box after receipt, it went up on my shelf and has stayed there ever since.  It is not a subject that I am very familiar with but I started to think that, as a counterpart and worthy adversary to the Dora, it would be good for me to stick my toe on the other side of the fence.  It will be tough following the bar set by Chuck540z3 so please notch down your expectations accordingly.   I will be referring to Chuck's build along with others that have come before and hopefully add my own things here and there.
 

 
 
The Hawker Tempest, like the Typhoon before it, was a brute of an aircraft, which is befitting of its immensely powerful 24-cylinder liquid cooled Napier Sabre powerplant.  It is this powerplant that sets the Hi Tech version apart from the standard release.

 
 
Although I took the photos for it, I don't think I'll do a full sprue tour of this kit.  There are plenty of online reviews that highlight the kit contents better than I so I'll simply you to Iain's wonderful review posted here at LSP if you are interested in a walk through.
 
https://www.largescaleplanes.com/reviews/review.php?rid=1928
 

A few notes about the kit plastic... the exterior of the Tempest is fully riveted.  I don't know if I'm happy about that or not.







 
 
Although I like my builds to be riveted, I don't necessarily like it when the rivets come as part of the molding.  The rivets made manually using a circular rivet tool produce very fine holes and result in an effect that is subtle and not distracting.  Molded rivets are commonly too large and only a few companies can produce rivet detail that I think is great right out of the box (Tamiya and Eduard for example).  Based on my initial observations, the riveting is good in some areas and inconsistent in others.  The dot pitch of the rivets does not align with either the RB Productions Rivet-R nor the Galaxy Tools rivet tool so any repair option is going to be manually intensive.
 
Outside of the rivets, the molding quality on this kit looks very good.  One of the places that manufacturers commonly sacrifice on mold definition is the interior side of the fuselage, wings and landing gear covers.  Special Hobby has done an excellent job of not skimping in these areas.





 
 
I like how Special Hobby treated the fabric-covered control surfaces.. the stitching detail isn't overly exaggerated.

 
 
Given the amount of included resin and photoetch, it is somewhat surprising that Special Hobby does not give the modeler a choice when it comes to the instrument panel.  But, it looks like a good result can be obtained by using the plastic instrument panels with the instrument faces represented by decals.



 
 
The clear parts exhibit some scratching (maybe not the manufacturer's fault since I bought this kit secondhand) and some distortion as well.  I can fix the scratches but not the distortion, unfortunately.

 
 
Back to that Napier Sabre engine... the highlight of the kit for me is the beautiful representation of the Napier Sabre engine in resin.  The resin components come in their own little box.

 
 
Inside the box, I found four separate baggies of resin parts, including this bad boy...





 
 
It is not a complete engine but nevertheless an impressive representation of the upper half of the Napier Sabre from the exhaust stacks on up.  I don't normally like to model my aircraft with open panels but I'm going to make an exception for this one.  This resin is just too beautiful to ignore.
 
Here are the contents of the next baggie full of resin. I'm not familiar with all of the parts yet but I think this bag contains mostly engine components including impressively long and complex lengths of hydraulic tubing.  I believe the small block in the front are the four gun barrel tips.

 
 
This next bag contains some exterior components like the engine cover panels and resin versions of the wheels and pilot seat.  Although the cover panels are very thin, I don't think they are meant to placed over the engine, which is actually fine by me.

 
 
The last baggy holds mostly cockpit components, by the look of it.  I see foot pedals, a couple of different gun sights, the handle for the control stick, among other things.  There has been breakage of a few delicate parts but nothing that will be noticeable or significant, I don't think.

 
 

So sorry to hear about your loss - modelling is only a hobby, you do it whenever you feel like.
Lothar

Excellent progress as always - one question if I may: What nozzle size do you use for this
basic paint step?
Lothar

I'm quite curious to hear about your experience with AK. I'm about to order some, as they have ADC gray
in their range which I'll need some in the future.
Lothar

You have proven your ability to cope with small mishaps quite a few times, I have no doubts at all that this one will be another easy one for you. Other than that, outstanding work in all respects, impressive build so far 
Lothar

Thank you all for your good wishes. Just was released from hospital ths morning. I took a dive down the stairs on 1st of Jan. resulting in 
a fractured sacrum plus 3 fractured vertebraes which they tried to fix in a 6 hr. surgery. SWMBO now has all the reasons  to call me Mr. Titanium. Imagine,
more than 3 weeks with no chance to visit LSP - pure horror !!! Again, thank you for your good wishes and remembering me 
Lothar

A bit of cutter magic.
 
I used almost half a bottle of softener on the walkways of the Italeri Mirage III ( and those are Cartograf decals) so this time I decided to see if the Silhouette cutter can cut them. I also post shaded the model a tiny bit.
 
 
 
 

 
If you need the file just PM me.
Nick
 

Thank you all for your good wishes. Just was released from hospital ths morning. I took a dive down the stairs on 1st of Jan. resulting in 
a fractured sacrum plus 3 fractured vertebraes which they tried to fix in a 6 hr. surgery. SWMBO now has all the reasons  to call me Mr. Titanium. Imagine,
more than 3 weeks with no chance to visit LSP - pure horror !!! Again, thank you for your good wishes and remembering me 
Lothar

Thank you all for your good wishes. Just was released from hospital ths morning. I took a dive down the stairs on 1st of Jan. resulting in 
a fractured sacrum plus 3 fractured vertebraes which they tried to fix in a 6 hr. surgery. SWMBO now has all the reasons  to call me Mr. Titanium. Imagine,
more than 3 weeks with no chance to visit LSP - pure horror !!! Again, thank you for your good wishes and remembering me 
Lothar

Thank you all for your good wishes. Just was released from hospital ths morning. I took a dive down the stairs on 1st of Jan. resulting in 
a fractured sacrum plus 3 fractured vertebraes which they tried to fix in a 6 hr. surgery. SWMBO now has all the reasons  to call me Mr. Titanium. Imagine,
more than 3 weeks with no chance to visit LSP - pure horror !!! Again, thank you for your good wishes and remembering me 
Lothar

Thank you all for your good wishes. Just was released from hospital ths morning. I took a dive down the stairs on 1st of Jan. resulting in 
a fractured sacrum plus 3 fractured vertebraes which they tried to fix in a 6 hr. surgery. SWMBO now has all the reasons  to call me Mr. Titanium. Imagine,
more than 3 weeks with no chance to visit LSP - pure horror !!! Again, thank you for your good wishes and remembering me 
Lothar

Thank you all for your good wishes. Just was released from hospital ths morning. I took a dive down the stairs on 1st of Jan. resulting in 
a fractured sacrum plus 3 fractured vertebraes which they tried to fix in a 6 hr. surgery. SWMBO now has all the reasons  to call me Mr. Titanium. Imagine,
more than 3 weeks with no chance to visit LSP - pure horror !!! Again, thank you for your good wishes and remembering me 
Lothar

May as well chuck an image in, from my days out (remember those) vault.
 

I completed this year's first build last night, Hasegawa's very nice FW 190 A-6 kit.  I built the kit as a JG1 aircraft, mostly because I really liked the yellow and black checkerboard pattern on the cowling and the partial stylized eagle on both sides of the forward fuselage.  As JG1 generally flew out of airbases with asphalt or concrete hardstands and runways; and because the service life of aircraft were almost always pretty short from late 43 onwards, I kept weathering to a minimum - with the noticeable exception of the drop tank. 
 
I only used three AM items on the build.   An HGW seatbelt, Master barrels and pitot tube, and a set of Damian's outstanding landing gear (I'll using more of these excellent sets on future builds.  They are that good.). 
 
I also only did some simple and minor scratch building adding brake and electrical lines to the landing gear, flap and landing gear position indicators, an antenna line, and a throttle handle and circuit breaker panel in the cockpit.  I also scratched the base by scribing some evergreen stuff and then painting and weathering it.  I added the rain puddles because I thought the base looked a bit "boring" after I painted it.  Those puddles is one area that I wish had turned out better, but they do the job I suppose.
 
First up are some overall shots.
 
Ernest
 
I mostly closed the canopy hoping that it would lead the viewer to think that the weather is still threatening rain.   I toyed with the idea of adding wet areas
to the aircraft as well, but decided that had too high of a potential for disaster.  So I opted to show the bird dry - perhaps it has just been pushed out of the 
hanger.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Now some mid-distance and close up shots.
 
Ernest
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

Finally, some shots of the pilot figure which turned out pretty good.  It is one of the rare figures I do that I am completely satisfied with.  The face and hands were painted using artist oils and the uniform was first airbrushed with acrylic colors and the highlights and shadows were added using the same colors, lightened or darkened as appropriate, using a "wet pallet" hand brushing technique.
 
Ernest
 
 

 
 

 

Same angle/distance with softer lighting.
 

 

 

Extreme macro showing some of the detail painting.  You can also now see the sharp (at macro range) delineation of the flesh tones.  At 1/32 scale they have 
to be pretty defined, because the light and shadow effect will disappear at normal viewing range if they are too subtle.
 

  

Thank you all for your good wishes. Just was released from hospital ths morning. I took a dive down the stairs on 1st of Jan. resulting in 
a fractured sacrum plus 3 fractured vertebraes which they tried to fix in a 6 hr. surgery. SWMBO now has all the reasons  to call me Mr. Titanium. Imagine,
more than 3 weeks with no chance to visit LSP - pure horror !!! Again, thank you for your good wishes and remembering me 
Lothar

Diving down the stairs is not recommended practise Lothar, even amongst the young and foolhardy.  You're old enough to know better!!  Silly boy!!! 

Thank you all for your good wishes. Just was released from hospital ths morning. I took a dive down the stairs on 1st of Jan. resulting in 
a fractured sacrum plus 3 fractured vertebraes which they tried to fix in a 6 hr. surgery. SWMBO now has all the reasons  to call me Mr. Titanium. Imagine,
more than 3 weeks with no chance to visit LSP - pure horror !!! Again, thank you for your good wishes and remembering me 
Lothar

Horrible to read that Lothar!
I already wondered why you weren't around for weeks.
Nonetheless here's to a happy birthday. Enjoy the snowfall and maybe gift yourself to one or two LSPs

Wow! - would you recommend this?
 
Get well soon, Lothar
 
Richard

Thank you all for your good wishes. Just was released from hospital ths morning. I took a dive down the stairs on 1st of Jan. resulting in 
a fractured sacrum plus 3 fractured vertebraes which they tried to fix in a 6 hr. surgery. SWMBO now has all the reasons  to call me Mr. Titanium. Imagine,
more than 3 weeks with no chance to visit LSP - pure horror !!! Again, thank you for your good wishes and remembering me 
Lothar

Alles Gute zum Geburtstag Lothar!   Ich hoffe, Sie genießen ein gutes Weizen oder zwei heute!
 
Happy birthday Lothar!  I hope you enjoy a good Wheat Beer or two today!
 
Ernest

Hope you have a good day old chum and plenty of your favourite beer! You’re catching me up!