Out2gtcha

hi everyone
Hope we all had a nice relaxing Easter break?  Not much to report on this one as I am waiting on some more paint to arrive as I couldn't stand that splotch on the front panel - so I stripped it right back and repainted it. Not the whole ship - just the front section
 
 
Did a dry fit of the engines and they do look good. I just need to wire in the filament but due to the complex way Revell have you put the whole lot together, it's going to be a challenge to say the least
 
 
 
 
 
 
Well, that's it for now. She's sitting on the shelf awaiting the new paint. Once that's here, I should get her finished pretty quickly - I hope. In the meantime, I am working on my HMS Exeter which I'm hoping to have done for Expo
Thanks for your patience and I'll see you again soon
Si

Worked on giving this little guy a new habitat.......all XPS foam, 3D printed wood, and 3D printed crickets and Sculptamold texture with Tamiya rattle can paint.........
 

 

 
 
 
 
After some Sculptamold texture, paint, sand, ECT ECT...
 

 

 

 

 
 
 
 
After the silicone holding the crickets on dries, I'll apply a small bit of silicone to each of the  dragons feet and get him installed permanently.
 

here I am!
forgive me for the time between one intervention and another, I can let time pass through my fingers like water in a stream...
 
after completing the camo I had given a very light veil of yellow on the wings, to make the colors uniform compared to the trend of the same in the fuselage, more shaded and mixed together. and then I masked and gave it white, always MRP:

 
before applying a coat of pre-decal clear gloss I very gently sanded some areas to highlight the rivets, for example near the cockpit, where I also made some scratches to suggest the passage of pilots and specialists. and then... decals! as I was saying, I had a customized decal sheet printed for the creation of various subjects, including this one. so apart from the fasces and the technical data on the tail, the rest is up to me.

 
whose film is a bit thick, while those of the kit are discreet, even if they made me think the worst, then and there.

 
sure, they could have been applied a little more... let's say that the decals are not the strong point of this kit, as far as I'm concerned.
the savoy coat of arms is outrageous, anyone does it better. I should have a Special Hobby sheet somewhere, but I couldn't find it, ergo I went to cannibalize an Italeri one.

 
the writing with a shadow relating to the serial number is well done, except for the detail of having provided the decal sheet of the serial number "XXXX" instead of a series of numbers to be assembled or even just four numbers at random.
my solution was 50% successful: the serial number is correct, the dimensions are also correct, but they have the black border on all sides!

 
I tried the only thing I could try: touch up with a brush with gouache. and to think that my mother was worried about me losing diopters thanks to Edwige Fenech!

 
even the fasces in the fuselage, damn...

 
alright. gouache, triple zero and a little luck...

 
other dividends from the custom sheet, the stickers on the propeller blades. the first one here is good, I'd say.

 
another small problem was getting the subalar fasces to talk to my electric contacts... here I risked doing serious damage, but it went well in the end.

 
oh, all this done, and after a further coat of gloss, sanded (all repeated a couple of times at least, with some further application on the sides of the fuselage) I gave a coat of satin and began to position the struts, preparing even the few lines provided.

 
in reality I proceeded in pairs of uprights starting from the center: positioned a pair, checked the correct position with the upper wing resting, glued them at the bottom. pause for reflection, another couple and so on. in the necessary intervals of time I dedicated myself to something else, for example the gunsight mirror.

 
or the position of the spotlight in the cockpit.

 
Having archived these two little things, I placed the only transparent one in the kit, very well made and very precise: even just the thickness of the paint in its seat bothered it, I had to bring the contact surfaces back to the bare styrene.

 
once the windshield was in place I created the padding with two coats of vinyl glue, easy peasy.

 
and I implemented/rebuilt the generator for the underwing lights and the venturi tube, changing the propeller blades on the first and rebuilding the second from scratch with brass, aluminum and styrene.

 
and that's enough for today, I would say... coming soon upper wing, landing gear and various trinkets.
bye bye, Paolo

Nope Kev, I went to take some but by the time I finished today the light was rubbish - here it is on my kitchen table
 

 
..and it isn't RFI yet - I am waiting for the flying wires to be etched from stainless steel - couple of weeks yet
 
Will get some better shots and update the WIP
 
TTFN
Peter

No rest for the wicked they say, so with the paint drying on my S6B it's time for a new project..
 
I built a Hobbyboss Sea Fury back in the day and added loads to it including a visible engine and I have always wanted to make a large scale one. The problem was (and is) it doesn't fit in my display cabinet. I remeasured it the other day and somehow got my sums wrong and thought it would fit so off I went and started researching.. Turns out I was right the first time, the airfame is a beast and won't fit so will need a home once complete (or I get a bigger cabinet..)
 
My last one was the civil demonstrator G-AKRY, but now I just proved to myself I can paint an aeroplane, this one will be a service machine. Choosing one is harder than I thought - it's got to be RN, but to be honest, they were all painted the same
 
for now I chose this one VX620..
 

 
I started with Jumpeii Temma's plans and checked these with Will at DBMK on the one they scanned - they were bang on, so I designed the parts for my cutter..
 
also made a 3D cowling..
 
..the brass bar is to keep the keel rigid..
 

 
..the keel was taped to a flat sheet of acrylic and all the formers added - I also 3D printed a wingroot section to help alignment..
 


 

 
..I have had problems with plastic card cores flexing during construction so I clamped an ali bar and added the other side, moving the bar as I went..
 

 
..very quickly the fuselage took shape - it is huge..
 
..the floor is too high here and had to be chopped out and lowered - this is the problem with not having drawings
 

 

 

 
..having designed the cowling, I spent some time doing the prop, spinner and a basic engine front..
 

 
I think it came out pretty good - it defines the aeroplane so has to be right..
 

 

 
..starting to look like the brute it is..
 

 

 

 
..so thats it - off and running with a new build
 
..A plea for help - if anyone has any good interior pictures of the cockpit, seat, seat bulkhead, rollover structure, please drop them here or PM me
 
also if there are more unique RN schemes out there I am definately open to a rethink
 
TTFN
 
Peter
 

Hi all,
The Macchi M.5, Serial No.7242 as flown by Tenente di Vascello Federico Carlo Martinengo, Officer Commanding No.260a Squadriglia, operating from Saint Andrea Seaplane Station near Venice during 1918.
 
As usual a detailed build log in PDF format can be viewed or downloaded from the 'Logs' page on my web site.
 
 Web site
 
The forum build thread is here:
 
Build thread
 
Mike
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

Yep, that's enough.
 
Kev

https://aeroscale.net/news/ju-88-a-1-f-a-5-f-ju-88-d-5-conversions-released
 
John must be feeling better.  That is great!!!!
 
Greg

The painting of the markings from the masks as well as the laying of the decals was successful, not everything had to be painted from the masks. The end is near so it is high time to look around for the next model.
 

Beauty eh!

FYI - Heard from Ernie on LSM and Bev on FB that Harv has had a setback. He had gall bladder surgery yesterday, which went fine, but then something went wrong afterward and he coded. They got him back but he had a seizure and is now in a coma as of the last info. 
 
Tim

A few peaks of the engine set, note there will be an early and later style cowling. Just sorting out a few details over the next little while.
 

So, with the Minicraft build on hiatus for a few days while I let the clear coats harden as much as possible, I thought I'd press on with this one, as it stills need a lot of work. While there are still some other areas that need attention, the last major construction hurdle with this build is getting the engine pylons to fit. In an earlier post I discussed swapping the rear of the Bra.Z pylons with those from the kit engines, but the more I looked at this as a possible solution, the less of a solution it appeared to be. And then it suddenly struck me that the major issue I was facing was that the angle of incidence of the wings was too high, meaning that the pylons are at completely the wrong angle to the wings in order to achieve the correct sit.
 
Armed with this knowledge, and discounting the Welsh pylons as completely inadequate in terms of overall shape, I set about modifying the Bra.Z pylons to suit. Firstly, they're much too short, so I decided the best approach was to cut the rear sections off, and place them separately in the correct positions on the wings:
 

 
This left the engine pod with very little contact with the wing surface, so I elected to drill and pin them:
 

 
Apologies for my awful rescribing! My favourite scribing tool is now a bit worn out, and no longer producing clean lines. I'm currently in the market for some new ones, and happy to take recommendations!
 
With the engines now dry-fitted on their pins, you can see the respective gaps between the rear of the engines and rear section of the pylons:
 

 
The oddest thing about this is that one of the gaps is noticeably larger than the other! So either the Bra.Z pylons are different lengths left to right, or the Welsh wings are different in chord left to right. Either way, I now have substantial gaps to fill.
 
Here's what it looks like right way up:
 

 
These mods should work, but won't do anything to improve the "757-ish" look of the finished model. I am left with a bit of a conundrum, though. From a construction point of view, the easiest approach here is to glue the engines in place, break out the Milliput, and fill and blend everything together. However, since the engines need to be blue, painting them properly will be much easier before they're attached to the model. The usual "have it both ways" solution here would be to lay down some self-adhesive foil where the pylons sit, temporarily glue the engines in place, fill-blend-sand-etc, and then remove them for painting. I'm just not sure if this approach will work with regard to filling the large empty spaces in the pylons themselves. I think it might be better to build those sections out with styrene or lumps of resin (from old casting blocks).
 
I guess I can but try. Stay tuned!

Kev

Rainy day at the new bench. I feel like I’m going nowhere just fixing all the little things that need fixing, but it must be done. Today I’ve been doing the control surfaces and the landing gear doors. 

Great work!

My late father always used to regale me with tails of his time in the USN.....................I loved his story about when he was a mechanic, and during training on land, he used to hear the wildcat pilots grumble about the P-51 pilots from a nearby Army base giving them the "business" buy flying up along side of clean Wildcats, and dropping the gear and partially dropping the flaps then throttling up, pulling away and lifting the gear and flaps, laughing all the way.
 
Then when his squadron got Bearcats, the guys would pull up long side clean P-51s and drop their gear and partially drop the flaps, and accelerate away with the gear down, and slowly pulling the gear and flaps up as they pulled out ahead and away from the 51s................
It always amused me as a kid, and still does to this day. 

The next step was to protect the decals and existing paint work with a couple of heavy gloss coats:
 

 
I used Alclad's Aqua Gloss, which I generally reserve for those occasions where I'm concerned that a solvent-based clear coat might affect the decals - which is the case whenever they're laser-printed, like here. I'll leave this for at least 48 hours now, before going anywhere near it with masking tape!
 
I've also discovered some errors and omissions, some of which I also plan to attend to. The most visible one is that I got the colour of the engine pylons wrong. I assumed they'd be white like the engines themselves, but they are in fact the same light grey as the wings, so I'll be attempting to correct that, at least.
 
Might get a chance to do a bit more work on the Welsh kit now. At least I know not to bother with the Corogard decals!
 
Kev

Beautiful!

Interestingly, the Ed Force One decals are from V1, and despite being laser printed, they performed beautifully. The FCD Coroguard decals, on the other hand, are screen-printed, but don't settle down by themselves, and react badly to having anything applied over the top of them! It's going to be a lot of work to get those Coroguard decals off and mask and respray them, but it's not worth trying resurrect them at this stage. I did that with the 767 build, and while that worked out OK, it's really not the way to go here. I do have a plan, and the only uncertainty in my mind is what colour to paint them. Might have to do some tests on a mule first.
 
Kev

Beautiful!

Bomb now assembled and spritzed with MRP OD 41. Still some minor errors to correct, but I assumed that might happen. So, the OD at this point, basically serves to highlight the errors to be repaired, or at least that’s the story I’m sticking with.
 

Might not be the same aeroplane, but...
 A-20G-20-DO "Barry's Baby" , # 42-86768

 
 

 

There are a couple of options on this sheet from AIMS, white 3 as per the instructions, but also the aircraft below, which isn't featured on the instructions, but there on the decal sheet.
 
 
 

 
Eduard instructions
 
Finally, Montex made an A-4 conversion same markings as below, if you post a decal request in the Traders Forum you might get lucky... 
 

new rebox of A-4 available for preorder from March 30th
 

 

In German, but shows the sprues and decals.

Intake was puttied and sanded smooth
 

 
Painted cockpit with cushion from epoxy putty




 
It's a big one


 
Airbrake wells painted red like in F-14