Thunnus

Here is a short update with the painted throttle assembly. The decals are from Barracuda's cockpit stencil sheet... very impressed with how legit it makes the assembly look. The white glue knobs look more like blobs but I may or may not do anything about them at this point. I added the stitched beading around the padded headrest using stretched sprue. Thinking ahead to the engine, I use a piece of coiled wire to cut me those curved oil lines that go on each cylinder head. I'm taking a few days holiday with a trip to Hawaii. So no updates from me until next week! See you then!

Another great work, Milsoslav!

Wow... moveable parts really add a layer of complexity to this build but you've managed to make it seem so simple and seamless!

Yes! I also added a representation of grey putty around the panel lines because that was observed on Yellow 3. Chipping around the wing roots was done with hairspray. Thanks Kevin! I appreciate it! I did refer to your Avia build more than once during construction of Yellow 3!

Welcome back to LSP, Yves! I understand the trepidation of posting one's work here in the presence of so many great modelers but it really is a wonderful place to share your work and grow as a modeler. Your work is very beautiful. I like the paint and the weathering very much. The figure also looks to be excellently painted. Thank you for sharing!

Hi Guy... I'm probably not the best person to ask since I am not familiar enough with the F4U to know how the kit compares to the aftermarket products. Based on other builds and what I have seen of the aftermarket products, I don't think any of it is necessary to correct major inaccuracies or omissions, with the possible exception of the missing detail on the inside of the engine cowl flaps. But even that can be scratched fairly easily. The available aftermarket can be viewed as a next step up if the modeler wants to increase the level of detail on his/her build. I happen to think that the cockpit and engine detail is VERY good myself and that is why I didn't opt to replace with aftermarket. I'll add what I can to these sub-assemblies as I learn about the aircraft. That's part of the fun process for me.

Thanks so much for the comments! I appreciate it! I was unsure as to how this one was going to turn out since I changed directions so many times. Instead of my normal pre-shade routine, I was headed toward black-basing but then I swerved off into a totally different direction after playing with some ideas using the extra engine nacelle as a guinea pig. I was wondering if removing paint over a natural metal finish using Micromesh might give me a better interpretation of wear than the pre-shade/post-shade techniques that I was accustomed to using. This test pointed me in a certain direction and established a visual goal that I could shoot for. In some ways, I think the actual finish fell short of the testbed. I'm afraid some conservativeness and worry crept in when I should've been more freewheeling with the Micromesh, especially on the bottom. Many good learning experiences on this one!

Hey Gazza! Thank you, my friend! It's all the same plastic right? Some things are going to much simpler. No mottling, for example. However, the weathering and fading on these Marine aircraft is going to be a challenge to replicate. I have the base colors in both Mr Hobby Aqueous and AK Real Colors and they are way too vibrant and dark. So I have to put on my thinking cap and ponder how to approach the painting. Thankfully, I have lots of time before I get to that stage! Any show about WW2 caught my interest when I was growing up. Was the documentary series, The World At War, ever broadcast in Germany? I remember being engrossed in that whenever it aired. Thanks Guy! I'm jumping around a bit on this build. I'll be leaving for a short trip to Hawaii in a couple days so I'm not ready to jump in full bore yet. So just checking things out... working on small details. I took a look at the Vector resin cowl flaps. I figured that I could at least get the casting block off. Fairly easy to do since the connection between the block and the flaps is very thin. It only required a light sawing around the circumference to free the flaps. But the flaps are pretty delicate and have a very thin ring along the top edge. This connection broke during sawing and had to be re-attached using CA glue. Also, one of the corners of the flaps was busted off. It appears that this was already broken before I worked on it. I used a piece of thinned sheet styrene to patch the corner. In the photos, I can see a small hole/crack in one of the flaps that I didn't notice before. Should be an easy patch. I've been reviewing other Corsair builds online. There is some wonderful work on Corsairs and I found one here at LSP by Wolf Buddee that gave me a little mini-project to do... the throttle quadrant. I basically copied what Wolf described in words and photos. I modified the quadrant by chopping off the levers, adding slots to the top of the quadrant using a razor saw and then adding new levers made from small bits of photoetch brass. The knobs are blobs of white glue but they seemed to have dried looking like raisins and not round balls. I may have to re-do them. I hope Wolf doesn't mind me copying his work. I'm not able to do everything that he has done in his amazing build but following his work did give me inspiration to try some of his techniques. Thank you Wolf! I probably won't do anything significant until I return from Hawaii next week. So until then...

Thank you very much, Werner! I'm going to TRY an armor project for the first time but I don't know what to expect and can't say how it will turn out! Yeah, I lucked out. But you can only avoid the pitfalls for so long. During the final photo shoot, the mojo caught up to me... I blew out the delicate aerials. If you look at the full underside shot, you can see what appears to be a hair near the tail. That is the detached aerial. Thank you Torben... see above! Please feel free to use whatever you need to use from my builds! I'm just using things that I've learned from other people and hope to pass on useful tips and techniques to others. Yes, the build is finished! The Ready for Inspection post can be found at...

More pics...

This is my recently completed build of the Trumpeter 1/32 Me262 A-1a kit. The subject is Yellow 3 of KG(J)54. I added a few things including the Aires Me 262 Resin Cockpit and Wheel Bay set, the Barracuda 262 Resin Main Wheels and Nose Wheel, HGW Seat Belts and Montex Masks. The kit was backdated to an early A-1a including removal of the small bulges on the nose cannon covers and a different type of tail light. The entire build can be found at... https://forum.largescaleplanes.com/index.php?/topic/72974-132-trumpeter-me-262a-1a-yellow-3/

Big FW looks great! The chipping on the wing root looks fantastic! I know the internal details of this kit were a bit lacking but it has beautiful external detail. Trumpeter rivets never looked so good!

Thanks Rod! I've just about completed my Trumpeter Me 262 and have started on a Tamiya Corsair... please feel free to look at those builds too! Thanks Karim! Yes, it is the same model posted over at WW2aircraft. It became too tedious for me to post on mulitple websites so I've consolidated to two: SPAmodeler.com and here at LSP.

Thanks guys! Since the punch set was already out, I decided to use it to make clear dial covers for each instrument. These little clear discs were secured into place using a drop of Alclad Aqua Gloss as an adhesive. One step up from simply using a drop of clear gloss to replicate the glass covers. It's hard to tell unless the glare reflects off the glass. I put the instrument panel parts in a little plastic baggy for safe keeping. I jumped over to the resin parachute to see how easy/difficult it would be to remove the casting block from the resin parachute. I was especially concerned about the delicate loops and buckles. Holding up the resin to the light, I can see that the resin is quite thin around alot of the parachute. These areas would be fairly easy to poke through with a single swipe of a sharp knife. But there are other parts that have some thicker resin underneath. Instead of trying to extract the piece in this state and risk a broken buckle, I sanded down the casting block until the excess resin was paper thin around the entire part. After that, tracing lightly around the parachute was enough to free it from the excess. But even with my precautions, I had some casualties. You can see that the release cord has broken. In the end, those delicate parts I had tried so hard to protect ended up breaking anyway. So I had to craft some replacements. The release cord is a piece of 0.15mm lead wire and the harness clips are from some Luftwaffe belts I had in the spare box.

I am going to continue with the instrument panel. Here is the punch set that I am using. I also have RP Toolz larger punch set if I need bigger circles. The outer plate of the punch set is clear, so you can use the view outside of the punch hole you are using as well trying to look down the barrel of the punch to center it. Once the target is fixed into place, I usually flip the punch set around and take a look from another perspective to ensure that my punch is centered. Since the decal adhesive is on the detail side of the decal, the decal paper and decal weren't connected that solidly. In fact, during this punch and others, the decal came off of its backing paper. Not a big deal as long as the free floating dry decal is treated carefully. No sneezing! Using a small drop of water in each dial, the punched instruments were placed into each dial and positioned before dabbing into permanent position using a cotton-tipped swab. Once positioned, Solvaset was used to seal the deal. One by one, the instrument panel is fully populated with instruments. The other markings are from the kit decal sheet and the Barracuda cockpit stencil sheet. I'm going to cover this with a semi-gloss coat and let it dry for the next step.

Thanks guys! Another little thing that I wanted to take a look at was the instrument panel. Tamiya does something a little bit different here. They provide a clear backing piece to the solid plastic instrument panel face. The gauges are supplied as decals that you apply to the BACK of the clear parts. So the you have a clear lens in front of the gauges without having to mask. Neat eh? The clear plastic is domed for each gauge, giving a weird magnifying effect to whatever is behind it. Since there would be so much clear plastic between the decal and the front of the panel, I didn't think it would look good. So I decided to apply the decals to the FRONT of the clear parts and do the clear glass in a different way. I flattened the domed surfaces on the clear parts. Since I didn't need the clear parts to be clear anymore, I glued the backing to the instrument panel and painted it black. Starting with the smaller side panel, I punched out the instruments one by one and started applying them to the side panel. If you remember, the decal is printed reversed so I can't see any of the gauge details. I noticed that my punched gauges were not centered. Not wanting to mess up the main instrument panel, I wet the decal, removed it and put it back on the wet backing reversed so that I could see the gauge details. You can see that the white gauges are not perfectly centered within their black backgrounds. I'm going to let this dry and punch them out properly tomorrow.

A beautiful build Jan! I especially like the quality of your in-progress shots. They really highlight the amount of interior detail that Z-M packs into their kits, especially since it is hard to see once the model is complete.

That's a beautiful build! It's great to see Z-M tackle some subjects that are on people's bucket lists and you've done a wonderful job with it!

From your initial attempts with Alclad to this point are like night and day. You've done well to corral your learning experience into a wonderful looking natural metal finish!

Thank you Uwe! Thanks for the historical reminder that this was an actual aircraft that operated from the area you now work! The wood treatment on the prop blades was just a practice exercise that ultimately got covered up in the end. As you can see from the finished prop, the chipping is very light and you cannot make out any wood grain at all.

I shoot Tamiya and Mr Hobby (Gunze) acrylics through my airbrush and have been happy with the results overall. Since my experience is limited and there are MANY paints available these days, there may be better paints out there than Tamiya acrylics. However, you should be able to achieve good results with them. I employ thinner than "normal" paint mixes due to better utilize my pre-shading routine. For exterior schemes, I am commonly using 3:1 or 4:1 thinner to paint ratios. I usually thin my Tamiya paints with 91% iso alcohol but have good results with Tamiya acrylic and lacquer thinners as well as Mr Leveling Thinner. Based on your photos, it seems like you are getting a reduction in splatter on your 60/40 and 70/30 mixes. There are different ways to achieve paint coverage when using an airbrush. One good way of getting a nice smooth coat and modulating any pre-shade effects that you have laid down prior is to build up translucent coats slowly, ALWAYS keeping the brush moving to avoid pooling. From the looks of it, it looks like you can achieve that with the 60/40 and 70/30 mixes you have shown. The following is a sequence from a past build that is building up a light blue finish on the bottom of a 190D-9 using Tamiya acrylic thinned with iso alcohol. You can see how translucent the paint is after the initial application and how the opacity is built up over multiple passes. This allows me to dial in my pre-shade effects with a great degree of control. On the flip side... it takes a while to establish a color. You have to get away from the concept of trying to get paint coverage in one or two passes.

Thanks everyone! Gotta wait for the weekend for a chance to take some proper finished shots of Yellow 3 with my DSLR. But I've freed up some time to get started on the Corsair build. For something COMPLETELY different... I've also got a Meng Tiger II kit on the way. My first armor project!

The paint job came out great, especially the mottles, which can be tricky to get right. I agree with hairspray working better than the AK chipping products. That has been my personal experience as well.

Thank you Rob! It's a good kit but it wasn't the easiest build. Lots of shimmying and puttying needed to get the nose buttoned up and the wing to fuselage fit wasn't the greatest. I'm wondering if the upcoming Revell 262A-1 will be a better alternative.

Instead of showing all of the sprues, maybe I'll just cover the extras since I took the time to take photos of them in my light box. The Vector cowl flaps are the biggest addition. The set comes with a crankcase assembly but it might be too much of a bother to incorporate since it is a solid piece and some precise surgery would be needed to center the prop shaft hole, which is not something I am particularly good at. I'll compare it with the kit parts before I make a final decision. Photos of 740 indicate that it had smooth tires so I've picked up a set of Barracuda resin wheels as replacements for the kit's vinyl tires, which are treaded. The cockpit will feature fabric belts from HGW. Not as many buckles as a typical Luftwaffe set so this should be easy. I'm also going to be using the Barracuda cockpit stencils. Lots of tiny decals, many of them color-separated, which should make for lots of fiddly placement, I imagine. Montex masks will be used for the large markings. Masks are ideal for US markings since they cover so much real estate. And here's the True Details parachute that lots of people have used on their Corsair builds. There was one little thing that I wanted to take a look at before the build begins in earnest... the exhaust stubs. They are semi-hollowed out but are on the thickish side. Using a dremel and some metal bits, I thinned the exhausts a bit and deepened the openings. Something that caught my eye when reviewing the kit parts. I'll probably be doing little odds and ends like this for a few weeks as I clear off my work bench of recently finished builds.