Fvdm

Great subject Peter, have fun building it. I see you using carbon fibre rod. Do you glue this with regular CA? Or are you using something else?

After alot of fussing on lost hair, I'm FINALLY calling the head done!!!
 
That's all for tonight 
Tim

So here we go with another thread... thanks Kevin for separating the QF-4S posts from the Tomcat thread! 
 
Petr, Fred is right, it's the Cutting Edge conversion set. I have to admit I don't even remember when I started this project... 
 
Thanks a lot, Anthony! I think I already mentioned it in your thread, your huge Spey Phantom conversion inspired me to get mine back onto the bench. I wish my model was half as neat as yours which it certainly isn't... But I am not totally unhappy with it. 
 
I was rather busy yesterday evening. I really love painting such heavily worn TPS schemes. I re-discovered some great photos showing Scooby during restoration one of which showed a nasty replacement panel on the LH wing surface. I had already seen a differently painted panel on the pics I had but couldn't see any details. Now look at this - isn't that beautifully nasty?
 

 
The blueish/greenish hue looks very interesting and the dirty sealant gunk around it is a nice touch as well. 
 
The outline was masked, then I applied a thick coat of Mr. Surfacer 500. 
 

 

 
The Surfacer was a tad too old which made it a bit sticky (perfect for nonskid surfaces, though...) which caused the edges not being perfectly neat when I removed the mask. Not really a problem as it looks pretty nasty on the real a/c as well. The partial walkway in front of it was added as well.
 
 
And here is the same area painted and partially weathered. The blueish hue was obtained with transparent blue from Gunze.
 

 
The stencils on the wings were sprayed on using Eduard PE templates which are long OOP. Very useful and absolutely perfect for the kind of hastily sprayed on stencils on a well worn aircraft. They sadly don't contain all needed words. "Scooby" is plastered with "CAUTION" and "WARNING" stencils and I have yet to find some templates for those. 
 

 

 
Close up of the RH side wing surface. 
 

 

 
Lastly, the anti glare panel was painted on. Impressive how it totally changes the look of the model.
 

 
 

Hi there guys
 
My mojo has returned!
 
I'm in the middle of scratch building a auxiliary DC generator for the rear section. I have seen photos with the generator in the rear and I'm defo going to put it in mine as it looks fun to build and will make the rear section look more busy! This afternoon I sprayed it with my new airbrush (Paasche H... as my old Badger gave up the ghost before my summer break)...and will post it on my next update!
As for now I will give you a quick update on the trailing antenna mechanism that I have made for the rear section.
 
It was a bit fiddly due to the size but here are some photos.......
 

 

 
This next photo shows the tube that the line feeds to the outside of the aircraft.....made from a Biro pen...
 

 
...and here are the two parts attached...
 

 
...and just to show you the scale......
 

 
Here is the electrical box that operates how much cable leaves the aircraft....
 

 
All finished and all wired up.....
 

 
OK......that was a short post!
 
So the next post I will show the DC generator!
 
Until then....thanks for looking in!
 
Cheers
 
Fozzy

Thank you Alain, but I'm not there yet. I still have the windshield to modify and this will rather be the deciding factor if this one makes it.
 
In the meantime I unmasked the wings, it's always a great moment to discover the effect. 
There's a huge contrast between flat grey and bright red, this will be toned down with the next gloss coat. 
I still need to further work on some panel lines. 

 
 
 

Hi all,
The cockpit is ready to be fitted into the fuselage, when most of it won't be visible (why do we do it).
Additional pipes are 0.4 mm diameter lead wire.
Engine control rods are 0.4 mm diameter Nickel-Silver tube, chemically blackened with 'Black-It'.
The supplied seat harness was photo-etch and looked remarkably the same as the 'Eduard' set for the WW2 Fairy 'Swordfish' aircraft.
Needless to say I replaced them with the coloured textile set from 'HGW Models',
Mike.
 

 

 

 

 

 
 

Thanks Alex (and everyone else!).
 
So, speaking of paint.....this is just black Mr Surface 1500, but gives you an idea of whats to come.
 
 
 

Awesome!

Hey all,
the rivets are all down on the fuselage.
finally.
 
 
you are gonna lose some rivets to shop rash.
when I repair those spots which are typically one to three rivets, I mark their location by leaving the decal paper next to the repaired rivet(s) so I know where to come back to and smother with solvaset-


Might lose some more as I handle the model adding some parts before paint. I’ll inspect it for lost rivets again before I black prime it-
 
cheers
Pete

Just a quick proof of life picture. For the last couple of weeks it's pretty much been just doing stencil decals. The bottom is done and I just started the topside today. Been having some family stuff lately so not as much time as I would like but it's at least going in the right direction.

Looking good Kevin. Thanks for the tip on the WD40 and the cottonbud. I'll certainly give it a try. 

OK - so I got a little sidetracked this weekend - and did a bit more on the Camel.
 
I'm now back at option 'C' - the blue 'Suds' - and i can't change my mind again, 'cos me model's now blue! 
 
All tucked up in the paint oven (airing cupboard) for everything to dry - including some fresh oil paint and some *very* glossy MRP Black, ready for some shiny cowling work later this week.
 
I tried using one of the rudder stripe decals - was forewarned that on some of the Camel kits the decals have a marked propensity for breaking up  - so they were soked in hot water in a small container - and separated beautifully.
 
However, I applied several coats of MicroSol and made the mistake of trying to flatten a bubble with a brsh after the decal had been soaking in MicroSol for quite a while - so that broke that!
 
Will spray the rudder stripes - but helps me with getting the next decals right!
 
Also first go at some rib tape masking - and it came out OK - was aiming for a 'hint of subtle' and that's what I got!
 

 
Photo is a quickie on mobile phone - will get some better ones tomorrow...
 
And, yes, the blue won't look quite so neat/uniform on the finished model.
 
I can see why people enjoy building these kits - but I'm still dreading the rigging!
 
Blue skies...
 
Iain

All right.  A large milestone - the R-2800-8 is finished and on static display (my apologies for the crude mounting fixture).  A nearly year long adventure: 
 
   
 

 

 

 

 
Some lines were installed after the rear crankcase was installed - a large fuel hose from the fuel pump to the carburetor, and some tubing associated with the separator (the ZC yellow cannister on the side of the aft blower case):
 

 
With exhaust manifolds and the diaphragm:
 
 
 

 
 
When this piece of work gets installed into the aircraft, it will be a huge challenge to connect the myriad tubes, hoses, push rods, cables, and wire bundles to it.  Oh, and the complex shaped air ducts.  Wow.  But that is going to be a while.
 
Tell you the truth - I am not sure what I am going to tackle next.  The cockpit looms large, as does cowl flaps and nose cowl attachments, as does the engine mount truss. and firewall bulkhead.  I guess next post you will see.  Take care.

That is some real nice lozenge.  Great thinking of painting it instead of using decals.

Though I'm not finished yet, I thought I'd pop in and post an interim update on my progress with the canopy. It's been a ton of work so far, and quite a bit more to go yet!
 
You may recall that I had previously been talking about replacing the clear panels between the frames as a way of fixing the visible step marks from the 3D-printed master. After quite an effort to separate the opening section from the fixed section, I quite quickly changed my mind! There's just no way I would have been able to cut out and replace those panels accurately, and in fact it would have been a complete disaster. So, onto Plan B.
 
I did a quick dunk in Future floor polish to see how much things improved, and the result was encouraging. In a previous update, you can see that I had begun work on the internal framing, too. Well, I used Gator's Grip acrylic glue to attach the styrene strip, and when I dunked the canopy in Windex to remove the test coat of Future, it disintegrated the glue, too, and my carefully cut and applied frames fell off! Clearly, I was going to have to start again, using CA this time.
 
Here's a photo of the newly-separated parts, minus the framing:
 

 
I had to include a hobby knife in the photo so that the camera had something to focus on! You also get a hint of how buckled and distorted the lower edge of the hood piece is, but here's a close-up:
 

 
This is due almost exclusively to the material being paper-thin in this area, and is why I wanted to get those frames on early. You can also clearly see the striations from the master. The circular porthole (also present on the fixed section) is a soft bulge in the plastic, which I'll deal with in due course.
 
So, fast forward a couple of days, and we arrive at this:
 

 
It doesn't look like much work, but there were lots of re-dos, changes of plan, fettling and cursing to get this far. The clear panels were sanded and polished as best I could (used the old toothpaste trick on this one), and then the whole thing dunked in Future again. This produced a result orders of magnitude better, though still not perfect. I elected to leave the windscreen quarter panels alone, as I never would have been able to get into that tight space effectively. And yes, I should have done all this as a first step!
 
With regard to the portholes, I punched them out of the canopy parts, punched out clear discs to replace them, and then cut circular vinyl masks on my Silhouette Portrait that overlapped the join (these circular reinforcement plates can be seen in photos of the real thing). Each part was then dipped in Future to seal everything in. It worked great in theory, but unfortunately my execution was a bit off, and the circular masks are not lined up properly with respect to each other, and this will really stand out once things are painted. So, I'm probably going to have to do them again. At least the process is easily reproducible.
 

 
And amazingly, the two pieces still fit together!
 

 
To finish it off, I need to add the hinge and retraction detail, some cabling, and of course fix my dodgy portholes (misalignment clearly evident in the photo above).
 
Kev
 
 

Fatastic build. What a beauty

Thank you Albert.
 
Just a mini-update:  Completed the rest of the canopy framework and now that I have some protection around it, added the gunsight.   Fun Fact:  Despite "Ace Maker" gyroscopic gunsights being pretty common at this point of the war, these Mosquitoes were still equipped with the older Mk III fixed-reticle sights.   Supposedly these were more accurate for air to ground strafing and rocket attacks.  
 
Mk III installed.   Tamiya provides a nice little PE sun shield to with this.   Looks like I need to do a bit of touchup on the framework.  
 
Just an overall shot of my Mossie at this stage of the build.  Did I mention that she's a big bird?
 
That's it for now.  Thanks for checking in! 

Thanks for the kind words Anthony.
 
Final tranche of piccies :
 

 

 

 

 

 
Complex arrangement of the lower Cheetah E nose :
 

 

 
Canopy removed to show seat detail :
 

 

The Master metal pitot probe is gold 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

Thanks again all, I was back on the Toryu last night, and now have something much more resembling a plane. There are a massive amount of parts in this kit, and initially I was fearful it could lead to horrible fit. This may be true if you rush and/or don't align parts correctly, but in the end it all seems to work out. The top wing halves were glued on, then the top and bottom wing root fairings were glued on followed by the firewalls and horizontal stabilizer (vertical stab and rudder are just setting on top of the glued on horizontal stab). Much more plane like now:
 

 

 

 

 
 
 
 
The wing root fairings save one very small section on the port rear side fit really well and the four square pins used to lock in the vertical stabilizer really kept that lined up well, so overall, cheers to ZM! Harder to see without primer in this stage I know, but the fit is really excellent here:
 

 
 
 
 
 
Now onto the only real trouble spot I encountered while assembling the airframe. This was not due to fit of the kit, but rather to accommodate a mod I wanted to continue through with, and that was to give the rudder pedals, rudder and tail wheel all right rudder for some interest. This proved much more challenging than I had anticipated. Firstly the kit is designed to have the rudder fit straight ahead, so trimming and fitting was necessary. I had to trim the center fitting sections of the starboard half of the vertical stab, cut out the hinge gaps in the rudder, cut down the hinge tabs on the starboard side, then use some evergreen strip to extend the port side hinge tabs. 
Its not done by a long shot, as I still have to close the gap on the top hinge, cut and modify the rudder counter weight and smooth things out overall, but you can see where I'm going with it:
 
 
 

 

 

 
 
 
 
Thanks and cheers!
 
 

...After the white dries, the star mask is applied....

...A couple of coats of blue....

....Remove the masks and you have the US star and circle. Now to get the masks for the wings done and the "6" for the fuselage sides....

We go on...
slowly 
 
Wing needs bolting down. Still major work to be done, but we will get there in the end.
 
von Buckle. 
 

Literally just have sticking on finished bits like landing gear and running lights to go now.  It's been quite a journey.  I am really pleased that I took the plunge on the Silhouette machine.  It's easy to use and (with the Oracal 810) makes nice masks.  I will be using it for some significantly more complex masking on the  next project (over in the Training Day group build).

Apologies for slightly fuzzy pics!  First fiddly bit done, more to come!