Cap'n Wannabe

A civil L-19....this'll be interesting!

So I got off my butt and did some more painting. I used Mr Colour Phthalo Cyanne Blue and SMS Aluminium. Masking it was a bit of a pain....took me three goes to get it right (ish). It's almost at the point where I can run around my lounge making BRRRRRRMMMMMM noises..

Just curious, but does anyone have factory drawings of the Tiger Moth? Or can point me in a direction where I might find them?

....more specifically, on Hasegawa's 1/16 Sopwith Camel. I've never painted a wood finish, and I'm looking for tips and tricks on how to accomplish this. What's a good base colour, what type of paints should I use....that kind of thing. Yes, I've been on youtube and had a bit of a look, but most videos I've seen relate to painting props, not ribs and stringers. I'm guessing these might be a bit different.. Cheers!

IIRC the interplane struts need to be shortened by about 3mm for the correct dihedral.

I'm not sure whether to try to use pieces from the remaining decals to cover the cracks or not. I ended up spraying the remnants of the sheet with Testors decal bonder, so we'll see.. Also started to close the fuselage. It was a little tricky - I had to trim one side of the IP to remove a gap in the front fuselage, and there are no locating pins. Still, so far, so good.

So, in an attempt to restore my mojo - which has been gone for a loooooong time! - I decided to bite the bullet and build one of my Williams Bros. Ford Flivvers. I have plans for the second one as a WIF, and those in Australia *might* be able to guess what I have in store for it... Anyhoo, this is my progress so far - painting and decalling the wings and horizontal stabilizer. Unfortunately some of the decals cracked while drying, but it'll never be in a competition, so I'm not *really* worried about it.

I *really* must resurrect mine one day!

OK, so nothing to update at the moment. Been too busy working my dream job! Long hours, but well worth the time it's taken me to get it. Also, I haven't really looked for a match to baby-poo brown yet..

Yeah, it does. I was very disappointed when I opened the box. Still, I have one each of the floatplane and land plane..

Well the embossing powder arrived the other day, and after watching a coupe of youtube videos, I applied it to one of the resin parts. Looks ok, I reckon.. The next thing is to make a full seat, including painting it the baby poo brown first..

Just out of interest, here are some photos of the various 1/48 Cessna 172 fuselage sides. First is Nichimo. Note the sidewall/door details: And here are the ESCI/Modelcraft (top) and Minicraft examples: Note the Minicraft kit has no detail at all. That's mainly why I don't like that kit - the detail is very important as you can clearly see the sides through the windows. Also, the prop just looks wrong to me. Mind you, I haven't had a really good look at the kit yet.. So, what I have been toying with is casting either the ESCI or Nichimo sides and putting them into the Minicraft kit. Not sure if it would work or not, but I'll give it a crack..

G'day Ben.. Here's a pic of the ESCI wheels and spats. The ESCI kit was repopped by Modelcraft, and I personally think it's a better kit than the Minicraft kit. And just for interest's sake, here's all of my Cessna 172 kits... From the top: Nichimo 1/48, ESCI and Modelcraft 1/48 (same plastic), Minicraft 1/48, another Nichimo 1/48, and Marui/Tilt 1/36.. F-Toys 1/144...these all come pre-painted And Nichimo 1/20..

So now I have two complete sets, with a third on the way. That should do for the moment....I'm waiting on some embossing powder to arrive so I can move to Phase 2. I will be using the original plastic parts for the model - these resin copies are just for practice.

After a few - quite a few - failed attempts, I think I've come up with a solution to the casting issues I was having. The first seat back I cast came out almost perfect, but then I found that no matter what I did, I couldn't get it to cast properly. The solution was to force the resin into the mould using a pipette. Same story with the seat base. I'll have to re-do the mould for the seat base, but that's a pretty simple task.