Citadelgrad

Decals and wash applied. Rivet lines are inconsistent in depth so after flooding them with black they look exaggerated, so I used white-gray in places. I used this mixture (and brown/light brown Tamiya enamels) to add some worn effect, dust streaks, smudges where it was most "tormented" by maintanance. Even front canopy doesn't fit perfectly, some sanding needed...

Here we go;
 
As if it was God's command, we started from the cockpit again.
 



 

I've really always wanted an LSP Ultra Saber. 

F-107 had the same hairy setup.  Yikes.

F-107 had the same hairy setup.  Yikes.

Painting stage, all of "decorations" painted using mask or handpainted like bell-emblem on tail (not perfect but had no decals unfortunately). Im not a fan of black-basing rather like to brighten surface using surfacer as a base, then I modulated primary colors making efects of worn metal surface. I will use decal roundels i'm not patient enought to mask them :).


 

 

 

 

And these..
More photo's to Come in " Ready for inspection"
 

Special Categories - Lightning Deals - Sprue Brothers Models LLC
 
No affiliation, and I just picked up a Ju87 G here with aftermarket for a song, so I am not buying one.  

Wow that is a good deal for a nice kit. Lordy I wish Hasegawa was still doing kits like this; basic with few bells and whistles, but good shapes, reasonable surface detail and a great platform for aftermarket if one wants more detail and affordable... 

Special Categories - Lightning Deals - Sprue Brothers Models LLC
 
No affiliation, and I just picked up a Ju87 G here with aftermarket for a song, so I am not buying one.  

A really great deal unless you have a boat load in the stash.  I must resist!  

My George is just ready for an oil wash. I had a problem with yellow stripes on the fuselage. First I used a decal. However, compared to reality, it looked too uniform and partially transparent. Therefore, I masked the border of the stripes with Tamiya tape and painted with a brush.
 
 
 
 
 
 

Special Categories - Lightning Deals - Sprue Brothers Models LLC
 
No affiliation, and I just picked up a Ju87 G here with aftermarket for a song, so I am not buying one.  

Got the tail antenna up..still needs to be blended in. Also the tail beacons. Continuing to skin the belly-

 

Here a finished in Flight Model , build by a friend of
mine Torben Weckeck

I had a set of "Ace of Spades" decals made for a tank I was working on for a veteran.  
 
I sent them a blurry pdf of an unobtainable decal sheet in the wrong scale.  I can't remember how much is was but after trying to find them everywhere I was happy to pay.
 

 

 
 

 
I got a bit of silvering, but that was my fault.  They lay down on a gloss very well, but the tank was 3d printed and I could not get a suitable surface.  
 
Very responsive and didn't take long to get them.  

Cockpit finished, resin seat and HGW seatbelts from the box. I added Eduard instrument panel.




Thank you John, I decided to bend underside fuselage part to met with fuselage halves.

Agreed, but Stalin was SCREAMING for a second front, so even he thought it was important. 
 
ive read a decent amount about the western front, i will say it was a different kind of war, the brutality on both sides was almost bliblical in its savagery.  

Hello everyone!
Here with another update on the Thunderbolt project.
In my previous post I had finished the basic painting of the airframe.
I made an effort of depicting the metal patina by spraying white aluminium over a silver base mottled with dark gull grey.
The next step was to do some panel variation by masking various areas and painting over with dark aluminium.
For the exhaust area I used steel.
I admit the masking process wasn't fun but the end result was worth it.
With the overall metal airframe done I then painted the antiglare panel with MRP olive drab using the black basing technique.
Chipping was done by previously applying masking fluid with a torn up piece of sponge over the aluminium paint before applying the black and olive drab colours.
With painting done I will soon be moving on to the application of the decals with the rather cheesy nose art!
 









 











 

On Monday I expect to get two Malcolm hood canopies from Shapeways.  A highly anticipated package I can tell you.  Meanwhile - I learned enough from the Malcolm hood test to proceed with "production part" fuselage skin panels, with the Malcolm hood panel additions and roller bars incorporated into the parts.  Here are the 3D printed parts:
 

 
The P-51 expert will recognize the oval hole - the flare gun port.  The angled edge is common to the firewall, and the other (aft) edge) is coincident with the station 146 frame, just like the real thing.  Why not?  A close-up of the roller bar:
 

 
You can see some slight imperfections on the printed surface near the oval hole - no prob, remember this fuselage will be skinned in aluminum.  There are groups of three "discs".  The center disk is actually a large head for an attachment bolt, and of course the outer discs are the rollers.  They scale to .875 outer diameter - it is an educated guess on my part.  Or at 1/18 scale - 0.049 inch diameter.  What you see is about half of the bar's length.  The other half (aft half) will be either a separate part on its own, or incorporated into the aft skin panel. 
 
And I wasted little time bonding the skin panels to the framework secured on the jig: 
 

 

 
Put the windshield on there just to impress y'all.  Of course these fuselage side halves can be removed from the jig - and now they have a bit of robustness so I can work on them: 
 
  
 
This was a thrill, I can tell you.  A nice step towards a completed forward fuselage one day not too long from now.  And a nice step forward to validate the idea of 3D printing an entire airframe.  
 
It was about this time that I noticed something disturbing.  Do you see those double frames with the little intercostals in between them?  Those comprise the station 104 frame, and that is where the wing front spar bolts to the fuselage at the lower longeron.  Well, the LH frame is similar to but also different from the RH frame.  The LH frame is designed to interface with the control pedestal mostly, while the RH frame is designed to interface with the spare lamp stowage container, and radio equipment.  So their profiles are different.  So what did I notice - in an act of amazing stupidity a couple weeks ago I attached the LH frame to the RH side of the jig, and the RH frame to the LH side of the jig.     This after paying so much attention to each frame to make sure they are accurate.  After putting out my hair fire, I settled in to fix-it mode.  I have some ideas, and I think I can make it ok.  Not perfect but OK.  What I cannot do is disassemble it - the epoxy and CA are too strong.
 
In the coming days, I will be working with the Shapeways Malcolm hoods soon as they arrive, and populating the side panels with cockpit stuff.  Lots of stuff.  I will start with the control pedestal on the LH side I think, and the nearby bomb release quadrant and support.  It is this stuff that now must interface with a wrongly shaped sta 104 frame.  Gonna require a magic wand.  Then, I think, I will go to the RH side and figure out how to modify that frame to interface with what it is supposed to. 
 
Take care, this modeler is a little steamed right now.  And motivated.

The black Slipstream edition is the kit that I built...

 
Black and silver are my least favorite plastic colors to deal with but like I said, the effort is worthwhile...

And a little paint. Not done yet. Lots of touchups and improvements still to go.
 

 

 

 

 
That's all for today.
 
Dan
 
 
 

1st big skin up-

Looks awesome !!
Steve