Archer Fine Transfers

Camera phones are primarily engineered to give a good photo on every day occurrences like vacation photos, selfies, etc. and use what's called "auto white balance". Knowing how to defeat that in processing is the key.

Got a coat of paint on. Will need some touch up that'll probably take longer than it did to get this on, but this is what I have so far. Rib stitching is a bit too prominent, but that can be fixed. One of the most important things I’ve learned so far is that some of our products could be improved, and they will. I've got several new products in the pipeline. Until next time.

Valejo Model Air. Yea, yea, I know. I'm back in the hobby after 20+ years and I'm having a love hate relationship with paints and will be testing the paints from Mission Models based on the reviews I've seen, but I've been straining my paint since the 80s. Size is hard to say because it depends on your airbrush cup. The ones I use fit about 3/4 the distance to the bottom of the cup. An alternative would be to use a strainer funnel like this. You should be able to get these at a large art supply house like Dick Blick.

Ever wonder why your perfectly clean airbrush spits chunks and/or gets clogged? It's probably the paint. Why take chances? Get some pipe filters and save yourself a lot of frustration. From today: Not an isolated incident.... Five cup fills and five filters save the day.

Future decanted 50% is an excellent adhesive. Put some in a jar and leave it open until there's only half left. TIP: Anything that will stick to two things will stick those two things together. Straight future is too thin unless you use several applications.

There's nothing wrong with modern phone cameras, so don't spend more money for a stand alone camera. I've had more than my fair share of of those light boxes and never cared for any of them. I'm too impatient dealing with trying to get just the angle I want, moving the subject for every shot and not having the edge of the box in the way. One of the best kept secrets in photography is called "open shade" which is nothing more than a shady place open to the outdoors. Direct sunlight is a definite no-no. Place your model on a white surface to get some bounce light to fill any shadows. Since your subject is bathed in ambient light you just set it down and YOU move around to get the angle you want. The problem with artificial lighting is that very few people understand it, so use what nature gave you for free. Another very important this is "white balance", make sure you understand it and use it properly. Although this isn't a model airplane it demonstrates how open shade works. My photo.

Don't know if you noticed but the mule is not painted the correct colors, I just picked two at random to test the masks.

No tri-color. Was overall Light Gull Gray, repainted Intermediate Blue over Light Gull Gray as far as I can tell. I'm following the instructions that come with the Yellow Wings sheet of Wake Island Wildcats but I don't have them in front of me.

Thanks for the kind words. Just by dumb luck I knew about the drop tanks by reading a review here so I got that covered. My Wildcat is going to be a Wake Island one, but one that was destroyed in the first raid. Fresh off the carrier so minimal weathering. A tribute model for Lt. "Spider" Webb who lived very close to me. He was seriously wounded in the first raid and wound up a POW.

I built a new gunsight based on the kit part. I drilled out the kit part, put a chrome disk in the bottom and made the lens out of epoxy tinted with Tamiya clear yellow. Scratch built the brackets and used clear acetate for the reflectors. Not exactly “correct” but it is what it is. Propeller. One of the big problems I have is that my hands aren’t steady enough to paint the camo scheme so I made masks which took a couple tries but it was time well spent. My test mule. Pay no attention to the colors, I just grabbed two colors to test the masks. If the model turns out this good I’ll be happy. The odd scheme on the cowl is unique to Wake Island Wildcats. The planes were painted on the carrier delivering them and the prevailing opinion is that they draped a cover over the engine and cowl so they didn't get paint on the engine. I'm going to try some pre-shading on the mule. Never tried it, just like almost everything else on this model.

Finally got a coat of primer on but there were problems, of course. One I gotta’ own myself because the model sat on the bench for a couple weeks and picked up dust. No big deal, I’ll just wipe it down with some IPA and use a paper towel that someone told me is “lint free”. Long story short, It's not and I didn’t realize how much lint was on it until I started priming. So I had to stop and tediously remove all the lint I could fine, which went okay. THEN! My completely clean airbrush started clogging and spit out a few chunks. At this point I’m like “the hell with it” and soldiered on clearing the occasional clog. I knew the airbrush was clean so just to see what would happen I filtered some with an ancient filter funnel I’ve had for 40 years and sure enough the primer has chunks in it. Lesson learned. It could have been a lot worse but now I have to do some sanding to get rid of the problem areas. See those five dots in the filter screen? Those are chunks of primer and they do not pass harmlessly through an airbrush. I guess I’ll be filtering my paint from now on. Enough whining, this is what everyone seems to be waiting for. Comments and critiques are always welcome. Don’t be shy - an honest critique is a catalyst for improvement.

I'm at my wits end trying to find a DECENT Mk. VIII gunsight for my Wildcat. Quickboost has one but it doesn't appear to include the reflectors and the ones I got from Master Details are junk.

Don, That's interesting because that's exactly why I'm inquiring! How did you make the "well"? Was it already molded into the kit or did you make it somehow? My experience is that you really can't just try to lay it on a flat surface in a teardrop shape so I even considered taking a round brass rod and filing the end into the desired shape, heating it and pressing it into the kit to make a well. Sounds risky so that's my Plan B based on what I see when my formation lights come from Russia. I did manage to find CMK formation lights but those things are insanely molded in a way that I couldn't imaging trying to get them off the "sprue". I've also found that Bondic doesn't harden right away. Even after I let it sit for a few days it still dulls if you rub your finger over it so I put a coat of Future (clear acrylic) over it to seal it. I figure if it's not hard it will gradually pick up dust. At this point, I'm thinking tinted epoxy is still my best bet.

Which color did you use? If red, you may be on to something because red blocks UV. I used blue and "cooked" that stuff for at least 15 seconds.

B-26