Fanes

Beautiful start on the cockpit! There was a thread on here some years ago indicating that the oil filler hatch on the cowl is in the wrong position on the Trumpy kit. Might have saved it somewhere for my future build.

I took a deep breath and made the cut on the real wings. After around 20 dry fits and small adjustments, the new radiators were a drop fit. Well, actually a wiggle-to-drop-fit because of the glued wing halves but anyway now I'm here: and with the housings dry fitted: The fit may look a little bit rough but the intake ramps were'nt glued in the above picture. They're CA'ed now and it looks like there's only minimal clean up required. Less so, if I could have fitted them from above... To finish up the fuselage I have to insert the camera in its bay, but it needed some paint before that. Here we go with a dark blue grey for the F.24 and a little darker hue for the cradle I will have to figure out the actual attachment in the fuselage now. There were wooden cross bars with a slot to attach the cradle as it can bee seen partially on this PR XIX. The bars themself were directly attached to the bulkheads. So, it's down to cutting some styrene sheet/profiles.

Makes sense - what a lucky coincidence for me

Test run succesful As mentioned above, I did a preliminary test on the starboard wing. The halves were tapes and clamped together to simulate the glued wings. Long story short: Eureka - it works Same procedure as before was applied supported by some work with a grinding disc to open up the wing roots. It took me about twice as long as with the unassembled parts but after some sweating and swearing and around one hour I was this point It's not as good and clean as the other side but I'm now confident enough to cut the real thing As a bonus I have a prepared set of wings for my next build.

Thanks Aaron and Kage - drop tank is on order! Hehe, you're welcome Allright Andy, you got me there.. Fiddling with the radiators Luckily I have a second (and soon a third) Revell Mk. IX in my stash and it's supposed to become a PR XI in the future. Since the PR XI is my favourite Spitfire by far - just so elegant and sleek - it will definitely get the Barracuda radiators. But for now it will be my test mule. Did some chain drilling on the port side: A quick cut later: (sorry for the vertical photo - scalemates annoyingly doesn't want it to be horizontal) After some cutting, scraping and sanding we have a positive fit! I don't know why, but I only had to cut a little of the upper wing half to get it to fit - no modifications on the Barracuda part were necessary. Or am I mistaking somethin @Wackyracer? Here's a direct comparison of both versions from above. For reasons I don't fully understand, the Revell part fits worse than its resin sibling And why am I doing this? - well for anyone who hasn't seen this mess before: compared to: I guess the winner is clear! But back to my initial problem and the already assembled wing with the guns fitted, the rivets on the leading edge filled and the weird bulge above the wheel wells removed. Does it blend?? - hell yeah it does!!! As you can see, the wing halves were taped together to simulate the glued wing and I was able to do that: You can remove the radiator after the assembly which means it is feasable to insert it in the glued wings as well. The only problem now is to make the cutout on the assembled wing. I will try this later on the starboard side of my test mule. Stay tuned Joachim

Hehe I felt the exact same way As to weathering: maybe a protective clear coat follow by some oil colours?

What a stellar natural metal finish.

It looks fantastic! I have their Hispano Suiza conversion for the 109E-1 and hope it's as good as the Buchon

Filling, sanding and filling again isn't that much photo worthy but unfortunately necessary. I've been looking through my saved reference pictures aof MK716 and stumbled over a "wrong" photo: That's clearly not MK716 but with some digging that seems to be MK915, which is included in Pastor John's Spitfire decal sheet . It doesn't seem to be built as often as MK716 which makes it even more appealing. Both airframes look quite similar with two details from the above photo that differ from MK915: it doesn't have the wheel covers but 5 spoke wheels; Revell only includes 4 spoke ones and I thought to get away with adding the Tamiya PE covers for MK915 --> luckily there's a set of Barracuda wheels with the correct amount of spokes in the stash MK716 carries a drop tank under the fuselage. I was only aware of the slipper tank but this seems to be the cigar shaped one which was originally from the Hurricane or Typhoon Brengun makes a 1/32 drop tank and it seems to be of the correct size and shape: (picture from the Brengun website) A question to the experts: is that the correct drop tank for a Spitfire? If not. what's an alternative source?

Thanks for checking in John! I hope your hands will be getting better - there's so many more Ju 88s to build for you That's what I feared, Aaron. Thank you very much for protecting me from a (too) late finding. Anyway, how's your PR 1G coming along?

The undead Spitfire Well the Mojo kicked in - maybe triggered by my raflle win - and a bunch of long awaited AM has arrived from Hannants. I'll use some of Pastor John's beautiful PE parts to dress up my FR IX - most importantly the camera compartment door. My scratch built attempt was for sure everything but beautiful. The Barracuda parts are meant to solve two emiment shortcomings of the Revell kit. A: the horrible radiators The replacement parts were ordered for my planned RP XI conversion (with another AIMS set) buuuuuut they would suit this Spitty as well. Only problem: I already glued the wings and you're supposed to drop them in from above. I see the following options: live with what Revell provides cut the alignment tabs from the resin part, drop in in from below and then struggle a lot to get them flush try to wiggle them in with their alignment tabs - may be possible since the inboard quarter (I guess) isn't covered from the wing's top What would you recommend? B: the carb intake Revell's intake is awfully short and misses the prominent lip. My initial plan was to hack up the Tamiya part and that to Revell's lower cowl. The Barracuda part adresses said issue with a drop fit replacement. But see for yourself (Tamiya - Revell - Barracuda): Well, upon closer inspection I noticed that a certain someone ordered the wrong resin part. Now I have the short intake as opposed to the (late) long one. Hello - another order from Hannants... C: the swiss cheese, eh rivets A well critized aspect of the Revell kit is that they let Trumpy's mad rivetter let do the fuselage surface detail. They are really way too deep. For unknown reasons the detail on the wings and one side of each elevator is much more refined. My solution so far: a heavy coat of primer sanded back to plastic to make the rivets more shallow The rivets on the engine cowl are much finer. Didn't notice that without the primer though. Up clos to where we are now. The vertical lines aren't stressed skin but nasty sink marks. I'll get the CA and sanding stick ready. Once the surface is clean and smooth, I will finally get to install the camera in its compartment, insert the cockpit and close up the fuselage.

And I live in constant fear of overexaggerating it

Painting is done (for now) Yesterday evening the RLM71 was sprayed. I left it overnight to dry, so these photos are still fresh. This time I used AK real color lacquer paint and was pleasantly surprised. On my Zipper build they were not even close to the MRP performance and required perfect thinning to work as good as the trusted Tamiya/Gunze acrylics. In the last session the AK colour was thinned with around 60% levelling thinner and went down quite smooth but with an ever so slight orange peel. One thing I hadn't noticed before: I needed to get over a treshold paint flow during the marble coat or otherwise the airbrush would clog/tip dry within seconds. Once above the treshold I could go for about half an hour without cleaning the tip. Good to know but not the perfect behavior for a mottle camouflage or super fine lines. Anyhow - enough talking here's the Jungmann in all its green glory: You have to look close to see the black basing effect (damned lint on the wing) I couldn't resist to pull the masks: The insgnia turned out mostly okay with a big oopsie on the O: and a little paint bleeding under the masks - most of it could removed by polishing with Micromesh and a toothpick. The first J on the starboard side suffers the same problem. Note: never apply the insgnia with a negative mask and then reapply the positive mask without an alignment aid. Something I didn't expect but oh my gawd the NAGr 3 emblem turned out marvellous: I'm off to the bench to paint some small stuff like the wheels/tyres and the wooden prop. See (or read?) you soon Joachim

Hats off to you and all your builds Miroslav! May I ask how big your display cabinet is?

A 100% agreed, Brian! I have their CR.42 and Sea Gladiator in the stash and I'm seriously considering the Tiger Moth. Not to speak of their choppers.. My only complaint for alle the ICM kits is the soft plastic. It makes sanding hard to predict and the landing gears are so flimsy - thinking of your Cobra

It wasn't supposed to be a Christmas haul, more a birthday present to my self. But the shipment from hannants git stuck in customs for over two weeks, so it's a belated present for Christmas now A little amount of AM for some forthcoming and ongoing projects:

Undersides painted I'm in the mood for some progress and luckily have the time to spend at the bench. The undersides recieved their marble coat. I thinned Gunze's RLM65 wih aorund 60% of levelling thinner to balance fine lines with opacity. The idea was to emphasize the Buecker's nature of mostly fabric surfaces. Therefore all the ribs were painted more solidly than the rest of the airframe. It might look a little rough - I wasn't going for a perfect mottle. Afterwards everything was blended in with a colour/thinner ration of 20/80 (more like tinted thinner) I guess the effect is obvious up close: And I couldn't resist to pull the masks - et voila: The insgnia turned out better than expected (from my previous experience). Only slight ridges an minimal bleeding on the left cross Both problem can and will be erased with some fine (8000 grid) micro mesh. If I can keep up the pace the RLM71 will be applied next.

Clean and beautiful work. Proceed!

I can only chime in the praise: thanks K2 for the organisation and to all the donors making this possible! It must be some weird luck to win another kit from @Rockie Yarwood after I got a Trumpy TBM from him in last year's raffle

Paolo - rgarding the rib tapes: You might want to take a look what Max is doing on his Tiger Moth build: Might be a worth a try? Cheers Joachim

Baby steps With the Buecker in the painting process I figured that there is some progress on the Wildcat which I forgot to post. Everytime I had to spray any white for the Buecker's insginia I did a little marble work on the Wildcat's belly and fuselage as well. The idea was to keep a balance between complete random contrast and accenturating the panels. We'll see how it'll look once it's blended together. The fuselage sides are ready as well. I went a little higher since I wasn't sure where the demarcation to the Dark Gull Grey is exactly and where the stars and bars will go. As soon as I get to finish painting the Jungmann's RLM camo, the ASW Wildcat will return to the paint booth to recieve a blend coat of MRP insignia white to pull it all together. There's no hurry here since the step afterwards would be cutting masks for the insignia and I'll wait until Jennings will release his decal set (probably in the next month?) Until then have a Merry Christmas and a wodnerful time with your beloved ones Joachim

Short update: code letters The overlapping codes were painted with a 50:50 mixture of Tamiya semigloss and NATO black. Then the masks were removed and the tail band was masked with tape: The area were the code letters would be placed was painted with the same almost-black-mixture and the covered with the individual masks. I altered the spacing between the letters in my file to be able to apply them in pairs instead of one after another. The reaseon for this procedure: I can never, ever get them aligned exactly parallel. I'll lay down another black base to get a uniform base for the camo tomorrow. Might just manage to get the RLM65 down before christmas eve.

Thanks Jaro - I can't praise masks (especially the self made ones) high enough! It's a ton of work and they might never be as perfect as decals but you can use that to your advantage.

Painting the insisgnia (caution: lots of pictures incoming) I've been busy the last days with preparing and starting the insignia. Let's start with the easy part: The crosses and the white parts of the underside crosses. First of we have a white base which has some variation and a huuuuuge dust blob (removed that later) Then there are the masks with the black lines to help with the alignment Pulled the white parts' mask with Frisket film ready to transfer And they're on. I tried to aid with the placement by wetting the surface like with a decal. I think @MikeMaben hinted that trick in another thread. Good news: it works Bad news: the fuselage cross mask doesn't stick - you'll see that in a later picture The upper wing crosses are much more easy to do since they're only white. The transfer film is here absolutely necessary since the mask would otherwise bend and distort itself. The fuselage (with the lifting on the mask's edges). I guess the fuselage shape plays a role since Oramask doesn't conform well around sharp edges or raised detail. Round and smooth shapes weren't a problem in the past.. The yelloq tail band is unusually far behind on J2+JO. Since yellow is a fun colour to paint (not), I laid the yellow mottle over a white one. Using MRP yellow helps a lot in creating a thin but almost opaque finish. Several very heavily thinned coats (2/1 MRP / levelling thinner) later we have a nice RLM04 tail band with some variation in colour (hard to photograph). As usual the macro reveals any small mishaps like the prominent grain which wasn't visible to my eyes - oh well a little polishing will help. The port side with the red cross for the first aid kit compartment door painted. Now for the ugly an time consuming part. My Buecker has its codes overlapping with the tail band. The last letter has to be centered on the demarcation. Placing the mask was a lot of work to get right on both sides. The O was the easier of both since it's symmetric and therefore simple to align. The J on the starboard side needed some Tamiya tape and markings for the alignment but I hope it turns out okay. I'll paint the letters with black later today and after a decent drying time I'll have to mask them again (the other way round this time), as wella s the tail band in order to paint the black base for the other code letters. Until then Joachim

That's what it's meant for Maybe not any size - stuff smaller than 1mm didn't work for me when cutting Oramask 810. For the really small and/or precise circles a punch and die tool works great, especially with Tamiya tape