turbo

Very, very nice John! The camo and weathering have come out wonderfully.

Cool, looks good Mike! How do you find the Cameo? Is it a 4?

Thanks very much guys! Just doing some bits I've been avoiding to finish up this build. The previous owner painted a frame down the middle of the canopy. As pointed out by Mike earlier, the Emil did not have a frame here but rather overlapping panes of plexiglass that the pilot could slide open, which is sometimes mistaken for a frame. Thanks for pointing it out, sar! The canopy was masked off and the offending paint stripped with a q tip moistened with IPA. The Matchbox canopy also has these bizarre and ugly locating tabs running along the bottom of the canopy. Thankfully a design concept that never caught on. Paradoxically, I will retain the bottom one for its intended purpose of supporting the canopy posed in the open position, but will sand off the top one. The kit landing gear is also nothing to write home about so....I won't. Here it is painted, weathered with oils and pigments and fitted to the airframe. OK, just the fiddly finishing touches to go now....

Great result John, I think the chipping effects have come out really well!

That is looking great John, I love the detail you have added - looks fantastic! I've always wondered if that photo is pseudo-coloured John. There is another photo of the same aircraft taken at the same time which is black and white. I'm wondering if what looks like the original grey / green on the aft fuselage is actually overpainting of invasion stripes which was present in odd and varying patterns on the Banff birds.

Great work John, that is a remarkably distortion-free canopy!

Except you started a month after me - you're a machine John!

That's a great recovery with the paint John. You've got the chipping and weathering looking lovely now, I particularly like the subtle streaking on the flaps.

Thanks Chuck, that's very interesting. I've got the trumpeter tool but mine is quite sharp and creates a line that is deep and thin and, as you say, tends to dig out plastic and wander. So the answer is to get another one or tool that is blunter... Resin nose looks great btw!

Alrighty, getting to the final weathering steps. Some extra staining and streaking from the oil cooler was added along with some sponge chipping on the leading edges of fairings. Urgh, those wheel wells again! This concludes weathering on the underside. Exhaust stains were airbrushed and some subtle chipping added to the airframe. Machine gun barrels were painted flat black and rubbed with graphite powder sanded from a pencil. The kit exhaust stubs were already hollowed out which is nice for a kit this age. I painted them burnt iron followed by weathering with Tamiya rust and soot pigments. OK, we're into the home straight, thanks for following along...

Thanks very much everybody! I think you're right John. I had some oil weathering steps I wanted to do after the salt fading so needed the gloss coat, but might have to rethink my sequence...

Thanks very much for your very kind words Troy, I'm humbled! I agree with you, the detail on this old kit is crude compared to modern standards but when I stand back from it I really love the beautiful lines and accuracy that Matchbox achieved for the Emil - truly an achievement over 40 years ago. I guess this is one of the reasons I wanted to build it largely as is, a piece of modelling history! Cheers, Kirby

I'm one of the "we all" who have this kit in the stash! Love the mossie so will be watching this conversion with interest!

That looks like it's giving you some grief John, interested to see what you come up with!

Great work John! That tyre design is very clever by Tamiya - no more bloody great seam running around the tyre through the middle of the tread which is always a PITA to get rid of!

I've had this beading problem with MIG chipping products too John, so have reverted to good ol' hairspray which doesn't seem to have the same problem. I don't know if hairspray has some surfactant component that the MIG products don't that help it to cover better? I've successfully combined sanding with hairspray chipping before, maybe another qualitative difference between hairspray and MIG products or just layer thickness or something? In any event, as you say sometimes you can get these problems to work to your advantage and I'm sure with your skills you will!

Been busy the last few weekends and lost a bit of momentum with this one, so time to make a lunge for the finishing line. I applied a flat coat to seal the weathering so far and get the model towards its final finish. Despite washing the model with soapy water before flat coating, the next morning I was greeted by the dreaded salt re-crystallisation. It was even worse on the port wing where I was obviously slack in drying off the model after washing it. This is an occupational hazard of using the salt fading technique. I still don't quite understand why it happens, but fortunately there is a relatively simple fix. I moistened the affected areas with soapy water and gently buffed with a soft sponge to resolve the problem. Having averted that mini disaster, I proceeded to the next layer of weathering with some chipping using a silver prismacolor pencil. I still have some other parts of the airframe to do with a darker shade, The prop blades were painted black by the original owner, so these were stripped and repainted RLM 70 and weathered by salt fading and sponge chipping. I've found this is a good combination for weathering props and I'm fairly happy with how it's turned out. Into the home straight now - just exhausts, some final weathering bits and pieces, and final assemby and she'll be done. Thanks for stopping by!

Lovely work Brian. I've got a Nick in the stash so taking notes!

Great looking pit John, the detail is fantastic!

That PE looks good on the wheel wells Alex. Are you going to drill out the lightening holes? RAAF No. 75 squadron has an interesting and well-documented history, particularly in New Guinea and the Battles of Port Moresby and Milne Bay but, yes, they flew P40s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No._75_Squadron_RAAF

Great work John, the IP looks pretty good to me!

Thanks John. I usually try and chip within 1-2 hours of applying the topcoat - unfortunately not very convenient and often means painting the model in sections. Sometimes I've even noticed chipping getting more difficult as the session goes on. Good to know acceptable results can be achieved out to 24 hours.

Sweet! A couple of questions if you don't mind - what thinner did you use for the Mr. Color paints and also how long were they left to dry? These variables can also affect the chipping behaviour. Thanks for sharing this test John, very useful!

Ah, just the question I wasted an hour googling the interwebs on last night! Mr. Color have some paint colours I need for a project I have in mind but I don't know if they can be effectively hairspray chipped like their aqueous version or Tamiya. Be very interested to see the results of your test! Great start on the engine btw!

Pit looking fantastic Alex and good to hear fit is trouble-free! Tamiya's engineering on these 1/32 scale kits is just amazing.