Alex

Before starting on the exhaust staining, I had to apply a coat of clear flat, as pastel dust won't stick to the gloss clear you need for oil/enamel weathering. Here's the first pass on the exhaust: The clear flat (I use Mr Color GX114 FWIW) only has so much "tooth" to it, so it will pretty rapidly saturate with pastel. To get the darker staining that you see near the exhaust outlets, I had to do multiple applications, separated by fresh coats of clear flat. Thankfully, because lacquer paints dry so quickly, I only had to wait a few minutes before going to the second pass: And then the third, which got the color as dense as I wanted it: You can see in the above photo that I also added some dirt ground into the wings from people walking around the ammo loading bays. I also added some indication of exhaust flowing under the wings and staining the lower fuselage a bit: It was then time to assemble the complex landing gear structure, from pieces that I had pre-painted and weathered. They fit only OK, and needed a bit of last-minute tweaking for everything to work out: Really wanting to close this one out before I leave for a two week trip (tomorrow), I went and did the final assembly without taking any more photos. This basically amounted to installing the wheels, running lights, engine and cowling, prop, pylons, gunsight, and canopy. Here are some views of the final product: That was a bit of a marathon. The kit had just the right combination of complexity and imperfect fit to make for a LOT of hours required to get to a result, aided by the fact that it's just a BIG object to work on. I'm pretty adamant about my policy that single engine prop fighters have to be in 1/32, but if there was ever an argument for deviating and building one in quarterscale, this would be it. At any rate, it's done, I'm reasonably happy with how it turned out, and I've got two weeks away from the bench now (I wish it was two weeks away from work, but in our modern, connected world vacations seem never to really provide complete insulation from work) to reset a bit, and when I get back I will hopefully have some renewed mojo to apply to my Tamiya Spitfire.

This is looking excellent. Hard to believe you haven't done a ship model before. A very professional job!

Getting a good layer of general-purpose dirt applied to the undersides. The panel line moulding (depth, crispness) is variable amongst different parts of the kit which is making it a challenge. I really want to get this done before I leave on a trip at the end of this month. Not sure that's going to happen, though.

Thanks!

Looking at these photos and the ones that Martin kindly posted on page 1, it seems that these RVNAF birds usually had the larger inboard pylon installed as well as the six small outer wing pylons. I need to go and build/paint those, it seems....

Now working on getting a good glossy layer of Tamiya acrylic clear on. I'll use oils/enamels over that for some general weathering, especially oil stains on the undersides and panel lines. Then I plan to shoot a coat of clear flat lacquer and follow up with pastels to try and replicate those distinctive Skyraider exhaust stains. The specific pattern that they occur in is obviously down to the specific way the air flowed over the wing and past the fuselage, and there are lots of good photos showing it. I don't trust my hand with the airbrush to get that airflow shape right, especially trying to paint right above the wing. I suspect (hope) it will be easier to do with pastel dust and a paint brush and/or cotton bud. I've downloaded some photos look look at for examples of the way these birds got dirty. And the iconic photo...

Thanks!

Decals on; it's going to take multiple rounds of micro sol to get those big ones settled on the compound curve of the fuselage.

Engine and cowling are a bit fidgety to deal with since they need both paint and decals, but I want to keep the side covers removable. To start I've glued the cowling flaps to the back of the engine, then press fit the leading part of the cowling and glued this center support piece only to the front part: I stupidly got some CA glue on those cowl flaps, so have to sand it off and paint over... The port side cowling cover fits nicely. But the starboard one is slightly warped, which is annoying. I'll probably just leave this one off when the model is finally ready to park on the shelf. Regardless, I have taped the whole thing together as straight as possible to paint the white undersides and anti-glare black on the top. Here's the fuselage with all the paint complete. I've done the anti-glare, the aluminum leading edges, and the wing walks. Next I need to carefully check the smoothness of the areas that will get decals, and wet sand as needed ahead of some clear gloss.

Acknowledging that there’s a learning curve and a time commitment inherent in changing anything that you are familiar with…lacquer paint is your secret weapon for working quickly. I can start priming a model by holding onto one wing and painting the other, and by the time I have painted the fuselage, the wing I started on is dry enough to hold while I paint the second wing. It’s literally a couple of minutes and you can mask or tape on top of a new coat of paint with confidence. Mr Color and MRP will both work this way.

Thanks!

I think it's OK for this early model (C.30A). Wikipedia says it should have an Armstrong Siddley Gennet Major 7-cyl engine, and the kit has a 7 cylinder bit of plastic (remains to be seen how accurate it is). If it was a later production C.301 then it would have a 9-cyl Salmson 9NE engine (upgrade to 175 hp versus the original 140 hp!).

I see the image OK. Image Shack is acting a bit wonky for me right now - you might try just reloading the page.

Here's the underside in its final white color. There will eventually be more weathering, of course - oil stains, smoke from the cartridge chutes, etc. But I like it as a place to start. The top side in Gull Gray - this thing is so freakin' big that it took half an hour even with my big airbrush to do it all - my hand was starting to cramp at the end. I diluted the paint more than usual so I would have better control over how fast it built up. The underpainting layer is still visible, if subtle. Closer in view. Tomorrow I will do the bare metal leading edges and glare panel, then it'll be ready for decals.

This wacky little thing was on sale and I couldn't resist. I may do it for the "two-seaters" GB later this year.

Something I discovered while painting the white top coat on the ailerons, elevators, etc is that this stippling template produces the best effect when help a few mm away from the surface and moved frequently. Doing that produces soft-edged shapes that overlap to create random-looking changes in color. Allowing the template to touch the model surface produces overly hard-edged shapes which are hard to blend into the final color. They come through too much as clear "spots". So to try and ameliorate this on the underside of the plane I went back and softened a lot of those hard edged shapes with white Mr Surfacer (much more opaque that the White MRP099 that is the final color). I then did an all-over coat of the same white Mr Surfacer, leaving the panel lines with a little bit less paint on them. That, I hope, will be a fruitful surface to shoot the final color top coat onto. I'll let it dry until tomorrow and give it a light wet sanding before doing so. This is turning out to be involved, but learning new technique always is. Quite why I am learning this on such a large and involved model is another story.... On the upper part of the fuselage I used the template to stipple a bunch of Gray Mr Surfacer 1500 on, again to blunt the overly sharp edges of the initial mottle pattern. That upper surface will get top coated with Mr Color C315 - FS16440.

In fact, here you go... https://www.largescaleplanes.com/reviews/review.php?rid=639

What about doing the plane you flew in? Looks like most of it is paintable with basic masks; maybe the "Grey Nurse" lettering is a bit fidgety, but that's a pretty famous plane in its original one-seat incarnation, and it's been kitted at least in 1:48, so I'll bet you could find AM decals in 1:32....

Well, in my perhaps futile quest to build something for all four GBs this year, I'm in with this Tamiya Spitfire that's been in the stash for a few years now. In an effort to keep it simple(r), it will be OOB save for ResKit wheels and some Eduard canopy masks, and I will do one of the kit schemes, an RCAF bird from the Italian front in mid-1944. But before I start cutting plastic on this one, I gotta finish up my Skyraider for the last GB. Hopefully that's going to happen this month....

I always have to remember to close my office door at night or else my local herd of cats will come through and knock stuff off of my workbench....

The prop with paint on it, front... ...and back Some clear flat will cut the shine later. A while back I bought one of these random shapes templates that I've seen people using for a while to add variation to paint color: This one is from AK. I figured the Skyraider, with large swaths of plain light gray and white as exterior colors, was a perfect place to try it out. It's very quick to apply some underpaint with it - I just used some leftover dark gray MRP paint. As with any underpainting technique, the trick is going to be applying the top coat at just the right density so that it almost but not quite completely obscures this underlying pattern. I'm interested to see how that goes.

Another thing that I’m realizing is that I need to decide about ordnance. Nothing is included in the kit except pylons (pretty nice ones) and drop tanks. So if I want to load it up with 500 lb bombs like the one in the photo on page one, I’m going to have to order those from the aftermarket. I’m tempted not to, just to be able to wrap things up sooner. I could always get some later if I decided I had to have them.

I've been working on this...just not documenting it very well. Here are all of the main landing gear components built and painted: And the whole fuselage with a cost of primer. That revealed a few flaws that I'll need to get after, but it's 95% finished. In the background you can kind of see that I've also got primer on the ailerons, flaps, elevators, and rudder. Figure I'll wait to install them until after painting. The prop was molded in the annoying black plastic; I primed it gray because I had to get it light enough that the tips could easily be painted white ahead of the colors that they'll receive... Getting closer on this, which is good, because I have a short trip to NM this weekend for my Dad's 86th birthday, and then the Spitfire GB starts....

This is off to a fantastic start. I will follow with interest!

Here it is with the wings built out and attached. The kit is indeed designed to make it possible to have the wings movable/foldable, and in fact you have to install the hinges because their upper surfaces are part of the wings' outer surfaces. But I glued mine in the extended position. Overall the fit was quite good despite all of that internal structure. Next up is the main landing gear. The thing is ridiculously big in 1:32 - wingspan is just a hair under 19".