mc65

wow! 3mm it's a lot of distance, for those little magnets! the attractive force is in fact inversely proportional to the distance squared, you may see from the grapich how dramatically distance nullifies the force of attraction! about the extra-thin details, it was not my intention to press you, but only to suggest implementations to a work that promises to be a milestone in the construction of P47 (Trumpeter, more over!) PS great coup, the purchase of the reference material batch, I'm a little envying you...

mmmmh, I don't know the P47 well, and certainly in this discussion there are modellers very knowledgeable on the subject who will be able to prove me wrong, but usually -unless the controls were locked- the rudder follows the orientation of the tail wheel. ergo, if you plan to position the wheel slightly off axis, the rudder will easily be too. also, and forgive me for being so picky, but you've raised the bar so much in this build... forward of the ventilation pipes are three drain cocks, which have an orthogonal pivot at their end, as per the actual photo posted by Thomaz (thanks, very useful image).

and here I am again, by God, it's already been a year since my last update! where were we... the landing gear, yes. the main ones bring a nice attempt to emulate real piping and wiring, together with the already seen and cursed soft detail and multiple extractor marks (add your comments, mine are colorful and definitely excommunicating). I tried to work around the latter, added some nuts and bolts and reasoned a bit about whether I could like the former. while I was thinking, I filled the wells of the main landing gear with the dedicated Eduard photo-etched parts. and I implemented the floor of the same with a little gizmology. the real life photos reveal compartments saturated with pipes, fittings and various boxes, I kept the obsessed myself at pace, also due to how little of these will be seen in the finished model with the doors in the middle. think and rethinking about these, the pipes have disappeared. I will replace them after giving the base color to the legs. and obviously to the relative wells and trying to optimize, even at the various jacks, unfortunately without the possibility of replacing the stems. as usual, in the dead phases of the work on landing gear legs and wells, I did something else: I milled the inside of the front half-fuselages until the Aires cockpit sat at ease. and I decided to modify the published assembly sequence: the kit foresees gluing in the same session the three parts that make up the front fuselage (4 with the front base housing the radar) with the cockpit and the undercarriage compartment inside. it seems to me a bit risky, wanting to achieve a decent alignment. so I presented the main parts making sure they matched well, and then I glued only the two lateral half-fuselages, together with the radar base. to maintain the right distance between the two and to strengthen the structure, in which I will later insert the cockpit module like as a drawer, I inserted a plastruct tube. a further element that I added is a plasticard disk about 1cm aft of the radar. this also acts as a bulkhead to contain the 60g of lead shot required to keep the finished aircraft from sitting down. to keep everything together, lead and bulkhead, I used PVA glue. now I have a solid and balanced working base. what prevents me now to give a little color? nothing, and in fact... after a coat of primer, one of white and one of gloss, I placed the kit's placards plus some Airscale ones following the photos found of the real thing. then I lightly veiled with oil to avoid the dazzling white effect. not being able to replace the chromed part, I covered it with adhesive polished aluminum (here only on the left). unfortunately the styrene base is far from perfectly smooth, despite my efforts to make it as clean as possible. ditto on the various jacks. after the base color I added some plumbing lines to the floor too, I'll see with everything mounted if I can add more, but I don't think so. Of course I managed to forget a puller mark near the base of the force leg and glue down the jack before casing it with aluminum. then I moved on to installing pipes and wiring. it will be fun to glue the legs in place with all this stuff in the way... did you get a headache? you know about me! to be continued... cheers, Paolo

Hi Boch, just a couple of days ago Tomas explained his way to render leather and upholstery, you'll find it at page 3 of his WIP: https://forum.largescaleplanes.com/index.php?/topic/95079-b-25j-mitchell-ave-maria-132/page/4/#comments https://forum.largescaleplanes.com/index.php?/topic/95079-b-25j-mitchell-ave-maria-132/page/4/ excellent work and historical intro in your PLZ 11, thank you for share that! cheers, Paolo

yes, Matt, that seems to be the case. which I am very sorry about, Italeri (formerly Italaerei) has made very beautiful and accurate kits in the past, with a linear progression today one might expect excellent kits, but no. well, I started arguing with the landing gear while I was thinking about how to deal with the forward fuselage issue. after puttying and sanding as much as possible (and also trying to make the leg rings a little more marked) I took the measurement of the chromed parts of the stems. and went searching through my scrap metal for compatible chrome pipe sections. well, stroke of luck. I would say that we consider less than a tenth of a mm within tolerance. and here it is, with even a little more offal glued together. others are missing, eh, including the forest of pipes and cables that characterize these modern LGs. this simple modification allows me to adjust the compression of the nose gear, playing, once the model is finished, with the attitude of the aircraft on the ground. compressed, and extended. the wheels are the aftermarket resin ones, the kit includes two options: in vinyl, not too bad, but I don't like that material; and in plastic with a weight effect. nice rims, but tires mh mh. oh hem, even if you want the resins could be improved... then let's see if that's the case. with this modification I could also make the nose gear slightly steered at will. but if in tailwheels it is veryn common to observe the tailwheel to be steered, in tricycles it is less so, and in modern ones it is rather rare, considering that one arrives at the parking stand by following painted lines on the apron which always end with a straight section, precisely so as not to leave the landing gear loaded asymmetrically. unfortunately here ends the luck of the chrome pipes: all the others present (and there are several) have sections that are incompatible with my escort, no way. while the various parts of the nose gear were drying, I did something else as usual. its compartment is detailed, but in short... it is true that once in the office whoever sees it, however, it could have been done better. oh well, I have the Eduard set... let's go. soon we will also talk about the main landing gear, small steps. cheers, Paolo

ooooOooh! I'm still waiting for mine, envy! on the Hannants website I read that it's the best selling kit of the moment, nice shot, Revell! the cockpit pics are inspiring, hope the rest of the kit is up to par!

hi all! I was waiting for the release from Italeri of the IDS version, and as the opportunity presented itself, I took it, I think I'm the zero buyer! this version will allow me, I hope, to more easily build one of the aircraft used between 1990-91 in the desert shield/desert storm operation, as regards more specifically the Italian Air Force (AM) operation locust. a bit of history: as part of the locust operation, the AM prepared 23 aircraft specially repainted in sand color and equipped with some modifications. of these 23, only 16 actually rotated in the gulf, maintaining an effective force on the field of 8 operational aamm + 2 as backup. with a little effort and some help (thanks Tommaso and Andrea!) I managed to identify the serial numbers of the planes present in the respective time windows. obviously at the moment there are no dedicated decals, but I don't see it as a big problem, the planes used carried, in addition to the small cockades veiled with sand to reduce their visibility, only the last two digits of the serial numbers on the tail and on the doors of the front landing gear bay. the model... well. in the box are crammed about 2.5 kg of styrene in several sprues protected by envelopes and apparently of good workmanship and detail. I'll spare you the photos of all the material, they are easily found on the net. to make no mistake, I got some aftermarket... not all that is available, but a healthy (sic) middle ground. and then I went on to study instructions and parts, to outline an action plan capable of putting everything together in the best possible way, in an order consistent with the logic of the model and the changes that will have to be made anyway. I have to say that on closer inspection of the parts, I was disappointed, and not even a little. the detail is in general soft and poorly defined, signs of extractors on mangy parts to be filled, points of contact with the sprues in points difficult to resume after the cuts. an example to explain what I mean: honestly I expected something better, in some points it looks like a post-Soviet kit from the 90s, even the external surfaces show the problems that the 104 kit had: a marked difference in engraving between the details of the wings and the fuselage, for example. not to mention the breakdown of the various subassemblies... obviously I'm not a masterist nor a kit designer, nor an entrepreneur too, but only an "end user" in its most recent sense: someone who calls the bluff anyway, whatever the cost. oh well, let's start from the beginning: the cockpit. the detail is not bad, but that of the Aires set is definitely superior, of course. it's a pity that the layout is more oriented towards a RAF specimen than an AM one. in this sense the parts of the kit are definitely more responsive, I'll do a cut and sew to (try to) get the best of both. speaking of the breakdown of the subassemblies, the kit foresees to assemble the front part of the fuselage separately (understandable) first of all (oh, well) but also to immediately install the stem of the nose gear, a complex and obviously fragile affair, going to protrude from its bay. here I either modify the stem positioning system, or prepare to protect it in some way. accessory problem, nose landing gear bay and Aires cockpit are likely to conflict. here after a good planing of the resin with my trust De Walt angle grinder (the little one ). There doesn't seem to be much leeway... to have no doubts, I chose to plane the resin from below until the floor of the front cockpit was removed: replacing it with a very thin sheet of plasticard won't cost me any effort, and so I can better manage the process of gluing the two parts inside the forward fuselage, a three-part affair however difficult to align correctly. for today I would say that I have bored you enough, soon separation and cleaning from the sprues of the first necessary pieces. cheers, Paolo

I wonder if it's possible to add a button other than the "like" to those available... something like "I like it very very very much, exaggeratedly". holy cowl, it's a wonderful paint planning and shooting.

a merry christmas to all of you, but above all a new year full of beautiful models to share! and....yes, I have a couple of suspicious boxes on the way too!

wonderful. I'll follow really interested into!

how could I miss the beginning of this GB?? despite having other open projects in progress, I cannot fail to participate, indeed it is an opportunity to thin out the stash a bit with your help! I think I will take the Ki-84 kit down from the attic, I'm very attracted by the livery with the white tiger on the tail, flown by Shuho Yamana in 1944 to deliver it to Saigon. see you soon, I hope! cheers, Paolo

I love this plane, i used the kit as a mule to experiment with different techniques, and finally i decided to buy another box to build with more respect. if I'm not intrusive, here's a sample of mine covered in aluminum kitchen foil. one thing that I recommend is to insert a longitudinal bulkhead inside the forward fuselage: without it, in the end you will see the light from side to side and it is quite annoying. ask me how do i know? the other is to take some time to watch this film, I found it interesting and inspirational for paint peeling. cheers, Paolo

mmmh... I think I'll follow you close, check your six! cheers, Paolo

love this kite! and have one in the stash... is the Kagero book useful? cheers, Paolo

oh boy! this GB it's a mine of jewels to be enjoyed!

what a beautiful aircraft... I'm follow you on this project! 'bout riveting, apart the obvious help of dymo or straight rules, I found the mental state decisive: no rush, but a sort of Zen inner peace that is not always easy to achieve. I found it more rewarding to practice this than rolling miles of rivets with rosie!

just WooooOooooW... I'm more and more intrigued by the Zm kits, I'm following this creation carefully, wonderful work, so far! cheers, Paolo

spectacular. Is there really no way to make at least one engine visible, perhaps by installing the cowling with micromagnets? speaking of the execution of the camo on the planes bound for north africa, i found this frame part of a film on youtube, i think it could be interesting.

I was missing the final photos, great conclusion to a beautiful building, kudos!

well, i think the instrument panel is at its best, but the gunsight is just superb, really well done! every update is a feast for the eyes, keep it up!

thank you all, buddies! I glued the flaps at 30° in a completely arbitrary way responding only to an aesthetic need: being electric they weren't subject to the typical drop due to the absence of hydraulic pressure, and seeing them at their maximum extension (60°) seemed really excessive to me. unfortunately the photos of the complete plane are horrible, the tools I have at my disposal don't allow me to do better. so for the moment I refrain from creating an RFI folder, let's see if Santa Claus is moved and gives me a decent camera! so, here the classic mugshots, heavily (badly) reworked on the PC. some close... the belly and a couple of shots with a dark background, which should make it sexier, but actually it scares me... so, waiting for (maybe) better photos... wanting to make some final considerations on this kit, I can only talk about it very well, the very few problems encountered along the way I created them. it's so well done and satisfying, as well as reproducing the lines of an aircraft unique in its beauty, that it makes me want to make others, perhaps one with the tail of the Ta152, we'll see... thanks again to everyone for their participation and encouragement, without which something else would have come out, undoubtedly worse. cheers, Paolo

thank you all, pals! Tom, the horsehair it's a good idea, I have used them in the past without much satisfaction, being sensitive to humidity the tension changed according to the weather! but in this case, since the antenna has to remain limp, it could work... only that in these days it pours here, and I don't really want to go and comb the tails of the horses in the surroundings, let's see what I can do with what I have in home? ah, the tool I use to rivet is a classic RB set, nothing exotic: without going around too much, I tried with copper wire and plastic ceramic insulators: mmmmmmhyes, but I'm not convinced, the metal has too much memory and doesn't fall as soft as I would like. the insulator, which should be the heaviest point, actually "floats" supported by the resistance of the two wire segments. I could try to convince it, but there are three segments in question one of which, the central one, is connected to the fuselage with another thinner cable... a mess. so I got down to it and tried different routes: 0.14 and 0.18 nylon fishing lines; ez-line; elastic sewing thread and more plasticard insulators; in aluminum tube; combinations of these... one way or the other, nothing seemed right. in the end the least worst solution was the following: 0.14 nylon thread passing through Albion Alloy tube segments. to simulate the ligatures of the individual wire segments I drilled the tubes and made the ligatures with copper wire, again 0.14. to be able to do this I used an acupuncture needle as a temporary support, anything else would have deformed. let it be known: punk's not dead! and here the curve takes a softer turn, like this. the photo sucks, sorry, but I hope you see the difference with the metal one. I liked the plastic insulators better, but there's no way to make nylon loops that small without creating unwanted tension in the wire, even worse than metal. in parallel I built a series of tensioners to pull, instead of compressing like the ones seen so far on the various Bf109s. here the question was to get the fit right to make them compatible with the insulators. I ended up making four, the winner is not in this photo. but this: the insulators (to be retouched in color) even though they are false as they pass through, give the sensation of interrupting the three segments of wire, I hope. and the attachment to the hood. here, and at the end of the tensioner, to solve the problem of the nylon loop, I used a little trick: I made the loop in copper of the same diameter as the wire. once I put this in position in the support of the hood, I insert it in the aluminum tube section, in which there is already the nylon thread whose top I rounded and widened with a lighter. now pulling the thread, the ball at the top acts as a wedge and blocks everything by pressure. I'll put a drop of glue anyway, but the joint would already be enough to hold everything together. eeeew voilà. looks better than metal to me. while floating a bit on the fuselage, at least it doesn't make strange folds. I could force it into place with two dots of glue if I wanted to, but I don't know if that's the case. while I'm thinking about it, I'll leave it in place with two pieces of tape. would say that at this point I just need to lock the flaps in place and then I can declare it finished! See you soon, cheers, Paolo

thank you all! about modeling jazz, I think I have good news, tonight. we're almost there... now I'm at the final details and a general check to find and, if possible, correct the glitches that always come out at the end of the work. but let's proceed in order. for starters, the air intake. you will remember how I set aside the resin one preferring the one in the kit. well, it was a good choice. only now, with the camo completed and uncorking the masking, can I say that the fan can be glimpsed. here you can see also, in addition to the excess sanding powder to wash off, the micro-scratches made on the cowling. from other camera angles they are not so evident, but overall they help to make the surface feel lived in. other very good news, I think I have discovered a new technique to highlight the rivets. when I engraved them I didn't sand the surfaces to a mirror finish, thinking of helping me in the weathering with the three-dimensional effect due to the deformation of the material. the idea backfired on the lower surfaces, where the too many layers of paint created full-bodied lumps in correspondence with the irregularities. the upper surfaces however turned out as I expected: pleasantly wavy rivets that capture the oil and brush weathering. However the overall finish seemed too matt and dull to me. so before giving a coat of satin I thought of trying to polish with ultrafine nail pads (4000) and here is the result: well, stroke of luck! planing the asperities these are more shiny than the bottom. insisting too much everything becomes uniformly gloss, obviously, but by dosing the steps you get this result which I honestly don't mind at all. here we see perhaps a little better how also the background surface in the walking area is no longer uniformly opaque. while the back part of the flaps is still in slight relief. for the flap indicator this is the best I could do, unfortunately the decals I had identified were not decals, but just printed on a decal sheet without the adhesive part. in hindsight I could have provided with some microscale liquid, but by now I no longer have those microscopic numbers, so I gave a coat of black and engraved a couple of improbable "30s" freehand with a tip. I hope I have proposed an interesting idea, and that I haven't discovered something already known, which happens to me often, I must admit! what else... I took the writing "nicht betreten" on the air intake in white, it was invisible in black. pity about the patch on the left, to be touched up. then, I added some 02 on the elevators line normally hidden from view, it adds some movement to this part and highlights the elevators in rest position. while assembling the landing gear's legs I broke without even realizing it one of the resin bolts that I had installed before painting them. replaced, here still to be retouched in color. the Morane antenna I decided to paint it in natural wood, as it often was, not having certainties of how it looked on the Red 1. for solid placement I inserted a piece of guitar string in place of the (tiny, actually) kit's plastic pin. the "live" end of the antenna is also guitar string. the pitot of the kit was a bit poor (and fragile) so I preferred to remake it in Albion Alloy aluminum tubes. finally, I opted for the open cockpit canopy. the Hasegawa one was better made, but designed to be in the closed position, therefore with a width at the base greater than that required in the open position. rather than forcing it to an eternal tension through gluing, I tried to bring it to the right width by placing it on a template with a wooden shape and intervening with hot water. well...it worked, even too much: the width got smaller, but it also warped at the rear. RIP, plan B: the Revell one will do just fine, with a few minor tweaks. the open canopy implies, in this aircraft, the floppy antenna wire, which I honestly don't know how to make: in nylon I'm afraid it would be too soft, in metal too stiff... any suggestions will be welcome, come on with ideas! TIA, cheers, Paolo

thanks Ernest and Tom, I like to think laterally, a kind of jazz in using materials creating new (for me) techniques. if this translates into at least partial success, and I even manage to make it interesting for other modelers, well, it's a real pleasure! however, we are approaching the end in record time (for me). if I don't do some stupidity in the short final, I'm close to completing the model. once the base of the recent fumes dried, I gave a coat of W&N acrylic matt protective coat and -again in the areas affected by the exhausts- I worked a little on the joint lines of the panels, where a little by capillarity, a little by the physical conformation of these parts nestles the oily dirt produced by the exhausts and helped by the fluids flowing from the filler necks to thicken and hide. a lot of talk for some black oil resting on the white spirit's wet panels! going to sand the wings in correspondence with the areas that can be walked on in anticipation of a little earthy pigments, I unintentionally obtained the result I was looking for simply with the dust produced by the sanding: riveting and joint lines are discreetly highlighted. so let's skip the pigments on the wing and move on to the blacky, greasy part of the exhaust fumes. to do this I use these AK products, always using the airbrush. they are glossy, dense and enamel-based, you need to be careful to get the pressure and dilution right so as not to mess up. and here you go. a first broader pass of streaking grime, and immediately after another narrower one of engine oil. more than the color here the work is done by the consistency and the glossy finish... I don't know how much you can tell from the photos, but the result is there, I swear! well, here's another extended break, these also take a while to dry. but I would say enough with the fumes. having to leave the upper part alone, I can devote myself to the lower one: a few splashes of mud pulled up by the wheels, made with pigments diluted in little water and fired angled with an old brush and a toothpick. and all holy vents (nine!) made from sections of Albion Alloy aluminum tube. I was lucky enough to find a nice drawing where they are identified one by one. although marked on the Hasegawa mold, they were simple circles on the surface, without the design a good part of them would have gone unnoticed by me. instead drawing by hand I was able to drill the fuselage before closing it and inserting pieces of black painted plasticard inside which served as a base for the tubes. well, since the legs of the landing gear are well planted in their place, I might as well complete the job by gluing them and providing them with the relative doors. while the legs and hatches are being glued, I take the opportunity to check that the barrels of the wing cannons are straight and of the right length, to then give them a dip in gun burnisher before attaching them definitely. and while we're in the area, I definitely place the landing gear retraction electrical connections, and the tail wheel retraction cable, on the right leg only. and now everyone to bed! cheers, Paolo

Aaah, ok, now I've understand, it's a matter of or-or: engine on the firewall and fuselage (cowl on or off) and engine off the fuselage, with the rear part (on the left in tour last pic) fixed to the engine. now I see also that my question was pointless: why install the rear part with engine on the firewall, in fact? thank you for the clear and quick answer!