Kahunaminor

Damian,
Book arrived here in Australia today safe and well. Many thanks.
 
Kent

Thanks guys!
 
 
I personally don't like the stressed-skin or oil-canning effect that Infinity Models applied with the riveting.  So I wanted to see what the model would look like if I removed the oil-canning and most of the rivets.  I used this photo of a shot down D3A1 to illustrate my rationale...

 
 
Back to the instrument panel... I had a set of Airscale 1/32 Instrument Panel Bezels so I thought I'd use them to dress up some, not all, of the instruments.

 
The instrument panel was painted in the cockpit color, which I've chosen to be Dark Green RAF (Mr Hobby Aqueous H-73).  The instruments were punched individually from the decal sheet.  I'll do a bit of detail painting on the IP before I call it done.

 
 
Interestingly, fuselage interiors are dressed up with spars and trusses.  You don't see this approach on many kits and yes, it is a bit tedious but you DO get a nice 3-D effect.  The instructions aren't clear but I found the best fit when the little tabs on the vertical spar pieces hang right above the corresponding horizontal spar on the fuselage.









 
 
Why oh why did Infinity mold the seats in two pieces?  Totally unnecessary, IMO.



 

Doh,
Damien not Matt!

Just about to a place where I'm happy with the decals. Still some tiny spots of silvering to hunt down and remove, but it's 90+% better than it was a few days ago.  It's been sealed with another gloss coat to protect everything, and next it'll be time for some weathering and washes.
 
I did airbrush and brush in the touchups, looks like I have a couple more to still fix. Finding the right red shade was definitely a lucky coincidence, it blends in perfectly.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 
Please let me know what you think.
 
 
 
Matt 

That looks pretty good to me, Matt!
 
Kev

Hi Matt,
I don’t know if this will assist or be even a reasonable offer of advice at this point. You have some of the top minds already offered you their wisdom. I have a mate that swears by the use of a linen pad dipped in moderately warm to hot water and held firmly over the decal. Apparently the heat is sufficient to stretch the decal without causing an issue? No doubt test it first and I assume you would need to be wary of any splits in the decal so no moving the pad during application.
 
Best of luck,
Kent

Hi Matt,
I don’t know if this will assist or be even a reasonable offer of advice at this point. You have some of the top minds already offered you their wisdom. I have a mate that swears by the use of a linen pad dipped in moderately warm to hot water and held firmly over the decal. Apparently the heat is sufficient to stretch the decal without causing an issue? No doubt test it first and I assume you would need to be wary of any splits in the decal so no moving the pad during application.
 
Best of luck,
Kent

I've used that technique to good effect in the past - especially on Tamiya decals. You just have to be really careful over acrylic paints, because if the cloth is hot enough (and in my experience, it really needs to be quite hot to work), it can literally make an impression on your paint work. FWIW, my version of the technique involves a wet face washer, wrung out until it's merely damp, and then microwaved on high for 60 seconds. Something with less of a fabric texture than terry towelling would probably be a better choice, however!
 
Kev

Hi Matt,
I don’t know if this will assist or be even a reasonable offer of advice at this point. You have some of the top minds already offered you their wisdom. I have a mate that swears by the use of a linen pad dipped in moderately warm to hot water and held firmly over the decal. Apparently the heat is sufficient to stretch the decal without causing an issue? No doubt test it first and I assume you would need to be wary of any splits in the decal so no moving the pad during application.
 
Best of luck,
Kent

Thanks guys!  I appreciate the comments, as always!  It's always interesting to see how one manufacturer does things compared to others and I'm curious as to how this Infinity kit will go together.  The rivet thing is purely preferential and as you know, I'm one of those that usually apply rivets to my models.  For whatever reason, I've always pictured the D3A with smoother skin.  Like this photo, of a D3A1 (AII-251) that was fished out of the water after the Pearl Harbor attack.
 

 
 
 

Hello John,
With the forecast demise of Infinity in the near future, I have recently been looking a little closer at the Val for myself. Having you build one now could be fortuitous for me but a disaster for my wallet! Watching with interest.
 
Regards,
Kent

John,
The only Aero Detail Spitfire book I do not have. I do have Modellers Datafile Part 2 Griffon Powered Spitfires. I shall see what this reveals. 
 
watch your email!
 
Regards
Kent

Thanks Troy!  Two magnets are more than sufficient to hold the racks + drop tank securely as I'll show below.  Bass fishing was tough.  52 bass for the two of us for a whole day of fishing (dawn to dusk).  But happy just to get out there again.
 

 
 
 
Sorry for the typo!  1/16" = 0.0625 inches = 1.58mm.
 
 
 
Yes, a blessing in disguise.  If I had to choose, I'd probably opt for clean wings without the tanks but now I have the best of both worlds.
 
Here is the wing after the magnets were hidden with putty.

 
Hang test with the rack and drop tank... holds nicely with just two magnets.

Thanks Bill!  I don't have the most luxurious or spacious work bench.  The main work space is a children-sized desk top.  With space at a premium, I try to keep things as clean and tidy as possible.  The work surface is a sheet of poster board that I cover with white paper.  I'm an engineer so I salvage rolls of old engineering plans and use the unprinted sides.  The paper gets replaced every couple of weeks to give me a clean background.
 
The bottom joint cleanup is almost complete.  The messiest looking joint going laterally between the wheel wells is actually cleaner than it looks and should be fine after a wash is applied.

 
 
I forgot to cut out the slots in the wing bottoms to accommodate the drop tank racks.  That got me thinking about a better way... using magnets to attach the racks and keep the wing bottoms completely clean otherwise.  So I drilled a couple of holes and dropped in the smallest of the magnets. These are 1/16"  (0.0625mm) in diameter.

 
 
The racks are BARELY thick enough to accommodate the magnets.

 
 
Voila... detachable drop tank racks!

 

Thanks guys!
 
I woke up early to set up the finished build shots but it is a drizzly day so I'll have to pick another time.  Here are some more pics of Eileen to show some of the posing options.  As you recall, the engine is attached via magnets so I can pose with the engine cowling off if desired.



 
 
No glue on the sliding canopy so it can be popped off and posed in the open position.  Just noticed that one of the blast tubes has worked itself loose!

 
 
A view from the undersides.  I'm choosing to leave the bomb racks detachable from the wings and also the bombs detachable from the racks.

 

Thanks for the comments!
 
 
I broke open a Brita water filter and there are a bunch of little spheres of different sizes mixed in with the charcoal... the large ones are perfect for 1/32 cockpit knobs and I used a smaller one for the bead on top of the sight.


 
 
All I can say is... WHEW!  I was dreading disappointing you Jay because I was not going to modify the landing gear if it looked reasonably ok!
 
The wheels have been glued into place.  I used 2-part epoxy to give me some time to orient the flattened tires to a flat surface.  And the last bits have been added including the spine antenna, tail light, pitot tube, mirror on top of the windscreen, bead sight.  So Eileen is finished!  I'll try and get some glamour shots of the completed Eileen soon.  But here's a sneak look at her...


 

John's already making some dinero!
 

 

 

 
And more to come!
 
Kev
 

Thanks guys!

I've tinkered together the radiator/oil cooling intake.  The leading edges have been thinned.




 
 
To match the rest of the aircraft, I'm going to apply rivets to this assembly.  Here's the before pic...

 
 
Based on my reference drawings, I'm adding a panel line to the rectangular housing.

 
 
Here's the area after the panel line addition and rivets.

 
 
Mulling over how to thin the trailing edges... it might be do-able with some careful sculpting.

 

Thanks guys!  It's good to be back!
 
Since the fuselage riveting is finished, I can now insert the resin cockpit tub and glue the fuselage sides together.  I am using JB KwikWeld two-part epoxy to attach the resin sidewalls to the fuselage interior. It cures in about five minutes, giving me time to push the cockpit tub into the correct position.  Note the small rectangular piece in the upper left... it is an insert for the horizontal tailplanes that needs to be sandwiched between the fuselage sides.



 
 
Once the cockpit tub is secured in place, I used Tamiya Extra Thin to cement the fuselage parts together.

 
 
A pre-fit of the Wolfpack resin nose...



 

Some help maybe ...
 

 

Today's update;
Wings and fuselage joined. After some minor touchs the painting will start
 

Just an opportunity for you to make an enhanced version John! 
Great stuff.
 
Regards,
Kent

Thanks guys!  I appreciate the comments!
 
Whoa... similar to what I did but the use of heat is interesting.  Thanks for that tip!
 
 
Thanks Gaz! I've heard that comment too but I'm not sure what that means.  The cowling looks ok to me but I've not done any in-depth analysis of it.  I almost DON'T wanna know what the issue is because when you see something like that, you can't UNSEE it! 
 
The arrival of the Yahu instrument panels completes the shopping list for this project so I can start on the cockpit.  There is a mixture of painted and unpainted brass parts in the Eduard set and also overlap between the Eduard and Yahu sets so I have to look things over and determine what AM pieces will be utilized, which will not, which ones will be installed prior to painting and which will be attached after painting.
 
Speaking of cockpit painting, here are the AK Real Color paints that I picked up for this build.  I will be using the Dark Dull Green for the cockpit.  Just going by the names of the colors, it might guess that the Dark Dull Green and Bronze Green are swapped but they are not.

 
 
I've previously noted the tiny holes in the Yahu main circuit panel that correspond to the switch and toggle positions.  I've ordered a set of toggle switches from ANYZ to play with on this build.



 
 
I pre-painted a few toggle switches and placed them on the Yahu circuit panel to see what they look like.  Only with a coat of paint on and under extreme magnification was I able to discern that I had chosen the flat-sided toggles.

 
 
And it's probably very difficult to see but in the upper left of the panel, I've inserted a tiny piece of copper wiring to simulate a raised switch.  Adding toggles and switches will be very fiddly work, I predict.  I think it will be best to glue the panel onto the port sidewall first.

 
 
Tackling the throttle linkages is next.  I don't have the dexterity to recreate the physical connections between the throttle quadrant and linkage rods so I just fabricated mounting points that will be hidden from view.



 
 
Thin brass rods will be used to simulate the throttle linkage rods.

 

 
 
I scraped off the cockpit light that was molded into the port sidewall and fabricated a new one out of plastic.  The cord was spun around a small drill bit.



 
 
The back of the instrument panel was populated with wires.  Most of this will not be visible as it is blocked by the coaming that holds the gunsight and armored glass.

 
 
 

Thank you!  I use magnifiers when working and using those really helped refine my technique.  I find that if I can make it look ok under extreme magnification, it's going to look good to the naked eye.  Good photographs accomplish the same thing and I often notice little errors by reviewing my work photographically.
 
Frustrated at the delay of couple of shipments including the Yahu panel.  There are a multitude of other things that I can proceed with without working on the cockpit so I found one of those today.  I noticed that this port was not molded completely.

 
 
The shape was kind of weird too, as the horizontal lines followed the curvature of the forward fuselage.  I don't have any parallelogram templates so the new one will have to be square.  First, I fill in the old panel lines with black CA glue.

 
 
Shot with some CA activator, it is ready to sand.

 
 
The template of the panel is placed on the model and secured in place with tape.  For me, this is the most important step.  I learned from experience that holding the template with just your fingers is a recipe for a shoddy scribing job.

 
 
Using a sewing needle chucked into a pin vise, I scribe the new panel.  Lightly at first and then with a little more pressure as the groove deepens.  I'm going through both plastic and the harder CA glue so it is important to keep constant pressure on the needle as it goes around the template. If the needle gets caught on something, don't force it through.  Instead, trace around in the opposite direction to see if you can get through that spot smoothly.  The horizontal line that you see within the new panel is a pencil guide mark that I used to guide re-placement of the template after the first attempt.

 
 
Once you are able to make complete circuits around the panel in both directions, the template can be removed.  The new panel is cleaned up by tracing the panel with needle, giving it a light sanding and using a stiff paint brush to remove the sanding burrs and dust.  Lightly running Tamiya Extra Thin cement into the panel lines can also help to smooth them out.

 
 
With all of the visual interference from the old panel lines, it's hard to see what I've done so I spray a light coat of primer to check my work.

 
 
After the primer is dry, I can replace the circular fasteners with a beading tool.

 

According to my "bible", the P-47D-11 (RE and RA) was equipped with the  R-2800-63 engine (White, p. 394).  This was a B series engine with a Scintilla magneto system (White, p. 280).  In short, you'll want to use the  teardrop shaped distributors and leave the center mounted dual magneto on.  The turtleback magnetos you will discard to the spares box (if you keep spares) belong on R-2800-59 engines used on bubbletop P-47D's (and certain razorbacks).  The bullet shaped prop reduction gearcase is correct for any B series R-2800 engine.
 
Here's a side photo of the R-2800-63 engine.  It's slightly out of focus on the left side because it's a scan from my "bible" (see reference below).  Notice it has a tubular ignition harness, not the cast one (in case the kit comes with both).
 

 
REFERENCE:
 
Graham,W. (2001). R-2800, pratt & whitney's dependable masterpiece, SAE Publishing, PA.  (pp. 280, 281, 394)