Italeri 1/32 Macchi Mc.202 Folgore

[ROM]

Great work with those masks !

[dennismcc]

Fabulous work and very entertaining descriptions, amazing.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

[SwissFighters]

On 3/27/2025 at 5:53 AM, Thunnus said:

I'm just gonna ask...would you consider rescribing the elongated(!) 'round' fasteners along the bottom of the gun panel? 
Those fasteners closer to the fuselage centre line are round but it all starts to wander the further from the centre and ends up looking pretty weird.  A fairly gross oversight while translating a 2D drawing to a 3D model.
With your skills John, still a quick and easy fix.
Tony

 

 

 

Edited March 29, 2025 by SwissFighters

[Biggles87]

Excellent progress, it just gets better and better!

I always admire anyone who fits the upper wing panels first. I’ve tried it a couple of times but found it difficult to get the dihedral symmetrical.

 

John

[Thunnus]

On 3/28/2025 at 10:53 PM, Dpgsbody55 said:

Nice work, John.  The undercarriage looks impressive; definitely better than the kit offering.  I like your choice of colour scheme too.  Those masks will be patience testing. 

 

I'm looking forward to seeing this with the smoke rings painted rather than the kit supplied decals.  I'll be following this part closely as I need all the tips I can get as I may well do a smoke ring C-205 later on and I don't like the thought of so many decals over the entirety of a model.  They don't last like paint does.

 

 

Cheers,

Michael

 

PS.  I'm guessing you mean by "pioneering that trail" you mean not making the mess of it that I did .  I'm sure Mario Castoldi is spinning in his grave after seeing my effort .

Thank you Michael!  Reference builds establish a road map and yours definitely guided me around a few potential pitfalls.  Hopefully this build can serve in a similar way to others who choose to build this kit.

 

 

On 3/28/2025 at 11:00 PM, zaxos345 said:

Awesome as always John!!!!! 

Thanks John!

 

 

On 3/28/2025 at 11:33 PM, MikeMaben said:

Haaay, not bad for a beginner 

 

 

 

 

Hah!  Thanks Mike! 

 

 

 

On 3/29/2025 at 1:09 AM, JayW said:

John - I am just gobsmacked by your progress, your problem solving, and your work that is just perfection.  Oh, and your photography.  It shames me....   I am now caught up.  This is one of the more interesting kits I have seen warts and all.  I also followed Michael's build a while back - his trials and tribulations!   Looks like these Italieri Folgore kits are a labor of love.  But man what a cool looking machine.  The finish line is in sight - carry on. 

Thank you Jay!  I consider the Folgore one of WW2's iconic aircraft so I'm very grateful to have a modern tool kit.  It's not a bad kit by any means but... it could've been much better without much effort on Italeri's part.

 

 

On 3/29/2025 at 1:43 AM, ROM said:

Great work with those masks !

Thank you!  The mask cutter is definitely a game-changer and allows that much more flexibility when it comes to markings.

 

 

On 3/29/2025 at 2:09 AM, dennismcc said:

Fabulous work and very entertaining descriptions, amazing.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

Thank you Dennis!

 

 

On 3/29/2025 at 3:29 AM, SwissFighters said:

I'm just gonna ask...would you consider rescribing the elongated(!) 'round' fasteners along the bottom of the gun panel? 
Those fasteners closer to the fuselage centre line are round but it all starts to wander the further from the centre and ends up looking pretty weird.  A fairly gross oversight while translating a 2D drawing to a 3D model.
With your skills John, still a quick and easy fix.
Tony

I considered it Tony... and I'm gonna say no.  It's not a complicated fix but its not super simple either.  One issue for me is that the gun cover is attached and the joints have been sealed with putty.  Re-scribing will put pressure on the cover and may compromise the joints, which I don't want to do over.  Another issue is the depth and width of the round fasteners.  They cannot be replicated exactly with the tools that I have.  To do the job right, I'd have to replace all of them so that the fasteners all look the same.  And honestly, the oval fasteners don't bother me too much.  I can live with em.  Sorry.

 

 

On 3/29/2025 at 4:09 AM, Biggles87 said:

Excellent progress, it just gets better and better!

I always admire anyone who fits the upper wing panels first. I’ve tried it a couple of times but found it difficult to get the dihedral symmetrical.

 

John

Thanks John!  I felt that, with the wing spar, gluing the upper wings first would help ensure correct dihedral.  As opposed to doing it the traditional way and trying to close that gap last by pushing the wing tips up.

 

 

 

Almost to the main painting stage but I decided to paint the Quickboost prop blades first.  After a primer coat, the blades were sprayed with Tamiya AS-12 silver and then hairspray before the black was sprayed on.  The leading edges of the blades were lightly chipped and then I masked them to paint the tips yellow and bases silver.

 

The yellow tips were confined to the front of the blades.  The back tips were left unpainted to represent wear.

 

The blades were sealed with a gloss coat before the Macchi factory decals were applied to the front of the blades.

 

The blades were then given a flat coat and then treated with a couple rounds of salt weathering.

 

The completed prop blades...

 

I may do a test of the camo painting, including the smoke rings on the horizontal stabilizers, which are still unattached.  The stabs are treated to my customary pre-shade mottle pattern.

 

The underside grey color is called Grigio Azzurro Chiaro (FS 36307) and will be represented by Mr Hobby Aqueous Light Grey (H-324).

 

[SwissFighters]

I'm gonna say...fair enough John!
The paint will probably reduce the effect quite substantially in any case.
I rarely ask such things, actually - in hindsight it was probably more a reflection of my incredulity that Italeri could make such a mistake.
Keep up the great work!
Thanks for sharing.
Tony

[Thunnus]

11 hours ago, SwissFighters said:

I'm gonna say...fair enough John!
The paint will probably reduce the effect quite substantially in any case.
I rarely ask such things, actually - in hindsight it was probably more a reflection of my incredulity that Italeri could make such a mistake.
Keep up the great work!
Thanks for sharing.
Tony

Thank you for your understanding.  There is a list of Italeri head-scratchers on this kit.  Of which some will not be addressed by this build.

 

Before I start painting, the flap bays are masked using tape and the wheel wells plugged with a combination of foam and wet tissue paper. The painted AiP exhausts are covered with a thin strip of tape but I'm sure I'll have to do touch-ups there. The masked canopy is covering the cockpit opening and I've sealed the gap between the rear edge and curved fuselage fairing.  I've even plugged the little holes in the engine cowlings with pieces of tape from the inside.  Hopefully, I've covered all of the bases.

 

The painting process begins with black paint over all of the panel lines.

 

To create some modulation/tonal variation in the paint scheme, I typically put down a mottle pattern (also in black) using a piece of kitchen scouring pad.

 

This technique is essentially the inverse of "black-basing".  It looks gnarly like this but the effect can be dialed in per personal preference from very noticeable to zero by applying the camo paint in thin layers.

 

I've decided to put down the white for the fuselage band and tail crosses now.  After this dries, I will mask off the white areas and start on the grey undersides.

 

 

[Jaro]

Great!

 

I wonder if brown marble won't be better for the upper surfaces. Maybe it'll blend better with sand colour, but that's only hypothesis. Have you tried?

[Thunnus]

47 minutes ago, Jaro said:

Great!

 

I wonder if brown marble won't be better for the upper surfaces. Maybe it'll blend better with sand colour, but that's only hypothesis. Have you tried?

I have not tried but it is worth a shot if you want to give it a go.  It does not tick the boxes for me in terms of what I am trying to accomplish with my preshading step, which may be different from other modelers.  Black is chosen due to its high contrast with the underlying grey plastic/primer and I consider it color-neutral, meaning it will not tint or alter the overlying camo color other than making it darker. Keep in mind that black-basing is different and a shade of brown would probably be a good intermediate blending color when employing that technique.

[scvrobeson]

Great start to the painting John. Looking forward to where it goes next.

 

 

 

Matt 

[baffozac]

Hello, the 202 of the VII series had the Venturi tube under the belly but also, as you can see in the photo of the one you want to make, an oil radiator less high, a windscreen less shielded, elevator without horn balance and some small details less on the engine covers, because Italeri was based on a 202 which has covers of 205.
And, as already said, the small bump near the machine guns is typical of the 202 built by Breda.
Cheers

[Thunnus]

15 hours ago, scvrobeson said:

Great start to the painting John. Looking forward to where it goes next.

 

 

 

Matt 

Thanks Matt!

 

 

4 hours ago, baffozac said:

Hello, the 202 of the VII series had the Venturi tube under the belly but also, as you can see in the photo of the one you want to make, an oil radiator less high, a windscreen less shielded, elevator without horn balance and some small details less on the engine covers, because Italeri was based on a 202 which has covers of 205.
And, as already said, the small bump near the machine guns is typical of the 202 built by Breda.
Cheers

Thank you for the comments! I think they come a few months too late for me to practically consider them.  Some of them I was aware of.  The venturi will be belly-mounted as I've filled the hole in the starboard side of the fuselage.  After discovering that the Series VII probably had the earlier stabilizers without the horn balances, I made an economic/practical decision to keep on going since I had already expended funds on the AiP replacements and did not wish to modify the kit parts nor spend any more money on aftermarket parts. My resource says that this machine had the windscreen armor so I'm ok with kit-supplied part.  Small bumps?  Maybe I can do something about that.

 

The paint stage is fully underway now.  After the white areas have thoroughly dried, they are masked off.

 

It's time to paint the grey undersides using Mr Hobby Aqueous Light Grey (H-324).  The paint is thinned with Mr Leveling Thinner using a 1:1 ratio.  This gives me a very thin paint which sacrifices coverage but I gain a smoother finish and more control over the pre-shade effect.

 

MLT is a very "hot" thinner.  As the grey is sprayed, it sort of sinks into the black pre-shade layer, slowly bringing up some of the black to the surface as it dries.  Because of this, it is important to monitor the paint coverage and go back and touch up spots that looked ok when you sprayed but now look too dark.

 

After the grey dries, the demarcation between the upper and lower camo colors is masked off.

 

The model is ready to receive the smoke ring masks, which I've traced from the kit decals.  But before I do that, let's run through the process using the horizontal stabilizers as a test run.  One mistake is using Oramask as my masking material.  This stuff works great but is translucent grey and all but disappears when applied.  I should've used the yellow Tamiya masking sheets for better visibility.  Not wanting to waste all of that Oramask, I decided to soldier on.

 

After the masks are applied the brown color is sprayed on.  This color is called Nocciola Chiaro 4 and should be represented using Mr Hobby Aqueous H-310 US Brown (FS30219). But as you can see, I grabbed the wrong bottle of brown paint, which I did not realize until just BEFORE applying the brown to rest of the model.

 

Once the masks are removed, the smoke rings are clearly defined and these areas can now be filled in carefully with green.

 

The green color is called Verde Oliva Scuro and I am using Mr Hobby Aqueous RLM 71 Dark Green for this shade.  Using my Iwata HP-B Plus, it was relatively easy to fill in the empty spaces to create these smoke rings.

 

Test complete, it is now time to apply the smoke ring masks to the rest of the model.  I have two good photo references of the port side.  One is of the actual aircraft (MM9042)...

 

The other is this clear photo of MM9044, which I am assuming to have very similar characteristics to MM9042.

 

Placement of the smoke rings will be based on these photos for the port side only.  I've produced a set of mirrored smoke rings to give me a bigger palette to choose from.  The rest of the placement is based on the kit instructions but I've purposefully tried to change the orientation of the rings to deviate from the appearance of a build using the smoke ring decals.  As you can see the masks are very difficult to see

 

Using the correct brown this time (H-310), the Nocciola Chiaro 4 is sprayed onto the model.

 

We'll let this dry and the fun part begins in earnest when I remove the smoke ring masks!

 

 

[JayW]

Well shoot - we are left in suspense!

[Furie]

 

Hi John, as usual your builds are a delight of ingenuity and precision.
Thanks for sharing and I can't wait to see the final rendering of this camo.
Well done!

[Reuben L. Hernandez]

Very nicely done and interesting way to do the smoke rings.