BiggTim Posted March 9, 2015 Share Posted March 9, 2015 Doublegood! Hey, we use fag papers to set up our machines. a quid gets us enough for a year, even with 3 CNC machines. Although this means I'm having the Devils own job persuading my boss we really need 3 probes on our CNC machines, at £7000 a pop. In fag paper terms, thats back to the last Ice Age's-worth...... Tim Ok, I know it's adolescent of me, but "fag papers" made me snicker just a little. geedubelyer 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chuck540z3 Posted March 9, 2015 Share Posted March 9, 2015 Hi Guy! I just found this thread now. Really nice and detailed work as always and I really like your pilot. Too often "little men" detract from a good build, but in this case the pilot figure enhances it. Cool watch too! Chuck geedubelyer 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geedubelyer Posted March 10, 2015 Author Share Posted March 10, 2015 It seems the earlier marks had it in silver and the later ones changed to green, no idea where the transition happened. Hi 322SqnNL, that's good to know, thanks. Ok, I know it's adolescent of me, but "fag papers" made me snicker just a little. Lol! Yeah, strange how a shared language can differ in some meanings BiggTim. Hi Chuck, good to have you on board. Glad that you like the little additions. Stellar work on your P-38 btw. Cheers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monthebiff Posted May 26, 2015 Share Posted May 26, 2015 Hey geedubelyer, any more updates on this great build? Regards. Andy geedubelyer 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geedubelyer Posted May 28, 2015 Author Share Posted May 28, 2015 (edited) Hi Andy, thanks for the interest. Yes, there has been some progress but I'm working "at the speed of life" at the mo'. The airframe is assembled but filling the rivets and panel lines in the wings took ages. I still have some more pockmarks to fill and finish on the rear fuselage but it's mostly done. Control surfaces have been fixed at suitably jaunty angles. The prop is done now. I've kept weathering to a minimum as the photos I've seen of this bird on-line show her to be pretty clean generally. I replaced the plastic prop shaft with a brass tube that telescopes inside one fitted in the nose. I've re-worked the cowling at the top of the nose to make it a little more streamlined. The gun camera was made by inserting a hollow plastic tube into a suitably sized hole and shaping it to the profile of the leading edge. After paint I plan on inserting some clear stretched sprue into the hole to create the camera lens. The smaller air intake under the port wing had the openings hollowed out and I made a new intake under the nose as the kit parts appeared to squashed and mishapen to me when compared to reference images. I'm also in the middle of scratch-building a new radiator under the starboard wing. I only recently noticed after looking at someone else's finished model that the sides of the radiator housing are angled instead of vertical and the mouth of the intake looked slightly wrong too. One other thing was the curve of the underside of the radiator housing looked different to the airframe that I'm building so scratching the whole thing seemed to be the only way to go on. At this stage you can see that I've yet to smooth and fill the edges of the radiator housing so it still looks rough but I hope you get the idea. The radiator grille is from the RB P-51 set which contains two of each piece. I found that with the unaltered depth of this radiator I could get two grilles from the one spare etched piece. Win! I scratch built the door/flap at the rear of the radiator from wine bottle foil and lead wire. (The retraction mechanism still needs making.) Cheers. Edited May 28, 2015 by geedubelyer D.B. Andrus, Mal_Belford and Whitey 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
somnas Posted May 30, 2015 Share Posted May 30, 2015 Wow, that's some great improvements you've done there! Taking notes... Erik geedubelyer 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geedubelyer Posted May 31, 2015 Author Share Posted May 31, 2015 Thanks Erik, nice to see you here. I look forward to your next one. Cheers. somnas 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monthebiff Posted June 2, 2015 Share Posted June 2, 2015 Nice progress, very nice attention to detail. Regards. Andy geedubelyer 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LSP_Kevin Posted June 2, 2015 Share Posted June 2, 2015 Lovely work, Guy! Really impressive improvements. Kev geedubelyer 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geedubelyer Posted June 8, 2015 Author Share Posted June 8, 2015 Hi Andy, hi Kev, many thanks for the support, much appreciated. Apologies for the late response. In order to get some paint on this puppy I need to apply the raised rivets to the rear fuselage. I used GW primer to cover the surface and adopted Iain's technique to generate the overlapped panel effect.. Learning from Iain's experiment I chose to stick with just the normal consistency of primer to create the panels rather than go for the thicker filler primer. In the image I hope you can see the edges of the panels and perhaps even a little of the stressed skin effect too? The rivets are by Archer and are applied to the polished surface of the primer. It's a labour intensive process and takes a while. I'll spray a thin coat of paint over these before I apply any top cammo colour. Cheers. Whitey, Big bad Wolf, Uncarina and 1 other 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geedubelyer Posted July 9, 2015 Author Share Posted July 9, 2015 (edited) Hi gang, I'm permitting myself a little celebration today as I've finally finished the rivetting That took some time and determination (not my strong suit) but I've eventually cracked it. In the end I used Archer's resin rivets as my first attempt with the HGW offerings was not successful. Nothing to do with the product and everything to do with user error in this case. My impatience led to me trying to remove the film backing before it was ready. The HGW rivets are extremely fine and I'm sure they would look good with a bit of practice. It was a lesson learned so hopefully when the time comes to use their stencil data I shall be prepared. Things took longer than necessary because the lines of Archer's decal sheet that I cut away kept fragmenting meaning I found myself adding one or two rivets at times. Quite frustrating and tedious work sadly but the finished item looks ok. Here's a look at the complete lines of rivets before paint. As we can see, there are alot. I've tried to adhere to the actual rivet lines on the full sized airframe but the pitch of the rivets differs as I was restricted by what Archer had to offer. I did use several different pitches to shake things up a bit. With a thin layer of primer over the rivets the effect can be clearly seen. I'm grateful to Iain for detailling his technique for replicating the lapped panels as I used this to good effect on the wing root. Once this hardens off I can move on to the top colours. Thanks for looking, Cheers. Edited July 9, 2015 by geedubelyer D.B. Andrus, Girlscanplay2, ClumsyDude and 4 others 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClumsyDude Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 Looks awesome, geedubelyer! Adding the rivets in tiny batches like that is really tedious, but I also find it oddly relaxing - it's a kind of zen thing, I can get totally in the zone doing something that's completely mundane. An hour or two can completely evaporate on a job like that, and (maybe I'm just a weirdo) I find it oddly blissful. Anyway, the effect is terrific. Can't wait to see it under some paint! Cheers Jim PS I'm sure you've noticed, some of the original recessed rivets seem to have survived, particularly up the top of the spine. I'm no Spitfire expert (in fact I shudder to think where the bar is set for that on this forum), is that deliberate? geedubelyer 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monthebiff Posted July 10, 2015 Share Posted July 10, 2015 Looking good, I used the Archer rives on my build, time consuming but well worth the effort but I have to say looks so much better with your extra work on the stressed skin and lapped panel lines. Word of warning though, be very careful as even under a coat of primer I did have a couple of small areas lift when removing a blu tak snake when I finshed the painting process and I was very careful but it still happened. Regards. Andy geedubelyer 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wolf Buddee Posted July 11, 2015 Share Posted July 11, 2015 Got to say GW, that looks really good. Much better than the recessed rivet detail that came on the kit. Nicely done indeed Sir! Cheers, Wolf geedubelyer 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kahunaminor Posted July 12, 2015 Share Posted July 12, 2015 Great stuff Guy, Your attention to detail and persistence are certainly paying off. You show some degree of familiarity with old fashioned modelling skills, an asset to be admired. Thanks for sharing. Regards, geedubelyer 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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