You can't get enough Yellow Wings - Part 1 : Fisher Ryan ST-M.

[LSP_Kevin]

I feel your pain Hubert! I still can't stand looking at my own work in photos (and sometimes not in person, either). I think what you've done so far looks great though, and at least as good as my only attempt at foiling a model so far (it foiled me, really). I'd like to give it another go some time. I'm sure this will look great in the end!

 

Kev

[Hubert Boillot]

Thanks Kev ! Sometimes technology makes us forget real life perceptions ...

 

Your work is great btw. I love what you are doing with the Corsair !

 

Hubert

[Guest]

Hibert, inching along. Looks good to me !.......Harv

[Hubert Boillot]

Thanks Harv !

 

Hubert

[Mike Robinson]

The unforgiving eye of the Macro lens really accentuates things Hubert. Looking at it in person they look so much better.

 

I'm really digging this build as it's a neat airplane with lots of possibilities and with your usual magic touch, will be a stunner. I've used the Archer rivets and I found that a good base coat of gloss clear (or Future if you can get it, followed by a sealing coat or two of Future or gloss will help seal them and help prevent lifting if you need to mask. I Can't say it prevents it, as I still pulled some off my Devastator, but it does reduce it.

 

Keep up the great work.

 

Cheers

Mike

[Out2gtcha]

I like it!   I too have found the macro lens my mortal enemy, and my best friend all at the same time. It does show you stuff you normally would rather not see when foiling, but it also shows you the areas you need to fix if there are any.

 

Looking forward to more!

[AlexM]

Looking great!

 

I never did something like that and wonder how safe it is to touch/handle such a foiled fuselage without the risk to tear off the foil

 

Alex

[Out2gtcha]

Looking great!

 

I never did something like that and wonder how safe it is to touch/handle such a foiled fuselage without the risk to tear off the foil

 

Alex

Simply put, there is none. Kitchen foil with say MS foil glue applid either by brush, or thinned and shot through an AB like I do, is quite resistant to those kinds of mishaps. You may see an edge every once in a while come up, but a quick brush with the MS foil glue will sort it.

 

Even if your WANTED to remove the foil, kitchen foil unlike BMF does not come off easily.

[Hubert Boillot]

Thanks for the interest Brian and Alex.

 

@ Alex : the foil adhesive is pretty strong. The risk of tearing the foil is pretty limited. I'd say nil if you do not use any 'agressive' instrument. The biggest risk is fingerprints ;-) !

 

Hubert

[Hubert Boillot]

And another month and more has passed !

 

I have not been inactive though, although other life and DYI matters have taken precedence over modelling more often than I would have wished ... Anyway, enough self-pitying ...

 

The paint is on !

 

I have finished foiling the fuselage, but for the lower part of the front fuselage, which will be foiled when the wing is glued in situ, as the central spine of the underwing is natural metal. The wheel spats are finished also. They proved tricky to foil, with their curves, but I managed to do it, working small pieces by small pieces, and trying more than once .. 

 

The rear part of the spats is not natural metal. It was in reality some silver-doped fabric covering. I was too lazy to mask the foil and decided to brush-paint them... The resul is frankly so-so, even after many trials. The best result I have achieved so far is by using RubN'Buff, mixing some "silver leaf" and some "pewter" to get an appropriately dull silver. I may give a try to another coat, as I am not entirely happy

 

 

The wing, fin and tailplanes have been painted chrome yellow. Mine is a mix of Tamiya XF-3 (yellow) and XF-8 (red). I found an app for my iphone that helps you mix paints to get the closest color to the FS or RAL reference. The mix was between 3:1 to 5:2, but in the end I used old eyeball Mk-1 to do the final adjustments.

 

Before that, the space between the ribs was pre-shaded with some red, to enhance the contrast and shadow. After the chrome yellow as applied, some light yellow (Prince August Lunar Yellow was airbrushed on the spine of the ribs, and the whole blended with another light coat of chrome yellow.

As I have since varnished the wings for some light weathering and decalling, the shiny surface plays havoc wth the camera auto-focus. Hopefully the photo below will show some of the effect.

 

 

I did the same for the tailplanes and fin.

 

Although the kit ones are nice, the exhaust stubs were redone using some 1.5 mm brass tube, re-drilled inside with a 1.2 mm bit. they were blackened using Uschi Van der Rosten's brass blackening fluid, then weathered with some rust and hazelnut and sepia inks from Prince August

 

 

The prop was painted Tamiya yellow, then  masked with some tiny (0.5 mm- strips of Tamiya masking tape to achieve some layering effect. A brown Posca paint-pen was used to do the darker stripes. All was then blended first in raw umber oil (used with Uschi's Blitz Dry agent, that dries oil paints in one hour rather than 5 days), and then again another blend was achieved with some Prince August hazelnut ink.

The outside of the props' leading adges was armoured with a brass strip, simulated here with a narrow aluminium foil, wich I yellowed using some Rub n' Buff gold wax.

 

 

The prop cap was turned from some aluminum rod (an old X-Acto handle), as I could not see myself trying to foil Fisher's tiny part.

 

I will use monofilament nylon for the rigging. The wheel spats from Fisher are made to use the supplied PE brass flat wires (which Paul recommends not tio use as they sag with temperature changes). In order to secure properly the attachement of the rigging wires, and to be closer to the reality, where the the wires were set in a double turnbuckle, I made a pseudo-turnbuckle by gluing on one side 4x 0.7 mm brass tubes, 2mm long, and on the other side  of the spats (the inside one) two pieces of tube. The tube comes from Albion Alloy.

 

 

I will now start decalling the wings, and doing some light weathering, before resealing them in a satin finsh. The goal is to finish this one for "La Comète's" next meeting, next friday.

 

Hubert.

[LSP_Kevin]

Fantastic work, Hubert! That's some pretty impressive foiling, I must say. And I wish I'd thought of adding some micro-tubing to the spats for rigging, as I had a nightmare with it. Yours is a brilliantly simple solution!

 

Care to share the name of your paint mixing app?

 

Kev

[Hubert Boillot]

Fantastic work, Hubert! That's some pretty impressive foiling, I must say. And I wish I'd thought of adding some micro-tubing to the spats for rigging, as I had a nightmare with it. Yours is a brilliantly simple solution!

 

Care to share the name of your paint mixing app?

 

Kev

Thanks a lot Kevin ! Much appreciated.

 

The app on my iPhone is called "iModelkit"  http://www.id6.ch/id6_WebSite_fr/Home.html

 

It has also a feature for scale calculations which I do not really use. But the most useful feature is the database of paints from different manufacturers and the "mixing" feature. You choose a colour (in this case ANA 506 - chrome yellow). The app gives you its FS equivalent FS 13538, and the manufacturers matches if there is one. If not, you can use the mixing feature to develop a mix cocktail. the only limit is that you can mix only paints from the same manufacturer. By varying the ratios (sliding with your finger, easy ), you try to approach the original sample. The app gives you the degree of variation in RGB, and the tonal (matt, satin or gloss) difference as well.

 

My chrome yellow is actually more orange than the wing pic shows, but I was trying to get round the camera focus-block as it was too shiny.

 

 

Hubert.

 

Hubert.

[LSP_Kevin]

The app on my iPhone is called "iModelkit"

Ha! Now that's funny. I actually have that app, but I've never really looked at it.

 

Kev

[Hubert Boillot]

Some more progress ... The end line is getting near

 

The plan since I decided that I would go for foiling was to minimise the handling of the completed aircraft, and keep it into bits an pieces until as late as possible...

 

So the wings, tailplanes fin and rudder have been decaled and weathered, the idea being to break the evenness of the yellow. Plus these ST-Ms were trainers. Well kept, but hard used nevertheless. After some gloss varnish (Pebeo Crystal for oil colours) the decals were applied, then soaked in Microset. I decided to detour the "US Army" decal as close as possible to the lettering. I started with the "U.S." decal, and had to endure it tearing up : not enough film left to ensure its resistance. So the "ARMY" one was kept as is. The carrier film was initially slightly visible, but after some weathering, another coat of gloss varnish, then a coat of "Satincoat" from Humbrol, it has disappeared.

 

 

The weathering was done prior the second gloss coat, with some "raw umber" and "light Mars brown" pigments (found in art supplies store), brushed in the recesses and on some protruding relief with a stiff brush. The rudder was decalled. The kit-supplied striped decal is slightly too small for the rudder. The red bars and insigna-blue band had to be prolonged. This was done using a Posca paint-pen. I really love these ones compared to brushes !

 

 

The "62" decal on the cowling was applied as is, whereas the one on the fuselage was detoured. However, having learnt from my experience with the wing decal, I only scored the decal film (not going through the paper). When I applied the decal, I then removed the extra film in the center of the numbers.

As a passing note, some parts were missing from my box (and I had some unexplained extras like big narrow wheels). The fuel cap on the font fuselage was one, as are the wing to fuselage struts. The fuel cap cover was re-done in plastic, then glued and painted in place.

 

 

Btw, the wheel spats have been pre-equipped with the monofilament rigging, CA-glued in the tubes described in the previous post. The filament was colored silver by running it between my fingers previously coated with Silver Rub n' Buff.

 

Whilst this dried, inspired by Eric's and others' example, I made a small base, using an A4 cheap photoframe. The base is some foamed board, marked and air-brushed in grey and a mist of black. The "earth" on on side is the same weathering powders, sprinkled on white PVA glue. It was then sealed by a coat of matt varnish. The oil stains come from some Vallejo "hazelnut" ink.

 

 

All of this was completed yesterday. Today, I have (at last) glued the wing to the fuselage. Thanks to the preparation, especially at the front, the gap to fill was minimal. It was filled with some CA+micro-balloons, then a touch of Mr Surfacer. The rivets decals (there is one line running along the centerline) were then applied.

 

 

Finally, there was a small gap to fill at the wing root. I mixed some Prince August Plastic Putty (semi-liquid stuff) with the Chrome Yellow colour, and with a toothpick filled the small seam. The extra was just wiped with a Q-tip dipped in alcohol. One benefit of the alu foil is that it withstands the chemicals without glitches... Not so much with the root paint, but that is fixable with some paint touch-up ....

 

 

Next steps are to foil the bottom fuselage, then glue the taiplanes, fin, rig them, then the wheel spats ...

 

Hubert

Edited June 24, 2015 by MostlyRacers

[Hubert Boillot]

Lower fuselage, central spine foiled ...

 

 

... and fin and tailplanes on ...

 

 

Hubert