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Tamiya Spitfire Mk IX Kicked Up A Notch: Last Post


chuck540z3

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Amazing work as always Chuck, but I have one question. What is the advantage of decanting the lacquer paint, thinning it and airbrushing it, as a pose to spraying directly from the can?

 

Like Steve said, it's all about control, but it's also about atomization of the paint.  Through a spray can you get what you get for where it sprays, what pressure it comes out of the can and what the paint to air ratio is.  For wide areas it does a pretty good job, but it's still crude and you have a high chance of an orange peel finish. 

 

With decanted paint through an airbrush, I can control the paint mixture with thinner, the pattern of the paint, how much pressure it sprays and the air to paint mixture.  Through a lot of trial and error, I now know that the Tamiya lacquer (which is likely a synthetic acrylic) must be thinned with about 25-33% Tamiya lacquer thinner or it sputters through my airbrush.  I use an Iwata CM-C Plus most of the time, which has a very fine needle of 0.18mm, which is a bit over half the width of most airbrushes with a 0.3mm needle.  The Tamiya paint will likely spray OK unthinned through the larger needle, but not through the fine one.  You will note that the sides of the cockpit have very fine detail, but also a lot of recessed detail.  A finer needle airbrush can spray paint within these areas better than typical airbrushes, because you can spray paint in a very fine pattern at low air pressures without causing too much air turbulence, which pushes paint out of recessed cavities and causes "dusting" of dried paint before it hits the surface in other areas.  This is not a knock against 0.3mm needles at all, because I use my Iwata HP-CH quite often that has this same sized needle.  For large broadcast painting, like spraying Tamiya X-22 all over my big F-15C Eagle project, it works very well and better than a thin needle for this type of painting.  For small cockpits and likely the remainder of this model, the thinner needle should work better.

 

The other advantage of spraying decanted paint through an airbrush is that I waste less paint.  With a spray can, the pattern is what, 3" wide at 6-8" away?  With my airbrush, it's 1/8" to maybe 1/2" wide, because I can spray from 2-3" away and create a much finer finish, while saving on wasted paint outside of my target zone.  Hopefully this all makes sense, but a picture of my P-38L build prior to the application of Alclad says it all.  You could never get a fine finish like this out of a spray can....

 

 

ZYSIWG.jpg

 

 

Ux1M5U.jpg

 

 

 

 

Cheers,

Chuck

Edited by chuck540z3
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Great work as usual Chuck.

 

Several pages back you made mention of the diamond Dremmel bit set. Banggood have them, they choice of payment methods include paypal. I have bought numerous stuff from BG and never not received it, quality is good.

 

Keep up the stellar work, I look forward to your next lesson in fine scale modelling.

 

Damian

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Several pages back you made mention of the diamond Dremmel bit set. Banggood have them, they choice of payment methods include paypal. I have bought numerous stuff from BG and never not received it, quality is good.

 

Got a link, Damian?

 

Kev

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Got a link, Damian?

 

Kev

 

Found it!

 

https://www.banggood.com/30pcs-3MM-Titanium-Diamond-Burrs-Bur-Bit-Set-Dremel-Rotary-Tool-Set-p-933450.html

 

And ordered! I didn't order from the other mob, as their order form didn't have my suburb in the delivery address form, and I couldn't type it in myself. Plus, they didn't do PayPal, so it kind of ended there.

 

Kev

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January 10/18

 

A TINY update, but I think a BIG tip! 

 

As shown above, I'm working on the cockpit area, which is super picky work with micro-painting and micro cockpit decals.  The room for error barely exists, so you need a few tricks up your sleeve to make the task a bit easier, although everything takes a lot of time.

 

Other than painting every little part with gloss black lacquer, I like to detail each cockpit piece before I install it.  Nothing very novel there, so here's a sneak peak at the gun sight bulbs, joystick and compass with details painted with an 18/0 spotter brush, which is barely bigger than a needle.  Yes, the joystick handle should be rough.

 

 

faakzP.jpg

 

 

What is REALLY hard to do, is paint straight edges at this small scale, so I discovered a trick a few builds ago that makes this task much easier.  I'm not saying that I necessarily invented it, because it's kind of obvious, but I've never seen it before on other builds- yet.

 

The air tanks, oxygen bottle and emergency landing gear tank on the Spitfire have straps that hold the tanks to the sides of the cockpit, which are painted RAF interior green.  They are very thin on the kit parts, so "staying between the lines" with a paint brush is really hard to do cleanly and masking them off and spray painting doesn't work all that well either.  A better idea is to find some spare decal film in the same color- or close to it- then cut thin strips to replicate same.  Here's the tanks with green decals applied that look pretty close to the same color, as painted on the base of the oxygen tank on the right.  On this tank I took some artistic and strategic liberties, because the straps should be mounted closer together on top of the raised plastic detail between the straps.  The fine and thin decal strips, as shown at the front, kept falling off and looked crooked, so I punted and applied them to the sides of the raised detail instead, to get them clean and straight.  That tiny little bottle in the middle took me 6 tries and about an hour to do, but it turned out to be worth it.  Combined with all the other fine detail that I plan for this cockpit, it will really add some precision to the overall look.  For those who are interested, the decal film came from the Tamiya F-14A "Black Knights" kit decal sheet.  There are a ton of green decals on this sheet that will last you forever and they are tough if you cut them with scissors and not a knife.  I use tiny bits of decals all the time, especially square red ones that are very hard to create with a brush, and just about every other color and shape as well.

 

 

LnrSeG.jpg

 

 

 

Now another tip, but this time it definitely isn't my idea.  For those who followed by F-15C Aggressor build, you may remember that the decaling stage was stalled because I dumped a bottle of Microsol right on the whole decal sheet, ruining 80% of them.   @#$%!!    :BANGHEAD2:    

 

Anyway, it turns out that this is a common problem, so Steve (A-10LOADER who is building a fantastic 1/18 scale Tomcat), sent me a present in the mail, which even matches my work area in oak.  Thank you STEVE!  This little sucker not only holds the bottles of decal solution upright, but it has little holes for brushes to be held behind, so that you can keep track of which brush has what solution on it.  Simple to make, but genius nonetheless and I will never spill a bottle of decal solution again. 

 

 

xzCsav.jpg

 

 

 

That's about it guys for now.  Before I show my cockpit, I want everything to look as good as possible, which always takes me too much time.  :rolleyes:

 

Cheers,

Chuck

Edited by chuck540z3
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What is REALLY hard to do, is paint straight edges at this small scale, so I discovered a trick a few builds ago that makes this task much easier.  I'm not saying that I necessarily invented it, because it's kind of obvious, but I've never seen it before on other builds- yet.

 

The air tanks, oxygen bottle and emergency landing gear tank on the Spitfire have straps that hold the tanks to the sides of the cockpit, which are painted RAF interior green.  They are very thin on the kit parts, so "staying between the lines" with a paint brush is really hard to do cleanly and masking them off and spray painting doesn't work all that well either.  A better idea is to find some spare decal film in the same color- or close to it- then cut thin strips to replicate same.  Here's the tanks with green decals applied that look pretty close to the same color, as painted on the base of the oxygen tank on the right.  On this tank I took some artistic and strategic liberties, because the straps should be mounted closer together on top of the raised plastic detail between the straps.  The fine and thin decal strips, as shown at the front, kept falling off and looked crooked, so I punted and applied them to the sides of the raised detail instead, to get them clean and straight.  That tiny little bottle in the middle took me 6 tries and about an hour to do, but it turned out to be worth it.  Combined with all the other fine detail that I plan for this cockpit, it will really add some precision to the overall look.  For those who are interested, the decal film came from the Tamiya F-14A "Black Knights" kit decal sheet.  There are a ton of green decals on this sheet that will last you forever and they are tough if you cut them with scissors and not a knife.  I use tiny bits of decals all the time, especially square red ones that are very hard to create with a brush, and just about every other color and shape as well.

 

 

Another thought is to airbrush the color you want on to plain decal film, or even an old decal sheet you won't use and then cut strips to shape.  Just make sure your paint is either non-water soluble or give it an appropriate clear coat before using. 

Useful if you're trying to precisely match colors.

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'. . . I've never seen it before on other builds- yet. . . .'

Ahem, Post 577, and 582.  Just sayin'.

 

http://forum.largescaleplanes.com/index.php?showtopic=38388&page=39

 

Sincerely,

Mark

 

 

Well I stand correctly Mark, but I'm not surprised!  That Merlin engine of yours is second to none (other than Wolf's)- and thanks for the silver decal idea on the hoses.  I have metal hose clamps, but for some of the smaller hoses the decals would look better.

 

Cheers,

Chuck

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'That Merlin engine of yours is second to none (other than Wolf's)'

Could be worse!  Thanks, Buddy.

 

'I have metal hose clamps'

You and me both.  I bought a set for the Mustang after being turned on to them thru Wolfs Spitfire thread.  The thought of trying to manipulate them into place and the extra time it would involve wore me out, so I went with decals.

 

Love your work.

 

Sincerely,

Mark

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