Dragon / CE 109D ... nearing the finish line ...

[Granger Davis]

I'm really liking this, Mike! Makes me want to buy an early 109 and start on it myself. Maybe before too long....

[MikeMaben]

Inching along at my usual glacial pace, found the spinner was too short and too small

in diameter so added a couple of styrene discs and turned it all down to match the

Kagero drawing I'm using. Turned out OK actually.

 

 

The added some color with the old Black & Dekker to keep the rpm's slow.

Using a sheet of plastice with a hole the diameter of the distance from the

front to keep the colors seperate to some degree.

 

 

70 and 26 sprayed with the white stripe by hand.

 

 

Never did get any replacement windshields from Dragoncare so when tried to come up

with an alternative , I was perusing my Hasegawa F-2 kit and thot 'hey, if I could just round

off the top corners I could be back in bizniss. The F-2 kit has 5 windshieds in it so I wasn't

going to be violating it's preciousocity. One of the 5 is perfect cuz it has a split panel on

the port side but not on the starb. The Dragon windshield has both sides split for the vent

window on the side glass panel which didn't exist on any 109. So I sanded it to shape and

hit it with 3 successive grits and then a buffing wheel (very carefully). Then the problem

was that the Hasegawa windshield has insets in the rear edge. What they're supposed to

represent I have no idea but they had to be filled in flush. I cut a .005" piece of sheet and

trimmed it to shape then sanded it flush. Turned out OK too.

 

 

So I'm set for the replacement for my crunched (former) windshield.

Back to work ... put-put-put-put ...

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 7, 2020 by MikeMaben
color typo

[MikeMaben]

One step forward, six steps back . So I had some old Floquil Military Colors lacquer

paint I bot back in the '90s, highly praised at the time for being the most accurate LW

colors. I only had RLM70 / 71 could never find any 65 as these paints were being dis-

continued at the time. Anyway, long story short, these paints were obviously 'not' in the

same condition they were when new so I added some lacquer thinner. They were the

worst paints I've tried to use since starting out with Polly S water based paints back in

the '80s. They loaded up the needle in seconds and therefore needless to say unuseable

however I soldiered on and got the colors on. They were extremely matt in finish.

While messing with all that I was cutting the splinter cammo masks from illustrations

in Ken Merrick's LC&M Vol.1 that I scanned and enlarged to 1/32 scale then cut out on

the old Cameo 1. I started out by applying the masks the old fashioned blu-tak rolls

and balls.

 

 

 

After the first color I spent at least a couple of hours removing the tak.

I'm pretty sure it was very difficult due to the extreme matt surface. So I tried different

ways of spacing the masks off the surface. First I tried strings of yarn stuck on with Aim

toothpaste ( EZ rinse off with warm water) ...

 

 

 

Finally, as you can see , I wound up with a huge mess and decided to start over, so I stripped 'er down

and threw out the old Floquil stuff and will be starting over with the trusty MRP.

 

 

Feels better starting over

 

Edited November 11, 2020 by MikeMaben

[Out2gtcha]

Bummer to have to start over though! 

MRP usually makes me look like a better painter than I actually am, so I think it will all turn out fine

[Shiba]

Hi, Nice recovery and good see you back on the track!! 

 

BTW  Can you show us what kind dress she goes to show off ?

 

Regards,

Matsu.

 

 

[MikeMaben]

Hi Matsu, I'm generally shootin' for a late 1938 fresh from the factory scheme with

a couple of markings to represent an operational a/c.

Thanks for looking in 

 

 

Edited November 15, 2020 by MikeMaben

[MikeMaben]

Finally some color(s) !  I have NEVER had so many disasters in one build as this.

First I decided to mask the pattern with wet paper. I cut the masks from an illustration

in the Merrick/Kiroff vol.1 , scanned , enlarged to scale then traced the pattern on

different layers in Illustrator. Wow this is easy !! ( I thot to myself). I must have cut

different patterns out 3 or 4 times each before I was finished. Then cut on the old

Cameo 1. More disasters than I can count. Knocked things over, dropped parts and

couldn't find them (until the next day) , putting little rings on the wing root with a

beading too and on the last one pushed a hole (cracked the plastic) and had to fill

that. Knocked over the airbrush with a half a cupfull of paint in it , started to 

drop the dang thing and when I grabbed it I snapped the port wing off. One thing

after another until tonight. Anyway , some progress toward the finish line and

'Man o' Manachevitz' will I be glad to wrap this one up.

                                                                                                    

 

 

Paint the bottom side 65 and a buncha small (relatively speaking) stuff left 

 

[monthebiff]

Very nice Mike, nearly there!

 

Regards. Andy 

[dodgem37]

It's getting to look a lot like Christmas . . . 

 

Love this, Mike.

 

Sincerely,

Mark

[Derek B]

Fantastic Mike, well done 

 

Derek

[Gazzas]

Mike,

    Glad to see this one again.  Sorry for your series of mishaps.  Paint looks good!

 

Gaz

[Shiba]

Hi, Looking good Mike!

Just couple more steps to cross the finishing line,

 

Happy holidays  

[Troy Molitor]

Looking at your sweet little 109 painted you wouldn’t think of any problems you had.  Everything is now in the rear view mirror and nothing will stop you now.  Looks awesome Mike.   

[Greg W]

Looking really good now Mike! Way to bounce back. 

 

Great subject, great job. Looking forward to more.

 

Greg

[RadBaron]

Great recovery! She's looking fantastic!