SH Tempest Mk V "Kicked Up A Notch". January 14/21 New eBook!

[LSP_Kevin]

I have one of those too, and from the same source. I don't use it that much, when you need it, there's no better tool for the job.

 

Kev

[chuck540z3]

September 23/20

 

I skipped Step 28 earlier, so here it is.  This is a navigation light of some kind on the bottom of the right wing.

 

 

The instructions are a little confusing, so here are my modifications as follows:

 

1- Trim and dry fit the light (K6) within the wing, because it fits poorly.  You don’t want to be fiddling with this part after painting.

2- Using clear acrylic red and green paint, paint the back of the lights as instructed with a brush, but only to the first recess, not the second. 

3- When dry, paint the back of each light with silver or aluminum paint to the second recess.  This covers the red/green, but also fills in the light surround.  Let dry.

4- Apply the two circular masks to the back of the light and cover the front with tape, saving the front mask for later.

5- Paint the rear with Interior Grey-Green like the cockpit.

6- Remove the front tape but leave the circular masks in place.  I see no reason to remove them and if you do, you risk pulling up the silver backing to each light

7- Install and glue into bottom wing

8- Apply outside mask for future painting.

 

 

Here is Part K6 with just the red and green paint applied from behind.

 

 

 

The silver paint is applied from behind to the second recess, the circular masks are applied, the front is covered with tape and the back of the part is painted Interior Green

 

 

After the green paint dries, pull off the front tape and voila!  Red and Green lights with metallic surround detail, encased in a green background, just like the real deal.  Considering this light is on the bottom and rarely seen, this is a bit of detail overkill, but nonetheless pretty cool.

 

 

Speaking of detail overkill, I used to always add significant wiring and hydraulic line detail to my main landing gear wells (LGW), but once the model was finished and photographed, I rarely ever saw it again, if ever, so why bother?  As a result, my last 4 models of a Spitfire, F-15C Eagle, F-5E and Harvard/Texan have none of it.  These decisions were fairly easy, because you can’t see much of it on a Spitfire, the gear doors on the F-15C are mostly closed when parked and the F-5E and Harvard had some decent wiring molded into the plastic, giving me clear a clear pass to be lazy and skip this step completely.  Having said that, you can see a lot of this detail that I applied to my P-51 Mustang and A-10C Warthog, so I’m glad I did it, so where does this Tempest fit into this picture? 

 

Checking many photographs of the LGW’s, which are really hard to find from every angle, this model should have quite a bit of this detail, so I begrudgingly added the key electrical conduits, wiring and a few hydraulic lines with a variety of widths of lead wire.  I didn’t do every wire of course, but the main ones you might remember after looking at the LGW for maybe 10 seconds or so.  It’s not perfectly accurate either, but pretty close to what I see with my eyes.  I didn’t add any wiring brackets and other fine couplers either, because everything is painted Interior Green, which hides the color contrast between line and bracket, making it a waste of time in my mind.

 

Before I did any of that, we have Step 30, which adds a variety of kit parts to the LGW’s.  Few of these parts fit very well and they all have strong seam lines on them, so there’s lots of clean-up and trimming required.

 

 

 

Parts H41 and H42, which are identical, open and close the inner LGW doors, but after installation the piston rod protrudes beyond the wing bottom, guaranteeing breakage later.  The easy fix for this, which I always do on any piston parts, it to remove the rod, drill a hole and replace the rod with a steel pin which you don’t need to paint and can be removed for later installation.  Here are the parts cleaned up slightly on the left and fresh off the sprue on the right.

 

 

And the beginning of my wiring and a really good tip:  If you are going to add wiring, drill out all the holes in the sides before you assemble the LDW’s, because it’s really difficult to do so after, like I did.  I didn’t because I thought I wouldn’t be adding any wiring, but of course that all changed once I checked some pics of the real deal.

 

The larger lead wires try to replicate fairly thick conduit pipes, which are noticeable on both the front and rear of the LGW’s.  These and many other lines enter a junction box, Part H17, which is fairly shallow, so drilling holes in the sides for the wires is almost impossible.  Thinking about how to do it, I decided to cut Part H17 roughly into thirds, removing the center section for the wiring and gluing the outside pieces in place.

 

 

I discovered something kind of cool, noting that Parts I46 and H30 have notches that can hold wiring in place similar to the real deal, so I added some accordingly, while covering Part H17 with brass PE cover plates to finish them off.

 

 

Now a bit of a walk-around, so that you can see where I put wiring and where the junction holes should be.  The kit parts had most of these junctions, but I added a few more.  Again, nothing is perfectly accurate, but overall I think I got the quasi-accurate and busy look I was hoping for.

 

 

With the bottom wing dry fitted, you can see the wiring on the bottom (top of wing) mostly shows, while the wires on the top (bottom of wing) barely do, but are still visible.  This shot shows why the piston on Parts H42/H42 should be removed and installed later when the gear doors are glued on at the end of the build.

 

 

That gap at the top of the LGW’s from this angle, will close when it is glued into place.

 

 

Next step is painting and weathering, which should make the wiring really pop and look more realistic.

 

So that’s it for a while boys, because I’m having Carpal Tunnel surgery on my left wrist tomorrow and I’m not sure how long it will take to get back into game shape.  I have it really bad on both wrists, no doubt caused in no small part by this hobby of ours and 66 years of breathing above ground level.     I will need my right wrist done sometime after that, so the progress of this build could be bumpier and slower than usual, but it will get finished!

 

Cheers,

Chuck

Edited September 24, 2020 by chuck540z3

[spyrosjzmichos]

Wheel wells looking the part Chuck!

By the way, what's your favourite product for painting clear parts such as the lights?

[AlbertD]

Nice work Chuck. I'm really enjoying this build.

Please try not to over-do it after your surgery. You don't want to take any unnecessary chances.

[Anthony in NZ]

A pleasure as always Chuck, so much inspiration and great solid ideas on building this kit...thank you!

 

All the best with surgery and as Al says, dont overdo it!

 

Cheers Anthony

[vvwse4]

Looking good!!

 

Hope things will turn out ok with the wrist and take it easy after the surgery!

 

Rick

[dennismcc]

More great modelling, as others have said take it easy after your surgery

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

[Kagemusha]

All the very best with the surgery Chuck, thanks for providing such a superb tutorial on getting the very best out of the kit. 

[Nighthawk Calling 1]

Good luck with the surgery Chuck, hope your back at the bench soon.

[Rick K]

Did exact same with those "pistons" as breakage was guaranteed.  Best of luck with surgery. 

 

Hope you have a pretty nurse. 

[JayW]

Carpal tunnel - Well Chuck, I agree that this hobby might cause stuff like that.  With the pressure we put on x-acto knives, filing, sawing, sanding....I have avoided it so far but I do feel soreness alot.  Get well soon.  I love following your builds. 

[chuck540z3]

September 25/20

I'm back!  Yes already.  Carpal Tunnel wrist surgery is over and thank you for all the good wishes.  As it turned out, the surgery itself was pretty quick at about 30 minutes and although I’m pretty sore today, I was told by my doctor to use my wrist after a few days and not baby it, to help prevent scar tissue from growing over the median nerve in my hand that caused the problems in the first place.  I’m all for that!

 

Too sore to model and pick up tiny parts, but I can paint with my right hand just fine, so I decided to paint the Landing Gear Wells (LGW).  When adding the wiring and plumbing, I should have shown a few pics of the real deal first that I used as references.  Here’s a couple I lifted from the ‘net of the front and back of the LGW, showing the major conduits and other wiring.

 

 

 

 

 

Before I painted them RAF Interior Green, I sprayed everything in gloss black as a base for quality control, a primer and for background shading.  Lots of modelers do this, but it makes me cringe when I see them use flat black, because the paint is naturally rough to begin with and subsequent coats of flat paint make it even rougher.  Use gloss black instead- and note that I painted the cockpit floor and sides that you can see from above.  I also painted the gun openings black before they are glued together, to provide a dark background within.

 

 

 

 

Nice and smooth….

 

 

 

 

After green paint, which I thinned 50/50 and allowed some of the black to show through.  As I hoped, this made all the wiring really pop and show the various widths of wire more clearly- and where they went.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm not going to be adding any weathering or grime to the LGW's until the end of the build, when I weather the rest of the fuselage and wings.  When my wrist heals a bit more, I’ll be able to get the wings glued together and attached to the fuselage.  Doctor's orders!   I already know this will be tricky in order to get the dihedral correct, but I have some ideas.   

 

Thanks for checking in.

 

 

Cheers,

Chuck

Edited September 26, 2020 by chuck540z3

[allthumbs]

Amazing...such clean and precise workmanship.

[dodgem37]

Good show.  I like the variable diameter solder.  Adds visual interest.

 

Sincerely,

Mark

[Radub]

Beautiful work so far, it looks fabulous. 

Radu