Silver Wings Fokker D.XXI

[Troy Molitor]

Looking great with some color added.   

[LSP_Kevin]

Progress with this one has slowed to a bit of a crawl, but having just ditched the Airfix Heracles build that had come to compete with it for bench time, the pace should pick up a bit now.

 

Here's the cowling with the added pipe thingy, which I fashioned from brass tubing:

 

 

I also spent some time producing the required paint masks in Silhouette Studio, ready to cut:

 

 

The rudder was the first item to receive their attention:

 

 

When all the others have been tested, I'll upload the file to Scale Model Paint Masks.

 

The last thing I needed to do before the painting stage was deal with the landing lights in the wing leading edges. I painted the cut-outs black, and then painted the back of the clear resin lamps with a chrome paint pen, and once dry, glued them in place using AMMO's acrylic glue:

 

 

I couldn't get the supplied clear resin covers to fit, so I'm going to use an old trick that works well if you get it right, and that is to use clear tape instead. I'll apply this over the cut-outs, trim it to size, and then mask out the aperture using Tamiya masking tape. This is why I've pre-painted the area around each cut-out, just in case I don't get my masking 100% accurate.

 

And a parting shot of what the airframe currently looks like:

 

 

Stay tuned for the paint job!

 

Kev

 

 

[scvrobeson]

You made it to paint!  Great job Kev

 

 

Matt 

[Mark_C]

That's a fantastic shade of orange, Kev!

 

And it's so smooooooooooooth . . .

[LSP_Kevin]

12 hours ago, Mark_C said:

That's a fantastic shade of orange, Kev!

 

And it's so smooooooooooooth . . .

 

SMS International Orange FTW!

 

Kev

[Azgaron]

This build is moving along very nicely! Great job Kev!

 

Håkan

 

[Furie]

It's all very pretty, Kev.
Can't wait for the sequel!  

[LSP_Kevin]

Thanks for your comments, fellas! Finally found some time to kick off the painting process on this one. Based on colour recommendations by Jeroen Peters in his own build from a decade ago, I've gone with Mr. Color C332 Light Aircraft Gray for the lightest of the colours. It seems like a strange choice, and looks a little green by itself, but worked beautifully on Jeroen's build. I've also read on a number of occasions that the more typical sandy beige colour shown in most colour profiles (and used on restorations) is in fact in error. Make of that what you will!

 

 

Anyway, this was the easy bit. Plenty of ugly masking to come! And I have to say I'm a little concerned about the potential for paint lifting on this one, as the primer comes off all too easily for my liking...

 

Kev

[geedubelyer]

Impressive tenacity Kev. 

Think how far you've come from those distant, painful memories of recalcitrant cockpit components. 

 

After overcoming that challenge the paintwork will be a breeze. 

[scvrobeson]

Happy to see paint hitting it. As tough as it might be, freehanding the camo might be the way to go if you're worried about paint lift

 

 

Matt 

[Azgaron]

Looking good! Good luck with the masking and painting!

 

Håkan

 

[Out2gtcha]

Looking good Kev!

[MikeMaben]

Hi Kev, don't know if you've heard this before, but just prior to application, I dip masks in warm water with a drop of dishsoap in it to break the surface tension and help enable the  mask to slide on the surface. Also , I've been cutting stencils on tracing paper (so you can see thru it)  and dipping them in soapy water too. This second method doesn't work well on a compound radius but neither does the 610. More delicate than vinyl when wet but no chance of lifting anything with the paper. Worth a try, build looking good, have fun.

 

 

Edited August 12, 2024 by MikeMaben

[LSP_Kevin]

21 minutes ago, MikeMaben said:

Hi Kev, don't know if you've heard this before, but just prior to application, I dip masks in warm water with a drop

of dishsoap in it to break the surface tension and help enable the  mask to slide on the surface. Also , I've been

cutting stencils on tracing paper (so you can see thru it)  and dipping them in soapy water too. This second method

doesn't work well on a compound radius but neither does the 610. More delicate than vinyl when wet but no chance

of lifting anything with the paper.

Worth a try, build looking good, have fun.

 

At this point I haven't really even thought ahead to applying the masks. I have them cut already, but only for the national markings. I was planning to use Tamiya tape for the camouflage colours, and that's what has me a little concerned. That, plus the inherent complexity of the shapes! I don't think my airbrushing chops are up to making a convincing job of it freehand, so I'll probably rule that out. Recently I tried using wet paper as a mask on a delicate finish, but it didn't work very well, and I put this down to having used plain old 80gsm printer paper for the job. I think something thinner and less stiff would have been more suitable.

 

Anyway, I need to find the time to get some more paint down one way or another!

 

Kev

[MikeMaben]

Yep, relatively thin paper that is transparent (not just translucent) is important.

Also,  once the mask is down and wet, you need to quickly cotton swab the edges to eliminate any water build up and burnish the edges as well. Then light coats at first to seal the edges and prevent the edges from being lifted by the air pressure. Light coat build up is best anyway.  You'll get it done one way or the other.