LSP_Kevin Posted March 1, 2018 Share Posted March 1, 2018 Superb as always, Karim! Kev karimb 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karimb Posted March 1, 2018 Author Share Posted March 1, 2018 Superb as always, Karim! Kev Kev Thanks for stopping by and for the kind comment! What do you think of the floats? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Posted March 1, 2018 Share Posted March 1, 2018 Wow, this is nothing short of mind blowing.................... incredible skills.......making my eyes water..... this is so good to watch..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trak-Tor Posted March 1, 2018 Share Posted March 1, 2018 Wow, that's some stunning piece of modeling! You've made my day! Thanks! Juraj Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monthebiff Posted March 1, 2018 Share Posted March 1, 2018 Superb work Karim, that cockpit is super good. Regards. Andy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bstarr3 Posted March 2, 2018 Share Posted March 2, 2018 Karim, I think you've given all of us a reason to consider putting away our models and taking up knitting - this is museum-quality stuff! The eye to detail, the technique, the precision of the painting, decaling, and weathering... I'm truly impressed. To answer your question, the floats look fantastic. The dings really look consistent with the reference photos you showed earlier. The extra effort you put into tweaking it from that initial try was well worth it. I agree with you that it didn't look quite right at first. But you massaged it into something just right with the multiple passes of sanding and smoothing it out with the glue. The chipping is nice, but it was a shame to see that nice wood effect covered up with black. So, just to verify, the leather of the seat cushion was done with a white base coat, followed by the leather decals, and some oils over the top of that? It's a very nice effect. Bomber_County 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bomber_County Posted March 4, 2018 Share Posted March 4, 2018 Karim, I also fumbly retire from this hobby, stunning, sublime words fail me........ Beautiful build, I have the ships camel in the stash so may borrow some ideas ....... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karimb Posted March 7, 2018 Author Share Posted March 7, 2018 Wow, this is nothing short of mind blowing.................... incredible skills.......making my eyes water..... this is so good to watch..... Jeff thank you for such kind comments! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karimb Posted March 7, 2018 Author Share Posted March 7, 2018 Wow, that's some stunning piece of modeling! You've made my day! Thanks! Juraj Juraj! buddy that means alot! Thanks for the kind words! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karimb Posted March 7, 2018 Author Share Posted March 7, 2018 Superb work Karim, that cockpit is super good. Regards. Andy Andy thanks for stopping by! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karimb Posted March 7, 2018 Author Share Posted March 7, 2018 Karim, I think you've given all of us a reason to consider putting away our models and taking up knitting - this is museum-quality stuff! The eye to detail, the technique, the precision of the painting, decaling, and weathering... I'm truly impressed. To answer your question, the floats look fantastic. The dings really look consistent with the reference photos you showed earlier. The extra effort you put into tweaking it from that initial try was well worth it. I agree with you that it didn't look quite right at first. But you massaged it into something just right with the multiple passes of sanding and smoothing it out with the glue. The chipping is nice, but it was a shame to see that nice wood effect covered up with black. So, just to verify, the leather of the seat cushion was done with a white base coat, followed by the leather decals, and some oils over the top of that? It's a very nice effect. Brian, Your mosquito is nothing short of museum quality either my friend! I keep track of developments on your build but lately i haven't had alot of time to check in a leave a word either on your build thread or pretty much anywhere to be honest... Thank you for the kind words on the floats, yes i agree with you second time around they did turn out much better and much closer to what i had envisioned. Now with the final weathering i had in mind i managed to get all tied up as per my mental image of what i want them to look like. Concerning the leather, you're spot on, a white basecoat that i glossed up then the beige gray leather decal from Uschi Van der rosten, then the whole thing was worked up with oils and sealed with MRP semimatt clearcoat... Thanks for dropping by Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karimb Posted March 7, 2018 Author Share Posted March 7, 2018 Karim, I also fumbly retire from this hobby, stunning, sublime words fail me........ Beautiful build, I have the ships camel in the stash so may borrow some ideas ....... Phil! thanks for the kind comment... The ship's camel is going to be a fun little build!! looking forward to following your progress if you decide to post it on the forums! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karimb Posted March 7, 2018 Author Share Posted March 7, 2018 (edited) Well guys, here comes another massive update. momentous steps undertaken and ticked off the list... I can't mention enough how much this kit has been a mojo restorer and is just sheer pleasure to build. Everything clicks into place and locks in, it's not even funny. Again as a side note i am writing this update out of London on a layover after having flown the world's first and only A350-1000 operational on the inbound leg yesterday night. She had only 140 hours in the techlog which made us giggle and still had that brand new airplane smell! On the Kamel front, fuselage closed up now, top wing done and blended in, engine complete and floats complete minus some detail painting and spot weathering. Let's start on the engine. The Bz engine is a little jewel as all engines in the wnw kits usually are, and a step i thoroughly enjoy working on. I started by cleaning up the crankcase and filling a small sink mark on the left side of the top crankcase. I then airbrushed gloss black from tamiya and left it to dry. The cylinders got painted black and nato black. I used the kit parts that do not include the rocker arms molded in and as i always do, replaced those with 0.4 albion brass tube that i brunished in fluid as it gives them a more realistic sheen and shape. I scratchbuilt the sheathes where the ignition wiring runs from the magnetos to the spark plugs. I initially scratchbuilt the inlet manifold throttle controls with styrene but then i changed that further down the engine build as i found them to be overscale and impossible to replicate in styrene. The wiring for the engine is all done with modelkasten 0.2 rubber line. Detail painting was done with tamiya colors and Mr metal color lacquers for the metallics. One thing of note is the magnetos have sink marks which i filled in with ca and microballoons and sanded smooth. All weathering was done using oils from Abteilung and Winsor and newton along with pigments for the bottom of the cylinders using vietnam earth and light dust to simulate grime that crusted on. I also added some wiring visible in the reference photos at hand of the Bz engine. Before installing the engine i added the throttle controls by using burnished albion rod to connect the two carbs and added the prominent spring that is connected to the assembly at the front of the engine by wrapping fly fishing brown wire around another wire (by the way i have bought a dozen of fly fishing tying wire in all colors and sizes which should make the wiring in future projects easier as the 'wires' themselves are already colored and will only need a clear coat to kill the shine! Very useful). The floats got their main weathering done and are only left with some spot weathering and detail painting which i will address around the final stages of this build. For the main part of the weathering i had in mind option number two i had mentioned in my previous post worked out best as i had in mind. I was discussing weathering with a friend who builds armor a while back, and his builds are really world class and we came to discussing how best to simulate oil stains etc. His answer was very simple and it was like a lightbulb moment for me in many aspects. He said nothing represents a thing better than the original: ie nothing represents oil spills on a kit better than real burnt engine oil. I enquired further and found that he actually used burnt engine oil that he kept in a small vial to simulate grease and oil seepage on his armor builds. He does the same with dust. he garners dust from his car when its covered with it (there's always dust in doha and it is very fine grade light beige dust) he sifts it multiple times to clear up the gunk that gets scooped up with it then he uses it on his models and it looks superb. So for the floats what would represent salt staining better than salt. I had in mind initially to leave the floats in a bath of water and salt but at the rate things were evaporating it would take weeks to get the water off the floats. I went for option two which was to prepare a paste of salt and water at the consistency of toothpaste and dab it on with an old toothbrush. Left the floats to dry until next day and then i brushed the hardened crust off with an old toothbrush. The salt left beautiful staining on the bottom of the floats and when put under light or sunlight you can see the dried up salt particles sparkle like it would in a real salt caked bottom of a hull. some additional touchups were done with Mr metal color stainless and chipped with a lead pencil. I still haven't been able to figure if the bottom part of the floats were metallic or just plain wood but either way it's a bit too late and i like the way the floats turned out to be honest. Remaining work will be to paint the domed covers on the float and i was thinking of either dark iron or iron buffable metallics but am still undecided. I am also still undecided on wether i will apply a wash or not in some of the areas or just leave the floats as is... Guys please do give me your input on that part! HGW seatbelts were done and weathered as per my usual technique of dabbing them with florymodels clay wash with a finger after having made sure most of the wash was wiped clean off. The remaining pigments on the finger are enough to have a more controlled application and allow you to better apply the pigments using a wiping motion. One thing i have done this time differently is i scratched built the rounded springs after having looked well at the reference photo of the generic German lapbelt. HGW gives you pe circular parts for the belts and this was the first time i actually realised how flat they looked once assembled. I replicated the round springs by rolling .3mm lead wire around a thin copper wire then rolling them around a drillbit and cutting them off to size and i think it looks overall much better. I will be leaving the left front belt hanging over the cockpit entry hatch. I added a carrying strap and the strap that closes the lens of the gunner's camera using spare textile from the belt fret. Cockpit entry hatches were painted white and weathered with a lead pencil and a wash of brown. The handles to operate the opening mechanism were done with bent wire and a dot of white glue to represent a handle. The fuselage closure was no problem at all i started off by gluing the bottom of the fuselage and then moved to the top which i bonded using thin Zap ca that wicked right through. I then used some ca and microballoons to fill any of the hairline gaps and used mr dissolved putty to fill in the nubs from the sprue gates. Everything was sanded down and then polished using micromesh.I prepainted the leather using AK rust paints but that was just a preliminary so i don't need to work on some awkward painting with the struts and all the details in the way. I added two dots of ms500 to fill the gaps on the leather where the two fuselage halves meet and then i wiped them to shape using lacquer thinner and a microbrush. One thing i would recommend is to make sure you either sand the sides of the fuselage framing bulkhead that separates the pilot section from the gunner section or use lacquer and a microbrush to make the top part of the fuselage closure easier to do. For the internal fuselage sides i added some weathering with brown and gray oils to add some grime to the sides where the pilot would climb in and out of the cockpit. Top wing was a breeze to assemble and is composed of three parts that solidly interlock together. Once glued and set up they feel very solid. CA and microballoons made a quick job of filling the seams. The tail horizontal stabilizer had a few sinkmarks which were filled and polished out easily too. Well, that's pretty much what i have managed to do so far but it feels extremely rewarding at every step of this build. no wonder i keep going back to building wingnut wings and keep walking away with a smile. Next steps will be to paint the fuselage and markings and weather everything and then once all of this is complete i will be able to start working on the wings and the start the covering with Richard's decals... On another note, unfortunately things are going to slow down pretty much for the next week to ten days as i have my type recurrent the next two days then i am going home to see my daughter for three days then when back it's two US flights back to back. Then some bench time! During my absence and flights i will start working on the plot files for the masks for the markings and will update the thread with those... Below a few of the photos of the progress as there are too many to post here so as before you can go to my smugmug blog to take a look at the whole lot of them.... Again many thanks for everyone who left a comment and a kind word of encouragement on the build thread! As always your critiques and pointers are highly appreciated! Stay safe and happy modeling! Karim PS forgot to mention the engine got painted MRP dull aluminium lacquer and the intake manifold got one of the Uschi metallic pigments treatment but i can't remember which one exactly Edited March 7, 2018 by karimb private_hell 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karimb Posted March 7, 2018 Author Share Posted March 7, 2018 Trak-Tor and LSP_Kevin 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karimb Posted March 7, 2018 Author Share Posted March 7, 2018 private_hell, TorbenD and Shaka HI 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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