I got my notify workin again !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

hasagawa lightning (chopped up)

2x airfix mk22 spitfires (also chopped up)

i keep changing my mind what im doing in nmf these were both going to be grey/green but i dont have a suitable grey for the bottom lol

Randy: Great to see you back and thanks. Oh yeah, neon green 

Eatthis: Well since it's a theoretical aircraft I guess you don't have to be perfect with the underwing colour. Or just leave her in black and say she's a night fighter...

Thanks for the acceptance Randy! ...glad to be aboard.

To bring the build up to date in this forum with WIP...

Here are a few more of the interior hand paint: (instrument panels are decals)

ongoing build WIP...

found the clothespin width to be perfect in keeping the main landing tire assembly from drying unparellel in a "v" shape...more like an "H" this way.

And for the custom nose art decal work using Paint .net:

original image:

1st rework:

(  ...English teacher not proud of the spelling of Albuquerque... )

2nd rework : (corrected spelling and added some color w/editorial latitude)

3rd tier rework: (on white decal sheet)

I'll be reworking the capital "A" and "L"  to more closely resemble the original image more. They're just wrong in appearance.

And for the clear sheet (since there is no white base behind Hazel on the spearhead)

These are getting a lot closer to final, but they will get some additional rework in Paint.net before scaling/print/apply.

I think this brings the build more up to date on this forum for all to see. Thanks for looking.

Starfighter- awesome work on that checked tail...simply outstanding! 

Rich: Nice work on the interior detail and the nose art decal looks great! I built a B-29 a couple of years back but it was the 1/72nd kit so I didn't put much detail inside.

Eatthis: Lol, like it!!! The NM looks good, you've got a good start there.

Eatthis- Lol on the design team check list!...the end of the transmission was cutoff and read:

Design team: "Pilot?...Pilot? Now where did the test pilot go?!"

Nice work on both builds.

Gamera: thanks for the kind words on the interior and nose art work. Interested in seeing any pics of your 72nd 29 build. Have any pics posted anywhere?

29 update: polishing has been completed and touch up black gloss w/ Testors applied. She will get an ample allottment of dry/cure time before cladding. No new pics to add at this time. Meanwhile, I will spend more time on the nose art decal work and life commitments outside of modeling.

Your 6 is clear...

Rich: Here's the link to where I posted the 1/72nd Academy/Minicraft kit. I still haven't fixed that darn canopy!

Cliff 

Cliff- very nice work on your 29 build! She's a beaut!

Regarding that canopy issue, I have a similar issue with the 1/48th scale. To address it some, (still not as tight as I would have liked), scroll back up to the WIP images of the interior>see the last image of the nose glass and top glass install I did.

What you see there is really an elevated ship and the two clamps are actually hanging/applying weight. It should be noted that where the rubber touches the glass is not near the clear cement. This clamp weight helped to cinch down the glass to the fuselage a lot closer than my previous method/attempt. This may be the aid to pull and cement to an acceptable level.

Post edit: the success of course, would be dependent on the thickness of the glass vs. weight of the clamps. I can say w/o reservation that I never thought I'd be using clamps this size on the build. .

But I have used these clamps for several things...clamping the main wings to even hanging the heavy plastic mill for floor and wall protection during painting. 

that b29 is a monster lol

what do i do regards weathering for the guns? theres a hole under each gun on the bottom of the wing are these gas vents? ie would you get a streak of crap fro there toward the trailing edge of the wings?

gloss coat going on now

MK4 SPITFIRE

by 1943 it was obvious that war with germany was at the very least quite likely. the main fighter/interceptor in raf service was the mk2 spitfire with a 1600 hp merlin engine with 2x20mm cannons and 2x .50 cal mgs.
the new mk3 spitfire with 4 cannons and a new more powerfull griffon engine were beggining to enter service but it was felt that someting more extreme was needed to combat the rumoured jets that tha allies thought germany were developing.
the gloster meteor wasnt progressing as quickly as hoped and a stop gap was proposed to keep pace with these wonderweapons.

the supermarine design team decided to put to new griffon 64 engines (2350 hp each) into a spitfire inline this gave over 3 times the power of the mk2 variant with no noticable increase in drag this resulted in superb performance with an astounding top speed of 560 mph (which was even faster than most of the german jets!).
coupled with 4 hispano cannon this interceptor version went on to serve well into the jet age on equal footing

Front page has been updated with the new builds and the completed build of Theuns. Oh and Theuns collect your forth badge it has also been made and posted.

Italian Starfighter seems I made a huge mistake, a huge one ! When I commented about your checker tail I was thinking it was a 1/32 scale not 1/48 !!!!! You da man you can do that in 1/48  I really really like the 6 50s in the wings too, very nice work indeed.

Z Square 8  your build looks better each time I see it. Thats a good trick with the clothes pins too I am gonna have to remember that one. I am planning to use foil to finish mine so will be interesting to see pictures of them.

Eatthis I always have fun seeing what you come up with on your builds cant wait to see these finished. I really enjoyed the story behind the Spitfire you are building. 

Gamera as soon as you get pictures of your Jug up I will get your badge done and up. Looks great in the picture you posted I will say.

29 build update: struggling with getting a smooth gloss applied a bit due to the large surface area, overspray and experience. I had hoped to get her cladding started this wknd, but we'll see. If I can get some control over the areas that show more of a "satin" finish today (as opposed to smooth gloss), I may clad her.

I did play with the nose art decal work last night. below is a before and after:

first color rendition-

and after adding more shading and definition

and a couple of other custom decal items: (ending serial #'s for the rudder and ship ID for the tail):

Vman- I thought about foil after doing some reading initially and due to the cost of compressor and airbrush, but decided that direction may be too far above my skill level at this point. I'll be anxiously watching your build progress. Do you have a particular ship you are doing the 29 as?

eatthis- Those two birds look great!

Eatthis: Cool!!! Love both the Spit and the Lightning- nice work!

Rich: Thanks! I'll give your advice a try, only thing is I'm not even sure where the B-29 is right now! And nice work there on the decals.

Richard: It was sunny here Wed and I tried to grab some more photos but it was way too windy, my cardboard tarmac almost flew away and I was afraid my P-47 would take off for real. I hope I'll get the photos taken this weekend. If not I'll see what I can do inside.

Hi all....I see a wonderful B29.....compliments!!!Same updates......primer black gloss tamiya and grey gloss gunze......than I've sprayed one kind of alclad:chrome.So i've sprayed a gloss acrylic clear.........The yellow stripes are also painted....Ciao from Italy,Enrico.

That is awesome! Just what I need to paint my P-51. Thank you!

Z Square 8  I want to thank you for sharing your Uncle Bob's story, I read the tribute page you have in your signiture. I had 2 Uncles in combat during WWII, one in the ETO and the other in the PTO. They wouldnt talk about what happened and the family has never pushed the subject. So in a way I envy you being able to find out what happened and just how heroic he and many others were.

To answer your earlier question I am building " Double Exposure " of the 3rd PRS Harmon Field, Guam 1945. But that could change as I have been known to do that from time to time.

Italian Starfighter lookin good man !! Really turned out to be a smooth finish, well done.

Enrico: Wow, sharp work!

Starfighter- I concur that the finish is outstanding! I aspire to get the finish on the 29 to turn out that good, but not expecting it! LOL...it really is amazing work you and others do to get plastic to look like NM the way you do.

Vman- Glad you had an opportunity to peruse the tribute site. I just completed working on a new page for Capt. Richard A. Field of Z-6 this past Friday. I worked with Capt. Field's son on the page build. He and his family are quite pleased with it. My hope is to develop the Tinian and Guam side of things on the site as time marches on...hopefully, families will find the site and want to add their fathers/grandfathers.

What started out as a "winter project in 2010" as a tribute site build, continues to pick up steam.

Looking forward to seeing some WIP of "Double Exposure"

29 update: figured I would take a breather from the gloss application effort. I will revisit this early this week. Wknd work was minimal per say, but applied Testors Silver Plate-Buffing to the rudder, stabilizer and wing sections,doors as well as the 4 cowlings. I sanded the leading edges of the cowlings with 20000 and then hit them with polishing cloth. The results were a weathered but chrome end. I'll detail the gaps a bit and post up some pics soon...probably while I wait for the next attempt on the gloss base to dry. 

For those working on WWII aircraft or armour...pull up this site to set the background mood while at the bench/table:

http://archive.org/details/G.i.Jive

OK, I'm going to put the cat amongst the pigeons here!

I'm new to all this Group Build stuff and I don't usually build kits anyway, I scratchbuild, but surely Natural Metal Finish means exactly that?  Not silver paint, however clever it might pretend to be.  Where's the foil guys??

The only way to make something look like metal is to use metal!

For a bit of relaxation from patternmaking I'm doing a K5054 Spitfire Protoype, first flight condition. I am covering the entire thing, except control surfaces in foil, then paining the semi opaque zinc chromate Alodine over the relevant panels one at a time, but leaving the front panels and leading edges bare.

To my mind that's the only way it's ever going to look like metal!

Martin

You are mostly right about the use of foil Martin, and every now and then people do use the foil to finish a plane.

However, paints can nowadays make very lifelike models and they do contain actual metal. The most used (seemingly) brand of NMF paint being Alclad. A well executed paintjob with that stuff is nothing short of stunning to see!

Besides, and i speak of experience here, laying down metal foil well is a very tedious job that requires skill to do well

Richard

I can say w/o reservation that I considered foil for the 29 build initially...but was smart enough to recognize my skill level would not be up to par for the surface area in question (being 20+ years away from the hobby). Heck, I envisioned the frustration level peaking and the kit balled up like the foil cover over a plate of Christmas cookies in January,[at the top of the ol' round file], by this time had I elected to go foil route! 

Figured Alclad would be a challenge enough since I have no experience with an airbrush either.

"A man has got to realize his limitations"

I see these forums as a great place for all levels of experience to learn from and participate in (which is why I threw my build in...figuring it would be at the lower end of the quality range as compared to others on the forum in it's entirety)

I certainly don't have 52 years of modeling under my belt as note, but respect the skill level and knowledge if willing to share. I'd like to try this foil thing...just not on a build of 1/48th as a first. 

Vetteman is a real expert on the subject. His foil work is beautiful to see. At the time he convinced me to try one myself he said to me one should start out with a 1/48 scale with "easy lines" such as a Mig 15

This is how mine turned out:

Not perfect by any standard but a good fun experiment/ experience if you will

The next one (1/72 Revell P47D) was sprayed with acrylic metal paint (Hawkeye Hobbies) for comparison:

Richard

A 1/48th B 29, Rich?  Er, no, I take your point. I'm not sure I'd take that on!

I didn't expect to see all foil, of course and, to be scrupulously fair, I haven't read every post, but in my selection, purely randomly clicked upon, I did expect one or two.

I would recoil from any suggestion of using Alclad far more readily than the tedious, but not difficult matter of foiling, as i understand it is a multi-stage process.  My chum in the model car game has used it and raves about it.  Still looks like paint to me!  Perhaps it's suitable for those NMF a/c that have a bit of oxidation on them, a mattish look, but you could never do a polished lightning or, say, "Precious Metal", the Reno racer, in paint of any kind.

I've done a 1/32nd scale Kieft racing car in foil, panel by panel in the style of a full sized coachbuilder, where only small parts can be made and have to be welded together, with only the weld linished, so I just used an old typewriter rubber to put the linish marks on the model, which disguised the joints in the foil.  I didn't burnish it because I wanted the "mill finish" that any hand made car body will exhibit without paint.

On the Spitfire, the clinker (clencher?) pattern of spanwise wing panelling is also so easy to do with a simple overlap of foil.  

When I say foil, I don't mean Bare Metal Foil, by name.  That's too thin.  I use that for chrome on slot cars.  But on model aircraft, I use Sellotape aluminium, a product available in any hardware shop for sealing gutters and down pipes.  So cheap compared with model foils.  Thicker too, so will take rivet impressions with care.

It also burnishes and even polishes, should you wish to do "Precious Metal".  I also know that Lightnings were polished as a colleague tells me that was a punishment in the RAF at RAF Binbrook for any small time miscreants.  "Get out there and polish that kite, Aircraftsman Bloggs!"  An excuse to sit stripped to the waste all day in the sunshine atop that distinctive wing.

I doubt if I'll have time to take part in the GB with the Spitfire, but will put the results up when I have done it.

I am doing a small range of vac-form kits starting with the Fairey FD2 and Heaven help anyone who paints that beauty <G>.

Cheers,

Martin

EDIT  Kermit, I missed your post while typing, but...QED!!

IMHO nothing has been proven at all....

I am advocating both mediums to give lifelike and realistic finishes when applied properly. To simply say "Metal paints make bad models" to me sounds too biased and simply is not true

While i will gladly agree with anyone saying "i prefer foil over paint", i will have more of a problem and will disagree with anyone saying "painting with metalizers is a waste of time". Because it isn't...

Besides, prewar fighters and for instance, wings of P51's weren't all metal but laquered finishes. Therefore usage of paint is both merited and desired for such subjects at the very least

Richard

Martin: Well technically Alclad, Talon, Metallizer, etc are metal- they're tiny metal particles suspended in solvent. Once sprayed on the model the solvent evaporates leaving a thin metal film behind. 

Still I'd love to see what you come up with, I'm always interested in seeing new ways of doing things.

Cliff