Remember this WIP?...lol. I'm finally in for an update. I've been chuggin' away at this turkey. A litte here and there. This time of year bench time is scarce...couple hours here...couple hours there. Anyways. First, I didn't like the black hole of a landing light, so I decided to fabricate one. I blanked off the hole with styrene and painted it black. I sliced off a piece of sprue to simulate the lens and then drilled out the center to simulate a bulb in there. I painted the "lens" silver and put 5 minute epoxy on it to make it shiny like glass. (I got this idea from someone in the Stuka GB so I shant take credit....
That looks like a light yeah?
Here I test fitted everything. It looks like the Hasegawa wing root gaps will be on coffee break for this build, however, that engine attachment will be hurtful. Here I attached it temporarily with Blue Tac...
I started with the wing to fuselage attachment. Here is how I do my wing root issues. It also solves gap issues....works just about everytime. Pull the wings to the root with a strip of masking tape THEN Tenax the seam. Dont do it before or the clamping pressure will cause it to ooze out making your life difficult. Leave it to dry.
As I expected, I had a gap where the engine piece attached to the fuselage (the diagonal panel line). Unless the real thing was supposed to look this way, which is certainly possible, this area needed work. I filled the gap with styrene rod and sanded it smooth. I them rescribed the lines back in with a sewing needle in a pin vice. What a PITA this was. Its not perfect but it looks much better than before. For future builds, Does anyone know if this area has a gap on the real thing? Everything else fit great. I built the spats and dryfitted them. These fit great. It was at this time I saw the "hood scoop" on the upper nose looked deformed on the port side....I panicked. Then I realized it was supposed to look like that.
I pre-shaded the panel lines in XF-1 Flat Black. As I said, the spats are just dryfitted. I'm going to paint them first and add them later. I think it will be easier to fit the wheels in. I still may go with resin wheels. I'll have to see how the kit wheels look built up and painted first. Note the Jericho Trumpet. It was going on there whether my subject had one or not...
I then started on the lower surface RLM 65. This is half XF-23 Light Blue and half XF-2 Flat White. The paint was then lightened with more XF-2 and I streaked the lower surfaces.
It was then grimed it up a bit with a post shade. Its XF-69 NATO Black and XF-64 Red Brown heavily diluted with 91 % Isoprophl Alcohol. I keep it pre-mixed in the glass jar pictured. I'll add more paint or alcohol as needed. I get all panel lines at the control surfaces, around the engine and aft. It just adds another dimension to the otherwise boring blue. It will probably get more in the way of exhaust streaking later.
The middle B-2 (STG 3) is going to be my likely scheme (subject to change of course, especially if something better comes along). Correct me if I'm wrong, but I didn't think Battle of Britain Stukas had fuselage stripes.
That looks like a hard demarcation line on the fuselage, but maybe a soft one from the wing leading edge forward. Eventhough its a drawing, I figure Superscale did some research. Anyways, the rear was taped of and the front got BlueTac. I then used Gunze Aqueous for the RLM 71 thinned with Tamiya X-20. I think Gunze has really nailed the RLM colors.
I then added XF-57 Buff to the paint and make condensation streaks on the wings. The Buff is a good choice for green or brown colors. Its seems a bit much here, but this will be toned down considerably after all of the other steps. This is where I left off.
I hope to tape off the splinters and paint the RLM 70 soon...
Joe