Mighty 8th GB 1-Nov-2010 - 31-Oct-2011

And fun (apparently)

Bish

And fun (apparently)

Oh yes! I knew i forgot that part.....

Richard

Well, it's been a running battle with the natural metal finish...but the battle is won!

After some nightmarish dusting from the Krylon gloss black...

I sanded everything down and applied some Alclad microfiller primer. Then Tamiya X-1 with 25% X-22 (clear), thinned with Mr. Leveling Thinner:

Much better!

Polished the black down with micro-mesh polishing cloths, then applied Alclad semi-matte aluminum to the wings to represent the aluminum lacquer paint. Masked those and sprayed the fuselage with Airframe Aluminum, then went back over with Aluminum and Duraluminum. The AA is semi-transparent, and thus darker than the other two, so in effect this was similar to shading work. Came out pretty well, I think.

Still need to mask and spray Magnesium to represent the darker panels in line with the exhaust stacks, then it's mask-and-paint the blue nose time! I'm having some vinyl masks made so I can use this as a testbed for the masks I'm going to use on the Tamiya 1/32 kit, so this one may grind to a standstill while I await those.

Seems everyone is haveing problems on this GB. Must be jinxed.

Doogs, thats looking nice. But haveing masks made, now thats just cheating.

Who is doing them for you.

The canopy is still giving me fits but I wont worry about that right now.  I just got a nice smooth coat of gloss black down on the P-51 in preparation for the Alclad tomorrow.  If all goes well I may be able to get the painting and decaling done this week/weekend

Bish, Guys,

I am truly sorry but i am finally pulling the plug on my 5 euro lump of plastic... I just tried starting the decal process but guess what..... even those suck on this kit... The roundels are not opaque enough to mask the invasion stripes...

Been wanting to see this one through... just to not give in and the painting process went just fine... NMF worked out great (talon acrylic with aluminum powder buffing). I just hate this. My apologies to you all but this one is going in the bin!

Richard

Richard, you're build looks good--it would be a shame to trash it now.  One thing you can try is putting a second decal over the first, which might conceal the invasion stripes better.  Or, if you can remove the present decal, maybe mask over the stripes (using a mask cut to the shape of the insignia bottom), reapaint just that area, and re-apply a decal.

It's been my experience that no decals, even aftermarket ones, are really thick enough to conceal the black color of the stripes.  It's probably because they need to be thin enough to conform, so they are not thick enough to hide underlying paint.

Anyway, I think the Mustand looks good, and I hope you can fix it up.

Bish - I'm planning on using masks on the 1/32 P-51 (for nose and possibly for insignia too), so I want to use the little guy as a testbed. Gator's Masks (same people who make Gator's Glue) are making them for me. $5 per. Not bad at all! I just got around to sending him the profiles today, so it may be a bit longer.

Richard - sorry to hear it about that Mustang. If nothing else, I'd recommend finishing it and keeping it on hand for some cool forced-perspective photography. With an airfield dio, you could position it behind a 1/48 or 1/32 kit to give a better sense of depth.

checkmateking - I agree about decals and invasion stripes. The best (albeit tedious) way to deal with them, in my opinion, is to apply the decals first, then mask and paint. That's what I did a few months back with my P-47, and it came out quite well.

Richard, it would be a real shame to toss this. Even you just finish it as it is, and you can put it dlown as a lesson learned.

Doogs, so do gator make those masks to order. And whats the process of getting them. Would be very interested to see how they work out.

Bish

Doogs, so do gator make those masks to order. And whats the process of getting them. Would be very interested to see how they work out.

Yep - I had the good fortune of meeting Kenny at the San Antonio contest back in February. Picked up a few camo masks for some P-40s in the stash. Haven't tried them out yet, but they look fantastic. But he told me that if they didn't have something I was looking for, they could make it. Just have to send along the proper profile/paint guide/etc. 

Frankly I don't see much use for camo masks if they aren't hard-edged, but for things like national insignia, letter codes, or something like the blue nose, it seems perfect. I'm actually considering trying the insignia masks on my Spitfire, too, since the underside insignia overlaps one of the underside wing lights, and I imagine it'd be much cleaner painting that than fighting the decal and cutting it out after.

Just head to their website - gatorsmask.com - and look around. Payments are done through Paypal, etc.

Thanks googs. I guess it depends on scale, in 72nd the softer edge is not so obvious. But i have found that i can still get the right finish without a mask and if i do need to mask putty is ideal. But i guess it depends on how comfortable you are with your airbrush.  I would love to be able to paint all my markings on, but its just not realistic. But agree, on a difficult surfice, or if soemthing is in the way, its the way to go. I can think of a few kits i have where a mask might be better than decals. I will check out that site, thansk.

I imagine it wouldn't be to hard for me to get the Blue nose masks. I just asks for the same masks you had but in 72nd scale.

How long did it take you to prep and then paint it. After useing Alclad on a couple of small 72nd kits, i get the feeling doing a 72nd B-17 is going to be a big job.

I will have some pics up this weekend. Got the fuselage together and the wings on, currently working on the Quickboost engine cowls. despite being better than the kits ones, they are still not 100% accurate, luckly the Eduard PE corrects that.

Doogs, what do you use for masking over decals?  It must be low tack, if it doesn't pull the decal off.

checkmateking02

Doogs, what do you use for masking over decals?  It must be low tack, if it doesn't pull the decal off.

Well, I clear-coated them first to give an extra layer of protection. Then I masked over using Tamiya tape with most of the adhesion worn off by sticking the pieces to the palm of my hand multiple times. 

Hardest part was cutting out the circle to cover the insignia. Did that by scanning and printing a copy of the decal sheet at 1:1, placing it over some Tamiya tape, and using a circle cutter.

Time at last for another update. This is the progress i have made over the last 2 or so weeks that i was not able to post till now.

Most of the interior is Eduard PE plus Quickboots Oxygen  tanks. Luckily this site helped again, correcting the placment of the tanks that the Eduard set had wrong.

Everything was fitted into the right side of the fuselage.

The cockpit and bombadiers station get alot of improvment, largely tahnsk to eduard, hardly any painting was needed by me.

And alot more in the radio room, for which the kit had nothing

I wanted to include the Oxygen tank that went onto the ball turret mount, but the kit had no mount. So useing some pics supplied by the same guys on this site, i was able to scratch build a simple one. Compareing it to the pics, the size looks about right, and the mount was pretty simple anyway. And the most complicated scratch building i have done to date.

With all thos eparts fitted, finally, afetr 2 months, time to get the fuselage together and the wings on.

And at least some of that inside can still be seen. So not all waisted.

Now on leave for 3 weeks, so no more progress for a while. I am hopeing i can get this done by the end of August, hopefully after 3 weeks off i will be well up for getting it done.

Nice progress, Bish.  You've put a lot of work into this, and it really shows.

Bish,

Excellent scratchwork! Looks pretty much the same as the mount on the B17 i did for the NMF gb. Love the interior detail paintwork as well. Great job all around sir.

Well,.... i was just about to send my P51 into the dustbin theatre of operations (DTO) but due to popular demand i thought "why the h*ll not..?" and completed it with all the yucky stuff as is.... One extra nasty thing to make my happiness complete is the fact that i overlooked the fact that the wheel wells have gaps leading into the cockpit area, causing the aluminum powders to dust up the inside of the canopy.... This kit really hasn't been kind to me.

But enough whining already! On to the pics:

I always like to shoot some extra in sepiatone to capture the timeframe:

No matter how nasty this contraption looks, i still want to thank you all for kicking me in the behind to see this one through all the way. I am even gonna put it on my shelf just to remind myself of the troubles i had and put a smile on my face. So in some silly way this model still gives me the "completion satisfaction rush" if you will

Richard

Thanks guys. Not much left to add before the paint goes on. Just got to finish and attach the engines and the cowlings.

The ball turret mount was just styrene rod, i guestemated the size from photos but looks to match up about right.

Richard, given the problems you had, this hasn't turned out rather nice. The only obvious problem is the star decal on the side. I think thats wlays going to be an issue when you try to put a white decal over a black background who ever the decals are made by. The only other obviuse thing is the canopy, as you pointed out.

Really glad you stuck with thsi, can put this one down to experiance. And its turned out alot better then i think this kit deserved, so a big well done for that mate.

Now added it to the front page, i used the black and white pic. And i just remembered this is an East Wretham aircrfat. I really want to do a 72nd P-47 from there, but just can't get any markings for it. I was up at Wretham camp a few weeks ago and most of the buildings there are from WW2.

Bish - excellent work on the -17! One day I'm going to have to build myself a big bomber.

Richard - nice save on an awful kit! 

Hi all, I'm trying to build models one handed these days. Posting some progress (sort of) on the the Beech UC 43. Roden has a pretty good kit here. I'm not going to be able to do it justice but I just had to build something. I got hit by a car on my handcycle and I've only been out of the hospital for a few days.

One thing I will tell anyone who builds this kit is do not follow the instructions regarding the cabin windows. I did and it was a disaster, They want you insert the windows after the fuselage is buttoned up. The better way would be to insert them before you close the fuselage. that way you can work them from both the inside and out. More later.

Nice work on the fort Bish.

Nice to see another build on the way, and something a little different.  I have been curious about Roden kits, they have a couple of 72nd He 111 i would like to get, but never been to sure about them.

Handcycle, would that be what we would call a bicycle. What damage did it do, you didn't break your scafford as well did you. Hope your felling better soon mate.

And thanks, glad its finally comeing together.

jbrady - yikes, sorry to hear about the accident! I had a coworker get hit while on his Vespa (I'm sorry, but outside of Italy, I just can't take guys on Vespas seriously). Basically did everything but die. Was in traction for a time, out from work for something like six months. Glad to hear you're not so injured that you can't build!

The staggerwing's looking awesome, BTW! What was the deal with the glass?

I used to ride a vespa, back when i was a Scooter boy in the late 80's. My brother is still in the scene, its still a going strong over here.

Bish: Handcycle is a tricycle powered by your hands and arms. It's got the same gearing as your average two wheeled mountain bike. I'm pretty banged up right now several broken leg bones and a concussion. the worst is my left hand. I guess I dragged it under me on the road surface. Took the skin and tissue off down to the bone on the top of the hand and fingers(basically a really bad case of road rash). Looking at some grafting down the road. Good news is that the dog somehow escaped without a scratch. He was running on the other side away from the impact.

Doogs: There is no indentation in which to place the windows they fit in the opening, period. Since you do have to trim them to fit (or trim the opening to fit) there is a lot of back and forth with trimming and fitting. Get it fit just right... go for the glue and realize that the window fell out of the opening. If you put them in before you close up the cabin you can use opposing force to get them in place.

Right, with you now. Don't know why i thought bicycle, the HAND bit should have been a clue. probably didn't read it right. Funny, you should mention that, we saw one of those on the road yesterday. Very low to the ground, the guy had a long wire at the back with several yellow triangle flags on, and a flashing light. Had never seen one before. Sounds nasty, and a long road ahead.

jbrady-glad to hear that you're ok.  Any confrontation with a car is usually not a good thing.  Hope you have a quick & complete recovery.

Work has started on the Revell/Monogram P-51D-plastic has been washed and the interior bits were primed today.  Hope to get some interior painting done tomorrow and hopefully have the interior complete and fuselage & wings attached by the end of the weekend.  Will post pics once the interior is done.

More progress on the UC 43.

The more I work on the kit the better I like it. There are some flaws... gear well is the worst I've ever seen only a problem if you plan on displaying it upside down. Quite a bit of flash and mold marks, almost every part has to be cleaned up. The upside is very delicate detail. The trailing edges are paper thin and everything seems to be in scale. Just a bit more filling and sanding then it's off to paint.

jbrady:  what a terrible experience.  Glad you've come through. 

The plane is looking very good.  It looks like you got the glass to fit in pretty well.