The yellow came out great Doggs. I hope the masking does not ruin your work.

I'm not expecting to duplicate Alclad: just see if I can get something good. I just don't see painting an entire model with lacquers in the rooms I have to work in. There are very few kits that are solid NMS. IJNAF and USAAF planes often had lots of paint applied on top so it may not be needed to get the perfect finish. Especially as I utterly reject the idea of real world NMS planes shinning like a newly minted coin.

Price is insignificant with pigments - one bottle lasts a long time. Double so if you've got enough eye and sense to mix the colors a little. O'Brien's has a stuff in it that helps it adhere: might just be ground chalk. That can be an advantage or disadvantage. I have AK, MIG and O'Brien and use them all - but really think that when you get a foot away, mud is mud and dust is dust. The stuff you mix it with and how it's applied are more important. I was very happy last tank when I used acrylic paste instead of plaster/resin: I'll use them both on the M-12 so we'll see. I'm going to try the Sennelier pigments (they've been making some of the best artist oils on the planet for over a century and do know pigments) in an aerated form for a final "dust-up." They're certainly fine enough for the airbrush and if mixed with fixer or ISP should fix. I just can't see that a fine dusting of Tamiya buff is going to be better than a fine dusting with dust. The whole "Spanish School" stuff is derives from the fine arts - Mig Jimez admits as much in one of the videos. I've got an armor modeling book from Spain from the 90s and they're already using oils extensively. I can testify that Vallejo Model Color are almost identical to Golden Fluids. Just good businessmen in Spain. They take materials long in use, put them in the right colors and right packaging and you have a new product even if all of the materials have been in use long before there were styrene models. Good for MIG and AK  I say. The only down side that I can see is that a newer modeler could get decent results very quickly by buying a proprietary color set and follow instructions. That's good, but it's better to understand why you're getting good results or why you're not.  Also shows how isolated the plastic military model market has been for so long. I'd say if you want to see good weathering on YouTube you should look at Sci-Fi and Figurine modelling pieces, not those on tanks or planes.  

(Do try Gunze Burnt Iron. It has the oddest texture and you'll think it freaky. But it burnishes into a really convincing metallic. It's no accident I think that one of the biggest long term providers of Gunze Mr. Hobby is a big sci-fi site called Hobby Wave.)

Eric

Eric

Wow, lots of technical discussion here guys Nice on george yellow Doogs

Must say that i painted the wheels in perfect way this time

never performed a so perfect painting!!

And after 3rd layer of green i glued the fixed parts of the canopy, really hard tpo fix withouth CA glue

the tape aid was a faillure and i fixed it with just hands

and here my needed masking this time!!

this night will masking the rest of the canopy .

PS for the wheels painting probably was not totally my credit

LOL

bsyamato - the canopy is looking good! I've got to mask the PV-1's stupid glass soon, not looking forward to it! Fortunately the George was easy in that regard (the Eduard mask actually fit really well...first time that's happened in probably the last five builds). I'll be curious to see how the masking stands up to the chipping process.

I've decided to wait until tomorrow to tackle the topside green. It's going to be an epic session, and tomorrow morning the wife and kids head to Houston to visit the in-laws for Easter. So I'll have NO interruptions! Guess tonight I'll plow into the Ventura a bit more and maybe get the George masked.

A few small updates. First, I added some fun tonal variety to the underside NMF...dull aluminum on the ailerons, patches of Duraluminum and Dark Aluminum per my whims. I also found a great site with tons of George wartime pics. It's currently pulled up on my iPad, so I'll have to grab the link later, but it's amazing...page upon page of black and white wartime stuff. I think they have other aircraft too, but didn't look. These things were chipped all to hell and extremely dirty! Weathering will be awesome!

I also pulled out the Quickboost 20mm cannons...they look silly and fragile in their bare resin, but the shapes are big improvements over the kit's vague plastic:

Looks great Doogs, how'd you like to perfect your NMF skills on a B-36?  I just happen to know where one is.

BTW, check this link out on Hyperscale for a PV-1

http://www.clubhyper.com/forums/plasticpixframe.htm

Eric: Please keep us posted, I'd like to know how things go with the chipping.

Doogs: Again, great work there- the different shades look very convincing.

Bsyamato: Lol, why doesn't everyone mold the wheel and the tire as separate parts- much easier to paint.

Reasoned - yeah no way on the B-36! I'm tempted to do up a B-29 or B-24 in NMF, but I'm trying not to think of any big bombers with the H-K B-25 looming!

As to that PV-1, not bad, but a bit on the dry side. Hard lines on the tricolor don't do it for me, and the white seems WAY too stark. I'm talking to Maketar about getting a custom kabuki tape mask made up for the squid on mine...could delay painting for a bit, but I think it'd look SO much better than decaling it.

I also ran down that site with the stupid amount of George photos like these:

http://www.warbirdphotographs.com/WBP/armynavy.htm

They've got tons of German, Russian, Italian and whatnot stuff in there, too...

Got the cowl and spinner done tonight...so far so good.

Got some minor chipping trying to mask the yellow so I sealed it with some Alclad Klear Kote. 

Tomorrow comes the marathon. Until then:

Looking very good Doog: you set a high bar. Because I'm going to be building the same plane some time soon, I'm rooting double hard - inspiration is always welcome.

One question. I've seen the same pictures you have and there's no doubt that the PTO didn't make for tidy planes. Not sure exactly why that was so. On some fields in the Pacific fields were built on rolled coral - worked almost like sandpaper. (Check photos of the Jolly Rogers or Black Sheep - looks like their paint was ground off.) But if it was the sun and the constant changes in humidity I'd guess the places on the plane that suffered mega chipping were probably fading out before the chipping started and continued to do so. You going to try to show that?  Almost impossible to tell from the photo.

First runner at the Marathon (the guy that ran to Athens to tell of the victory over the Persians) dropped dead at the completion. Don't do that until you're done with the kit.

Eric

The guy from Hawkeye has an interesting video on how to do panel lines on NMS. http://hawkeyes-squawkbox.com/videos/ . He used a Faber Castell pen and equated it with other water based pens. Not sure about that. Faber Castell uses India ink and that stuff has its own drummer. Anyway, I've used something like it and it actually works very nicely if the standard panel wash doesn't suit the job.

Fantastic pic link Doogs.

EBergerud

Looking very good Doog: you set a high bar. Because I'm going to be building the same plane some time soon, I'm rooting double hard - inspiration is always welcome.

One question. I've seen the same pictures you have and there's no doubt that the PTO didn't make for tidy planes. Not sure exactly why that was so. On some fields in the Pacific fields were built on rolled coral - worked almost like sandpaper. (Check photos of the Jolly Rogers or Black Sheep - looks like their paint was ground off.) But if it was the sun and the constant changes in humidity I'd guess the places on the plane that suffered mega chipping were probably fading out before the chipping started and continued to do so. You going to try to show that?  Almost impossible to tell from the photo.

First runner at the Marathon (the guy that ran to Athens to tell of the victory over the Persians) dropped dead at the completion. Don't do that until you're done with the kit.

Eric

The guy from Hawkeye has an interesting video on how to do panel lines on NMS. http://hawkeyes-squawkbox.com/videos/ . He used a Faber Castell pen and equated it with other water based pens. Not sure about that. Faber Castell uses India ink and that stuff has its own drummer. Anyway, I've used something like it and it actually works very nicely if the standard panel wash doesn't suit the job.

Thanks Eric - though I have to give huge props to the AK worn effects fluid. The stuff is ace.

Regarding the fading and battering that was matter of course in the Pacific, I think it's several factors. Generally the operating conditions were primitive and horrible. Crushed coral runways, planes baking in the sun or up under trees with little in the way of formal cover. Severely limited maintenance facilities, and those that existed being more concerned with keeping an aircraft mechanically sound rather than visually pretty. The heat. The sun (especially near the equator) and the "double punch" of the sun bouncing off the ocean. The salt air. Carrier planes generally fared a bit better since they 1) weren't subjected to coral runways 2) had some protection from the elements and 3) were aggressively touched-up by their crews to keep corrosion at bay.

Still...dark green is...dark green. I'm fading it somewhat...I've got a second bottle of 50:50 JN Green and Flat White that I'm spraying on, then going over it with thinner, straight JN Green. You can see it in person, but I think there's such an extreme tonal range with the dark green and the chipping and the NMF rest-of-plane that the camera can't capture it all. I am planning to fade and beat it some more, but first I need to decide if I'm going to use the kit decals for the hinomarus or mask and paint them. The only thing holding me back is the fuselage meatballs, which have a black-green border (masking the border freaks me out).

For panel lines on NMF, I much prefer the Flory/Promodeller washes. Though I think I need a new bottle of Dark Dirt (mine's had some annoying issues of late and I think I maybe stretched it too far). They do the panel lines extremely well, but they also leave a slightly dirty effect on the bare metal, perfect for a battered bird like this one.

Reasoned

Fantastic pic link Doogs.

As to weathering of Pacific based aircraft you guys made some good points. I think I read somewhere, I'm thinking J-Aircraft that on some aircraft the Japanese didn't use any form of primer, just spraying the paint right onto the bare metal. Therefore it didn't stick as well as it should and would flake off. I'll have to try to find the article.

Gamera

Reasoned:

Fantastic pic link Doogs.

 

 

As to weathering of Pacific based aircraft you guys made some good points. I think I read somewhere, I'm thinking J-Aircraft that on some aircraft the Japanese didn't use any form of primer, just spraying the paint right onto the bare metal. Therefore it didn't stick as well as it should and would flake off. I'll have to try to find the article.

Len

Gamera

 

Reasoned:

 

Fantastic pic link Doogs.

 

 

 

As to weathering of Pacific based aircraft you guys made some good points. I think I read somewhere, I'm thinking J-Aircraft that on some aircraft the Japanese didn't use any form of primer, just spraying the paint right onto the bare metal. Therefore it didn't stick as well as it should and would flake off. I'll have to try to find the article.

Next time one of those prime/don't prime threads kicks up, I'm bringing this up. 

"Oh yeah, well the Japanese didn't prime their planes, and look how that worked out for them..."

Using a Faber Castell pen gives an effect remarkably like a Flory Wash: give Flory credit, he got people to pay for clay mixed with something benign and the stuff does works pretty well if you want a kind of mild grime surface. Use it on a matte surface and this is double true.

Tamiya is in the panel wash business and getting very good reviews. They have bottles of "panel wash" (same size as their liquid cement) which are black, brown or grey. Remind me a lot of AK stuff - both are enamels. They do put some kind of conditioner in to make the stuff flow extremely well - I'll try it on my next plane.

I still haven't figured out panel lines. Are we trying to emulate grime or shadow? On a real plane from any distance you'll see the major lines clearly enough but the finer ones are quite indistinct. I think a lot of very nicely made models with very clear and well applied panel lines make very nice model aircraft. So nice that they've come to define what a good model plane should look like. But I'm not sure that's how real planes look. Odd thing really. I look closely at aircraft now and I'm still not really sure how to translate what I see into a model that resembles it. But if the chipping fashion leads people to start to weather combat aircraft more heavily than has been done in the past, they've got history on their side. But what if you're trying to model something very lightly used? Still kind of baffled, but think that maybe pens and pencils might be very useful there. When I was doing the Val I used pencil on one wing and pens on the other - had I used pencils on both, I would have left it stand. But because the wings looked different I chickened out and settled on a very lightly applied oil panel wash.

Next time you're messing around with a medical experiment kit, try the salt wash if you're thinking of fading. There's an example of salt fading done on a SBD on ARC by one Saltydog who achieved results I sure wish were mine. And a US class of 44 carrier plane would have been heavily faded thanks to the salt air and very heavy use. (SBDs were on sub patrol every daylight hour, so they were busy in that part of the war.) One pic is below: the site is http://www.aircraftresourcecenter.com/tnt1/101-200/tnt158-weathering-Saltydog/00.shtm

Eric

Eric - I definitely think that salt would be better used for fading than chipping...it's a technique I want to experiment with for sure. Maybe even on the George, but after the markings go down.

Speaking of...after a marathon bench session, the topside's painted and chipped. Boy, what a process. Since the green extends so far down (and even to the underside in places), I did this one in two phases. Spray the chipping fluid, spray straight Tamiya JN Green, then 50/50 JN Green and White, then a mist coat to blend it back. Wait a few minutes, wet the surface down with water, then start chipping away. You can tell when it's "ready" for chipping because the paint goes from smooth to all nasty and bubbled. When it dries out, it goes smooth again. Cool!

Also, the clear gloss did a great job protecting the yellow. Definitely a good idea for any masking over this stuff.

I'm still contemplating masking the hinomarus, but my circle cutter's been a real pain in the backside. I did, however, discover among my wife's scrapbooking stuff a really fantastic 3/4" circle punch. Perfect for the inside disc of a bordered meatball, but I need 5/8" for the full diameter. Tomorrow I may turn in the man card and venture to a dedicated scrapbook store to see what I can find.

Eric, Great link to a nice technique! 

Doggs,

She is looking good. as for the meatballs, when I painted the ones on the Dinah, I used a circle card...you know one of those things that has lots of circles on them that you use for drawing circles. Like this  

Any way I put tape on the card then used a sharp knife to cut out the tape and used the resuting tape circle to spray the white.

Then stepped down a couple of sizes and used the tape peice centered on the white to spray the red.

Here is the result:

Salt: when I first started messing around with this stuff it was a huge disappointment - I was trying to use it for chipping and the overflow messed with the paint. (If you wet the surface and apply sand and paint over it gingerly you get nice little mini-chips. Might work better if you dabbed on a little Future in the wanted area.) What I missed was what SaltyDog saw: the overflow was leaching the paint. Later I read an article about U-boat paints (cited in a reveal of Two Weary Axis Subs a few weeks back) and the author said that salt water leached the fouling pigments out of paint very quickly - hence a good collection of barnacles etc - and then started on standard pigments. That's what was happening when I tried salt for chipping: the mess was exactly what I wanted. SaltyDog was trying to emulate, largely, the effect of salt air and sun on planes -so salt isn't a bad thing to try. I used it on a P-47 a while back as well as on a U-boat. The effect is subtle: there's a general leeching and a kind of mottling from the chipping effect. The only thing I know of that is probably better is a really well done oil paint dot filter - no easy chore if you're looking for a general fade rather than streaking.

Herc: very nice Dinah. I've got one of your circle gizmos but so far I've had really good luck with a circle cutter on top of Tamiya's super wide masking tape. Mount the tape on a glossy cardboard so the point can stick in and the tape peel off. But like Doog, I find doing a roundel to be a little daunting. You've got your circles centered perfecto. I want to get that model, but all that glass is also a little daunting.

Doog: you probably have more clever hands than I. However, I've had real trouble with the AK bottles. I've found you have to close them very tightly or they'll leak. I've lost three bottles of their stuff that way - and dribbling enamel products around my room is not my normal sin. (Sure wish more people would use those Vallejo milk bottles: would work perfectly for the AK stuff.)

Off to St. Paul. See you all in a week. I expect to see full WIP from Doog. And don't drop dead at the end of the marathon - it's probably not worth it.

Eric

Herc think that a cutting compass could work fine even if your dinah hinomaru's don't show anithing wrong

Probabli i need a similar work for the mary, kit decals have no white contours as the one i'm doing

Doogs nice effect on the george chippin!!!

Last night i worked on my kitchen table to follow a tv show and used my mobile to view Clause reference pictures LOL

Scratched some cockpit details, think is enough, left ony some button and to replace the pilot seat

Also bring some jap kit up and did a raptus of test fitting judy tenzan claude and jack

The tenzan is not so little  

So the mary more progress too

seat is on and painted the final green (after painted the frames with same cockpit green )

the propeller is not glued

Other clear parts painted too

Gamera the separate molding of tires is a good thing... unfortunately this time tires are made of rubber

Doogs: Great work there on the Shiden, my only complaint is the chipping seems sorta well regular. I'd think the paint would chip more on the leading edges of the wings and tail and the cowling and other high maintenance areas. Of course if you have photos showing the chipping this way I'll be more than happy to eat my words 

Herc: Cool, I have one of those I've been using to paint the rubber areas on tank road wheels, I never thought of using it for hinomaru.

Eric: Thanks for the advice- so salt is the way you got the excellent weathered effect on the P-47 and U-boat you posted. I've got to try some of this and the AK fluids.

Bsyamato: As always nice work there, super job on masking that complex canopy. I guess rubber tires are ok, as long as they're not those awful ones AMT used to use made out of a material that would dissolve plastic. What on earth were they thinking?!?!?! 

Happy Easter folks!!!

Hi All

It's been a while since I've participated in a group build.  Saw this and decided to jump in, albeit a little late.  I'm looking to do a Finemolds Ki-43 IIIb.  I'll take a few pics as I go along, and this should be fun!!

Freddie from LI

I'll go put you down now Freddie. I built one of those a few years ago, really nice kit.

Cliff

Gamera

Doogs: Great work there on the Shiden, my only complaint is the chipping seems sorta well regular. I'd think the paint would chip more on the leading edges of the wings and tail and the cowling and other high maintenance areas. Of course if you have photos showing the chipping this way I'll be more than happy to eat my words 

No I think you're totally right. The pics I've got show chipping to be very distributed and in very unlikely places (low on the fuselage back by the tail?), but I couldn't find any looking down on the wings, and when I was in the chipping zone I think it was  case of forest through the trees. I may go back and fill in some of the chipping. We'll see. I should also note - it looks SO COOL with the gloss coat on. All the variations in the paint pop just a bit more.

I also managed to get the circle masks cut for the hinos...found me a much less crappy circle cutter today. I'll be doing those and the decals tonight. Then I'm going to give that salt fading a try. May even try it out early on the Fail Frank depending on how the night goes.

Gamera - some additional thoughts on the chipping. One of the things I've noticed with my recent builds is that I tend to take the "making it look normal again" too far. It was the case with the two Jugs and the Fiat, and a lot of the shading, etc, just vanished under clear coats. So this time around, and since the George is very much a learning build, I guess maybe that's what drove me a bit off the cliff with the chips.

I'll be curious to see how they come out under the salt that's to come.

Didn't get to the decals tonight, alas. I've been reading up on salt weathering, and learned that Tamiya paints are apparently ultra-susceptible to staining in not good ways (I noticed that on Fail Frank). A coat of Future was recommended. So after I did the hinos I sprayed a coat of Future cut with some Windex. It's the first time I've ever sprayed Future and been happy with it. Go figure!

Also, pretty happy with the hinomarus. The shading I was going for didn't quite pull through, but oh well, they were the only part of the paint job the crews took pains to make look nice. Interesting note and something that doesn't quite show in the pic - the fuselage hinomarus have a black-green border. I know the significance of white, but this is the first time I've encountered black. What gives? This plane was stationed at the Philippines if that helps.

Cliff my fear is some break during years for rubber tires, i give to a friend a ferrari testarossa to a friend years ago and he had already a lamborghini diablo ; both with rubber tires and both italeri , after few years some tires was broken withouth touching it seems loke the rubber was retired !!! bad to hear about amt cars wheels, i see some cheap kit that thinkin to buy.

Last night on the mary applied a drybrush on the green to highlight panels in the center, this afternoon will darken the panel lines zones and post some picture

Doogs you are costrained to apply the run off liquid on the whole model? nice looking with hinomaru but the yellow areas are superb!!

Happy easter to all

Decals on, and some of the chipping's been toned down.

Bsyamato you 've got quite the fleet going on Treys Heavy Industries corp needs to step up the production now to keep up! Looking great Amigo!

Doogs the chipping looks good and well placed too!

Finally got some motivation and applied some decals!  Do they look ok?  I tried to press them down where the flaps and details were but the decals chipped a bit. 

Sweet tail

Decals look great David.