Joe: Been working on some other stuff but to be honest? So hot and humid here when I come home from work I generally end up turning on the A/C grabbing a bite to eat and then taking a siesta. Rest of the time I've been reading and playing computer games, the heat just takes the energy right out of me Sad part is there isn't all that much left to do. A have got about half way though the cockpit for the Tamiya kit though, wish there was more I could do without dragging out the airbrush.

Randy: Looking good there, nice clean job for the NM to go on.

Randy - Looks really nice so far. Glad to see yoour making some excellent progress.

Gamera - Yes, indeed the heat can definitely beat ya down. Although hot here , well into the hundreds, we're fortunate in that it's only 3% humidity.  OK, the extreme drought conditions aren't real good. The true blessing in this for me is that when it gets this hot the wife doesn't expect me to do yard work. Thus, the day is mine to model away!

                                         Joe

JOE RIX

Randy - Looks really nice so far. Glad to see yoour making some excellent progress.

Gamera - Yes, indeed the heat can definitely beat ya down. Although hot here , well into the hundreds, we're fortunate in that it's only 3% humidity.  OK, the extreme drought conditions aren't real good. The true blessing in this for me is that when it gets this hot the wife doesn't expect me to do yard work. Thus, the day is mine to model away!

                                         Joe

Lol, thankfully not that hot here, but the humidity is though the roof, it's rained about every other day these last couple of weeks. Still I did get some quality time in with my airbrush this afternoon. The canopy, wheels, and most of the fiddly bits have been painted so cross your fingers I'm back on the move now.

And thumbs up on any excuse to get out of lawn work, hate it- I mean the friggin' grass will be long again in a week or so right? I try to mow only every two weeks or so

I hear ya guys on the heat. 101 here today, with 104 in the forecast for tomorrow and Tuesday. And we've got a plague of crickets going on on top of that right now, which makes working in the garage at night just awesome. One of the contributing factors to me shelving the big B-25 for the time being...

I've encountered a frustrating yet curious setback. While spraying on another coat of Alclad aircraft aluminum some milky blotches appeared on the surface along with some milky splatters. I am unsure if this is poor surface prep, paint  or airbrush issues. Completely cleaned airbrush prior to starting and I am finding no moisture issues. Again this was sprayed over an Alclad gloss coat as the original coat of aluminum was blotchy and uneven, I had done this successfully on the cowling with no issues. Also, I have been careful not to contaminate the surface prior to painting. I then followed with another gloss coat thinking another coat of aluminum over this would cover the blotches. No deal. Althuogh it worked on some small areas it just does not seem to cover 2 larger areas , one on upper right wing and other on lower left wing. In addition more small spots occured. Some of these partailly wipe off with a soft cloth. To add to the matters I ran out of airframe aluminum and had to order more. Just as well as this allowed me to step away, take a breath and consider some solutions. One I have considered is a coat of Alclad clear base then a new coat of aluminum. I'll try and remember to take some pics tonight and share. Any other suggestions will be welcome. In the mean time I'll decal the bombs.

                                                 Joe

They're not  real good but, here some pics of the blotches and splatters:

Hey, Whoa! Tried to paste pics from Photobucket but no go. Unsure what the issue is?

Test pics. OK seems like I've got it

Joe,  I've had something sorta like that happen when some water from spraying acrylic paint was still in the airbrush when I loaded it with Alclad but you said you didn't have any moisture issues so I'm not sure what to tell you.

Cliff

OK. So I hope this works! I am not sure how to post on this new format! But Debby has forced me to stay inside for the last 5 days which means I actually got som work done!!! Once I figure out how this new system works I will try and post some pics. I am building the Hasegawa and Academy Bolts side by side and man the Hasegawa kit is a pig compared to the Academy kit! No pit detail etc!

Travis - For me I would just copy and paste from Photobucket. In order to do that now you simply click on the "Use Rich Formatting" next to Reply and it's business as usual.

                                           Joe

Yeah I used to be able to just copy and paste from PhotoBucket to the site.

Now I have to grab the 'Direct Link' box (second one from the top on PB) and paste it into the box when you open 'Insert Image' in the Rich Format.

Little more trouble but it still works.

Copy/pasting the IMG code into the Use Rich Formatting reply box still works...tried it yesterday

DoogsATX

Copy/pasting the IMG code into the Use Rich Formatting reply box still works...tried it yesterday

Great!!! I haven't tried posting any photos since the new forum just went up. That knocks out my second big gripe about the new format. 

Thanks for the info guys! It will just take some getting used to all this new stuff. I should have some pics up tomorrow!..................

Now if I could just figure out this new digital camera!!!!!

I knew I had one somewhere...I've just recovered this from the stash, can I build it for this GB please. I might do a different scheme, haven't decided yet.

Cheers

Tony

Hi Everyone,

I've made a start on it, just doing some pre-work and glued the stores together. At least it's a start.

Academy's plastic is quite hard, and I find it worthwhile to cut the parts off the sprue well away from the part then sand and trim the stub off to avoid damaging it.

Apologies for the crappy phone picture.

Cheers

Tony

Doogs, what exact shade of alclad did you use? I was told aluminum,dk. aluminum, and duralumin.

Any hints on the best way to mask around cowling?  'Slick Chick' has a red front half of the cowl, with a Nike - like 'swoosh' down the side of the fuselage.  Tricky, tricky masking, though the swoosh might be the easiest part.  Masking a perfect ring around a sloping, odd shaped part like a P-47 cowling looks like a nightmare.  :-(

OTOH, the Airframe Aluminum over Alclad Gloss Black Base over highly polished Mr Surfacer 1200 looks absolutely magnificent.  Couldn't be happier with my first Alclad foray, and I'm already looking forward to the next NMF bird.  Probably a Tamiya P-51.  I'm worn out wrestling plastic on this kit.  Fortunately all the *big* pieces went on pretty smoothly (save for the tail fillet...shudder..), but the endless struggles with the small stuff gets to be a grind.  Definitely fun in it's way and very satisfying, but I'm longing for a build that just goes together without any drama.

That incredible Airframe Aluminum finish is what's got me stressed about the red detail painting, though.  It's a tough paint... put the AA on over the Gloss Black base after about 12 hours overnight, where the surface was set up but still slightly tacky, and it was rock hard after a couple of hours.  Tried tamiya tape in an out of the way spot and it didn't pull up anything.  It looks so good, though, I hate the thought of screwing up the masking and getting red where it doesn't belong.

Good picture of the red at the 368th page: www.368thfightergroup.com/368-noseart-395-w.html

I'll take some photos and put them up in a bit.

NE: That's one that might be easier to get some red decal film and go that route.

randypandy831

Doogs, what exact shade of alclad did you use? I was told aluminum,dk. aluminum, and duralumin.

My main combo is aluminum over airframe aluminum, though I bring in duraluminum, drk. aluminum, magnesium etc as needed to break things up a bit.

NE - masking a ring around the P-47's cowl isn't so bad. Done it three times now and I'm getting better with every go!

Hobby Lobby sells a 3M tape called "Artist Tape for Curves"  that is excellent stuff for taping the weird curvature of the P-47 cowl. That's what I've used on all three of mine without problem or bleed-under.

BUT in the case of Slick Chick, with the ring turning into that swooshing thing, I'd consider looking into having a custom mask made. I've used Maketar to great success with the distinctive octopus markings on the PV-1s of VPB-133:

And I've actually had them make masks for a Ki-44 Tojo with a very similar cowl-to-fuselage swoosh:

 It appears since the new formatting that I was not recieving email notifications when somebody posted on this thread. So, I figured there wasn't any activity going on. Yet, I get on to post an update and lo and behold there is a good bit of new activity. Glad to see it. Anyhow, after some trial and error I was able to prevent the blotchiness I was getting when spraying my Airframe Aluminum on by turning the air pressure up to 18-20 psi and then fully depressing the trigger on my airbrush. Thus, I was able to get a finish that I'm satisfied with. Overall Alclad Aircraft aluminum with Duraluminum on the flaps. Alclad gloss coat on and ready for decaling. I had considered masking and painting seperate panels in other various shades but given this is my first bout with an nmf and the time it has taken me to get this far I'm satisfied and ready to move on. Here a few pics of where I'm at right now.

                                            Joe

Joe: Were you misting the Alclad on by stroking the airbrush over the model? However you did things the finish looks flawless now

Tax: That looks great, I'm going to have to try one of the Academy kits one of these days.

She looks really good Joe. REALLY Good!!! Keep it up buddy, you'll have a show winner at this rate.

Hey, Thank You Gents.

Taxtp - Looking forward not only to your build but, what scheme you decide on. Thanks for joining us.

Nervous - I did the masking around my cowling by overlapping a number of short thin pieces of Tamiya tape. I started off by taking a set of dividers and carefully measuring from the front of the cowling inward to where the paint edge is supposed to be. I made small pencil marks around the cowling and then taped along the marks. But I'm certainly going to order up some of the 3m tape Doogs mentioned. Sounds much easier and I'm into anything time saving and less labor intensive.

                                                       Joe

Gamera - Yes indeed I did just slowly misted it on. Just slowly rotated the plane around on its dowel misting as I went. My one complaint about Alclad is that man, it sucks throught he airbrush in a hurry and thus one bottle doesn't seem to last long. I suppose a better base coat might help alleviate this a bit, along with getting the first initial coat on right.

                                       Joe

JOE RIX

Gamera - Yes indeed I did just slowly misted it on. Just slowly rotated the plane around on its dowel misting as I went. My one complaint about Alclad is that man, it sucks throught he airbrush in a hurry and thus one bottle doesn't seem to last long. I suppose a better base coat might help alleviate this a bit, along with getting the first initial coat on right.

                                       Joe

Hmmm, then I have no idea what happened before, very happy to see you've got matters in hand now though. And yeah it does go quick, I picked up one of the quart bottles of aluminum, hopefully it will last me a while.

I'll drop by Hobby Lobby on the way home from work for some of that tape.  Did you have any issues with it pulling up Airframe Aluminum?  My tests with 'pre-stuck' tamiya tape have gone very well with no pullup, and I'd hate to screw up the finish now.

I used about half a bottle (so far) of Airframe Aluminum on this big beastie, and the upper half of the model is still a bit dark and underpainted after 3 super-light coats (bottom has 4 coats and looks perfect), but I plan on adding that fourth after going over the gun bay covers with duraluminum and a picking out a few odd other panels for regular aluminum.  The control surfaces are already white aluminum.  It does take a lot of paint to get anywhere, and you get the impression it's taking even more than it really is if you're doing lots of very light coats as it seems you just sit in front of the model for ages with the airbrush, but the end result is so very worth it.  

That Maketar group is great.  Thanks for the link.  I'll probably try my own masking for the swoosh, but I just bought some pre-stripped kabuki tape and a set of USAAF roundels.  They're cheaper than WarPigs masks, and I've had good luck with those for balkenkruze.  

Good tips on cowl masking.  Fortunately the main red ring of the 368th planes perfectly hits the second panel line ring on the Trumpeter kit, so the painted area is already correctly marked up.  Just got to make sure that's the only area to get paint on it!  I'm going to try making the basic red cowling ring first, then after that dries cut and apply swoosh curve masks and do it separately.  Kinda wished I'd tried painting that whole area red first then used positive masks to hide the correct shape in red and put NMF everywhere else, but that looked almost as difficult and with the added issue of potential obvious ridges along the red where the layers of gloss black and multiple coats of alclad built up over it.  

NMF in 1/32 is an excercise in stamina.  :-)  Looking incredible so far, though, and that makes it a ton of fun.

I'm am reading these Alclad adventures with interest. I've only used it in a limited way so far, for some car chrome bits, never for a complete airframe, so your comments are invaluable to my learning curve.

Cheers

Tony

taxtp

I'm am reading these Alclad adventures with interest. I've only used it in a limited way so far, for some car chrome bits, never for a complete airframe, so your comments are invaluable to my learning curve.

Cheers

Tony

Alclad is some great stuff once you figure out it's tendencies! Looking forward to you getting into the weeds with it!