Good job Trey. I like to see real modelling in action. Great refinement of the kit parts.

Cheers

Tony

Trey, looks good. I should have done some of those little mods on mine. Is that the Academy kit? I went with yellow ZC on mine, seems to be what I see in pics mostly. I went straight OOB on mine, but I just ordered a seat for the 'pit. Just couldn't leave the kit seat with no belts so visible in the cockpit.

If anyone needs a true details 1/48 p-47 seat with belts let me know... I have an extra. It's all yours, just need your address.

Basic Dry fit looks promising

Trying not to go hog wild with a/m goodies on this one so making the most out of whats in the box is a must. First up I gave the wheels a retread and then 'weighted' them,may have weighted them a tad much but I'll roll with it!

Next I opened up the vents behind the cowl flap area

Cleaned up and thinned the aft fuse vents

More cleaning and drilling,will be straying from the oob by adding some tubing here

Razor sawed the cowl flaps ,filed them a bit and thinned the trailing edges

Rescribed and cleaned up the front cowl

I'm seeing 2 different zinc chromates on the inside wheel bays and engine cowls which would be correct the yellow or green?

on to the office next! cheers Trey

Great save B-17!

SF thats looking awesome! Strange they would put dry transfer in among the waterslide stuff!

I hope its not too late to join in? Got a Monogram D in 1/48 sitting in the stash

SF... Stripes look really good. Nice work! Bummer on the dry transfers. I do wish they had thought to put BOTH types in the kit like they did with the yellow decals, just in case. Looks like you are well on your way to a good save. I almost painted them... The biggest a downer for me with the kit decals is the are a little too transparent. In your case, the star insignia  match your decals nicely. On mine if you look close you can see the stripes under the white of the insignia.

The dry transfer trick is a baby's butt smooth clear coat (like normal decals) and taping the edges down of the plastic sheet. Then as you rub you can actually see the dry transfer leaving the release film. Then (hopefully) it all sticks...

Gamera: That's a good tip on the transfers and decal film. I'll definitely keep that one in mind if I'm faced with it again.

SF: Actually the fuselage stripes look pretty darn good to me, much better than I could manage.

Gee, I haven't seen any dry transfers in any of my Academy kits, guess I'm lucky there. Best way I've seen to use them is to stick them on a clear sheet of decal film and then apply them as decals. Never had much luck with dry transfers since I can never get the decal right at first and have to slide it around.

Greetings,

Dove in on the stripe decals yesterday. And yes, having it to do over again, I'd suck it up and paint them, borders and all. However, they weren't as bad as you might imagine. Bear in mind that these are very much in-progress photos. I've got a few little wrinkles and bubbles and such that I'll be working on with more Microsol and probably some Solvaset as well, and the decal film is shiny as heck. But I think once I finish massaging and get a good smooth flat coat on, the results will be acceptable. Again, next time, I'll paint 'em all. I can see the difference between the painted wing stripes and the fuselage decals and the painted stripes are clearly superior.

The hardest thing about these decals was actually working with the material itself. The film is almost vinyl-like, sorta like working with Saran Wrap. Meaning that once you put it down, it doesn't want to move, and being able to move it around is pretty critical with something like this. But I mostly managed with lots of water and Microset.

I put on some of the other decals, then decided to tackle the dry transfer letters. I had a pretty good idea what to expect, and I wasn't disappointed

Can someone, somewhere, explain Academy's, um, curious choice to include a sheet of Cartograph decals, but to throw in dry transfers for the big letters on the curved surface

Having worked in newspapers for 40 years and still having my old collection of dry-transfer Presstype lettering from the 80s, I can tell you there's a very, very good reason this stuff pretty much died as soon as desktop computer publishing became viable: Dry transfers suck! Sheesh! I managed to get the "HV" on both sides applied acceptably, but barely. Both of the "A" transfers, though, were nightmares. The first one went down, but slipped during the process and is uneven between the stencil segments. The second one, as you can see above, just disintegrated. I immediately threw in the towel and started Googling USAAF letter decals, then took a deep breath, went back downstairs and tried to piece in the rest of the "A." I ended up with this:

I'm figuring I can hit it with some dullcote, then try to mask and paint some repairs. I'll make it work, but this whole debacle is just another reason to leave me pretty cold to building any Academy kits in the future.

Updates to follow.

SF, I'm with Gamera on the stripes thing. The more I looked at the decals and the underside if the plane, the more I realized masking them was the better bet. The good thing is the stripes are almost the exact same width as Tamiya 10mm tape. I did cheat a little. I have a roll of 3mm 3m stripe tape as well as some 2mm in the same material. Works great to define the lines on compound curves. The other option is to cut strips of tamiya tape. I actually laid down the black first, masked my black line, then painted the white inner. That requires a bit of patience layering the white to cover the black well. I sprayed the outer where the lines would be darker on the outside than the inner so they looked like the black stripes but inverted, then did white.

Funny you mention the plane looking more grey than green. Mine was sort of like that too, until it all came together! Keep it up!

Nice work! Looking forward to seeing how the fuselage invasion stripe decals work out. Honestly, I've found masking them less trouble than fighting decals to lie down flat on a complex curve like that.

Greetings,

Here are a few pics of the Gabreski jug after some more painting.

The patient awaits removal of the bandages:

Mr. Gabreski is an interested onlooker:

Where, you may be wondering are the rest of the fuselage stripes? I'll probably get some grief for this, but I'm going to give the kit decals a shot on those. This was my first try at invasion stripes. I ended up quite pleased with the wing stripes, but I was having a devil of a time wrapping the tape around the fuselage and wasn't looking forward to masking those black borders on the white stripes, so I decided to just shoot the black and go with the decals. Academy did the stripe decals in only two pieces instead of a dozen little segments, so I'm giving 'em a try. Worst that happens is they just don't work and I go back to masking and spraying.

And for the record, the stripes were sprayed with Tamiya paint, thinned like heck with 91 alcohol, and it behaved beautifully. And, of course, Tamiya tape is the most amazing stuff ever. I still remember trying to mask stuff with scotch tape as a kid, shudder

I think Tamiya tape ranks up there with indoor plumbing and GPS as mankind's most important inventions.

Geof: I use MM thinner, as well. I think I've sometimes gotten bad bottles of paint that have sat on the shelf for too long. Some bottles just seem to spray gritty and pebbly no matter what I do, whereas others do just fine. Again, I think my brush is just super-finicky about the mix. I have to force myself to keep thinning. I look at the mix and think it looks just fine, and then thin make myself thin it some more. You'd think that after a couple of years of using this thing I'd have it down, but it seems to be alchemy every time. But the Tamiya paint really does seem to be the most forgiving and have the best shelf life. I've got a couple of bottles of Tamiya that must be 15 years old and they're still smooth and lump-free.

I'm starting to get with the program on the lacquer thinner. It does seem to do the best job of cutting through everything, and I now routinely soak the tip in it for a while after I'm done spraying. I pull the needle, of course, and clean it, and slosh some more lacquer thinner into the brush and run the cleaning brushes through it. I do that every time. I also periodically tear the whole thing down and run it through an ultrasonic cleaner with an ammonia/Mr. Clean mix.

SF what thinner do you use with MM enamels? I use their airbrush thinner and have never had a issue with it. I use generic lacquer thinner though. With tamiya paints it depends. If I'm doing a large spray I will usually use alcohol. But with fine work I use tamiya thinner. Supposedly it has a dry time reducer in it. I've not had an issue with that, but it does seem that the proper mixture is always key. Also, how do you clean your airbrush? I use lacquer thinner usually and dismantle it fully before any serious fine work. Before I did my jug I did a full tear down of my brush. It's amazing how much gunk can get  stuck into those little spaces!

Geof: Yeah, mine's a bit less green than yours, but the photos really seem to accentuate that. I also didn't do much green in the areas I knew would be covered by stripes and such. I'll get some new pics up tonight or tomorrow.

I probably would have done a bit more green, but with all the trouble I was having with the brush, I figured I'd quit while I was ahead before I messed it up. In general, I've had more bad experiences with MM enamels than anything else, but I think my airbrush just demands exactly the right mix or it gunks up. Trouble is I feel like I do the exact same thing on two different days and have totally different experiences.

It does seem to me that I've had the most consistent success with Tamiya paints. And I've had very good luck recently thinning it with the 91% alcohol. Trouble is I've got tons of bottles of other paints and Tamiya isn't sold anywhere nearby, so I either have to order it or plan ahead for when we're out of town near a "real" hobby shop.

Anyway, I laid down stripes and red last night, so I'll post those pics soon. I just might get this thing done by year-end, after all.

SF: looks good to me!

Geof: I sprayed her gloss black and then Alclad airframe aluminium. Then I sprayed the centers of the panels with plain aluminum. Then a light misting of aluminum to bring down the contrast.

Doogs got me started on this technique. He has a few posts on his blog where he goes into more detail.

B-17 - I see my post was a might bit on the late side. Absolutely excellent save.

B-17... Beautiful save! Wouldn't know the difference!

Gamera, love how that NMF turned out! What did you use? Did you do some shading work with that or just spray right over your black? Looks fully weathered already!

Doogs, some of the lines look like "fun"... Not. I too have been experiencing some serious redo of panel lines on the A-10 I'm working on. Frustrating.

Stoutfella: looking good! Keep it up! You are going with a more grey overall pattern. Cool! That's one cool thing about the Gabreski, all sorts of interpretations out there! Don't get too frustrated with that airbrush. They can all be finicky at times. Also, when doing detail work like that I use either tamiya paints or enamels. I used enamels on my Jug. Acryls and some of the others are a lesson in creative sentence enhancers even with the iwata...

Keep up the goods guys!

Greetings,

With the new workbench operational, I've made some progress on my Gabreski Jug. My airbrush has continued to fight me tooth and nail every step of the way -- spitting, clogging, orange-peeling, you name it. I was able to get an acceptable coat of MM enamel light sea gray on the underside (I'll hit the stabilizers with a metal finish later), but had to do some sanding on my ocean gray upper and wasn't at all happy.

After playing around with different formulas, I mixed some Tamiya close to the ocean gray, thinned the heck out of it with 91 percent alcohol and was able to smooth out the upper surface a bit.

I decided to use some Badger dark green acrylic for the camo and figured I'd try the alcohol to thin it, since it seems to work so well with the Tamiya. BIG mistake. Note to self: Do not thin Badger acryl with alcohol. I got a clumpy mess that immediately clogged up the .25 tip of my Paasche Talon. I threw that batch away and switched back to the .38 tip and needle. Thinned out the green with Testors acryl thinner, then thinned it some more. When the brush started to clog again, I flushed it out and thinned the paint even more. Finally, I got a mix that I could work with for a while and was able to get the camo down.

I'm still in Geof's shadow, on the camo, but I ended up feeling pretty good about the result considering all the hassle. I'm really hoping Santa brings me that Iwata!

Anyway, here's where I'm at so far:

Next up: Masking stripes, etc.

B-17: Ditto. Looks like a great recovery.

Doogs: As always, beautiful work. Good luck on those seams, but I'm sure your efforts will be, um, seamless :-)

I've been using good old vinyl spackle for small seams. I know it's too porous and delicate for big repairs, but it works great to fill a fairly small gap, as you can just wipe away all the excess and minimize sanding away detail.

B-17: Looks perfect to me, can't even see where the problems were.

B-17 - Oh Man, That Bites! Well. I certainly feel your pain. My Jug with the messed up NMF now sits waiting till I finish up my other GBs to get a complete paint stripping. I do hope to see you recover and finish her up.

Looking great Doogs!

I fixed it! Well a couple of more spots popped up when I finished spraying the tail, but that's OK, I know how to fix it now!

What you y'all think:

Wing tip:

The repair wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be.  Next up after the tail repair is to put some different shades on, hopefully with out a repeat of the base coat  

Looking great Doogs,I do'nt envy you on that clean up job ahead around those blast tubes!

The nice work continues Doogs! Have you tried filling the small seams with Mister Surfacer, letting it dry for ten minutes or so, and then wiping it gingerly with a cotton swab moistened with lacquer thinner? You can take off the excess Surfacer without harming the surrounding detail. Other than that the only thing I know is to cover the surrounding area with masking tape before sanding.

I keep kicking around the idea of fitting a small electric motor to the prop of my big jugs, maybe even put LEDs in for the formation lights. Don't know how well it would work out.

Thanks Gamera! I've been eyeballing my big Jug kits for some time...was going to veer to a 1/48 Tamiya this time around too, but couldn't get the masks cut in 1/48 since the sortie markings would've been too small. So 1/32!

Some more progress last night...the Trumpeter kit is at once amazing and extremely frustrating. Unfortunately their tooling tolerances don't quite match the ambition of their engineering. Every piece, it seems, has micro-flash that has to be dealt with. A lot of things just don't line up quite right (though it's totally possible to get very close). But...she's starting to look like a Jug.

I'm still a bit miffed that I have to install the blast tubes with the wings. It's going to make cleaning up that fairing seam somewhat interesting.

The gun access doors are another slight frustration. I did manage to get them essentially flush (or enough so that it will be completely unnoticeable under paint and markings and weathering), but I'm going to have to do some work to restore the panel lines and rivet details.

The fuselage spine is another fun one. Trying to figure out how I'm going to tackle this so that I don't have to restore that entire row of rivets. 

The wing root also needs love. I think I need to shave some off the front mounting spar to lift that wing underside just a hair.

Finally, here's why I spent so much time on the instrument panel and gunsight...they're very visible through the windscreen.

Looks great Doogs, I pull out my 1/32 Hasegawa kit and the 1/24 one and look at them from time to time but I applaud you for having the guts to actually start on the kit and build it rather than staring at it!  

Yeah i gave the black base like a week to dry.  Due to the time change, its dark in i get home so I have to spray on the weekends. Once there was a solid color I stopped.

Slowly but surely making progress.

On the wings, I've got all the gun bay doors sealed up now...it's gonna be awesome clearing up those weld seams! Got the gear bays sprayed last night, and that's kind of the last major step before I close the wings. Though I still need to sort how I want to handle the blast tubes. Absolute pain in the rear that they have to be installed up front. There's also some slight gaps at the wing root...trying to sort out where they're coming from (could be the spars, could be how the gear bays seat together...) before I stick the wings together for good.



There's also the fuselage spine and tail...which is easily the worst part of this kit. The fit here is just rough, and the thing doesn't hold together all that well as is, so managing both and welding it down with Tenax was a challenge. Overall, I think I got it. There are a few areas with some minor ridges, but nothing some putty and sanding won't cure.



Also been getting the cowling dealt with. Interior was sprayed black then Tamiya XF-4. I'm going to shoot the red cowl ring soon, since I can mask off the aperture a lot more easily before I start adding ducting bits.



Still very much preferring this kit to the Hasegawa, but it's definitely been a case of each new join being its own adventure. Fit is good, once you get it there, but it seems like every part has some small, stubborn bit of flash or remnant of a spure gate to do battle with.

I used to think it'd be kind of ridiculous and redundant for Tamiya to do a 1/32 Jug, but now I think maybe it'd be a brilliant idea. It'd set the gold standard, provide tons of variant boxing options, and the R-2800 could be used to anchor multiple subjects, the same as the Merlin and the Spit/Mustang.

Did you give the black base enough time to cure (Alclad black base is enamel)? Or put it on too thin or too thick? Or perhaps put the Alclad on too thick over it? I've only ever put Alclad over Tamiya or Gunze paints, and it's always been fine.

Odd that a lacquer would attack another lacquer. Hope you can salvage it!!