French a/c group build 2012-13

...and as most of my education has come from 'The Simpsons', I believe that our toilets flush in opposite directions.

I've primed the Corsair, using Tamiya acrylic XF-16 Flat Aluminium. I've seen some great finished achieved with this paint, but for me it seems the metallic particle size is a little large for a really grain less finish. It's perfectly OK as a primer for this job though.

There are just a couple of minor fixes to be made before I prime again.

I have also futured the prop in preparation for decals, and sprayed the drop tanks, undercarriage and undercarriage bay doors.

Finally got rid of the dark blue plastic :) That's been a long time coming.

Cheers

Tony

Sprue-ce Goose

Scorpiomikey

Vance and Taxtp get confusing, their avatars are real similar if you're just skimming the posts.

Indeed............the legacy of a former world wide empire 

I bet our accents are slightly different!

Had the MS.406 out for a few minutes last night, did some drybrushing. Needs a quick panel wash now. The circular MS logo looks too large to fit in that front-cowling position so I'll not bother with them.

I could make it worse by changing mine to the RNZAF one lol.

Scorpiomikey

Vance and Taxtp get confusing, their avatars are real similar if you're just skimming the posts.

Indeed............the legacy of a former world wide empire 

Vance and Taxtp get confusing, their avatars are real similar if you're just skimming the posts.

I actually have the Hasegawa kit, err, well two of them, the French and the Finnish versions. I got it down from the stash to see if it would shed any light after the Carpena decal instructions didn't answer the questions. I can check some reference too if required, but it was 1am by then and I decided to call it a day.

Cheers

Tony

Ahhhh - good eye Tony!! I'll have to take a look, see if using that logo will really add anything considering the colours used in that area on my kit.

Thanks Vance.

The circular logo is shown close to the nose. Look very carefully at the Hasegawa box top here, there is a red logo that is faintly visible just aft of the spinner.

http://www.scalemates.com/products/product.php?id=135145

There is comment that the circular logo was quickly overpainted in service.

My decals (Carpena 72.34) have the Morane Saulnier inscription in red too, but they are not shown on any of the placement diagrams.

Cheers

Tony

Hey Tony, not a problem if this only turns into the Corsair, I know what you mean about too little time!!

Here are my "mystery decals" - anything comparable on your AM sheets??

Hi Vance,

I might drop the Mirage I was going to build and complete this Corsair only for this GB. I'm not gonna find the time to get it done.

Too many promises, too little plastic I'm afraid.

Cheers

Tony

I have some aftermarket decals for the MS 406 Vance, so maybe the instructions for those can answer your questions re decal placement. Ask away...

Pretty good job on cutting out the wheel discs too. I've always cut them as close as I can to shape, then tries to sand them to an exact circle. Your method is better.

Thanks for the comments on my Corsair.

Here is the next instalment. A little bit of masking and we're ready for primer.

I've also skinned the tail wheel well with ultra thin plastic card to hide the seam.

You'll note that I finally broke off the pitot

Cheers

Tony

Le Mue...

falconmod - shaping up nicely, can't wait to see some paint!  Nope, no Mirage III in my stash, yet. A little MS.406 is on the bench right now.

Scorpiomikey - Bugatti work!!!

taxtp  - ahhh, looking at a weathered machine! I love seeing a Corsair with some miles on her, just looks right.

sub revolution - looking good Budd. Funny, my comments about decals are exactly the same as yours. Everything went on fine, the only trouble I had was ALSO when trimming the back-to-back rudder stripes. NEXT TIME I'm pretty sure - even at 1/72 scale - I'll be removing the control surface before decaling. It's gotta be an easier option>..

Getting there! Decals MOSTLY on, still a couple of "mystery markings" that I have no idea what to do with. I'll scan & post tomorrow to see if anyone knows something I don't.

Crazy French landing gear started. This one has a peg to add with the "melt at one end to allow for rolling wheels" instruction. Uhhh, no rolling required here thanks. That being said, the wheels are really baloon-ish, not much definition between the hub & the rubber, sooooo I'm free-styling again & adding wheel hub covers. No punch & die in my arsenal yet, so I used....

Looks like good work all around, everybody! That Bugati sure is a piece of work. Is that photo of a real one? Where is it?

Vance that camo looks really good. Glad to see you have the cat's approval too...

Tax, your attention to detail on that build is inspiring!

Falcon, that's going to be a nice one, small progress is still progress, right?

Here's where I'm at:

Surprisingly, the old decals worked very well, all things considered. Only real trouble was the tail decals started to fall apart when I trimmed them. So I had to touch up by hand with paint. Color match wasn't exact, but I think with some weathering will help cover that.

Now I have to leave for a few weeks. Progress will have to wait until then.

Thanks, Budd

Good progress on the Mirage John.

Those roundels brighten up the Morane Vance.

I'm back onto the Corsair, I've got the cowling reattached with the new engine, and most of the construction done. Just doing some checking and clean up prior to attaching the canopy and priming now. I'm going to prime with aluminium, so that I can mask it up a bit and use it to show through the weathered paint work.

The white areas one the aircraft a where I've fixed a molding imperfection in the wing leading edge, where I've used filler at the wing root, and the new firewall (sort of), behind the engine. I shortened the kit cowling by a suitable amount before lengthening again by adding this. I still need to fix the seam on the inside of the tail wheel bay and fill a little around the guns.

Cheers

Tony

Got the radome painted as well as the first color of camo on my Israeli Mirage IIIC

It pays to look at pictures of the actual aircraft your modeling if you can.  I found that the instructions on the ESCI Mirage IIIC I'm doing has a error in it.  The two pitot tubes the are up front by the radome do not go on top of the nose but are underneath.  I only found this out after I painted the bottom of the plane! fortunately the fix wasn't too bad to deal with.

Vance correct me if I'm wrong aren't you working on one of these kits too?

I'll post pictures when I get the chance this weekend.

John

Some progress on the bugatti.

Kit exhausts modified.

Real deal.

Its slow because ive only just set me new desk up. Only started back working on it last night.

I've gotten a little more work done. attached nose, pitot tubes and finished filling in seams.  next I need to paint wheel wells the start the Israeli camo on top.

More progress last night. Think I'm getting a better handle on hand-brushing the Tamiya acrylics, the red-brown seems to look good after one application.

The topside paint collection, and kit decals...


NOW it's an official Vance build, approved by the authorities...


With the last (?) touchups on the green, and the red-brown in place. The marking diagram in the Heller instruction sheet was tiny, and not all that clear to start with, so I've free-styled it a little bit, trying to get the right look of course but a rivet-counter would not be happy with me...




A few small gray touchups & then clear-coat & weathering. I'm hoping that because the green + red-brown are already looking kinda glossy that the Future coat won't darken them down too much, colour looks good to my eye right now.

Nearly there tony. Shes comin along quite nicely.

Hi Vance,

Agree with you on Tamiya acrylics. Recently I bought some of their Acrylic Retarder to try and slow down the drying time, both for brush painting and airbrushing fine lines.

Haven't given it a whirl yet, but I hope it will help. I also bought some of their Lacquer thinner, which I LOVE for airbrushing their acrylics.

I think it's starting to come together, the third colour will make it.

Budd - that Amiot is an elegant machine. I thought all the Amiot's were boxy and pig ugly ! Nice job on a good scheme. I'll have to read back and find out more about this kit and build.

I hope to get back to my F4U-7 later this week. Apart from a wash on the engine, it's unchanged from my update on page 22. Where did that 6 weeks go ?

I've used the Weekend Madness GB to get myself into some good building form, so hopefully I can knock it out quickly from here.

Cheers

Tony

Alright, forget where I left off! There was a little more putty-sandpaper action after this pic was taken.



It's still not what I would call show-quality, but it's good enough, don't want to stall this one any longer so Off I go.

A coat of Tamiya primer was applied...)

Considering the small size, and the fact that I don't want to mix a pile of paint just to have it sit unused, I decided I'd try (for the first time) hand-brushing Tamiya acrylics for the entire machine. Topside blue took 3 thin coats, but seems to have come out pretty well.



The green.... two coats on right now, not convinced I like it yet. I think a 3rd, lighter, coat may make the difference. Hopefully!



This little exercise is really just confirming what I already know about Tamiya's acrylics. Love them for airbrushing, hate them for hand-brushing.

Budd!! Snuck in with an update on a Saturday! ;)

Shaping up nicely, love the lines on that Amiot. How are your eyes after masking all that greenhouse glass!!!

Alright, this has taken long enough! Finally got paint on the Amiot:

The colors aren't exact, but given my lack of LHS, I went with the closest I had. I think it turned out alright. Tonight I hand painted the engine cowls and filled in some more gaps with clear glue. Tomorrow the plan is to do touch up paint and attach the final pieces (props and tail wheel.) Also tested one of the extra decals on my "experiment' model. So far it looks like these old decals might be ok. Fingers crossed that I don't have to hand paint roundels!

More to follow soon.

Thanks, Budd

bsyamato

Great updates Vance and Falconmod 

Vance actually i'm signed in with the little nieuport 17 from esci.. not with smer double engines 

opps - will fix that up!

Great updates Vance and Falconmod 

Vance actually i'm signed in with the little nieuport 17 from esci.. not with smer double engines 

Come on in Freddie, always able to add a builder.

I would like to get in on this GB.  I know I'm a tad late with the start but I do have a few I would like to take a whack at.  I'm thniking of either a Tamiya D-520, or an Ln-401 (?).  

Freddie from LI