Bish -- beautiful 'hook, BN lives on! You must have huge enthusiasm for your subject to produce the same project twice in a row and to equal standard both times!

I got a little painting done yesterday, here's the underside of the Raiden preshaded in dark grey:

I'm going to have to take my airbrush for a service, it's not performing well, so it'll take a bit longer to finish this beast than it might have -- still, I can't call her done til those hinomarus arrive, so it probably makes no difference, though it'll probably be a few days before there's any more progress to report.

Cheers, Mike/TB379

Thanks wayne. Sounds like you have a few builds on your hands.

Got the Chinook finished last night, so here are the pics.

Looks like a great GB you have going here OWL. Thanks for running it. I will deffinatly be watching and hopefully will be able to add another build next year.

Tony -- thanks for the decal info. I decided to go the AM route with a brand I'm sure of, I ordered the generic sheet from Aztec today. I''ve heard horror stories of Tamiya's decals in many lf their kits, too, I'm lucky enough to have built the editons printed by Cartograf so far but I'd better be well armed for the future. I'm sure I'll build plenty of Japanese sujects, justifying the AM insignia sheets.

Blitzwing -- The preshading will look good on the underside but that topside green is so dense I certainly have my doubts anything will show through. I've seen others preshade the job, though, so I'll give it a go -- if it all disappears, hey ho!

Gamera -- Yep, the masking is thoroughly tedious and I usually prefer to buy a set of Eduards, but from time to time they either aren't available or wi'll take time to get here from overseas stockists and the job needs to move ahead now... In this case a mask set would probably cost nearly as much as the kit! This canopy is also a very poor part, with distortions, moulding effects and so on, so hand-masking was the only way it was going to go!

I'm hoping to get everything along to the clearcoats stage, then set the job aside until the decals arrive.

Cheers, Mike/TB379

Mike: Nice job of masking there. My most hated part of aircraft is masking the canopy. I hate to pay five bucks for a tiny sheet of tape but usually do since the pre-cut ones are so much less work.

CMK02: Great work there! One of the reasons I don't do ships is you pretty much have to add the PE to get them up to modern standards. I think I'd ruin over half those delicate radar assemblies myself and lose the rest of them.

Would pre-shading show up that well under the dark green of a Raiden?

Hi Mike,

I built the Tony (of course) and P-47 using the kit decals. It was probably a little more than 20 years ago, they were usable then. To be honest, I cannot remember the details but they are still on the models, and look ok to this day.

Check, that's impressive work, it's been  a long time since I built a battleship with photo etch, think it was was Fujimi Graf Spee, which isn't quite a battleship anyway. I'm getting double vision just looking at your work. It looks very tidy, something not easy to achieve, in my opinion.

Cheers

Tony

Thanks, CMK2. It's tedious rather than particularly difficult, certainly at this scale, and I tend to put it off as long as I can. It's not as precise as a dye-cut set, but gets me close enough for a few touchups to even things up in the complex areas.

Today I painted the gunsight and attached the canopy with Testors Clear Parts Cement, not a very strong glue but it seems to be doing its job. I'm also using it as a gap-filler, capillary action draws it into areas where the fit is less than perfect. Another application or two and it should be ready for the next stage.

I hope to be preshading tomorrow...

MIke/TB379

Yessir, Bish, it's a one cent piece.  The 20mm's are even worse.  There are forty-something of those.

But before those, construction step 02 involves the fire directors, Mk 37.  There are four of these and I decided to replace the kit parts with photo etch.

As I've mentioned before, Fujimi boxed the kit as USS Iowa, but it more accurately reflects USS Missouri, so the kit-supplied main radar is the SK II model, a round dish.  Wisky carried the SK variety, which is rectangular.  I got a LionRoar set for this, and it included the Mk 37's, so I replaced them too.

First photo is of the directors themselves with the tiny bases for the radar attached.  I used white glue to attach them.

Second photo is of the radar itself.

Third photo shows the whole assemblies put together.  It was kind of complicated getting all those bends in the photo etch, but I mananged it using a drill bit to form the semi-circular parts.

It didn't help that "Stumpy" stepped on one of them while they were lying on the table.  A cat with only three legs, and he still managed to plant one of them on the radar!!

Thanks again for looking.

Now that's what you call patience. Thats a 1cent piece right.

More progress on BB-64.  Finishing up the hull and main batteries encompassed construction steps 10 and 11 on the instruction sheet, so now I'll go back to step 01 and procede chronologically from there.

Construction step 01 involves building up the 40mm Bofors guns.  They come in two pieces.  I sprayed them haze graze, then painted the Deck Blue surfaces with a brush, rather than masking them.  The parts with the gun barrels will cover most of that surface anyway.

Next is a close up of them assembled.  They are quite crude, with almost no detailing at all; but the cooling louvres (I think that's what they are) are visible.  I dry brushed the parts with lightened haze gray, then ran a dark acrylic wash over them.

The last shot is a distance shot.  There were twenty of these assemblies to make--very repetitious.  From this distance, they look like a lot of bugs lying there--sort of like woodticks.  Ugh.

Thanks for looking.

Nice job on masking the canopy, Mike.  That must have taken some patience and knife skill.  I use the same "outline with tape" system, but I use liquid mask to fill in the center.  You did a remarkable job of filling in all those angles.

Thanks, taxtp! Work resumed today so I only got a small job done, but here's the canopy with the areas filled in:

Next, paint the gunsight, then attach the canopy. Mask the cowling, and I'm ready to start painting... I might invest in a set of AM hinomarus, the ones in the kit look a bit thick and I want decals that'll snug down tight into all that surface detail. What was your experience with Arii/Otaki decals, if I may ask? Sometimes Hasegawas look thickish on the sheet but behave superbly on the model...

Cheers, Mike/TB379

I like those old Arii/Otaki kits Mike. I've never built one that I haven't enjoyed. Yours looks like it coming together pretty well too, although I've never tried the Raiden.

Hey wow guys, sharp work all around!

Good looking pit, Theuns!

Progress on the Raiden, I masked the outline of the canopy this evening:

It'll be filled in with tape in the next round. Here's the completed airframe and accessory assemblies:

Fitting the canopy will be a tiny bit tricky but the bare parts fit is quite good, only removing all the flash took it away from a great fit in a couple of places.

The Raiden appeared to have a strange fitting, a sheet of armour glass in front of the pilot mounted on two rods coming out of the instrument panel. The assembly looks very iffy indeed, and in even the best pictures of the aircraft it is virtually invisible, so I've decided to leave it out. It may not be perfectly accurate without it, but I guess I'll sleep nights all the same!

Cheers, Mike/TB379

Thanx guys as I always say is't just "smoke and mirrors". If you have such nice detail to start off with , the painting is the easy part LOL!

It is 1/48 scale.

I mostly build 1/72 due to space issues, but this doesn't take up to much of it.

Theuns

And I admire anyone who can detail a cockpit like that, Theuns.  Nice one.

Theuns, nice looking work there. What scale is this?

checkmateking02

I'm going to use some photo-etch radar.  That's even worse.

O, nice. Looking forward to that.

My hat's off to the guys who can work so small and fine like on that boat!

OK, so here is my Mirage 3 CZ thet will be in the South African Air Force deleviry colours of pollished alluminium. All the supplied hobbyboss decals for that are OK except for the incorrect "castle" insgnea.We have a local decal guy here for that.

Bangseat (resin AM)

Cockpit tub

http://www.saairforce.co.za/gallery-and-media/39/mirage-iiicz#viewport

This link shows the various colour sceems the SAAF Mirages were painted in.

@ DiscoStu - those paint masks sound like a nice touch! What sceeme you going to do?

Theuns

My Eduard mirage is primed.  Eduard provides all sorts of masks if the builder wants paint instead of decals.  Nice touch.  Kit is coming along nicely.  

I'm going to use some photo-etch radar.  That's even worse.

We have two ourselves, one of which is permantly hungry. If we go anywhere near the fridge, he is there like a shot. Our two are named after singers from NDubz, or something like that.

Good on you for rescueing him.

I would imagine its the smaller scale that makes it so awkward. Looking at those turret and superstructer sides, you can see how much must have gone into the masking.

Bish, how'd you know?--about the cat, that is!!!! That is exactly what he wants!  He even demands that we carry him to his food bowl at times.

In his defense, he only has three legs.  He was abused as a kitten by his original "owners," and the vet had to amputate his right foreleg.  We got him from the vet as a rescue kitten.  

My daughter insists on calling him Cecil DeVille--some rock-star, I guess.  I call him "Stumpy."

Oh, back to the model.  I don't know that I'd call it complicated, but it can be really tedious.  A lot of fine work, because the masking tape has to be cut in such small strips and pieces, then applied to such tiny areas.  An awful lot of ship building is masking and painting.  Then there are the decisions about what to paint first.  I like to paint light to dark, but sometimes that's not possible because of the configuration of the part, and the ease of masking it.

There really aren't alot of parts to glue and then sand.

Thanks for your comments.

Looking sweet check. Painting things like this look far more comlicated than any aircraft scheme i can think of.

Typical cat though, you can just read his thoughts

' ye ye, whatever. Wheres my dinner'

Back with BB-64, USS Wisconsin, "Wisky."

I painted the deck, installed the 16-inch gun turrents, so now it's time to paint the hull.  I masked off the deck, and sprayed the hull first with Navy Blue.  Below are the photos, one showing a disinterested observer.

After letting the Navy Blue dry, I masked that and added the little strip of Haze Gray.  Navy regs called this scheme "Measure 22," and it involved a Navy Blue Hull, up to the lowest part of the main deck.  Anything above that point was to be painted Haze Gray, like the superstructure. 

It took three tries to get it right, so that the Navy Blue strip looks fairly horizontal.  Even if it isn't quite, I wasn't about to do it a fourth time, so now, "it is what it is."

Last photo shows the installed main foreward gun batteries.  Closing up the gaps between turret and guns with the glue mixture turned out pretty well.  I expected I'd have black goo all over it.

The rest of the construction should be straight forward--building the sub-assemblies and attaching them to the deck.

Thanks for looking.

Great looking NMF.  Excellent work with such large markings, too.  A very colorful plane.  Congratulations.

Theuns

Is a "Mirage" a force of nature? If so I have another entry for the GB, a 1/48 Hobbyboss Mirage III cz in SAAF delivery scheme.

 

Theuns

yuppers, Mirage fits!