2014 BRAILLE SCALE (UPDATE)

CML - well one of those commonwealth countries. obviously it was another chris who did the 2013 canadian GB.

yes toy stores or big box stores with a big toy section. maybe a craft store.

Picked up air fix's 1/72 Alpha jet last night at the raffle along with some other kits. Decided to give it a go...it certainly won't go as quickly as the Eurofighter as it needs a lot more attention and with some other neat gb's about to start....but here goes.

I'm 90% sure this is going to be a wheels up build....I dry fitted the fuselage together to make sure I could at least get the landing gear doors to fit decently enough that I could putty...they do, surprisingly well, but there's a different problem...

I'm sure you can all see the warpage in the left half...never had to deal with it but I thought this would be nice as a F-102 I got last night as well has serious warpage so it'll give me practice before I move on to that one.

The cockpit is pitiful, even for 1/72 so I'm going to practice on my scratch building skills. I've never done any of that in 1/72....as you'll see soon, I need to go out and by me some thinner styrene sheets (been using the same sheet for the past 5ish years so that should tell you something).

You'll notice those big chunks that need cleaning up on the seats...well I got carried away with the music and there are actually supposed to be head rests there....oops  BUT its ok!! turns out after I filed them  down some and glued it back on the pilots head fit right into the...er....where it's supposed to!  I also added some styrene (extra thick) to the seat sides because of pictures I was looking at...I'm going to add some putty so I can sort of reshape that part of the seat

I've seen pictures of different ejection seat types that could go in an alpha jet...I'm guessing it depends on which nationality so I'm just going to pick one and if it's wrong, oh well 

The IP's are well....non existent.

and here is the front one.

Yeah I sort of got a little carried away with the first hole and had to remember that this is NOT a 1/48 plane...Well that's all for now!

Josiah, way to go for heading into another 1/72 so quick...Keep at 'er!

Happy Independence Day to all!!  I know not everyone here is from the States, but have a GREAT July 4th anyway!

Wayne - Nice suspension on the SS-25!  Can't believe that missile is 12" in length!  That thing would be ginormous in 1/35 scale!

Chris - You're welcome!  And really nice masking job on the A-7!  I've used Play-Doh* for masking, but not U-Tack...looks very similar though!  The camo pattern is sweet looking!

Josiah - Looking forward to another excellent braille scale jet fighter from you!  Is it a fighter?  Or is it a training aircraft?

I'll have an update on the StuG IV later today.

*CORRECTION*

I meant Silly Putty, not Play-Doh in response to Chris.

Bufflehead, does Play-doh leave any oily residue behind?? Can't find Silly putty, but, I know I can get Play doh for sure.

DOH!!  Sorry Rob...it wasn't Play-Doh it was Silly Putty!!  What was I thinking??   Never tried Play-Doh before....never heard of anyone using it.  I've used SP twice before on armor models and it did leave a slight oily residue when pulled off, but that disappeared once I applied filters and washes. Sorry about the mix up!

play doh is oily. the only residue problem i had with silly putty was heat. i painted and put everything under a lamp to dry it faster and it affected the silly putty. never had a problem if i put it on, painted, and pulled it off soon after.

Ah, ok, I thought for sure PD would leave a residue...thanks for that.

Its fireworks galore outside!!  America!!

But inside I'm posting this update for the Dragon StuG IV.  Before working on the upper hull I decided that the Saukopf mantlet needed some texture, so I stippled on Mr. Surfacer 500 until I had the texture I wanted.  I use MS 500 when I want a fine cast texture.  I like liquid cement for rougher textures.

With that done it was time to assemble the upper hull.  As with the lower hull, everything fit nicely and I didn't need any filler at all. 

I did a test fit of the DS tracks earlier and it looked like I wouldn't need to modify them so I glued one together to see how it would fit.   In this pic I installed the one track with a few wheels as well as the upper hull....everything is just dryfitted here.

And a rear shot

As you can see the tracks fit tight with no sag.  I was hoping the tracks would fit a bit on the loose side so I could incorporate some sag, which is typical on Pz IV based vehicles. but it looks like that's not going to happen....oh well, could be worse!

Wow! Looking good! and quick work too!

I haven't really done much research, I'm just going to build it as the instructions say,,,including bombs :D

Ernest...great looking StuG so far. Bit confused on you last post...you going 'to' or 'not' incorporate sag in the track?

Sorry if I wasn't clear on that last post Rob.  I definitely want some sag in the tracks, but it would be hard with the tracks that tight.  I might try using stiff metal pins in the gaps between all the upper rollers to force the tracks to sag, but that's a bit tricky!  I used this method a few years ago with this 1/72 Dragon Jagdpanther and I wasn't all that happy with the results.  Can you see the pins?

I was hoping to get a bit more done on the StuG today, but I was too busy packing for a business trip.  I'll be out of town all week so work on the Sherman and StuG are is hold until mid July.  I'll still pop in here frequently to see how everyone is doing!

paint the pin and you wouldn't see it. got sand base color on SS-25. now touching up some seems with white glue. will brush paint suspension dark dark gray and wash with black oils. i think everything on the inside below where the launcher rail sits will be dark green, only  camo the top and outsides. may even leave the bottom o\f the launcher dark green. why camo? if it can be seen the TEL is in launch mode and camo won't be necessary. so touch up in the morning and maybe the camo pattern on in the afternoon.

Sorry everyone, I don't know how I got into this GB. It should be the 1944 GB

If any knows how to delete this, Please do.

Thanks

@Ernest - cheers, thanks for the compliment. The Stug is really coming along quickly. Great tip on the MS 500. I have used the stippling technique with liquid cement, but agree this can be a bit rough. Never thought of MS before, despite having some in my supplies.

Very impressive paint job on the Jagdpanther too.

@Waynec - can't wait to see that beast with some camo laid down.

On a side note about masking, i did find that Maskol left a slight oil residue after i had removed it. No residue from the U-Tack though. I was a bit surprised about this.

I've done the 'pins' method in the past to hold down the track and it somewhat works, but, yeah, paint the pins to blend in with the track and you should be ok...

I am calling this one done and ready for the display shelf.  I will do one more Italeri Mustang in 1/72 - it's in the stash and needs to be as similar to the F-6A in regards to shape and panel lines, but will then shift to another manufacturer if I need another 1/72 Stang.

Right on deatillio!! Great depth of colour on the otherwise mono-chromatic green...very nice shade variances. I really like the yellow stripes on the wings, well done!!

I'm with Rob - that is some excellent depth on a mono scheme.

I actually quite like the faded OD look.

Very nice build Deattillio.

Beautiful bird, very nicely done!!

Stunning "pony" you got there!

Here is my EE Lightning. Sofar the airframe needed a bit of filling and sanding, but I think the results will be worth it.

Theuns

Theuns...I was actually looking for this one today at my LHS, but, couldn't find one....

Got all the mod's I wanted to do to the seats done, the majority of the ejection seats I found did not have the ejection handles at the top, however, the pictures that did were German birds and thats what I'm going to be decaling this alpha jet as so I added some wire to it...I think it'll help take the eyes off an otherwise bland cockpit anyways. Haven't finished painting them yet but here's where I'm at on this thing.

and a little better look at the IP's, though I was looking at reference pics of the cockpit when I first started, you can probably tell I sort of threw it to the wind. 1/72 is definitely a lot harder to update than 1/48 that's for sure. I'm happy with how it came out though and with the pilots in the seats I don't think it'll matter too much

I love the Alpha Jet. It reminds me of the tiny little brother to the F-104 Starfighter, my favourite Aircraft of all time. Keep at it Yg...

Wayne,

Just got a heads up from LVM Studios that they are doing a detail set for the TOPOL.  don't know anything else because their site is down for maintenance.  Google LVM Studios for more info.  Sorry I don't have a direct link.

lewbud

Wayne,

Just got a heads up from LVM Studios that they are doing a detail set for the TOPOL.  don't know anything else because their site is down for maintenance.  Google LVM Studios for more info.  Sorry I don't have a direct link.

hey lewbud

i will be picking up a second one while i figure out how to fix the paint job on the current build. i will look into this after regionals. 

Nice mods on the ejection seat Josiah. You're right, 1/72 is very hard to rectify in the cockpit.

Sorry for being absent from this thread this week gents, i've been distracted by learning how to use Vallejo Model Air on a Panther G i've also got on the go.

Will be back into the Brailles more this weekend.

Ah...cml...good ole' Vallejo Air pain, eh? Please keep us up to date on your experiments with it...maybe on that thread in painting?

Hehehe, don't you know it!!

I will be sure to keep you all updated. Heading to the LHS in the morning to hopefully pick up Vallejo's proprietary thinner, i'll see if it's really worth the extra effort.

As for Brailles, a little bit more work has been done on the A-7.

No photos yet, but will post tomorrow - I'll keep you all in suspense until then ;p

Howdy Braillers!

Small update with my A-7.

When I first started this build, i thought i'd challenge myself a bit more than usual and, rather than use the decals for the "Desert Storm" lettering, was determined to try and make a stencil to airbrush it on.

I wanted to do this more to challenge myself and, if i could do this, then simpler stencils in the future may seam more achievable (such as balkenkreuz on 1/48 etc).

To be honest, i am not that impressed or happy with the outcome. After literally a week of making a new stencil each night, i finally thought i'd prepared a decent on on Saturday afternoon and applied it. It looked ok on the model, however, once painted and removed, left much to be desired.

I'm hoping i can still touch it up a bit more to make it look slightly better, but in any event, i'm pretty happy i had a shot at this.

The decals:

The stencil - looks good so far...

The result - not too impressed with it. The "E" in Desert become very anorexic toward the bottom... Many other issues to be fixed too, but still worth a shot and a good learning experience anyhow.

The other Corsair is slowly coming along. Hoping to panel wash and dot filter this week. I've only gloss coated since the last update.