AIRCRAFT - Battle of Britain Group Build (Jan 1st 2005 - May 31st 2005)

Thanks all! Well, in my view Life of Brian beats the Holy Grail! Of course, there is always Time Bandits, which can be just about considered a Python film, but without the great lines...

The 'individual's' scene (leading on 'naughty boy') is a real classic! Oh dear, have we gone off topic?

Still, slipping Python back to topic, is it good to watch Python whilst modelling? Last night I was filing away, watching 'Rocky'

Darson, no you're not weird, I'm the same way. I just can't carry on if I know a part is significantly off colour. Of course, I like it when the prototype has the 'wrong' colour!

Jay Your Hurri is looking great The salt chipping works quite well doesn't it......I have noticed that with all the clear coats and then a wash tones it down dramaticaly...........

Osher keep plugging away at it

Tom, in a pinch for me it would have to be Life of Brian over Holy Grail.

Osher keep going, keep going, don't give up. I'm with you I hate to bin a model, it's such a waste.
Oh and don't you love to find out details like paint color AFTER you've painted . I must be weird because if I find I've used a wrong color I have to correct it otherwise the model cannot proceed.

JB your salt chipped paint scheme looks excellent, lovely job!!

Cheers
Darren

Jay - looking good!!!! Can't wait to see how your decals turn out, I am doing a Martlet Mk.III "Black K" for the NA GB and will need to print out some "special decals" for it... The Black K was flown by Kremps out of Egypt. I'll be interested to see how they turn out...

Osher - actually I like "The Life of Brian" more than the Holy Grail... surprised me to see you emention it... keep plugging at that Spit ... it'll look all the better when you are done because you will know how much work went into it... I am redoing some things for a Typhoon for the Aussie build and I am feeling better about it already! (some decent sized structural problems when I glued it together)

Osher, never bin a kit. Keep wrestling it until you prevail .

Regards, Rick

1/72 Fujimi bf-110 (with Airwaves PE set) Update: I've sanded down all (or as much as I can) of the black, and added my first layer of Xtracolor RLM02. As it's quite thin, I'll quite a few layers, so a few days before the cockpit.

I'm also adding in details of my 'reborn' Spitfire. Actually, I'm quite surprised how much I need to strip back before I can build it. The top of the engine/oil tank is badly assembled, and needs to be filled and sanded (hence the filler on the body), the top of the fuselage also needs to be worked on. Underneath, the paint job was too thick, and is peeling already. This is going to be stripped back, and some filler used where the mainplanes meet the body. Enough to do? Not quite, the cockpit tub is not straight, but most of all, the canopy is broken, and the vacuformed replacement is badly cut to size.

Phew! I like a challange. Oh yes, it's a Tamiya 1/48. Actually, I'm tempted to just buy another, which I think might be easier, but hey, I hate binning models...

QUOTE: Originally posted by rjkplasticmod Osher, for the BOB time frame the interior would be RLM 02, although some floors may have been in RLM66. Definitely not black. Regards, Rick

Oh! That's fantastic! Thank-you very much. Right, now to sand and repaint the floor again (3rd time lucky?), this time in RLM02, add a matt coat, and then some 'dust' to stop it being so mono-colour! Pictures soon I hope.

Jay, the Hurricane is looking good. I'm not a fan of the extreme chipping you get with the salt technique, but if you like it that's all that matters. Looking forward to the completed build.

Regards, Rick

Osher, for the BOB time frame the interior would be RLM 02, although some floors may have been in RLM66. Definitely not black.

Regards, Rick

Looking good Jay, the salt chipping looks great. You've convinced me that I'mgoing to have to give it a try one of these days. Carry on... lets see that thing with some decals.

Darren, here are the progress pics of the camo. I am almost ready for decals, need to future it up! I had to run out and get some custom decal film (testors) to do the correct codes as I couldn't find any decent RAF codes (lots of spitfire codes but no Hurricane) at the local hobby shops and the serial also has be custom too. The only thing I am worried about is the grey colour from my printer, it may look too pixalated on the film. Oh well, live and learn eh?

Well without further adoo. here is the camo!



you can see the spinner and props for the hurricane and typhoon to the left, also salt chipped.



Osher, you may be slow but at the rate I have been going lately you may catch up and pass me! Lookin good though!

QUOTE: Originally posted by tho9900 Darren - I noticed on the first page where you have our builds and whether we have completed them or not, that Tweety and Jules' smiley faces appear to be a bit larger and more yellow than mine... is there something you can do about that?

Tom have a sook mate!!!
Me and Jules are special!!!
Our mothers say so, and that means it's true!!

Tom: He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy...!

Thanks everyone for he kind words! I don't suppose anyone could recommend a colour to paint the floor of a bf-110? The kit says black, I suppose I could run with this, maybe a black with a smearing of a dust powder?

Karl thanks for the explanation, I appreciate it. Whether you call it an accident or a method, the results look great.

jboutin Great to hear that you are happy with the results of the camo on your Hurricane. Pictures please Oh and if you want to take advice from the King of Future (not), I always apply it to the sub-assemblies fuselage, wings, spinner and undercarriage before applying decals and again afterwards (to the decaled areas). I leave the prop spinner and blades separate until I have applied a wash then a flat coat as I tend to use semi gloss black for the prop blades.

Osher I was wondering where you had got too. I agree with what you said on interiors, which are almost completely obscured once the fuselage is closed up, oh well at least I know it's there. Nice progress BTW.

Tom & Tanky all right you two, be nice to Charlie, oh and Tom can I have him back now PLEASE

Cheers
Darren

Well after that night in that bar in the Phillipines I think Darren has a bit of respect for him... that Sock Puppet has a mean right hook!!!!

Tanky - I must ask you to cease and desist with any mention of Monty Python... you see I get uncontrollable when I begin rattling off lines and will end up getting banned from future GB's...

BTW: it IS dead, that is a dead parrot... it has ceased to be, it is no more, he has gone to his maker, it is an Ex-parrot.. if his feet weren't nailed to the perch he'd be pushing up daisies about now!

Ahhh thats right "Charlie" the sock puppet, i couldn't remember the name..........
But i think Darren calls him "Mr Charlie"

Yeah, they'll never hit a guy with a sock puppet in front of him

good to see ya back modeling again Osher! great progress!

Tanky... when I have "Charlie", Darren is as good as under my control... he said something about that sock puppet pulling him out of a tight one back at the bar one night...and they've been inseparable since...

Boy --- and Kremps said WE needed therapy!!!

Good progress Osher. Slow, but good .

Regards, Rick

Strewth, has it really been a few weeks since I last posted? Or worked on my BoB models? Anyway, in the meantime I've had a holiday, er, does a holiday count as a reasonable excuse?

Anyway, there has been some progression of my bf-110. The cockpit is now almost ready. Almost because I've repainted the floor a few times, and suffered some paint clashes. I'm still really unhappy about the colour of the floor, and the sidewalls. I settled on RLM02, with smudged black, but it just looks awful in my view. Even some dry-brushing, to lighten it a bit, just makes it look worse. It's funny, but if you think about it, looking from above, as we do with models, the floor is suddenly so important, but photographers concentrate on things like instrument panels, which are often harder to see in a model! Hmmm, getting a depressing this colour business...

Still, aside from the rear gunner losing a PE seatbelt (which, amazingly, I found, caught in a hair!), and the pilots levers and sticks to be added in, the cockpit is done! I'm sure there are some other internal bits though...

I've dry assembled the aircraft, and it fits, which is very nice. A bit tight, but should be fine. One engine naselle is fitted too.

Once again, busy catching up, I'm amazed by the quality of the work here. From 1/144 scale to 1/48, champions all!

Do I win an award for the slowest build ever?!

Jay, I only Future the basic airframe & before decaling. If the prop is getting decals, I'll Future it also, but as a separate piece.

Regards, Rick

[b]Jay[/b} I always apply Future to the airframe and sub-assemblies.

Even those components that aren't receiving decals get a coat as prep. for a sludge wash. And that is always easier when the sub-assemblies are off the aircraft.

Looking forward to the pics.

Karl

Great news guys, I have finally got some camo on the Hurricane. The masks have come off and the salt chipping worked like a charm! It looks awesome! (IMHO) Progress pics coming soon.

A question for the future users (could that be everybody?). Do you coat the model with future now before I put on the landing gear, lights, spinner and propeller or do you put everything on that you can then give it a go with the future (masking the clear parts of course).

QUOTE: Karl, I was wondering if you could give me a run down on what technique/s you use for your post shading? The way you do it looks really nice and I'm a big fan of post shading. Cheers Darren

Darren Technique is probably too strong a word for it ......

.......it's more like accidental.

Put simply, it's a 3 stage affair.

First is application of the base colour.

Second was an application of the base coat plus 10% tyre black along the edges of the panel lines etc.

Finally an application of the base colour plus 10% white in the centre of the panels.

You can play with the mixes for stages 2 and 3, and maybe introduce different shades for different parts of the airframe. I used a lighter base coat on all the fabric surfaces as these were more prone to fading than the metal panels.

One thing that I would do in future that I didn't do for this build was mix up a master batch of base coat that I could baseline against . This is especially important if your base colour is a mix of paint colours, ie if using Tamiya colours to make an RLM colour.

And that's it. I've seen the idea used by others on the forum, and liked the effect.

The main thing is to play around with the technique, and get comfortable with it. At the end of the day it's just a question of being a little artistic.

Karl

QUOTE: Originally posted by Tankmaster7 darren, he shoots off a load of floor wax to you aussies, and suddenly he's 10 times bigger than the rest of us? Now this isn't fair. Supreme bigness come from the mandate of the masses, not some farcical floorwaxical ceremony!! If I went around claiming I should be made big just because some moistened bink lobbed some floor polish at me, they'd call me loony!!! Guess the movie (it starts with m) ( and ends in onty python and the holy grail)

Ahhhh Tanky You got it wrong Bro, It's not because of the Future that Tom Sent, Rumour has it that Darren is being extra nice to Tom because Tom is pretty tight with Old Kremps You see the old girl Confiscated darren's sock puppet last week after he cut 4 inches off the Brigadeers walking stick so he's being nice to Tom in an effort to get it back
And yes he really is that attached to that puppet

QUOTE: Originally posted by darson Mike, did you end up getting some pre-cut masks for the spit, or are you going to use the tried and trusted Blu Tack method?

Darren

I will use the pre-cut masks when that stage arrives. Right now she sits naked but for primer while I get elbow deep into my Airfix Boomerang!

cheers

Mike

darren, he shoots off a load of floor wax to you aussies, and suddenly he's 10 times bigger than the rest of us? Now this isn't fair. Supreme bigness come from the mandate of the masses, not some farcical floorwaxical ceremony!! If I went around claiming I should be made big just because some moistened bink lobbed some floor polish at me, they'd call me loony!!!

Guess the movie

(it starts with m)






( and ends in onty python and the holy grail)

All thanks very much for the kind words on the Spitfire, I really appreciate it. At the very least, I think my photography skills are improving

Tom there you go, fixed up on page one

Mike, did you end up getting some pre-cut masks for the spit, or are you going to use the tried and trusted Blu Tack method?

Karl, I was wondering if you could give me a run down on what technique/s you use for your post shading? The way you do it looks really nice and I'm a big fan of post shading.

Cheers
Darren

Lol Darren!!! Thanks!!!

I guess that will show Tweets and Jules what for!

BTW: as a token of thanks for doing that, I asked Kremps to stop by your house later to iron your clothes... she said something about going to the bar first, so if you get a knock about 3am you might want to ignore it... she's a mean drunk and you're liable to get thrashed! I know I did!!!

Mike, the Spit is looking real good. Good luck with the final painting.

Regards, Rick