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

sure! one: turn the color cup all the way tight to the airbrush body... I learned early with the 155 it's the safest way to go...

two: maybe you are overfilling and need to use the bottle...

three: if you insist on using the color cup at that angle and amount of paint, then next time you go to the grocery store get some Glad "Press and Seal" ... tear a small piece off, cover you cup and press down on the edges.. WALLAA!! a watertight seal... but unfortunately airtight as well... so??? poke a few holes in the top with a paper clip or large needle... a lot less spill! if any at all!

Next time you get a chance, fire off a letter or phone call to your sister and tell her how many people you have waiting for pics!!! I think you need to ask for your own camera next yr for Xmas or your birthday!!!

---edit---

Rick, didnt see your message until I posted mine... the 155 is siphon fed, the metal color cup is like a faux gravity feed... doesnt have a cap.. (I think it would work GREAT if it did) which is why I recommended the Press and Seal.. its not like saran, it is more adhesive (am thinking of trying it on my next martlet as a mask as it has no real glue) but WAY less adhesive than the masking... thighter seal though.. will let yall know how it works...

---edit 2 ---

Tanky... how are you spraying your model? you should be moving it more than your brush... maybe work on a airbrush stand like the legos we saw in the thread? (I think it was Bob) or a piece of styrofoam from walmart with pieces of sprue holding the body up... then you can rotate it to fit your spraying without touching it... just thinking I have never had to spray at that acute of an angle...

i am getting shakey here all. not sure if the kit will arrive in time to finish in time.

i hope so but i am thinking i may pull my name out. not sure what to do.


joe

Joe, you've got till the end of May to build the kit. Hang in there Buddy.

Regards, Rick

WOW I can't believe it guys, over 1500 posts in this GB!! Who would have believed that back in October last year when I kicked this off. The participation from everyone involved in this build has been absolutely fantastic, thanks heaps everybody for making this build as fun as it has been. Oh and we've still got a long while to yet, so hang around everybody.

My Spitfire is coming along well, with most of the camo done using Cutting Edge's camo masks. They work great BTW, but it should tell you not to attach the tail planes until after the camo is painted. I had to perform major surgery on one of the masks and finish it off using the old Blu Tack standby. I'll try and post some pics tonight.

Tom, quick question for you, are you going to post us any more shots of the Martlet? I think I remember reading a post where you said you were going to send another batch through.

Razor, you're paint job and decals look just fine from where I'm sitting. If you didn't tell me the "C" was home made I would never have known.

Joe, ditto Rick, there is a stack of time (three months) left for the build.

Jay, I have to admit that both my wife and I are both survivor nuts, we've watched every series so far and the new one starts on Tuesday

Cheers
Darren

Hello all...

I haven’t posted in awhile—been very busy lately. As I look back on some old posts, there some pretty spectacular builds. Just looking at some of them makes me want to start my 109 now! Lol. After I finish my current build I can start on this build.


Wow, 1500 posts already. Just shows you how popular this build is.

Well ... it pays to visit the LHS from time to time [:s] ... Called in and lo and behold, my order had come in, but they had not checked the order book So there it was - sitting on the shelf for me!!

It will be a couple of weeks before i get started, but at least I have it in my hot little hands. There will be a lot of planning going into it, but it looks impressive

Darren, yes... I am going to try to get some shots... finally picked up suitable antenna material...

Yes, 1500 Posts is pretty incredible. This has been the most interactive GB I've participated in & have enjoyed it much. Seems like we got the right mix on this one.

Regards, Rick

agreed Rick... this has been really enjoyable... now if all of you dance over to the Midway build we can have the same fun there!

Sorry Tom, I've pretty much covered Midway with past builds. Will sure jump in on the North Africa GB when it gets going .

Regards, Rick

Tom, it's just a bad habit I've gotten into. It's no fault of the airbrush. Having no tsnad for the model, I usually leave it lying on the bottom of my cardboard box, and tilt the airbrush to spray. I know it's bad... But lately I've gotten into the habit of holding the model by some wingtip, which helped the problem somewhat. I need to get one fo those modular spray booth thingies from micromark.

EDIT- Great minds think alike!!! I was also thinking that glad press and seal would be a great way to fix this.

Razor The C looks fine from here. Bear in mind markings were often changed in the field leading to some extremely rough looking code letters, far rougher looking than yours, which looks pretty good to my eye.

Tanky Get that camera back.

Rick the pit looks great. And I know what you mean about the rear wing to fuselage joint. Why didn't Hasegawa just extend it back to the panel line just aft?

As for me, I've been busy turning Hasegawa's silk purse into a sow's ear in my own inimitable fashion. The fuselage halves are together, I made a complete hash of this, not quite sure how, as I taped everything together first and ensured that it was all lined up, before applying Plastic Weld from the inside. Go figure.

I then tried to attach the upper portions of each wing, my usual method as this avoids wing root filling, only to realise that the Plastic Weld had leaked under the tape, and I had forgotten to remove the ailerons. like I was supposed too.

All of this was yesterday after work. I really should have left well alone, seeing as I felt knackered. Anyway, today has been a little more productive, and here are the photos to prove it, albeit not very good ones, only got a little Kodak digi cam.

Cockpit including Ultracast seat and armour, not a patch on Rick's.



Replacement Ultracast ailerons, complete with styrene fillet to bring them up to the correct length and brass locator pins.



Fuselage just dry fitted to the wing, along with the replacement resin rudder and waiting horizontal stabiliser and elevator.



I've managed to make good some of the damage wrought by my ham fisted efforts yesterday, and with a bit of luck the airframe should be together tomorrow ready for a primer coat next week.

Karl

Looks like great progress on the Hurricane. Keep up the good work !

Regards, Rick

Karl, you're Hurricane looks great, what brand of paint are you going to use on it? Sorry but I'm just curious to see what stuff others use.
Question, how come you added styrene fillets to the ailerons, weren't they the right length?
Also, the shot of the cockpit is a tad blurry, try taking the shot a little further away and then zoom and crop the shot either on the camera or from a software package like Photoshop Elements.

Cheers
Darren

Waaaaaahhhhhh!!! My heart is torn!!!!!!! And so is my acrylic paint job! When I took up the masking some areas of the acrylic paint base coat pulled up. I know this isn't unusual, but it still sucks!!!!! I'm respraying tomorrow, with tape that's spent the night to my forehead, to reduce tack... This is very frustrating.

hmmm... spent the night taped to your forehead... aren't you worried it won't sleep well? We've all been there Tanky... keep up your chin and keep plugging! Actually although feeling your pain, I feel a tad better as I looked at the newly postaged envelope on my cabinet today and realized that was the mail lady passing by... still haven't got the decals off to ya... and to Jules and Sean neither... ::Sigh:: I'm falling down on the job here!!!

here are my two final shots... while not great, and actually I need to trim the antenna a bit as I overshot the mast by a millimeter almost when I glued it. etc... I consider this build done, and a bit dusty already as well as I noticed on a wing after I shot them... also I've posted enough shots of my build... time for Tanky to show us what he's got!!

p.s. I realize the decals aren't on the prop, neither the kit nor the AM set had them on the cards!!! I couldnt believe it... so today I found some in the SBD kit and I am snitching them and will put them on later...







this has been fun, we should do this again next yr... only everyone who did a RAF/FAA craft does a German one and vice versa... just a thought...

Nice work!!!!! martlet's look very much like wildcats. Is there a difference? I hope to have the majority of my do-17 done by tuesday so i can take it to the IPMS meeting. They like to see that I've been keeping busy (being the only kid and all). I hope to have it glosscoated by then. I wanted to be further, but because of the paint peeling thing, it's going to set me back.

Tanky, a martlet is a cross dressing Wildcat... it likes to wear British clothing... but underneath that Dk Sea Grey and Slate Grey is an F4F....

Karl That's some great looking progress mate. Can't wait to see it finished.

Tom I like your "cross-dressing wildcat" . How'd you do the camo? Freehand or masked? It looks good. Thanks for the pics.

I did it masked Daniel... used low tak frisket and blew up the pic in the instructions to scale and had at the sheet with a sharp exacto... the brits used rubber mats to lay down their camo so it was fairly sharp edges. These particular Wildcats came from a shipment destined for the French but diverted after the fall of Paris in the blitzkrieg. Therefore I assumed they had to be hurriedly repainted into FAA camo right away.

Later models of the Martlet came with a hodgepodge of colors and camo methods as they were done in the US factories using Dupont paint at times instead of the RAF colors, and at times freehanded. I want to try one of those later (using US WWII equivalent colors and freehand camo..) just for contrast.

hmmm.. after going back and looking at the pics I am tempted to shoot one more coat of dull on the fuselage sides as they still have a good deal of shine...

edit: here is a decent shot as I was finishing where you can see a little more definition in the color pattern... it's not real noticable to the naked eye or in pictures, I had to enhance the green and blue to get the demarcation to show up...

Much better pics Tom. Now I can really nit pic . Just kidding, a very nice build. Great work.

Regards, Rick

Thanks Rick! actually I would love if you creatively nit-picked.. seeing some of your work is something to aspire for. I just got back into this this year and have picked back up where I left in no time thanks to all the great people here! I have a long way to go but hanging out here will only be a catalyst for me!!!

---edit---

about the pics... Kremps showed me how to manipulate the color and that has really helped me get better ones.. I think I need to work with the white balance and tomorrow I am going to play with it... problem is it looks ok in the viewfinder once I adjust it, but inevitably they come out red... manipulating the color and hue in my paint program has helped them a LOT!!!

Nice work Tom

Thad

I am busy trying to finish my first entry into the SciFi Ground Assault GB, but have got the filler on the fuselage of the Spitfire now. For an old kit, it looks like there is not a great deal of filler to do, although it is early days yet.

Are those Eduard camo masks worth getting at all or would it be a problem getting the fit right as they probably been designed for the excellent Tamiya kit?

cheers

Mike

Tom: those are some nice photos of a really nice build. Your Photo booth appears to be working well for you.

Karl: Nice progress, other than the fit problem are those resin control surfaces worth the hassel?

Beautiful work Tom - looks absolutely beautiful.

Also, I love your idea for next years BoB GB - I would happily swap ... might have my shelves full of RNZAF linked aircraft by then

Tom, great job on the Martlet you must be well chuffed with the results and the photos look great too. I have updated you as completed on the front page of the build.

Mike, here are a couple of shots of my Spitfire Mk.II (TAM) that I just finished painting with Cutting Edge masks. They work great and should fit any 1/48 Spit without any problems. The whole aircraft took me about ten minutes to mask and now once finished the masks are back on their backing sheet until next time.





The spinner in the foreground is the Ultracast item that I'm using on this build.
Sorry about the color on the photos but I was in a hurry and didn’t want to waste to much time getting color settings spot on.

Cheers
Darren

QUOTE: Originally posted by darson Karl, you're Hurricane looks great, what brand of paint are you going to use on it? Sorry but I'm just curious to see what stuff others use. Question, how come you added styrene fillets to the ailerons, weren't they the right length? Also, the shot of the cockpit is a tad blurry, try taking the shot a little further away and then zoom and crop the shot either on the camera or from a software package like Photoshop Elements. Cheers Darren

Darren I'm using Gunze as per usual. These really are the best acrylics IMHO, and the new buffable metallics promise to be good fun. I'll be using those on the undercarriage.

The ailerons were about 1.5mm short when compared to the ones molded onto the kit. Of course I didn't realise this until after I'd cut the first one out. Still styrene, CA and a little sanding have resolved that.

I need to have a play with Photoshop, my other half uses it lots as she's a magazine writer for a couple of craft mags, so I'll just have to pick her brain.

Razor I thought the ailerons would be a cut and fit job, but due to the depth of the wing I had to add a styrene fillet at the front of the aileron cut out, both to provide strength, and as an attachment point for the resin replacements. The edges of the wing also had to be heavily thinned, otherwise you end up with a very noticeable step between the wing and the aileron. This makes it sound like a hassle, but the whole lot, including adding the fillets only took me around an hour.

Rik Are you going to use the Miliput and Acetone trick for the joint between the rear of the wing and the fuselage? I've not used it before, but looking at he shapes involved it looks like it might be the easiest option.

Thanks to everyone else for your encouragement.. Now to take little people to rugby.

Karl

Darren they look awesome. Where do I get the masks from. I really do not want to order them from the local hobbyshop and have to wait for ever for them to arrive!

cheers

Mike

QUOTE: Originally posted by madmike Darren they look awesome. Where do I get the masks from. I really do not want to order them from the local hobbyshop and have to wait for ever for them to arrive! cheers Mike

Mike I picked up mine from Great Models http://www.greatmodels.com/ I believe they sell both the Eduard and Cutting Edge masks. For ease of use I would have to give them 10/10 as they make the camo on a Spit a no brainer.

Cheers
Darren