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

Joe, nice work on the Emil.

Jay, the Typhoon is looking good. I should have mentioned that I make the tape less aggressive by first pressing it on the back of my hand. Reduces the tack some, & I've never had any paint pull. It does work quite well for hard edge camo though, don't it .

Regards, Rick

Jay - I found some low tack frisket film at my local general purpose hobby store (sells everything from quilting and calligraphy to a modest selection of models) ... it worked wonderfuly for the pattern I put on my Martlet... I was even using Vallejo acrylics which I have heard have a low adhesion (no probs on my end)

I just enlarged and printed out the painting instructions to scale and layed them on top of the frisket... used an Xacto to cut through the pattern into the frisket and had entire strips ready to lay down in one stroke!!!

QUOTE: Originally posted by jboutin Karl, I may have a solution to your dust problem, I do my airbrushing in my garage which can be dusty so a while back I went out and bought a big, delicious store-made cake from the supermarket. After my wife and finished the cake I kept the big plastic base and clear dome. Now, whenever I paint, I put it into the cake dome and voila, no dust on it! I got one big enough to hold two 1:48 ww2 aircraft. In my pics you can see my model sitting on a black base, that is the base of the cake dome. lots of luck!

Jay Like your thinking, but my other half has already provided a solution.

She's a scrapbooker, and has a number of 12" x 12" Artbin boxes, each about 6" deep, idea; for storing models in.

Even using these I stll manage to get duct in the finish!!!!!

No real progress on the Hurricane, just a coat of Future over the repaired patches.

Now I'm waiting on the decals to arrive.

Karl

Karl, waitng for the post to deliver modeling goodies is pure torture. Hope to see the finished Hurricane soon.

Regards, Rick

many thanks for letting me do this, even so quick. i did have fun and it was a first for me. i hadnt done a battle of britain bird before. and this is only the second 109 i have done. darson well done.



joe

Alright guys here it is finally!!!

Whilst I am sort of happy with the overall result, it was great fun to build, even if I did screw the pooch on the decals. Oh well, live and learn

Cheers
Darren

Darren Top job buddyNice job on the weathering, looks like it's seen a few missions........
The silvering on the decals is no where near as noticable as before, Hmmm i like yours better than mine, i got the colours wrong on mine

Rick The wait is made doubly bad because the same package will contain not only the decals for the Hurricane, but my reference book for the MS 406 for the NA GB!!

So I am now stuck doing not a lot.

Darren The spit looks great. You really can't see the silvering, and the weathering looks great.

Joe The 109 is stunning, and you did it so quickly. I'm amazed.

I know there has been alot of debate over the weathering of models of late, especially paint chipping, so I'd thought I'd mention something I read recently.

Due to the extremely harsh winter of 1939/1940, with heavy snow and ice, ground crews took to scrubbing the ice off the wings of aircraft with wire brooms! Now if anything is likely to produce major paint chipping, that has to be a strong contender.

Karl

Darren Very nice looking Spitfire mate. The camo looks great, and the decals look fine. Great work.

wow Karl... that would be an interesting looking weathering job... maybe one of those small stiff bristle brushes, paint the fuselage silver, then over coat of camo, then lightly buff away some spots...

Darren, nice job on that Spit. The decals sure look a lot better than the last time we saw it. Everything else on it is outstanding.

My Spit is sitting in primered glory waiting for the Spray booth and airbrush to be broken out. Meantime I am working on my Boomerang for the Aussie05 GB.

Wish me luck, all...Going to use these Eduard masks to speed things up a little!

cheers

Mike

Darren, The Spit looks great. Very nice work.

Mike, Good Luck !

Regards, Rick

time for a pic methinks

One Monogram 1:48 Spitfire MkIIa, primed and ready for painting. Note the three bottles of Aeromaster dark green, dark earth and sky acrylics to the right of the picture.

Primed using Tamiya grey primer and any seam issues that have come to light dealt with (evident along the wing root).



cheers

Mike

looking good Mike! I've taken to primering almost everything I build now as it helps show up places that need touch up like that...

Looking forward to seeing some paint on her!!!

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?

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

Regards, Rick

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!!!

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

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)

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

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: 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

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).

[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

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

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?!

Good progress Osher. Slow, but good .

Regards, Rick

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!!!

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

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