Battle For Germany 45 GB Starts Now - 08 May 06

bobbaily wrote:

Marc-thanks for the post on the ultra-sonic cleaner.  My anniversary is this weekend and I was looking for something for the wife

A gift for the wifey hmmmm?

wing_nut wrote:

bobbaily wrote: Marc-thanks for the post on the ultra-sonic cleaner.  My anniversary is this weekend and I was looking for something for the wife A gift for the wifey hmmmm?

Of course.  What kind of husband do you think I am?(Don't answer that....and don't worry guys, there are a couple of other presents to go along with the ultra-sonic cleaner...)

...  and   ...   1000!

I finally make it into the upper echelon of FSM regulars.

Looks real nice Tom, the anteater is sure coming along nicely!

Someprogress about those crappy decals, still ugly but I used some old solvaset on some of the more nasty ones and they seemed to suck down a little better.  Still the white residue but I am hoping it goes away when I apply the future, either tonight or tomorrow.  Progress pics coming soon!  Th elight at the end of the tunnel is coming on fast!

jboutin wrote:

...  and   ...   1000!

WOOHOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Congrats

Nice one Karl.  Well done.

Regards,  Rick

Karl - stunning as always!!  Very good job of preshading... not too garish!

Jay - congrats!!!  each one thousand gets a little easier! 

Well... a few color pics, I spotted some areas to work on some more with mine but thought since :::AHEM::: certain people are clamoring (nagging) about pics it's about time Rick... er... "they" get them..    Well.. that and the photos I uploaded to photobucket ended up getting compressed and looked horrible except for these.. will resize etc.. tomorrow night...  plus I was playing with a bounce flash versus studio lighting, I think the pics improved with the bounce flash, so will see what I can do with that...

-=edit=- the last pic is of a prototype the Germans were working on right up till the fall of the third reich... it was going to be called the Do335-C16 "Needlenose"

Karl, good god man what are you talking about that looks fantastic, I cannot believe that's the same aircraft as posted on the previous page.  Nice job on the subtle and very effective weathering 

Tom your 335 looks great and is a really nice match for the cam scheme in your reference shots.  I love the B&W images too, I'll have to try that myself

Jay CONGRATULATIONS on making the big 1000.

Cheers

Karl-nice work on the 109, especially on the weathering.

Tom-must be cold down there in Texas-looks like a "two dog night"....sorry, couldn't resist....

So I have some progress pics for you.  You can see the white residue around the decals on the one for this build.   I still have to seal them with future though so as I mentioned before, I really hope (fingers crossed) that the future takes the white away. 

I want your honest opinion of the mottling.  I didn't want to over do it as it was my first time trying the luftwaffe mottling but I think I may have gone a little too light.  Oh well, there is always next time.  I am really enjoying building these 1:72 Doras.

I'll also post the other Dora too, even though it is for the Langnase GB.  These hasegawa decals went on absolutely beauitfully, no issues what so ever.

Tom,  Very nice Anteater.  Great job !

Jay,  The Doras are looking real good.  The mottle is fine.

Regards,  Rick

Hey gang good news and bad news on the DML "Hacktrack" first the goodi got the upper hull fit problems taken care of going to need a little clean up but overall not too bad And now for the bad as I was putting my carefully and frustratingly assembled indie tracks on the wheels the things DECINTEGRATED! so i now need to replace them anyone have any reccomendations for decent replacements??? thanx again and TTFN

TOM & JAY looking good guys awesome jobs

P.S. Magic Tracks MY SWEET GRANNY ! ! ! ! ! !

Ok, I know I havent posted here forever. but I forgot I was in this one! Sorry! Anyway, here are some progress pics of the Tiger 1,  I have since repainted it, because I felt the yellow overtook most of the tank and made it look only yellow. So I've since decided to, instead, model tactical no. 112(as opposed to the original 212, the well know tank Micheal Wittman used during the battle at Villers-Bocage), Anyway, these are pics of the original paint job, I would take more, but I dont feel like it right now cause I'm playing a Battlefield 2 demo (FRIKIN AWESOME!), but here they are...

EDIT: The zimmerit is made using the basic tamiya putty and tool technique, and is my first try, just thought I'd add that little detail LOL...

Thanks to all on the kind words!!!  I will try a few more things hopefully tonight... I had an interesting idea with the mention of the post shading my Pfiel, (it came to me in one of my 'zoned out' moments at work..) I might try it with pastels.  When I did the Martlet for the N. Africa GB I accidently did it when applying some of the sand colored powder and found it an interesting effect..   I might be on to something new!!

Jay - I think the mottle looks fine, I did a search awhile back and saw quite a few 190's with very little to no mottling, just the hazy demarcation line at the lower and upper colors.  Frm the pics it looks like the residue will PROBABLY disappear when you future it... if not probably become unnoticable to everyone but you... It's wierd, I've had the white haze like on the outer edge toward the tip but surrounding the cross is a mystery!  Interestingly the decals I had fits with on my build were Hasegawa (the roundels for the wings, I had a horrible time removing them when they wouldn't settle, it left a ton of residue on the wings I had to use windex and sandpaper to get off!

Chris - tough breaks.  I was finally too exhasperated to finish the indy tracks on the Tiger II I was doing, I finally put it away for a rainy day... I'm going with Fruil next time.  Just as fiddly but they'll keep their shape easier...

Tigertankman - (sorry can't remember your name) looking good!!  The zimmerit looks great, one day I will have to get me one of those tools, I know I will be doing more armor down the line!

Nice looking Tiger, Tiger.

Regards,  Rick

Tom, nice job on the 335, the NMF looks great.

Jay, the Doras are looking really good. The mottling looks fine, and I'm sure the very slight marks around the decals will vanish under a coat of Future.

Guys, thanks for all the encouragement, and I'm glad you liked the build.

Meant to say that the aircraft depicted was from NJG II, captured at Fassburg in May '45, just to establish it's bonafides in this GB.

The camo on the 109 is RLM 76, with RLM 02 over the black portions of the spinner. There are quite a few late war all RLM 76 camo schemes out there, especially on 109s and 190s.

Now to crack on with the 162.

Karl

ARRGGH!

I went to get some airbrushing done this morning before work and I couldnt find a piece of my airbrush!  I have a paasche H and the outer part that screws over top the syphon has a plastic washer that is held in with a metal screw washer with threads.  I lost the metal washer with the threads!  I have no idea what happened to it! It was there with my AB stuff after I cleaned it last.  At least I think it was...  Everything is on hold now until I find a place that sells parts and go get one.  I'm not ready to buy a new airbrush just yet so I want that part.  A while ago I had to replace the little plastic washer and that took a while to find a place that sold parts.  argh!

Tough Break Jay, I always blame stuff like that on the Cats!!  At least they are good for something!  I have never taken that part of my airbrush apart (Maybe I should ) but I have come close to losing the set screw that holds the tip in place a couple of times.  BTW great job on the Dora's. They are coming along nicely.

Karl, great looking 109, I totally love the weathering job

Tigertankman, looking good so far.

Tom:  what can I say, the 335 is totally awesome   But are you sure that last photo is of the C-16?  I thought it was the K-9 "Snouzer" version!  (Okay okay I know... too obvious)

Update on the airbrush, I have got the new part, I ran to a LHS at lunch and they had all the pieces I needed.  phew! that was a close one. I thought I'd have to wait a week or two for a new part to come in. 

Okay now for a serious question

I was just over on Hyperscale and saw a reveiw on a new Airfix (I know, bad word...) Spitfire Mk IXc.  It was a pretty favuorable review.  It supposedly has new tooling on the fuselage and wings with engraved panel lines.  I was thinking I should try to pick one up.  Has anyone else heard about this new kit? what are your thoughts.

Hey all I have aquestion as I dont know much about what versions of spitfires are what which Spit is the one with the "Clipped" wings???

My "Hacktrack" is coming along well except for the aforementioned track Decintegration i just filled the gaps on the rear with some CA glue except for 1 that i had to shim with some strip styrene things are running along smoothly now I'll probably finish it without the tracks as aftermarket tracks seem priced a bit steep so i will save up for them i will probably go with the Friul ones as alot of people seem to have had good results with them. as always Happy Modeling & TTFN !

Jay glad to hear you got your airbrush back up and running.

Chris  Some of the  MK Vb Spit's came in clipped wing format.  I'm not sure if there were other models with clipped wings though I'll check my referances at home tonight.

Cheers

Bear

Chris, for Sptifires with clipped wings it was actually a wing option, I think it was the "b" wing.  So when you see a spitfire MkVb, it means it had the clipped wings. An "a" wing had 8 .303 machineguns, the "b" was clipped and had two 20mm cannons and four .303s, the "c" was the same as the "b" but not clipped, the "d" I think was the extended high altitude version and the "e" wing had four 20mm cannons.  I'm not a Sptifire expert but I am sure that was how the wing designs were labeled.  Hope this helps.

I think only a few of the Mk IX had the clipped wing and some Mk XIV also had clipped wings.  It was most common on the Mk V.  The clipped wings increased the role rate and speed at lower alltitudes which helped it compete with the Fw-190s.

Jay  Now you've got me confused (I know it does'nt take much) I  have seen photos of MK Vb's with the rounded wingtip though are they miss captioned? Now I can't wait till 16:30 to get home and check out  Spitfires in action.  Your reasoning sounds good to me though.

Cheers

Bear

Okay Marc you are right.  Chris and others, sorry for the confusion but I only got it partially right.  I got this off wikipedia:

Spitfire used five different wing types, designated "A" through "E," which overall had the same dimensions but different internal arrangements of armament and fuel tanks.

• A
  • Eight .303 inch (7.7 mm) Browning machine guns, 300 rounds/gun
• B
  • Two 20 mm Hispano HS.404 cannons with 60 rounds/gun
  • Four .303 inch Browning machine guns with 350 rounds/gun
• C - "universal wing" allowing either "A," "B," or four 20 mm Hispano cannon armament. Main landing gear was strengthened and moved 2 inches (5 cm) forward to reduce the tendency to "nose over" on landing. There was added provision for a 250 lb (113 kg) bomb under each wing. In practice, most aircraft carried:
  • Two 20 mm Hispano HS.404 cannons with 120 rounds/gun
  • Four .303 inch Browning machine guns with 350 rounds/gun
• D - long-range wing for reconnaissance versions with armament replaced by fuel tanks
• E - universal wing allowing two weapon fits
  • Two 20 mm Hispano cannon with 280 rounds/gun
  • 2x .50 inch (12.7 mm) Browning M2 machine guns, 500 rounds/gun
• or
  • Four 20 mm Hispano cannon with 280 rounds/gun

Beginning with the Mk.21, the Spitfire had a new wing design armed with four 20 mm Hispano cannons.

Heres the part on clipped Spitfires:

Some Spitfires starting with the Mk.V had wingtips removed to improve low-altitude performance. These aircraft are sometimes incorrectly referred to as "LF" versions. The "LF" designation referred to the low-altitude version of the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine and while many "LF" Spitfires indeed had the "clipped" wings, a number did not.

Looks like the clipped Spitfires were really a non standard modification and was applied to many different marks.

Jay Thanks for the great follow up.  I'm glad I'm not totaly insane plus I would have had to start looking for a 1/72 scale clip winged MK Vb spit  for the Aces GB does it exist???.

Cheers

Bear