South Pacific Group Build 7 August 2006 to 7 August 2007

Mucker, Scott & NucMed-thanks

NucMed-I had a similar (well, not really) experience-lost the window for my HE-111-I ended up cutting a bit of clear blister plastic from a pack of something-worked quite well.  Hopefully you will be able to salavge your windows.  I feel your pain though.

bobbaily   nice job on the zero!  cant wait to see the compete fighter. 

NucMed- i dont blame ya for screw up the windows   i had similar problems with my planes in the past. and still do today  oopies but getting better tho since i found out which glue to use.  hopefully ya can fix the window,  but i did read in some fsm saying that you can scrub the dried glue off with very sharp knife then use some kind of thinner or something that will makes the sratches comes off the window.  i have to look it up   hopefully i can find them.

Thanks Silent.

NucMed-along the same lines of scraping off the glue, you might try sanding & polishing the window down and then dip it in Future.  Not sure what that will do with the cracked one, but it's worth a try.

Bob- Your Zero is coming along just fine.

Joe- Welcome back. Glad you could return!!

NucMedTech- So sorry to hear of your ‘glassware’ mishaps. Here’s hoping some of the tips will work out for you.

Something to Share- I have a Badger 200 internal mix airbrush that I bought in the early 1980’s when I began Model Railroading. I have always been meticulous with respect to a complete cleaning at the end of a painting session, or so I thought.

The other day I was painting away on a project for a local IPMS GB when all of a sudden the brush was plugged, no paint would go through it. I disassembled the head and needle and cleaned everything and still no flow. Repeated the operation a second time and still no flow. Logic told me I HAD to have something clogging up the head assembly so I dismantled it again and soaked it MEK, a rather strong solvent and took the head into my hobby room and looked under the magnifier and could not see through the tiny hole in the end. I found a very tiny wire in my stash and ran it through the head and got a glob of paint gunk on the wire. I repeated cleaning with the wire until I could remove no more material.

I reassembled everything and WOW, what a difference. That brush performed so much better. I think the performance had been deteriorating little by little over time due to a small amount of paint build up and that last paint I used had a clump in it that plugged the works. Because of the slow deterioration in performance, I never noticed it.

That small piece of wire is now a part of my airbrushing kit and its use part of my end of session cleaning.

Oh and a mini-progress report- I painted the grey underside on my P-40 yesterday and need to ask you all some questions about silly putty, but let me digest my thoughts first.

I used silly putty to mask the landing gear bays on my P-40 and I had all kinds of problems removing it afterward. Please bear with me as this is hard to explain.

First of all, upon removing it, it wanted to pull out in ‘strings’ like very soft chewing gum. The day did become warm and I wondered if I would have been better off letting it cool off in the garage overnight. Also, I observed discoloration where the strings sat on the fresh grey paint and this made me wonder if I should have let the grey acrylic (Tamiya) cure for a longer period. I was removing the silly putty after approx 2 hours after spraying….dry to the touch, but not fully cured. The interior green under the putty was not discolored at all.

Any ideas guys?? Is silly putty a poor choice for this application?? Maybe I should have posted this in another forum, but I really enjoy the GB environment and figured my GB pals would know the answers.

I ended up touching up the dark spots with a brush and since it is underneath the wing I will call it ‘good’ though it really isn’t. So many lessons with this plane already and many more are coming up………first camo…..and a canopy. It might sound as though I am discouraged, but not so!! This is really a fun build and I am learning lots.

From my experience, I've had the same discoloration issue with not-yet cured paint. THe next time I let the paint cure for 24+ hours and I didn;t have the discoloration issue.

I can;t comment on the heat, but I can also add that if the discoloration isn't THAT bad, a good flat cote will minimize the effect.

Mucker- Thanks much for the response.  It sounds like I would have been fine if I had left the silly putty alone while the paint cured. 

I feel good that using silly putty for this application is okay and will try it again with the next plane.  I plan to use it for making soft edged camoflauge on the upper surfaces of this one.

The discoloration was quite dark, as the grey is quite light, but I have touched it up with a brush.  Will be clear glossed for decals, then weathering and a flat finish, so as you suggested, the defects may not show up that much. 

Frog

Im still new with the silly putty, from what i did with my kate was apply it then leave it alone for 24 hours or +   then i sand it since i have to cover up some gaps and holes   once im safitaty (sp) with it  then i paint it  seems works for me.  It never hurt to try new things smiles.

Jerrynfrog,

I had similar problems with a model I did using a product here in Australia called Blu-Tac.

I left the stuff on over night and had my paint bleached under it.

I now leave it on no longer than 8 hours and am yet to have the problem again within this time.

I forgot about it just recently though and had to touch up my cammo.

You can see the bleaching on the grey near the boundary.

As for removing it.

When it gets all stringy, take a new piece and roll it back and forth over the bits tht are left. This will pick them up.

Hope this helps.

Mark

Blue Tac, Silly Putty...hmmmmmm.  In my limited experience and ability I have found that the drier the undercoat and the warmer the masking media is the less the issues.

The less tacky media utilized the better.  It being warm helps to spread out.  But also making "snakes" and then using paper masks over the greater part is perhaps the best way.

Silentmodeler, Bobbailey,     Thanks for the tips. I have so far removed the windows, cleaned them up and  dipped them in future again. The cracked window just broke in half so I glued it back together with some Kristal Kleer. Don't know how this will turn out. If worse comes to worse I can keep that side out of the pictures and it will be like it never happened. I have some before pics, but I'll wait until I have it fixed so you can see the after when it is finished.  Thanks again for your help.

Silentmodeler-  Not sure what you mean about sanding silly putty, but, yes indeed, it is great to try out new things. I have many firsts on this P-40.

Mark- I just bought some blu-tac under a different name at Staples in the US. I wonder how it would work in the wheel bays. Thanks for the tip on removing silly putty.

Joe- That 'snakes' and paper technique is how I plan to do the camo.

NucMedTech- I like your philosophy.... it it's not in the pic, it didn't happen......tho I may be running out of photo locations for my P-40.

JERRYNFROG,

I don't see any reasons why the blu-tac won't work in the wheel wells. I use it for that sort of stuff all the time.

When rolling it into snakes, I use a metal drink coaster and the kitchen bench. I get nice long thin snakes. I don't use paper to fill the gaps either. I just double up on the snakes. Sit on on top of the other. I find it works a treat and is a lot quicker.

 

I've made a fair bit of progress on the Goose.

The main bulk of the model is together with all the putty done I hope.

I'm  just about to head to the garage to give it it's first prime coat. I'llpost some pics whn I've got some paint on.

Cheers

Mark

Okay, here are the messed up windows

and  the attempt at fixing it.

Still not the best but better than it was. As for the broken window, if you close your eyes when you look at it, it is like its not even there. Seriously I think this may be one of my famous three footer models. (Looks great from three feet away!lol)

NucMed Tech

Just to share an idea: I've seen it done before with either messue up windows or poor/lack of interior, where the builder painte the "glass" either Tamiya Smoke or even "blacked out" with gloss black. It looks really sharp in some cases. If you decide you can't live with the look of the canopy, I offer this as one of many alternatives.

Another would be to write to Revell for replacements...

NucMedTech-From here, looks like you have recovered well -good job.

Mucker had a good idea-contact Monogram-Revell.  I lost the carb intake on my Spitfire and they were quick to send a replacement...at a reasonable costs.  Used to be able to do so at their website.

Ah yes... canopy glass.  That's always one of the toughest parts paint and install on an aircraft.  I'm sure we've all had a disaster or two befall us there. 

What's helped me to minimize messing up my windows is doing a dip in Future early on, so it has a nice protective coat on it.  If it gets scratched along the way you can always dip it again and the Future has a tendency to fix the scratches and what not.  I also switched to using some canopy glue I picked up at my LHS (High Sierra Models... shameless plug, but a great hobby store).  The canopy glue is a type of white glue and so far I've had much success with it.

I like the suggestion that was made above about possibly spraying the windows with Tamiya smoke or black.  That's an interesting idea and I'll have to remember that on my next bomber type build, that trick may come in handy. 

Thanks for the tip Mucker, but after investing in the eduards interior detail set I want to try and keep the canopy as clear as I can. The only problem I had is with those two small windows, the rest came out pretty well.

Bobbaily- I think I will just stick with the windows I have. They ended up alright. If I get to annoyed with it I will take some clear plastic and make my own. I appreciate your suggestions.

Espins1- I used Micro's Krystal Klear to glue the windows, do you use something better? This was a step up from white glue but I'm open to improvements.

Once again I appreciate everyone's help with my small dilema.

Well, I didn't get the effect I wanted-I was going for more faded around the panel lines to allow the aluminium to show thru.  And the little bit of 'chipping' (used liquid mask) is a bit overstated.  I'm thinking that I can tone that down with some pastel chalk & flat.  However, I'm not planning on repainting....yet...

It looks good to me. I think the chipping came out well, I think we have all seen how chipped these planes got during service. The fade on the paint looks okay, maybe with more weathering it will be more prominent. I like your use of leggoes (SP?), I may have to try that. All said, I like your results so far.

My P38 is progressing, i have some major fit problems on the booms, tail and where the booms atach to the wings.

NucMedTech-thanks. In a moment of weakness, I took some 3M low tac masking tape and did a bit more chipping before I went to bed.  I think it looks a little better-I'll try to get pics posted later this pm.

Looks like it's coming along nicely Bob.    I'd like to see how it looks now after you did more chipping. I've never tried doing that effect before, looks hard! 

Looking for to seeing the new chipping Bob. I'm in the process of masking, hopefully will get some paint sprayed this weekend.If you like you can just use my name for posts, it may be easier than my screen name. that does apply to all.

HEY JOE..

 

I AM FINISHING UP A HASEGAWA VAL...CAN I ADD IT TO YOUR GB????

 

CARLOS

Stephen & Chris-thanks

Extreme weathering, take 2:

 

Looks much better Bob! When I think of a Japanese plane that is what comes to mind. Great job.

As for myself I've put some primer on the P-61, so I'm making progress.

That looks a lot better bob.

It was looking a little sad in the first pic but that second post looks really good.

I can't wait to see how you progress.

Keep it up

Mark

Stephen & Mark-thanks.  I feel a little better about the project. I'm not really happy with Tamiya's IJN Green-a bit too dark for my liking. I had trouble getting mixing shade I liked.  Also, I wish I had coated the underside with flat aluminum prior to applying the IJN Grey so I could have done some chiping there.  Oh well, next time....

Nice job on the paint wear Bob, it is a very hard look to try to re-create and I haven't been brave enough to even attempt something like that.  Nicely done!