The Airfix Farewell GB from now until 1st Jan 2007

the horse is Awsome

Photographing on a black background looks really groovy, spacey!  Horse looks excellent too!

Jon, nice progress on the spit.

The spreader makes a big difference to that wing to fuselage gap.

Another approach to avoid gaps, is to glue the tops of the wings to the fuselage wing root, then once dry, attach the lower wing.

Al, nice job on the Tonka, especially the pit.

I went out for a drive at the weekend and stumbled upon a Tonka acting as gate guardian at St George's Barracks just outside Bicester.

Must try and get some pics.

Steve, great job on the vampire and the horse.
 
As for me the Dora is complete, but I haven't got around to taking any pics, but will do soon.

Karl

KJ200 wrote:

As for me the Dora is complete, but I haven't got around to taking any pics, but will do soon. Karl

Cool bananas!

Steve & Al, your builds are looking great. My daughter would love foe me to do a horse like that.

Karl, looking forward to the pics.

Osher... Cool Bannana's?????? (must be a British thing)

It will be another month before I can start on my Meteor but for now here is the box art.

razordws wrote:

Osher... Cool Bannana's?????? (must be a British thing)

Dave, it's always cool in England.

Just like it's always frozen in Canada!

Tried posting this Tuesday night to no avail, as the forum appears to have been on the fritz the last few days, or was that just me?

Karl

 

 

 

 

Still cracking on with the mighty Tornado. Here are the two brave RAF chaps ready to blast off to Op Telic. Note one has a moustache in true 617 Sqn tradition!

I didn't worry about the feet too much since they will be doing a Douglas Bader (ie. losing their legs) in order to fit in the completed pit as you can see here...

Hope you can see in the photo the filling and sanding has been completed, and I ended up having to rescribe the panel lines cos I lost so many of them during the gap-filling process.

Here is the first coat of Dark Camo Grey and Dark Sea Grey - I painted the black bits first so I could pre-shade the camouflage colours with black over the primer.

Here's another pic with the requested box art. It was a 617 Sqn 60th aniversary gift set, but I got it cheap cos there was no Lanc in it. Shame really - the two of them would have made a fun build.

This kit is actually turning out a lot more fun than it looked at the beginning. It is quite detailed and mostly accurate once you get past the actual building stage. And the decal sheet is amazing - just about every stencil, instruction and warning sign on the airplane. This should keep me busy for a while!

All the best,

Al

KJ200 wrote:

Jon, nice progress on the spit. The spreader makes a big difference to that wing to fuselage gap. Another approach to avoid gaps, is to glue the tops of the wings to the fuselage wing root, then once dry, attach the lower wing. Al, nice job on the Tonka, especially the pit.

First- thanks for the kind words!

I'd thought about doing that- gluing the wing tops to the fuselage. But the fit of the lower wing to the fuselage and the wings was so odd, I was worried it'd be as much trouble- maybe more- to do it that way.

When I finally glued the wings on, I applied the cement very liberally, to botht he wings and the fuselage, and then let it sit for a minute or two for the plastic to soften up. I mated the wings to the fuselage at the aft portion first, taping it tightly in place. I then sort of work my way forward, taping as I went, and when I got to the front, I had it pretty tightly in place.

When I let it dry for a day, and took the tape off, it fit darn near perfect- even most of the gaps in the wing roots closed up. I think letting the glue sit for a while really helped it bond, and the working one section at a time to get the best fit then move forward helped too.

I'll pst some pics as soon as I can to show the results. I was actually shocked how well it work out. Their will still be some sanding involved, but not near what I thought there would need to be. I actually was able to fill the gaps in the wing root with Future- they closed up that tight!

-----Edit----

Here's the photos of the stuff I described above.

This shows the wing join before and after gluing.



The rear part of the lower wing left a pretty hefty gap in one area- nothing a little filler can't take care of!



The lower portion of the nose joined very well with the lower wing, though the fuselage fit was a bit off. This will require a little work.



A little more sanding and filling, and she'll be ready for paint.

YEEEEE HAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Finally on annual leave!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 6 weeks away from that miserable dump!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! First, my mother will be in hospital for an operation, so I wont get much done for a week. Her health is more important. The Vulcan saga is coming to an end, the painting is at an advanced stage, so I hope I can get it all done so I can move onto a Harrier GR3. Also I will be upgrading to ADSL, so I may be able to post photos soon. One last  thing, I got a F-14A Tomcat, Airfix of course, is there decals for VF-1 or VF-84 from the late 70's/early 80's? I can tell you that the weather down under is hot and dry!!!

well the paint is done on the boys

the pics stink

i got to get a diggie cam that is better this polaroid stinks

 

 

The colours are quite colourful, and I agree with you, a diggie would really cut down on the background noise.

Is it too late to join in because I have a 1/48 Harrier GR. MK. 3 that I picked up today. So how about it?

mr.chex wrote:

Is it too late to join in because I have a 1/48 Harrier GR. MK. 3 that I picked up today. So how about it?

Welcome aboard!  Of course you can join!

Just a quick picture to show that there is actually *some* progress



And the two pilots in their carefully researched Swedish 1924 flight school uniforms (ok, I made them up, but they look very swedish to me). Skin appears bit dark in the picture..



Figure painting not one of my strong points... But you won't see most of them anyway once they are inside the plane.

SD

Got the paint on my Spitfire IX today! The masking tape pulled up a spot here and there, and I need to correct a bleed through or two, but I thought it turned out pretty good overall.

Oh, I'm so sorry I didn't spot this earlier for you ... but those innermost wing bulges should be removed unless you're making a post-war "Warbird".

What paints did you use? The finish looks great, but the contrast is too high to my eyes. Your dark green looks about right, but the Ocean grey looks a shade too light - although I think it's just the flash, which appears to have also made your cockpit "floor" look light grey rather than interior grey-green.

The other thing I'd check would be the camo pattern on the port wing, and the port fin/rudder/rear fuselage. It might be correct, but it is non-standard, I think.

Otherwise, it looks like you're doing well with what is generally acknowledged to be a difficult build.

Brews wrote:

Oh, I'm so sorry I didn't spot this earlier for you ... but those innermost wing bulges should be removed unless you're making a post-war "Warbird". What paints did you use? The finish looks great, but the contrast is too high to my eyes. Your dark green looks about right, but the Ocean grey looks a shade too light - although I think it's just the flash, which appears to have also made your cockpit "floor" look light grey rather than interior grey-green. The other thing I'd check would be the camo pattern on the port wing, and the port fin/rudder/rear fuselage. It might be correct, but it is non-standard, I think. Otherwise, it looks like you're doing well with what is generally acknowledged to be a difficult build.

Thanks for the kind words! It's a fun kit, but you certainly have to earn it.

LOL- you've got a sharp eye. I deliberately went with the "bulgy" wings. The other upper wings fit so poorly, I switched to that set. I thought about getting rid of the bulges, but figured "Eh.... what the heck."

The paints are Polly Scale. The Ocean gray is a bit light, but not as light as in the photo. I just shot it as is from the bottle. The interior is Polly Scale interior grey green- probably the flash, like you mentioned, made it look lighter.

And as for the camo- again- you certainly know your Spitfires. I just sorta winged it. I looked at the diagram for inspiration at first, but by the end, I was just happily cutting masks without a care in the world. 

I'm a lazy modeler. Sometimes I get really anal and want to be very exact. (OK, truth be known.... once this year.) Other times (like this.... and most other times save for the one aforementioned instance) I just sorta have fun with it and build away. I spend hours patiently researching a subject.... then I rarely have the patience to apply it in the build. LOL

paint job looks perfect    don't see anything you describe

good work  jon

I'm in.  I'm about half way through a 1/72 Hawkers Siddeley Hawk. 

SD, nice progress on the aircraft and I love the unies. Hey, why not looks good to me.

Jon, the paint job looks great, I dont see any problems in the finish. Well done.

My Vampire raised it's ugly head today as the sanding was not as simple a job as first antisapated. Had a bad stepp at the air intakes and also on the booms. Plenty of putty and sanding finally got most of it to a smooth conture. Might be close to priming before a topcoat.

Steve.

If the ocean grey is at least as dark as the starboard wing appears, then it's probably the only other paint that would match Xtracolour Ocean Grey, which is what I think is the best match to many of the colour photos (not absolute match, but relative to the Dark Green, which again can be a fairly contentious colour (Humbrol H116 or H 163, for instance).

Brews wrote:

If the ocean grey is at least as dark as the starboard wing appears, then it's probably the only other paint that would match Xtracolour Ocean Grey, which is what I think is the best match to many of the colour photos (not absolute match, but relative to the Dark Green, which again can be a fairly contentious colour (Humbrol H116 or H 163, for instance).

It was weird. The ocean grey and the medium sea gray loooked almost identical in the bottle. So much so that I painted a test patch of each side by side for comparison. The ocean gray dried much darker than it appeared wet. I'd almost added a touch of black to it, just to make it darker. Once it dried though, I was happy with it. I pulled out a color photo I have of a Spitfire IX- a restored one- and the two compared pretty good, although the real bird was a bit glossier.

I do like building Spitfires! I've got a Vc I'm doing next, in the desert camo, or maybe a US bird stationed in Italy. Haven't decided yet. And I want to build a Mk. XIV too. You can never have enough Spitfires, P-40s or Mustangs, IMO!

Before you do a XIV, can I suggest a Falcon Spitfire Triple Conversion set, which has vacform fuselages for Mk XII, XI and XVI. These are designed to be mated to the wings of the Airfix Spitfire VB fuselage, and Otaki/ARII/Airfix Mk VIII fuselages (for the XI and XVI).

For the XII, which is a personal favourite of mine, I recommend the True Details (not ex-KMC) Spitfire Vb cockpit set to complement the Airfix parts, and the Eduard colour zoom set for either the Hase or Tami Spitfire Vbs.

Brews wrote:

Before you do a XIV, can I suggest a Falcon Spitfire Triple Conversion set, which has vacform fuselages for Mk XII, XI and XVI. These are designed to be mated to the wings of the Airfix Spitfire VB fuselage, and Otaki/ARII/Airfix Mk VIII fuselages (for the XI and XVI). For the XII, which is a personal favourite of mine, I recommend the True Details (not ex-KMC) Spitfire Vb cockpit set to complement the Airfix parts, and the Eduard colour zoom set for either the Hase or Tami Spitfire Vbs.

Wow- I'm gonna have to keep those in mind. I'd love to eventually build every mark of Spitfire I can. Which I know would eventually fill a room

I think what I like about the XIV is the Griffon engine- the bigger nose, 5 bladed prop...... cool looking plane.

Have you built those? I'd love to see pics of them.

Truly excellent Airfix kits can be found in their Spitfire 22/24 and Seafire 46/47. These are Griffon Spits with cut-down rear fuselages, bubble canopies, and either 5 blade props, or, in the case of the 46 (I think), 6-bladed contra-rotating props. I understand that the reason that Airfix did not continue with making such good kits was that the tooling costs were high, and the bean counters came in and the rest is history.

I'd love to show you pictures of my Griffon Spits. I wish I knew where they were! My laptop hard drive died, and with it my database of storage.

However, I could show you, perhaps, pictures of my still-incomplete Mk XII. I'll have a look and see what I can find.

viper_mp wrote:

I'm in.  I'm about half way through a 1/72 Hawkers Siddeley Hawk.

  Welcome aboard!  Just realised I forgot to update the front page, excuse me.

BTW, not much progress on my MiG, except coated it in Klear/Future, and started to mask.  Why is it masking looks so easy in the magazines, but in real life....

Brews wrote:

Truly excellent Airfix kits can be found in their Spitfire 22/24 and Seafire 46/47. These are Griffon Spits with cut-down rear fuselages, bubble canopies, and either 5 blade props, or, in the case of the 46 (I think), 6-bladed contra-rotating props. I understand that the reason that Airfix did not continue with making such good kits was that the tooling costs were high, and the bean counters came in and the rest is history. I'd love to show you pictures of my Griffon Spits. I wish I knew where they were! My laptop hard drive died, and with it my database of storage. However, I could show you, perhaps, pictures of my still-incomplete Mk XII. I'll have a look and see what I can find.

I'd love to see them!

I've been eyeballing that 22/24- I think you convinced me. Not that it's hard to do!

Upper wing attached - now it actually looks like an airplane.






It's rigging time!

SD

Jon, the spit is looking pretty nice!

SD, WOW...  nice looking bipe.  Did you say rigging !  I've never actually tried it on a bi-plane but I hear pure torture.  Looking forward to seeing more progress pics.

Jon, very nice job on the Spit.

SD, I've only ever rigged one biplane, but I used 38 gauge beading wire, rolled straight under a steel rule, and measured with a set of dividers.

Much easier than drilling holes and tying knots, just needs a dab of CA and you're done.

Still haven't got around to taking pics of the Dora, but then I've got a 4 day weekend, so will get them done this week.

Karl