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Peter Lloyd

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About Peter Lloyd

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    Usually in Tasmania.

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  1. Are we still transmitting? Yes? Good! I wanted some panel variation (and to lighten the metal tone) so I masked, applied some Tamiya White Primer, and applied Alclad polished aluminium, which mostly wiped off as you can see. The seam here was also pretty ugly. That got sanded back quite aggressively. Masking again, Alclad on the outer wing panels and AK True Metal polishable wax on the inner wing panels. My last online purchase I decided to buy a range of NMF products and see how they go. True Metal is good and I will use it again. You squeeze it out of a tube as a paste, brush it on (it is easy to demarcate panels), then polish it. It will not polish outside the applied areas as you can see. I didn't use any masking here. The downside is the somewhat patchy appearance, so it looks quite weathered rather than 'as new'. But I will try it again on a different base layer.
  2. I love that box art. CAS over the 'invasion beaches' in a Canberra!
  3. Well another deadline missed but still I continue for as long as the doors are open. I am using Vallejo acrylic-polyurethane surface primer as a prep coat. I purchased four different primers in search of something I'm happy with. Despite prepping the aurface with a good rub-down with a Micromesh sanding cloth, there were a couple of places the primer did not really stick. But it did gloss up nicely and sprayed evenly and quickly. I wasn't concentrating and instead of grabbing Alclad aluminium, I filled the airbrush with Duralminium, so the colour is too dark. But having started, I continued. I know with Alclad you can't really just paint over the stuff, so we will see. This shows the model after polishing: the right side was done with a Micromesh #6000 cloth, used wet. The port wing was done with Mother's Plastic Polish, an automotive product. It is has a much higher gloss. The Sword kit is really quite nice but all the mediocrity is user-applied.
  4. I have one in the stash for some distant-future build of Adrian Warburton's machine. As that might have to wait until I'm 80, I will enjoy your project.
  5. The wing roots are not good. Big gap and the wing surface is too high. Don't be like me, spend time with hot water, sanding sticks, and get these surfaces in alignment. I am about to spend as much time on this as on the whole rest of the assembly. A poor photo sorry. My first use of Perfect Plastic Putty. It's the best putty I have tried, but like all of them it dries 'powdery' so much more work is needed. With my (lack of) skills, it's going to be impossible from here to get a really good NMF finish, and retain all that nice surface detail, and even vaguely finish the model in time. Repairing seams invisibly with putty is simply not in my skill set. Note I've already, predictably, broken off one of the 50 cal barrels, and I deliberately removed the other.
  6. It's actually possible I did not need to, but if parts don't fit perfectly on short run kits I often default to thinning down panels from the unseen surface. It never does any harm! The chin intake builds up with two separate splitters, and while their location is marked on the duct that leaves a bit of fudge factor with regard to the angles. It allows some depiction of the curve of the splitter and makes for a much more accurate part than most 1/72 T-bolts. I'd agree with your assessment of the brands. But Sword have fewer releases, I feel AZ and KP should perfect their models and not release quite so many, as I've had mixed experiences with them, mostly between 'really delightful' and 'good enough'. But. . . those bloody awful decals!
  7. Well I can only hope they will follow up by releasing this baby in the One True Scale.
  8. Is there a reason nobody seems to offer decent kits of the P-47C? Is it much different externally than the early -D? It's a shame as the -Cs were so important in 1943.
  9. Your models look great, mate. I hope my -N turns out as well as yours.
  10. No cockpit detail, but you do get a half-dozen cats. A feature far too many manufacturers overlook.
  11. Away we go! The cockpit gives you options: I opted not to use the PE seat belts or the PE instrument panel, I now have both for a future project but quality representation on my model. The resin wheel bays look great, easy to fit. I suggest chamfer the leading edge slightly to help the wings close up on their respective leading edge. The wing halves fit well, but I thinned the outboard trailing corner (upper right in the photo) to acheive a flush fit. The spent case ports needed to be squared up a bit< I did this with a thin slice of #600 abrasive paper dragged through dental floss style. This is the sort of thing you have to do on these kits: the lower pressure of the short run process can mean a bit less precision. But the surface detailing is just *chef's kiss*. The riveting is as delicate as you would do with a rivet tool. I thought I took a photo of the fuselage halves before I joined them but apparently not. You end up with a lot of stuff in each half: cockpit, engine and bulkhead, wing spar, turbocharger, this tail wheel bay (there is an option for another type which seems to be a rubber-block suspension style? P-47 gurus might know). This is where test fitting, re-fitting, sanding and in parts grinding away the fuselage will pay off. It's better to take some time than try to clamp parts that don't want to join. But I must emphasisie everything on this model so far has been close with only finor fettling needed. This image shows some of the knock-out pin marks, this is the worst-placed one. An example. I use the Dremel with a small, teardrop-shaped grinder to quickly and easily remove plastic. These cuts were to accommodate engine cylinder heads and the chin intake to get the fuselage to close at the lower/front. It was only a minor gap some might choose to close with putty or super glue. I kept testing until it closed. Note each fuse half has been snaded to square-up the mating surfaces. Sword have done well to get the fuselage detail to wrap right around, you do not lose rivets and panel lines near the joining surface. ... and here we are. I closed the fuselage in two steps, first gluing the top and lower/rear. Then, the belly and chin. Sword plastic melts quite enthusiastically so it fills itself to a degree. With a little patience, no filler was needed. A note about my clamps: they are medical nose clamps, and are simply the best modelling tool I have found in years. They stay parallel over a wide range, the degree of pressure is consistent over various openings and just right for models, and they really resist 'pinching' off the model. You can see here how I have used two clamps to ensure they stay on. These are made by Novus medical and I persuaded a medical centre to let me buy some from them (AUS$25 each: not cheap, but two of three are enough).
  12. So the Model is finished. Well, as finished as it will be for a while. I would like to add the wing walkway boundaries which probably were on HAD painted B-17s, copy vppelt68's control surface shadowing technique. This is it after decals and primary weathering: And so to the final photos: Overall comments: The Academy kit is, like many Academy kits, a little basic but fundamentally good. There is lots of aftermarket to improve it, but I was a little surprised at the absence of some obvious cures, the wheel wells for example. I did not want to get too bogged down making this, and I have what I think is a decent depiction of what the HAD scheme would gave looked like. I add it to my Lancaster and Halifax, and hope to add a couple more heavy bombers to the cabinet next year. I owe a massive thanks to Jeff 'InchHighguy' for his generously blogging the available research on these planes, early examples of what became an avalanche of US heavy bombers that did so much damage to the Axis nations, and that ruined the reputation of fascism for generations.
  13. The engine 'problem' never made sense to me: Whirlwinds flew many, many sorties long after the 'customer support' for the Peregrine ended (which led me to suppose the industrial effort per se, rather than technical issues, caused the cut). As other have said, twin engines fighters were not failures. Most early WW2 single engined fighters were so short legged that air forces were left with vast areas where a less agile plane could still rule. The Spitfire is a legend but it was truly notable for all the battles in which it never took part. Why the RAF was so utterly uninterested in an escort fighter, given it's doctinal obsession with bombing, is a real historial oddity.
  14. My B-17 for the STGB dragged on and on, and now there is hardly any time left in this Group Build. But I will try to build the Sword P-47N, which has sat in my stash for a few years. I am a fan of Sword. As you can see, the kits are great value with almost all the 'aftermarket' already in the box. They usually fit pretty well, no problem if you have built a few short-run kits. Their early models- 15-20 years ago- were not so good but they have been up there for many years now. It will frankly be hard to get this done in time but if it goes smoothly there is a chance. NMF schemes are always easy to get right first time, yes?
  15. It's looking very good. Can you post tips on how to show restraint with streaks and shadows. . . and don't just say 'use less' or 'stop earlier', because I can't. I'll probably steal your technique for the control surfaces, if that's okay.
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