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Airfix 1/72 Heinkel 111 - my KUTA needs a KUTA


AdrianMF

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Hello,

I'm going to be finishing off my Heinkel 111 from the Obsolete GB. Build so far is here.

This is a classic out of control project. My "list of things to finish" kept growing even though I was making progress. I think I have a good list now though, and I will try to stick to it!

I had got to the point where I thought "I need to move the wings backwards and upwards, and mould a new canopy". Happy days.

Regards,

Adrian

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hello All,

Finally made some picture-worthy progress on the Heinkel. I made an instrument panel, but I was having a bit of trouble with my scratched circles:

IMG_4189_zps412dd527.jpg

I had scraped the panel down ready for another attempt, but it was all made moot due to a confusion over which hand had the instrument panel and which hand had the peanut. Never model late at night!! So I had to make a new one, shown here next to a slightly chewed Mk 1:

IMG_4200_zpsc81d0e3e.jpg

Now painted up and installed in the new longer canopy, last job before I seal it up. Although I notice there is a very prominent drift sight on the instance that I am modelling...

IMG_4201_zps8042da1d.jpg

IMG_4202_zps1d466997.jpg

I have also been wrestling with the wing alignment, to move them backwards and upwards. I cut away the rear of the wing cutout to get about 5mm movement backward, and removed material on top of the wing tab to get about 2-3mm higher. Because of the angle of the fillets I've added about 2mm to the span, but I can live with that. Here's where I have got to:

IMG_4204_zps77022412.jpg

So tomorrow I should be able to stick on the canopy, smooth it in, scribe the fuselage and get the wings mounted! Thats the plan, anyway...

Thanks for looking,

Adrian

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Nice to see this moving forward again Adrian. It's continuing to look really good.

I made Italaeri's old He.111 a couple of year's ago and your build is making me realise what a massive step forward it must have been when released in the min 70s!

Cliff

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Hello All,

Last one for the year...

Yesterday I carefully stuck my home made canopy onto the fuselage, filled the gaps with superglue and masked all of the windows freehand with strips of tape (Eduard don't make a mask for my vacforms) (and even if they did I'd probably be too cheap to buy one).

I could then paint Hu 67/RLM 66 over the whole lot so that the inside would show the correct shade, then started to fill/sand/fill, touching up the paint as I went, until it looked smooth.

This morning I gave it a quick coat of Hu 241 (the new RLM 70 enamel) and Hu 65 and there I should have let it dry off and stay there until I've finished the messy bits like joining and filling the wings, and all the painting.

Now I know I'm a bad man, and I'll go straight to Hell, but I couldn't wait and I peeled off the masking. It needs a bit of tidy up, but here it is today:

IMG_4206_zps04e4d9ca.jpg

IMG_4207_zpsaa61cff8.jpg

The instrument panel shows through the windows (you can see it through the hatch too), so it wasn't wasted.

The new Hu 241 is certainly different in character to your "usual" enamel - it's more glutinous and doesn't cover from scratch as well as Hu 67 or 116 (it needs an undercoat on bare plastic), but I'm getting used to it and the actual colour looks really good, much less blue than Hu 91.

One other thing that does strike me is that for a plane with a glass nose, there seems to be an awful lot of metal between the pilot and places he might want to look at!

Thanks for looking and happy new year!
Adrian

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Looking great Adrian, really neat scratchbuilding and the vac canopy is a masterpiece, the framing has come out really crisply, can understand your keenness to get the masking off, having to bite my fingers to stop me doing the same with mine :)

Just re-read your post above confusing the IP with a peanut :) Not managed to eat any bits of my models yet but did absent-mindedly clean a paintbrush in a cup of single malt, really shouldn't use similar tumblers for drinks and paintbrushes, what a waste :doh:

Have a great new year, Stu

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Hello All,

So I've got the wings and things on and I've re-done the fillets over the wing...

image_zps7bd823a8.jpg

You can see some fuel filler scribing and vent making too. All going swimmingly well...

...until we turn over...

image_zpsbcdfa788.jpg

I filled the wing leading edges with balsa blocks, sealed with superglue but I decided to do under the fuselage with filler. Bad move. I should have shaped a piece of balsa. Hey-ho, a couple more thin layers should do it.

In the top picture you will notice a slight green hue on the wings. That is the new Humbrol RLM 71, thinned enough to brush without streaking! It's a tremendous step back from the coverage and brushability of the rest of the range. I will be emailing Humbrol to ask what they did with all the pigment.

Thanks for looking,

Adrian

Edited by AdrianMF
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...I'm now nervously waiting to see if my ancient Milliput is going to harden or not...

Adrian

See you in a couple of weeks then! Is this Humbrol 71 enamel or acrylic? I thought the new enamels were suposed to be the bees knees?

Martin

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See you in a couple of weeks then! Is this Humbrol 71 enamel or acrylic? I thought the new enamels were suposed to be the bees knees?

Martin

This is enamel, RLM 71, AKA Humbrol 242. It is gelatinous and translucent. Yes, I did stir and shake (and stir and shake). Normally when you open a tin of, say Hu 116 or Hu 91, you get a layer of opaque paint on the lid. This you get translucent jelly-like paint. I bought all 12 of the new colours in a batch from Hannants and I've tried several, all with the same problem. Normally I would dilute a brown or green 4 paint:1 white spirit and brush out a thin coat which would be almost opaque, and expect to do 2 or 3 coats (a day apart) to get an opaque finish with no flaws. This is not going to happen with these paints. Mind you, the RLM02 is OK but not as good as I'd expect a grey to be.

I wonder if there isn't some eco-friendly (but brush hostile) reformulating going on. I will email Humbrol tomorrow and see what they say.

And thanks Jason! The He 111 brings a few special problems of its own by being big and having more components and more transparencies. I'm constantly running out of hands on the assembly stages!

I'm pleased to report that my Milliput leftovers are now getting slightly hard (6 hours so far), so I could be in for some sanding in the next day or two...

Regards,

Adrian

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Hello All,

Sanding done!

image_zps69841ef5.jpg

Milliput even lets you scribe! I think I'm a fan...

BTW I'm still fighting the new Humbrol RLM 71. Still not flowing right and still nowhere near opaque. I've emailed Humbrol and ordered a set of RLMs from White Ensign...

Regards,

Adrian

Edited by AdrianMF
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  • 2 weeks later...

Hello All,

I managed to get something more done before I had to travel again. Bomb bay is in place - I may sand it down a bit more to remove the relief effect - and I think I'm nearly happy with the upper surface:

IMG_0242_zps69e591ac.jpg

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I'm now using WEM colours for the RLM 71. Here's a picture showing one and two coats of "classic" Hu 116, the new Hu 242 and WEM RLM 71, each painted with a brush newly cleaned in white spirit and wiped down on identical bare plastic surfaces. You can see "classic" Humbrol is pretty much there after two coats, WEM is nearly there and the new Humbrol is still merely a wash.

DSC00002_zps49962e07.jpg

So I think I'm going to have to give up on modern Humbrol, the more so since I have had no response from their customer service. I'm just hoping that they don't re-formulate all their existing range to match the new ones. If that happens I may be doing a supermarket sweep on the old colours!

However, it's not all bad. My travel schedule gave me a couple of hours in the Udvar-Hazy museum next to IAD. This is not a picture of my airliner!

DSC00039_zps768a5c31.jpg

Thanks for looking,

Adrian

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