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Made a start today! 

 

All interior bits cleaned up and visible ejector pin marks sorted. Then some bits were modified or removed for the replacement etch parts and also the new structures that are all etch were made. 

 

Then primed with some stynylrez and finished off with AK rlm 66. 

 

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Interior bits been drybrushed. 

Then the black seat leather and the fabric seat back and pedal staps done.  

 

Film sprayed white on the back ready for assembly of IP's. Once done they will be glued into place with all the placards and seatbelts.  

 

Plan is then a gloss coat to seal it all in. Then some washes for depth and tone down drybrushing. Then flat coat and gloss the IP glass dials. Perhaps some silver scuffs... 

 

A note on the seat strap backrest. This is provided as a pre painted piece of etch. But experience says that it will all flake off when trying to wrap around the reworked seat frame. So what I did (and do sometimes on normal seatbelts too) is burn all the paint off in a flame. This anneals the brass too making it softer. Fitting that T-piece it was like paper :) 

Primed along with rest of stuff and then picked out in a canvas colour. 

 

Right lets get to it. 

 

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Right onto some tricky bits... 

 

1 - prepainted seatbelts. Always flake off on me when trying to install. So... 

 

Detatch & fold little buckles over etc mount on tape and then spray with some cellulose thinner. They need to be wet, but not dripping. As we are trying to soften the coating to make it flexible for long enough to work with but not melt it off completely or leave fingerprints when we touch it. There is a narrow 10 mins or so window of working with them, and you will still get cracking (like the 180 degree bends on the strap seat ones) but it does make them easier to work with. I did try spraying them on a build once when still on the etch frame, but by the time you cut them out and fold bits etc they dry out again cause the cellulose evaporates so quick... 

 

Enough waffle.

 

from this...

 

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to this...

 

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I am aware that there are some shiny glue bits, but thats why they are on now. Because still to come we have a gloss coat to seal, weathering to tone them down, and then a flat coat to finish.

 

In the past I used to put prepainted belts into completely finished cockpits and they would look like they'd just been added (cause they had) and nine times out of ten have to re-flat varnish again to get rid of shiny glue spots. So now I try add them earlier to help them blend in and 'belong'

 

2 - throttle levers. 

 

All the detail is sanded off of a panel, then an etch piece placed on top. You are then supposed to put all the levers into the slots in said panel. The problem is that the levers only have enough space to stand up in that is the thickness of the etch. Not enough for good purchase.

 

So what I did was put a little rectangular shim on the panel that would lift the etch up. I measured to place it in an area that there are no levers, about 1/3 along it. 

And it looked like this. (All done prior to painting. 

 

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Now a couple dollops of white glue either side of shim, and place panel on. Now there are deeper slots to place levers into the glue below. And it looks like this: (sorry its blurry but you get the idea)

 

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Once set, the levers were painted black and white knobs on ends built up. Other colours will be added to the knobs later once I check references, some are brown and orange I think. It's just easier to see the white when first painting them. 

 

Here it is with floor in situ. Similar process used for box with levers and plungers next to pilot seat.

 

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3 - Last is IP's. 

 

So the films were painted white on the rear. Cut out then tacked into place on the panel with a drop of superglue. Next some old school klear is brushed onto film generously. Then the front etch piece is attached and pressed on, the dials all ooze up with klear to fill them. Any excess wicked away. 

 

I need to paint the rlm66 aound the dials on this and the other ones (eg bit on front of throttle panel) so they match the rest of the pit. 

 

These will be flat coated in due course with everything else and then dials picked out again. 

 

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All dials line up pretty well with the film. 

 

Thanks for looking! 

 

 

 

Edited by Tony Oliver
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Nice start Tony. You're a brave man going for the PE especially those levers! They're minute but you've done a good job with them, I'd have them covered in super glue and stuck where they shouldn't be! 

 

Were they a pain or relatively straight forward to get right? 

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Update:

 

Interior has been treated with a black panel line wash (a bit of brown on the belts) 

This was then sealed with a mix of the shown varnishes (ak themed build) to get a semi matt sheen. Next will be some silver scuffs with a pencil then start actually building this thing...

 

Of interest, when I used these varnishes in the Christmas wip, I thinned them with UMP acrylic airbrush thinner. They seemed to stay tacky for a week or so which was annoying. Even with heat applied. Some sort of chemical shenanigans going on I presume...

 

This time I thinned them with plain old water, which can obviously dry and evaporate out of the varnishes alot easier as they were tack free and completely dry once flashed off with the hairdrier. (Très froid in garage where I spray)

 

Anyway here is tack free Ak varnish :) 

 

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Delicious work with structure and paint on those internals Tony. Both the seatbelt hack and the shim to let those PE levers mount more securely are excellent pieces of lateral thinking. (Another way of saying duly nicked and placed on the 'purloined techniques' folder ^_^)

 

Lovely progress.

:thumbsup2: Tony

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