.

[Procopius]

The wash looks very good indeed. Subtle and effective.

[Cookenbacher]

Yes, top tip on adding Future to acrylic washes, turned out grand.

[franky boy]

Great work Tony.

 

Ive been using that wash technique for a while now, it's a winner and a time saver. I think I first saw Brett Green using it in a magazine, not sure if it was his idea originally though.

 

 Thanks 

 

James

[Gondor44]

How on earth did you paint the black parts so neatly? Every time I try painting anything so small its as if I had going in there with a 6" brush and that's me using a 5/0 or smaller brush too!

 

Gondor

[fewr9fkr9595]

14 minutes ago, Gondor44 said:

How on earth did you paint the black parts so neatly? Every time I try painting anything so small its as if I had going in there with a 6" brush and that's me using a 5/0 or smaller brush too!

 

Gondor

 

Thanks mate. 

 

Dont know really just just a combination of several things I guess.

 

I used a 0 for the black then a 3/0 for the light grey bolts & stencils. 

 

I try and use 3 points of contact, with as much of my hand and fingers that hold the brush against to fuselage to steady it.

 

Good quality brushes and paint at the right consistency helps too. The black was done with one, perhaps two coats on smaller bits.

 

I tend to put a drop of black in the centre of the panel to be painted then work quickly to push it up to all the edges, rather than trying to draw straight lines along the sides of the little squares etc. 

 

Hope this helps. 

 

Tony

[Gondor44]

11 hours ago, Tony Oliver said:

 

Thanks mate. 

 

Dont know really just just a combination of several things I guess.

 

I used a 0 for the black then a 3/0 for the light grey bolts & stencils. 

 

I try and use 3 points of contact, with as much of my hand and fingers that hold the brush against to fuselage to steady it.

 

Good quality brushes and paint at the right consistency helps too. The black was done with one, perhaps two coats on smaller bits.

 

I tend to put a drop of black in the centre of the panel to be painted then work quickly to push it up to all the edges, rather than trying to draw straight lines along the sides of the little squares etc. 

 

Hope this helps. 

 

Tony

 

Thanks. I will try painting from the middle outwards which could be the trick I am missing.

 

Gondor

[fewr9fkr9595]

17 minutes ago, Gondor44 said:

 

Thanks. I will try painting from the middle outwards which could be the trick I am missing.

 

Gondor

 

Also try a larger brush so you can carry enough paint to do it one pass and get a cleaner more even coat. Especially working with acrylics where they dry so quick.  Rather than a 5/0 where I'd imagine you need to keep going back to dip and get more paint and thus having less time to manipulate the smaller amounts of paint together? 

 

Tony

[Gondor44]

5 hours ago, Tony Oliver said:

 

Also try a larger brush so you can carry enough paint to do it one pass and get a cleaner more even coat. Especially working with acrylics where they dry so quick.  Rather than a 5/0 where I'd imagine you need to keep going back to dip and get more paint and thus having less time to manipulate the smaller amounts of paint together? 

 

Tony

 

 

I usually use Enamels as I have since the early to mid 80's so I still have a selection of Humbrol Authentics. 

 

I also understand about the larger brush, I use a 2/0 when painting canopy frames and have found that the way sign writers paint letters in one long movement works well.

 

Gondor

[fewr9fkr9595]

Seatbelt and instrument panel time,

 

So as I mentioned earlier, three types of seatbelts are being used. 

As there are three C wing and three E wings, each wing will get to have one of each type.  

 

The two with the super fabric will have closed canopies, but the four with the two types of etch will have open ones. 

 

From left to right - 

 

superfabric, standard profi pack etch, upgraded steelbelts etch. 

 

 

The superfabric are easiest to work with but are a bit simple. 

The steelbelts are a revelation to me. Alot easier to work with than the normal etch ones. So much thinner and flexible, plus the paint coating (finer print, not as 'dotty') doesn't flake off 👍🏿

 

Instrument panels:

 

As these are overtrees, the first two open canopies will use IP and compass decals from my Royal class boxing. (Left) Settled well over the raised details. The other two open canopies have painted IP's with some colour details copied from the etch panels (Center) The two closed canopies will just have the basic drybushed ones (Right) as not alot can be seen. Note - gloss still needs to be dropped in to darken/shine up the dials. 

 

Cheers. 

[fewr9fkr9595]

Last one to bore you with, 6 shades of grey green!

 

Not such a difference between them all now after the detail painting and wash... 

 

First, all twelve halves together, quite a sight!

 

 

Next against a white background in build order:

 

 

Now showing manufacturers:

 

 

Last two are in light to dark shade order, one with flash and one without. 

 

 

 

Top - Mr paint still to bright I think.

Next three the Xtracrylix, Mr color and hataka all look really good to me, with hataka having the grey cast 👍🏿

Bottom two (ak & alclad) too green/dark/no greyness to them in my opinion. 

 

But if we all liked the same things the world would be a boring place...

 

Bye for now!

[CedB]

Great stuff Tony and thanks for the comparisons - interesting!

[Christer A]

Those STEEL-belts should be renamed to sexy-belts 'cause they're just that!

(And there is a slight risk/chance that Eduard might do that..just think about their previous advertisement about Nice, Snug, Fit...)

 

Excellent Spitfire-offices, all 6 of them!

[David H]

Nice, clean work. Not sure what your definition of "Gold Medal" quality is, but neatness counts for a lot.

 

Very interesting to see the variations in colour between manufacturers. You are compiling a great body of test data for us to think about. Thanks for that.

 

david

[Cookenbacher]

It's great to see them all together Tony, fantastic comparisons.

[rob85]

That's stunning brush work! Cheers for the tips

 

Rob

[fewr9fkr9595]

13 hours ago, CedB said:

Great stuff Tony and thanks for the comparisons - interesting!

 

7 hours ago, David H said:

Very interesting to see the variations in colour between manufacturers. You are compiling a great body of test data for us to think about. Thanks for that.

 

david

 

4 hours ago, Cookenbacher said:

It's great to see them all together Tony, fantastic comparisons.

 

Cheers guys!

 

Plus that's helped me choose the (hopefully correct) direction to go in next... 

 

It was fairly easy doing the 6 cockpits together. From this point I was going to finish them in pairs and bring them all together at the end for comparison. However there is the danger of losing interest after two or three builds, plus with the finishing processes the final colours may change. 

 

So the route I will go (which is probably better in the terms of research and the purist in me) is to carry on doing all six concurrently. So this will mean a lull whilst I construct all 6 airframes. What that means however is that we will get to have all the bellies side by side in solid MSG, then six uppers all together in fresh camo the same way the cockpits were laid out.

 

It will be good to see all the raw paints together at the same time on actual airframes, to put them in perspective, rather than brushed out in swatches which is usually the case.

You never know, this may turn into the go-to thread on the net for manufacturers day fighter scheme colour comparison! 

 

From that point I can then finish painting them as I fancy what with spinners/bands and decals etc cause the majority of the work will be done.

Also all the exhausts, u/c legs and wheels etc can be done in one go rather than several sessions with the same basic colours for these bits if I built in pairs. 

 

Ps hope you all had a good easter if you care about that kind of stuff... 

[fewr9fkr9595]

Not much to update, got half (3) of the airframes built so far. Had a pause to work on a 1/32 109g2 (same guy I did the 1/72 He-111 for)

 

Anyways these spitfires are absolute little jewels to do. 

They can go together will absolutely no filler needed at all. No filler means no sanding which means we keep all that lovely fine surface detail 👍🏿

There are a few articles having problems with the kit on the web and magazines but dont be fooled by them.

It is a kit of fine tolerances but with an extra thin or mr cement type s cement & little TLC, (no more than any other kit) it turns out lovely.

With fine tolerances one problem can compound and affect other areas.

Example - too much paint in the cockpit area could see the halves trying to close against 6 layers of paint (3 each side for fuselage, sidewall panels & IP/bulkheads)

So this leads to a gap in the tank armour to fill as the fuselage halves are too far apart. This then flares out the fillets along the bottom of the fuselage because its too wide, which in turn pushes the wings out & down and affects the dihedral etc etc.

So careful painting or masking or scraping away before assembly can save headaches later on. 

 

Anyways enough waffle, I'll let the pics do the talking. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for looking 👍🏿

[Christer A]

Eduard Spit's are just about the only ones where one comfortably can assemble the complete wing before joining it to the fuselage. Usually it's better to add the top wing first and then the bottom, but here the fit is so precise that it's no need.

Agree about the so called fit issues. There's very little play in the fit of parts so if something is just a little off, it will throw the rest of the stuff out of alignment too.

Good luck with 6 pairs of engine top covers!

[fewr9fkr9595]

2 hours ago, Christer A said:

Good luck with 6 pairs of engine top covers!

 

In the words of baldrick, 'I have a cunning plan...'

[The Spadgent]

Excellent work Tony. My mind still boggles how you manage to do two let alone six builds or more at once and indeed how you manage to fit life into your er..... life.  regardless I'm in awe of how crisp and lovely the all look. I wonder if you could let me know the ratio of the klear/brown/water wash mix you used. It looks like a little winner and I wouldn't mind giving it a. It of a try myself.

looking forward to watching these come together. Bravo sir.

 

johnny.

[Beard]

7 hours ago, Tony Oliver said:

 

In the words of baldrick, 'I have a cunning plan...'

 

Is it so cunning that you could pin a tail on it and call it a fox?

[fewr9fkr9595]

7 minutes ago, The Spadgent said:

I wonder if you could let me know the ratio of the klear/brown/water wash mix you used.

 

Hi there Johnny,

 

Thanks for the props 👍🏿

 

The wash was a first for me, so experimented as I went along. I'd say its about 50/50 with the klear and water, (in an empty 10ml tamiya jar) and then by the end of it there were a few drops of brown and black with one of white to get a greyish dirty dark brown. (Used a toothpick to drop them in, more control than pouring from a jar or squeezing too much out of a vallejo bottle)

 

I tried out my mixture on an unseen bit, waited for it to dry then adjusted it a couple times from there 👍🏿

 

Hopefully that's enough info to get you along the correct path...

 

Tony

[The Spadgent]

20 minutes ago, Tony Oliver said:

 

Hi there Johnny,

 

Thanks for the props 👍🏿

 

The wash was a first for me, so experimented as I went along. I'd say its about 50/50 with the klear and water, (in an empty 10ml tamiya jar) and then by the end of it there were a few drops of brown and black with one of white to get a greyish dirty dark brown. (Used a toothpick to drop them in, more control than pouring from a jar or squeezing too much out of a vallejo bottle)

 

I tried out my mixture on an unseen bit, waited for it to dry then adjusted it a couple times from there 👍🏿

 

Hopefully that's enough info to get you along the correct path...

 

Tony

Thanks for that Tony.

ill give it a blast on ma wheel wells. They're great so won't look half as sexy as your lovely offices but one can only try.

 

you're a star.

 

Johnny wash.

[fewr9fkr9595]

Sorry for the lack of progress guys, been busy with this trumpyboss 1/32 109g2 past week or so.... 

 

Coming to an RFI soon near you...  

 

 

anyways back to why we are here: spitfires!

 

proof of some progress made with the sextet inbetween sessions on the above - we now have six airframes ready for seam work/spot priming etc. 

 

 

note - the turkey (turk E - geddit?) is further along, as this is when I first set about doing them in pairs after all the cockpits were done. Next furthest/part of the initial pair was the greasy (greek C)... Too far? I'll get my coat.

 

 

[fewr9fkr9595]

While we are at it here are some more of 'Tone's Top Tips' for a lush spitfire build. 

 

The bit in the instructions where you close the fuselage up is a bit busy, what with the cockpit going in and the strengthening bulkheads in the nose. Lots of room for error. 

One might add the said bulkheads to one of the halves first which then with the tiniest margin of error could throw the whole thing off. 

 

To me the join in the fuel tank takes priority (for a good finish), so this is how I do mine...

 

So you have all seen that I did the cockpit sidewalls as part of the fuselage, perfect alignment and no build up of paint, and then the floor/seat and its armour as a sub-assy. Note that part where floor will join had maskol on it, (now removed), as paint build up can widen this area which then pushes down the dihedral etc etc...

 

 

Seat has the lap belts and first strap added, then joined to fuselage for the second shoulder straps. 

 

Next is clean up of any paint from mating surfaces, a light pass with the sanding stick. Also this slight roughness helps to fill the seams when using a capillary type cement as mentioned a few posts back. Points to note - the £1 for 4 primark nail file 'sanding sticks'. Two grades on them - the bargain of the era. Below are two left halves (seat sub assy in on right halves) - the rear half still to be cleaned up (note darker edges) Front half has had its edges cleaned up (now lighter shade of grey plastic)

 

 

Next I align and glue the halves together top and bottom aft of the cockipt only. A slight squeeze with the extra thin and a minute bead wells up along join eliminating filler later on hopefully. 

 

 

Next the strengthening bulkheads are dropped in and allowed to 'float' held in by friction, the nose area is pretty flexible still as its only glued rear of the pit remember...

 

 

Next, we squeeze and glue the tank armour in perfect alignment, trapping the bulkheads below where they suit the join above best. 

 

 

note the timy self filling bead  that has oozed up...

 

 

When the join has set a while we then move up the bulkheads as close as we can get them then run some extra thin around those, from this - 

 

 

to then this -

 

 

Now clamped up while it all sets...

 

 

Hope this all saves someone some headaches 👍🏿