Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies Posted July 1, 2017 Author Share Posted July 1, 2017 I got some dark green on today. I actually can't remember what I read or whether it was definitive or not. Either way, for some variety in my collection I decided to use ACUS12 - ANA613 Olive Drab in lieu of RAF Dark Green. It's a little greyer than the British colour. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies Posted July 2, 2017 Author Share Posted July 2, 2017 Video of the green going on 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies Posted July 2, 2017 Author Share Posted July 2, 2017 ACRN07 Ocean Grey now on. Masking was Blutac as is my habit 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies Posted August 31, 2017 Author Share Posted August 31, 2017 I had some decals arrive a few weeks ago but haven't had a chance to do much with them. I added a few tonight. I hate stencils. I'll get round to them, but wanted to add the identity to the model tonight, so, I did. The decals represent quite a lot of money sat there. At least the serials and Sky codes are leftovers from Mosquito RR299 / HT-E. ...and some identity at last! No longer is it an anonymous Mustang. The decals are still wrinkly. I had just brushed on another coat of Microset when I took the photo. 12 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stew Dapple Posted September 1, 2017 Share Posted September 1, 2017 That's looking very smart now Jamie, glad to see you are back on it. If you think you hate 1/48 stencil data, I can show you some 1/72 decal sheets that would make your toes curl... Cheers, Stew 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies Posted September 1, 2017 Author Share Posted September 1, 2017 I have to confess I've only done one side so far. I'm not in a hurry and didn't want to risk accidently mauling wet decals on the 'other side', so opted to let these ones settle first then do the other side when it's safe to handle everything I'm not directly looking at! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biggles87 Posted September 1, 2017 Share Posted September 1, 2017 (edited) I havn't looked in on this for a few weeks and it's coming along splendidly. I too am a bit obsessed about Mustang wheel well accuracy, as you've probably already guessed, I have correction sets for both my 1/32 kits . In 1/48 it doesn't look all that obvious when done, until you see one next to an un- corrected version John Edited September 1, 2017 by Biggles87 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies Posted September 16, 2017 Author Share Posted September 16, 2017 Had to wait on a backorder for the Type B roundels. For some reason the current Xtradecals seem reluctant to settle down over the surface details despite drowning in Microsol so I have had to cut them in places. Fortunately Xtradecal's colours are quite accurate as are mine so it's straight forward enough to touch them in - although I haven't done that yet. I also haven't done the stencils yet, mostly because I enjoy decals about as much as I enjoy paying tax bills. Looking at it now, I'm really glad I did thd wheel wells. It does however make the rest of my Mustangs look inadequate, which, I suppose, they are. 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biggles87 Posted September 16, 2017 Share Posted September 16, 2017 Well that one certainly does not look inadequate, but I know what you mean. I haven't done the corrected wheel wells in 1/48 yet, but I have the Meng kit and will doubtless invest in a new Airfix one. I sprayed some of your Colourcoates paint the other day ( Sky Blue on a B of B Spitfire ) and was very impressed, I used white spirit as the thinner so it took a while to dry but the finish is excellent. Cheers John 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies Posted September 16, 2017 Author Share Posted September 16, 2017 Thanks John If you're happy with the drying times white spirit does the job just fine. I'm glad you got on well with it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stew Dapple Posted September 25, 2017 Share Posted September 25, 2017 On 9/16/2017 at 10:44 AM, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said: It does however make the rest of my Mustangs look inadequate Only if you compare them with each other from underneath, a process that never really entered my head, but I get your point Cheers, Stew Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies Posted October 1, 2017 Author Share Posted October 1, 2017 I've had a one-step-forward-two-back sort of day. I decided not to bother with stencils. The photographs of 65Sqn aircraft that I've found show none anyway. I did however realise I hadn't painted the yellow ID leading edges before decals. I applied enamel matt clearcoat to try to protect the decals and carefully masked off taking care not to press the tape down. The yellow was obviously my own which was squirted on quickly and then I went to remove the tape immediately. I still managed to lift an upper wing roundel. Idiot boy ... I decided this aircraft was a bit beat up. If anyone produces a photograph to prove me wrong then so be it - but it would have been more useful when asked for at the beginning of the thread! I just touched in the missing bit with a brush... Once re-matted I think I'll just about get away with it. I've opted to fit the radiator shutter in the closed position. This time (as opposed to my many previous Mustangs on the shelves) I remembered to add a pushrod! The undercarriage legs and doors are now on too I needed to cut the Vector pushrods from the inner door hydraulic rams and add longer ones to reach the horns on the doors The main wheels are painted. I'm just giving the paint a bit of time to harden up properly before rough handling / sawing from the casting blocks. The Ultracast propeller blades are currently stuck in a blob of Blutac with yellow tips too. 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies Posted October 11, 2017 Author Share Posted October 11, 2017 Managed to get 5 minutes to assemble the Ultracast propeller. It still needs the Hamilton Standard stencils and logos 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies Posted October 12, 2017 Author Share Posted October 12, 2017 As the Mustang advances, it is time to share a really stupid mistake which I embarked upon in July months ago, so that everyone can laugh. Part 2 of my Black Friday mini-project is Rudi Linz's Fw190 in which he was shot down and killed in the same combat. Unlike the Mustang, this particular 190 is rather better known and was indeed fished out of the fjord and resides in the Texas Air Museum as a restoration display. I should start off by saying I'm not interested in German stuff as a general rule. It's not a prejudice thing nor even an old Englishman-with-a-bottle-of-Spitfire thing. I'm not English for a start! I just don't 'get' German stuff. I don't know why. It simply leaves me indifferent; cars, ships, aeroplanes, music, art etc. I mention this because unlike some types I did not have a comprehensive stash of Fw190s to draw from on a whim. I had to buy the kit for this purpose and will myself to assemble it. First though, I had to acquire a decal sheet. This took quite some time including a consultation with Duncan at Black Mike Models who wishes he actually was German and has more unbuilt kits of Luftwaffe subjects than the Luftwaffe had fullsize aircraft. I eventually found an out of production decal sheet with one unit remaining in stock at Ultracast's website in the end which was promptly purchased. Despite it being fairly clear which version (which all look the same to me) I needed to do this, I still got it wrong and sought out this: I didn't care for a number of the Profipack PE parts to be honest and felt they were inferior to the kit parts - mainly the cockpit side consoles which were 2D printed with no relief detail. I did use the pedals and throttle etc though. I would later have it pointed out that the kit instructions are wrong and that the radio hatch lid is shown backwards. This was corrected in due course... The cockpit was sprayed with Colourcoats ACLW16 - Schwarzgrau (RLM 66) as a base coat, then the dregs first lightened a touch and darkened for a couple of light filters. This was all dried in an hour or so and ready for some restrained drybrushing and chalk pastel weathering. I had to admit, so far I was liking the kit. The next photo shows the radio hatch turned the right way round. Hereafter, I decided I really didn't like the kit, and the principle reason for this is those damned wing route cannon bay covers. I personally dislike model aircraft with panels opened up unless in the context of a well considered diorama where something half-way sensible is portrayed to be happening. Thus, simply gluing the excessively thick covers in the open position is a massive cop out. Unfortunately, the kit really wasn't designed with having them closed in mind at all and from here the build gets ugly. First up was the undercarriage bay. There were lots of small pieces with fairly close tolerance fits but the mould halves show evidence of being slightly misaligned and there was a lot of flash. Cleaning up all these fiddly little bits took a while. Once together and after the cannon bay stuff I'll write about next, the wing wouldn't close up over the wheel well parts, so more trimming, fiddling and fettling was required. We got there though. Forewarned that the cannon bay panels were a pig on these kits I set about trying to close them up before closing up the wings. I began by omitting or sawing away everything that looked like it was going to get in my way Anyone who has built this kit before will now know that the wing skin itself is supposed to be cut away aft to let the overly-thick bulge recess in. This could be a recipe for disaster, so I began by chamfering the underside of the bulge itself in this area so that I didn't have to trim back the wing skins so far and thus avoid the risk of a gap ending up there. This exercise isn't too difficult, but is boring and time consuming for something that really isn't very rewarding when done in the way that, say, a vacuum formed challenge is - this is merely a modern highly detailed injection moulded part that isn't very well thought through - and somehow that is more annoying. Eventually the were glued in, and the next challenge is that the "wing" is now narrower than the fuselage due to those hatches being there and the hinge areas being too thick (and themselves a different shape to the holes in the fuselage). To get around this, I sanded a lot of the inside faces of the hatches away in the vertical plane, and sawed away the cannon bay interior parts from the fuselage halves to make an installation corridor. The fit is fairly nasty still. It was improved with a bit more trimming, and using scrap plastic to brace the hatches against the bottom of the wing so they didn't collapse at the rear as the misshapen front end reached the top of its travel first. Around about now, I decided I didn't much like all that stuff in the nose either. Nice idea (not that any model of mine will ever have the panels open), but whilst these parts did actually fit together quite well in the end, it look hours of trial and error to work out how everything should be aligned and what order to try to assemble it. There always seemed to be several big parts interacting on it and trying to force one to be in the right place popped something else out of kilter. The cannons themselves were a little injection moulded looking so I got a wee pack of Master barrels for it: At around about this point I read the decals more carefully - trying to work out whether it needed the outboard cannons or not - when I had that sinking feeling that what I actually needed was an A-8, not an A-5. Oh dear. Now I have a model of an aeroplane that I really couldn't care less about and which I frankly have not enjoyed since calling the cockpit done. And now, I get to fight all the same issues again with the right one. I don't know whether to laugh of cry. I will not buy PE for this one - it hasn't really been worth it. I will get another set of barrels though. 1 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies Posted December 3, 2017 Author Share Posted December 3, 2017 I'm supposed to be painting tin lids but it's really boring and I want a break. Unfortunately that's the worst time to try to do modelling. As a human being I am pathologically incapable of enjoying myself when there's a backlog of more important things to be do done. As there's always a long list to be done, that probably explains why I am always in a bad mood. The Ultracast exhausts went ok (because they're good). It all went downhill from there though. The crappy Tamiya decals silvered on the propeller blades despite being nuked with Microsol. I'll maybe just paint over them - they look terrible. Also, I slipped drilling out the kit gun barrels and ruined them, so had to make replacement barrels from two sizes of sliding fit Albion Alloy brass tubes. 7 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Col. Posted December 3, 2017 Share Posted December 3, 2017 Despite all your trials and tribulations the Mustang is looking good Jamie. Well, apart from the crappy prop decals of course. The guns and exhausts, however, are particular highlights and worth the extra effort you've made. As for the 190s; I'm struggling to tell the difference between the A5 and A8, think it's the top cowling over the guns in front of the cockpit (?), is there a chance to swap parts between the two kits to avoid having to repeat all that un-enjoyed effort? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woody37 Posted December 3, 2017 Share Posted December 3, 2017 Just caught up with this, lovely job on the Mustang Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biggles87 Posted December 3, 2017 Share Posted December 3, 2017 Just been through the P-51 build on the iMac and it looks even better with bigger pictures. Going back to look at the Fw-109 now. Cheers John PS have you seen either of the Tamiya P-51D builds on WIP? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies Posted December 4, 2017 Author Share Posted December 4, 2017 19 hours ago, Col. said: Despite all your trials and tribulations the Mustang is looking good Jamie. Well, apart from the crappy prop decals of course. The guns and exhausts, however, are particular highlights and worth the extra effort you've made. As for the 190s; I'm struggling to tell the difference between the A5 and A8, think it's the top cowling over the guns in front of the cockpit (?), is there a chance to swap parts between the two kits to avoid having to repeat all that un-enjoyed effort? Morning Col, thank you for your kind words. Regarding the Focke Wulfs; I did learn the different (just a few lumps and bumps externally as far as I can remember) but have forgotten them now. The new A8 is still tucked away in its box. Yesterday though I used some fairly vicious metal clamps to crush the A5's wing into the fuselage to close up those stupid cannon bay covers to where their hinge meets the fuselage side. They also tried to sit too far outboard so with the clamps there was a fair bit of tape pulling the wings into dihedral one might see at 12g just before the wingtips kissed. I think even Eduard would admit their 190 was a dog of a kit or else they wouldn't have retooled it at only a decade old. I figure it's worth wrestling with the A5 and just accepting it's going to be a bad job and hope I can apply some learnings to the A8. Or perhaps they'll retool the A8 and I can sling the one I have... 19 hours ago, woody37 said: Just caught up with this, lovely job on the Mustang Thank you for taking the time to look in on the thread 18 hours ago, Biggles87 said: Just been through the P-51 build on the iMac and it looks even better with bigger pictures. Going back to look at the Fw-109 now. Cheers John PS have you seen either of the Tamiya P-51D builds on WIP? Hi John, thanks for reading. I have seen a P-51D build whilst my wife and kids were running around Home Bargains yesterday (I waited in the car for a few moments of peace!). I struggle to keep tabs on who's building what generally these days, but the D model I saw yesterday had a bit of scratchbuilding around the cockpit and looked quite nice. Knowing what I know now about Tamiya Mustangs and the effort to get that wheel well in, I am fairly sure I will never build another Tamiya Mustang! Can't live with the kit error now I've understood it and nice as the Vector wheel well looks now its in, I can't face ever doing the modification again! If an old Aeromaster decalsheet I had before ever reappears and I can get the decals for William T Halton's "Slender, Tender & Tall" of the 352nd again I will try the new Airfix Mustang. Otherwise, I'm probably done with Mustangs for a while now! 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biggles87 Posted December 4, 2017 Share Posted December 4, 2017 (edited) I'm looking forward to an Airfix Mustang WIP, not seen one here yet. I have just sold my Tamiya 1/32 kit, I've decided that it will just take too long to build, and am going to invest in the new Revell 1/32 kit, which has just the right amount of detail. I will also have enough money left to buy another one if that make a later version. I am not a fan of the early Eduard Fw190s either, I bought the D-9 when it first came out and was so disappointed with it that I sold it on eBay soon after. Having said that, you've done a splendid job so far. John Edited December 4, 2017 by Biggles87 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cookenbacher Posted December 4, 2017 Share Posted December 4, 2017 That's a lovely Mustang Jamie. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies Posted December 4, 2017 Author Share Posted December 4, 2017 The Fw190 wing brutality seems to have worked. http://village.photos/images/user/483a5850-3d62-4900-8176-6062170ac842/resized_44f24908-cdd9-4388-aa42-4837a3333eb9.jpg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies Posted December 21, 2017 Author Share Posted December 21, 2017 I should have just finished the Mustang but haven't had much motivation. Instead, I was looking back through some of Stew's figure painting and wondered "how hard could it really be?". Stew also bought be the world's teeniest, pointiest brush with a fat triangular handle at Telford last month and I wanted to use it. Turns out I don't have much latent skill for figures . I think Stew's painting has gone up a few notches in my book! 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stew Dapple Posted December 21, 2017 Share Posted December 21, 2017 I dunno mate, they look pretty good to me... well I mean they're painted well, the figures themselves look a bit weird, especially that guy on the right, I wouldn't sit next to him on the bus What kit are they from? Cheers, Stew Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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