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Mojo Shmojo, Skyraider Eyes of the Fleet conversion.


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2 minutes ago, Tailspin Turtle said:

The stall strip was only on the right wing as you've discovered, triangular and about the width of the wheel well.

Now THAT is good to know! I found it really hard to decipher. I didn't really like what I did anyway so that gives me the go ahead and get rid and start over.

 

5 minutes ago, Tailspin Turtle said:

PM if you would like to have a copy of my notes

Inbound!

 

Bob

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I have had a tiny bit of chipping away on this over the past couple of days, my first priority was to get the wheel wells painted so that I could get the inserts fitted. Happy with the priming in that area I warmed up the airbrush and some Model Master blue acrylic (The spray booth is in the garage and is now struggling to get into double figures!) Overall the coat inside the well was laid down quite nicely, although the overspray is a bit messy.

 

https://flic.kr/p/HBVz4R

 

I offered up the Esci well inserts but as I thought they were nowhere near the correct shape, its not very obvious from the photo below but it is way out of shape

 

https://flic.kr/p/CVs7TD

 

So in the end I resorted to trusty plastic card, carefully cut out to fit in almost perfectly. I then cut out the wheel cut out. I went to use the kit wheel as a guide but going that large would have left me with next to no side material so the cutouts are slightly too small but to be honest if anyone notices I'll eat my hat!

 

https://flic.kr/p/HBZkGx

 

Going back to the spraying, I couldn't help myself and had a go at giving the hard to reach areas a blue undercoat, just to make sure that when I come to the main spraying I can just coat everything nicely. The radar dome joins didn't raise any problems so when it comes to the painting it should be nice and easy. I want to try and get this moving along faster over the Christmas period because a. I have quite a bit of available time and b. I hear Santa may be bringing along a big new stringy bag from Airfix....... only if I'm a good boy of course, so want to clear my table of this, a Lightning that is nearing completion and a baby walrus stringbag that I want to clear from the shelf of doooooom

 

Cheers now

Bob

Edited by moaning dolphin
Dunno why the links arent imbedding, I will retry the links again later. They do work, you just have to manually click on them
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Good work so far Bob, I've gone down the (ESCI)Italeri kit route with my build (see elsewhere on BM) as I wasn't prepared to lash out on the Tamiya kit. Rather save my ash for another copper kit...

 

Don't fret over the radome fit, it wasn't any better in the Italeri kit and nice to see you dropped the flaps. I'm still trying to wittle the launsh strop hooks, which are attached to the main u/c legs. Tricky little critters...

 

If you haven't got there yet, you might want to add a piece of plasticard in the radator intake/vent on the spine housing. It looks a bit open on mine!

 

I'm away from home over the holidays, so won't get any paint on it until into the new Year.

 

Colin

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  • 2 weeks later...
On ‎12‎/‎22‎/‎2017 at 9:18 AM, heloman1 said:

If you haven't got there yet

Been there, seen it, done it and moved on.........with a nice big gap in there :doh: , oh well I will just have to make sure that no one can view it from a certain angle!

 

Work has plodded along on this over the last week or so (Hope you had a Merry Christmas and Happy New year by the way y'all!) just that the updates haven't been getting loaded up. The temperature has now plummeted to double minus' (and no that doesn't equal a positive!) which means my spray booth in the garage is hovering around freezing. I have had problems the last week or so with the airbrush which may have to be suspended until we warm up a bit. Rattle can spraying is fine because I keep everything in the warm until the last moment and then go into the spray booth.

 

But I have had progress on lots of little tinkering so first up.....

 

The leading edge slats were just fixed on with a couple of plastic rod attachments but the ends of it should be filled in, so attached a lump of plastic to each end that matched the contour of the leading edge. I deliberately left it oversize so I could rub it back once the glue had gone off.

 

20171227_125755

 

Next day they had a bit of scalpel and wet and dry treatment, not great pics but hopefully you get the gist.

 

20171227_130242

 

20171227_130312

 

In the photo above you can also see I have removed the leading edge spoiler above the wheel well, I have also replace the one above the right wheel well with a bit of cut down plastic angle

 

20171227_125809

 

It is a tad overscale but I cant really go any smaller and I do want it to be there.

 

Next up is the main aerial on the spine, whittled up from plastic card and sized roughly from 1:72 scale drawings. Edges were blended in aerodynamically.

 

20171227_130608

 

Whilst in the aerial mood, I had a go at the tail fin aerial. This varies quite a lot during the lifetime of the aircraft but the one I chose is a large thin, popsicle on a stick type affair, I simply slide a piece of thin brass rod into a thin brass tube, now this part I think is a tad underscale, but I prefer its slenderness compared to faffing around with it more.

 

20171227_130616

 

The big question now is ......... how long will those aerials last with my sausage fingers?? The brass one I am confident wont budge unless the brass rod reaches its ductility limit before I finish it, the amount of times I have had to bend it back into position!

 

Next onto the radome and here there are 3 strips that act as a reinforcing for some rod attachments (to dampen out the buffeting I assume). I fitted these from plastic strip and add the rods in later. The front one seems to have some sort of hole type attachment on it. I cant find a good clear shot of it so used abit of artistic license and came up with this!

 

20171227_130851

 

Then some door handles from bent wire

 

20171227_144547

 

That will cover it for now, I have a bit more coming soon regarding the canopy (a :doh: moment inbound!) and then its onto the undercarriage, again not as straight forward as I would like.

Until then its a good buy from me!

Laters!

Bob

 

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  • 1 month later...

Cripes is it really 5 weeks since I last posted an update??!! Man I need to pull my finger out! Progress has been a bit slow on this of late because I have a couple of Lancasters on the go which seem to be sucking a lot of my time and effort lately! So just to pick up from my little tease on my last post. That Canopy is proving to be a touch troublesome. With it fitted I end up with this.

 

20171227_144537

 

There is quite a large gap between the canopy and airframe on this side only. Having thoroughly looked into it I can only deduce that the turtle back is a little off centre. I did think about removing it and trying to reposition it, but it looks central at the moment and I don't want to have a crooked back, I also thought about filling the gap with plastic strip but again it may detract from the look as the other side would be untouched. In the end I'll have the canopy open and it doesn't look so obvious....all though now ive pointed it out you wont be able to unsee it!

 

So onward and upward, I started to prepare for paint. As this is a dark colour I didn't want the roundel white to be affected by any dark background so very carefully measured out some masks and sprayed away in glorious gloss (ish) blue. the final result wasn't too bad at all.

 

20180129_183350

 

I left the roundel areas in primer and just glossed over them so the decals would sit nicely. Flipping it over you can see the nice bulbous dome! Quite pleased with how it is coming together.

 

20180129_183403

 

And then it was on with the decals.....

 

20180130_180244

 

Ah......:doh: My masks were a tad oversize....bugger! Oh well although I haven't yet taken any further photos but I did VERY carefully touch up around the edges of the decal. I was pleased the white lettering came out crisp, which suggests I probably didn't need to mask off for the decals, although if I didn't sods law suggests it would have look garbage. So in the meantime I have soaked the decals in a bottle of Micro sol to try and get them to sink into the panel lines  and to get the blue fin flash to sit over those protuberances. It looks pretty darn good ( by my eyes anyway!). I need to review the kit decals to see if there are any standard markings I need and then give it a good wash and seal the decals in. I shall try and take a couple of photos tonight and post them up so at least you see where I is at. Hopefully I will progress this further next week but those darn Lancies are taking up a lot of time and space!

Until then,

Fair the well!

 

Bob

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Thanks! As promised a couple more post decal shots of current stage.

 

20180209_171603

 

You can also see a bit of rework that was required on those nose ducts. Not an issue though.

 

20180209_171552

 

And the reason for the sloth like progress!

 

20180209_171636

 

Cheers y'all!

Bob

Edited by moaning dolphin
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I don't update this for weeks on end then I have 3 posts in almost as many days, I'll be turning into a bus soon! A very busy weekend meant minimal time at the bench, we are upgrading our car so there was test driving, looking at figures, choking and then going back to look at something cheaper! But I did manage to get a couple more decals on her. I checked the Tamiya and Esci sheets but decided not to add any more from them, I think less is more in this case! But I did get out my white stripes and plaster a few on. I think I am using 1/64 stripe which is technically a little thin but it looks more aesthetically pleasing than the thick chunky lines from the Esci kit. So here she is with stripes added on the tail and by the cockpit, I also added some around the canopy to mimic the white sealer used (but didn't take a photo of that one!):

 

20180212_062610

 

Its quite hard to determine what else to add. My photo references suggest the Observer access doors should have yellow dotted lines but other photo sources do not. I don't think there is anything else to add apart from on the radome

 

20180212_062623

 

There should be a white box on the radome which is quite prominent in some photos, so may add that in, and the landing gear doors require some code numbers but I think that will be that as far as decaling is concerned. There are many white stencils but alas I have non so artistic license will be applied.

 

Until next time!

 

Bob

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I've decided not to put more stencils on this and have just kept it as it is. I let the decals settle for a few day, given it a good wash (I had used a lot of micro sol to fry and get the decals to settle into the recesses). I then dug out some ProModeller wash (from before Mr Florys coming together with a large model company and still going strong). Now for this I have gone for a lighter shade for more highlights as opposed to a probably more correct dark wash. Let me know what you think? Does it work?

 

Without a flash

 

20180218_115110

 

20180218_115135

 

And with the flash

 

20180218_115128

 

 

20180218_115116

 

 

The flash does bring the panel lines out alot but it is refined in reality. I do need to go back over the whole lot and give it a good clean before giving it a final Matt coat. Nearly there now, just need to sort out the wheels!

 

Bob

Edited by moaning dolphin
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So I have progressed onwards! I gave her a good clean up and then it was out with the matt so here she is in here final coat....

 

20180220_181849

 

You can see that the matt coat has really lightened the blue and looks all right. One thing that did occur that I couldn't see under the gloss coat was the white stripe decals have a bit of silvering and air bubbles underneath them. It kind of ruins the appearance, you can just see it below the cockpit sill on the footstep marking above, but ho hum what can you do after ive sealed them in! I might look at seeing if I can puncture the decal and soak some more Micro Sol in there. Also above you can see the difference of the two blues with the sliding canopy which hasn't yet been matted, quite a change indeed! And now for her underside.....

 

20180220_181912

 

The above were taken with a flash so that does bleach the colour a bit. I have also assembled the ancillary items ready for a bit of detail painting, here a fuzzy shot of them

 

20180220_191851

 

The rears of the main wheels were painted metallic to represent the brake disc and unit. Next is a close up of the main landing gear. You can see the changes to the fairing and the scallop where the catapult hook is situated. The hooks are fitted but blend in nicely so I need a bit of a wash and highlight to make them more obvious. I got them from an old Airfix Seafire, They are a tad undersize but will do.

 

20180220_191910

 

Like I said Ive got a bit of detail painting to do and then I will fit everything in. Final thing to do is the prop. I was sure I had already painted that when I did my Lancaster props but as you can see its a bit blank, so once the ancillary stuff and the prop is done I reckon this will be transferred to the shelf of hope and joy!...........Oh and the seat, mustn't forget the seat!

 

Cheers now

Bob

 

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Just did a catch up on this build and what an interesting subject and cracking job as well. I have always been drawn to the more characterful naval aircraft such as the AEW1, the Gannet and Wyvern none of them in the slightest bit 'beautiful' but all fascinating solutions to the requirements.

Great stuff.

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Thanks for the encouragement folks, we are nearly there in this project. I did a little bit more work over the weekend, first up was to finish off the prop, which has come out all shiny and new like! I have painted the hub blue but it turned out almost violet blue so may tone that down a bit, I have seen some pictures with a light blue hub. I also added a bit of brake wire to the landing gear before attaching that and also fitted the bubble windows for the Observers to observe out of (when they haven't got their curtains closed!). In the cockpit I readied the seat and hunted for a suitable harness from my spare etch stock. There wasn't much available and I opted for a harness from a Hurricane. I think this may be too old looking for this aircraft, I have fitted it but I'm not too sure, what do you guys think? Out of place? I also added a foil curtain behind the pilots head and opened it up to show the electronic boxes behind, quite pleased with this effect but doesn't show too well in the pictures, the canopy is just loosely fitted in the top photo. The last thing to add was the pylons for the drop tank. These are from the Esci kit as the Tamiya ones aren't the right shape, I will also use the Esci drop tanks. There is no positive engagement for the tanks to fit onto the pylons so they would be literally just hanging there. Having looked closer at the tanks there is a lot more to them than just simple tanks so back to the drawing board and I will modify them quite a bit. So here is an update on where we are sitting now.....

 

20180224_165935

 

20180224_165900

 

20180224_165913

 

Apart from the tanks, all that is left is a little bit of tweaking here and there and a bit of weathering although I shall try and have it in a clean fresh condition, so hopefully the next update will be a finito post and then I can put here out on the display shelf with Mojo quite restored!

 

Thanks for looking in

 

Bob

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