Ventora3300 Posted December 7, 2017 Author Share Posted December 7, 2017 On 02/12/2017 at 00:40, Rob G said: You're probably right, but back in 1978, I didn't have money to waste on painting the outside! (I was lucky to have the kit.) As a result, pilots, guns and tyres got a coat of colour, the rest was displayed au naturel. What I was trying to say ^up there (with a bit of humour), is that you shouldn't worry about the errors. Just embrace the Matchboxness and ... be happy. RobG, no, you are right first time - I got my hands on a PK-2 Spitfire IX kit and it does say that the Mini Paint Plan is the easier option. It doesn't repeat this text on the other kits I have but it must be the original intention as I would say that 'PK-2' is one of the first kits. I wonder what it says on PK-1.....? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ventora3300 Posted December 7, 2017 Author Share Posted December 7, 2017 More work done on the ‘bare’ He.115 – I took a deep breath and started again with the floats – this time I assembled all the struts to each float and set the angles as best I could. Then, while the cement was half-dry and still pliable, I assembled to the wings and fuselage and with a blob of glue on the end of each, I manoeuvred the secondary struts to their final position with a long wooden skewer (from a barbecue set). Leave to dry. (A new friend helped to support the Heinkel – may re-appear later!) This seem to work pretty well and I spent a bit of time lining everything up – looks OK! Popped off the nose glazing and straightened up, re-glued. Re-attached the barrel of the rear machine gun. Pulled off the starboard stabiliser and re-aligned Finished off by putting on the ladders, engine exhausts and that thing under the nose glazing - no clues in the Instructions as to what it is (this is Matchbox, not Airfix) but is it a mount for a cannon or maybe part of the torpedo/bomb sight apparatus? All the plastic being assembled, I checked the balance of the model and it seems to sit back on the rear of the floats. I tried some blobs of blue-tac on the front fuselage but it looks like it would need a huge amount to get the model to sit forward on the front portion of the floats. I even tried to ‘float’ it in a handy roasting dish filled with water but it sank like a stone!. It feels like a heavy model so I must weigh it at some point to see what the ‘scale’ weight would be. Never mind, the props still spin! Colour contrasts look good too – not too garish. Did a final polish up with cheap toothpaste and ready for transfers! 8 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob G Posted December 7, 2017 Share Posted December 7, 2017 Looking fab there mate. Bonus points for the spinning props! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arniec Posted December 7, 2017 Share Posted December 7, 2017 Nice, very nice. Can't ait to see it with decals. O, the blob underneath the nose is a sort of a bomb sight. Cheers, 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ventora3300 Posted December 8, 2017 Author Share Posted December 8, 2017 (edited) Transfers / decals are on - they behaved immaculately and no hint of breaking up. As expected, with the smooth surfaces, no great evidence of silvering and the crosses on top of the wings settled down on a raised panel line OK - no decal fix used anywhere. Another tick for Matchbox. (Looks like a bit of toothpaste still to clean off). Those crosses under the wings are huge! Must have taken the ground crew ages painting them on. Weight of the model is 85 grammes, scaling this up (x72) makes that 6.120 kg. Research shows loaded weight of the real thing was 10,400kg so I'll need to do a bit of further thinking on why the model doesn't float - I am assuming that the floats are airtight as I gave the joints a coat of 'Future' equivalent and wiped in. Makes a change from worrying about dimensional accuracy.... I will not call this completed as yet because I want to do some 'embellishments' with paint as they come to hand during the build of the next kit. OK, now on to kit no. 2 - washed the sprues in soapy water and again, no flash noted. Canopies and multi-position stand are present but out of shot. This kit is dated 1975 inside the fuselage. Colours this time look to be very light green, brown and blue in real life, but the photos make the fuselage look 'beige'. Looking forward to this... Edited December 8, 2017 by Ventora3300 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GREG DESTEC Posted December 9, 2017 Share Posted December 9, 2017 The unpainted Heinkel looks fantastic! It will be great to see the contrast with a fully painted example. Are both of these being presented as one gallery entry or two? Brilliant work so far, keep it going, Cheers Greg 😉 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ventora3300 Posted December 10, 2017 Author Share Posted December 10, 2017 On 09/12/2017 at 10:43, GREG DESTEC said: The unpainted Heinkel looks fantastic! It will be great to see the contrast with a fully painted example. Are both of these being presented as one gallery entry or two? Brilliant work so far, keep it going, Cheers Greg 😉 Cheers for that, Greg. It's amazing how much pleasure you can still get from doing the 'bare' minimum - the plan was to complete the second build painted then put them both up together. I think the second build will progress along a bit faster but I've still to solve the problem on making them float....! All the best. Mike 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Romeo Alpha Yankee Posted December 13, 2017 Share Posted December 13, 2017 On 12/9/2017 at 9:43 PM, GREG DESTEC said: The unpainted Heinkel looks fantastic! It will be great to see the contrast with a fully painted example. Are both of these being presented as one gallery entry or two? Brilliant work so far, keep it going, Cheers Greg 😉 Agree on the unpainted Heinkel, looks just like the build I did back in 1976! (though with a lot fewer glue marks!) Looking forward to the painted build now 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ventora3300 Posted December 14, 2017 Author Share Posted December 14, 2017 (edited) 8 hours ago, Romeo Alpha Yankee said: Agree on the unpainted Heinkel, looks just like the build I did back in 1976! (though with a lot fewer glue marks!) Looking forward to the painted build now Thanks for that - can you remember if putting the floats on was a nightmare?? Trying to get the on-sprue painting of kit no2 going... Edited December 14, 2017 by Ventora3300 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Romeo Alpha Yankee Posted December 14, 2017 Share Posted December 14, 2017 14 hours ago, Ventora3300 said: Thanks for that - can you remember if putting the floats on was a nightmare?? Trying to get the on-sprue painting of kit no2 going... Can't recall, and I don't think I would have cared. It would have been a rush job to get it into the backyard Order of Battle with the mate over the back fence! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ventora3300 Posted December 14, 2017 Author Share Posted December 14, 2017 Some progress on the second He.115 - painting on the sprues as per some of the Matchbox modelling tips and the Mini Paint Plan. I had a good browse of the Matchbox catalogues on the Matchbox website and they were really recommending the option of just doing that limited painting as an enhancement to the coloured parts. Inside cockpit areas plus deck plus seats done in H240 light grey (RLM 02 equivalent). Prop blades in H91 Black Green and spinners in matt black. Engines have black back wall with H53 gunmetal cylinders. Machine guns, bomb sight (in the bomb-aimer's hands) and ladders all in gunmetal. Ran some gunmetal round the inside of the front edge of the engine cowlings. Engine exhausts in gunmetal with black base (maybe should be the other way round). Crew in field grey, brown helmets and gauntlets and black boots. Added in faces in flesh and what looks like flotation aids in yellow (the mini paint plan just shows jackets with thick lapels!). Made up the multi-position display stand and now ready to cut off the parts from the sprues and commence building!! 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ventora3300 Posted December 18, 2017 Author Share Posted December 18, 2017 (edited) A little more progress - assembled the seats to the deck and installed two of the crew. Closed up the fuselage. It went together with a satisfying 'click' and it looks like no gluey joints this time round. Assembled the engines to the cowlings and put in the propellers and spinners - having to remove paint overspill from all the running surfaces at the moment before I can get a good 'spin' and then will glue on the retaining rings. (Flickr now working again) Edited December 28, 2017 by Ventora3300 (Flickr now working again) 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ventora3300 Posted December 28, 2017 Author Share Posted December 28, 2017 Pushing on...wing and stabiliser halves assembled and engines and balancing horns on. Floats assembled and after initial gluing with cement, I brushed liquid poly over the seams to get an airtight joint - these floats are definitely going to support the model on water this time! I did a rudimentary pneumatic test by blowing into one of the top strut holes and blocking the other to see if I could feel a bit of back-pressure. Just like the real thing...? I straightened up the flight deck inside the fuselage and cut the hole for the Matchbox multi-position stand. Wings and stabilisers are on to the fuselage...very good fit as expected... You can see the contrast now between the kit colours - more desert than sea? On now with the dreaded floats.... 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ventora3300 Posted December 29, 2017 Author Share Posted December 29, 2017 (edited) The weather has closed in to day so that may mean.......some progress! Struts assembled to floats and the cement left to harden up. This time, I left the locating spigots on the fuselage end of the secondary floats, ready to pop into the holes in the fuselage. It all went together much more smoothly this time and the alignment of the floats looks good - good old Matchbox! I'll leave the pitot tube and canopies off at the moment and begin the painting - first coat of light blue Hu65 is on the undersurfaces. I had to put thinners in the paint recently and it is behaving well. Good coverage using a large flat brush. Edited January 25, 2018 by Ventora3300 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ventora3300 Posted January 13, 2018 Author Share Posted January 13, 2018 (edited) Don't panic, I tell myself - time seems to be running out fast on this GB. Some more progress - second coat of H65 light blue done on the undersides and dried. Started to mask and paint the framing on the underside of the nose glazing. Masking tape on - this was quite a long and delicate operation given that the floats were on - if there is a next time, I'll paint them before assembling to the fuselage, as I have seen others do. I managed to break off a prop blade during the handling process but it is back on now. First coat of the lighter of the greens, H244 (posing as RLM 73), is on - this was a new tin and I had to give it much mixing to try to get a consistent coverage using a large flat brush. The first coat always acts as a primer. I'll need to re-touch in some of the light blue on the float struts after the splinter camouflage is finished, no doubt. As I've been going along with paints, I've taken the opportunity to add 'enhancements' to the bare build He.115 - not quite the complete mini paint plan but just what I thought would add a bit of further colour to the model. Here we are.... Prop blades and aerial mast in H91 black green and spinners in red. Guns and exhausts in gunmetal with a bit of black at the tips. The box art seems to show that the 'box' at the top of the float struts under the engine nacelles is some sort of radiator/cooler - I did a bit of research and couldn't find any good pictures of the real thing. So I painted in these boxes in gunmetal with a black edge to give the impression that there is something there. Boldly, I painted the undersurfaces of the floats in the nearest grey I could find to match the kit colour - actually H90 Sky. I did this without masking but just wiped off any overpaint with a cloth and white spirit, micromeshing some edges as necessary. The green of the floats then required another polish with toothpaste which seems hard to wash off completely. I can't say I managed to retain a pristine clean and polished look. Also, I was unhappy with the tail swastikas - I only have one set for the 'full paint' version of this kit so I had borrowed some Frog Me262 swastikas for this one. The partly built spare kit had the swastika decals already on the tail but I was able to soak and peel these off and re-install on my bare build version. Result! I am minded to do the underside tips of the wings in yellow as 'flak recognition' for a final addition. Then a coat of clear gloss to seal it all in?? Edited January 13, 2018 by Ventora3300 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ventora3300 Posted January 17, 2018 Author Share Posted January 17, 2018 More progress on the painted He.115 - second coat of RLM73 (H244) is on - much improved depth of colour but also gave it a very light micromesh to improve the surface. Ready for masking for the RLM72 (H243) for the splinter camouflage. I'm going to follow the pattern shown on the Matchbox paint plan although it is a variation to others I've seen. Was there variation between units? Here is an interesting presentation I found on Luftwaffe camouflage in general. http://www.ipmsdayton.com/sites/default/files/Luft_colors.pdf 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ventora3300 Posted January 18, 2018 Author Share Posted January 18, 2018 Masking tape on to try to reproduce the splinter camouflage pattern from the box and H244 painted across the masked edges to hopefully seal and prevent 'bleed' - this Tip has worked a treat before. Since I am brush painting, I can get away with not having to completely mask the area not being painted, although you have to keep alert not to paint the wrong side of the masking! Thought I'd test the multi-position stand while I was at it! First coat of RLM72 (H243) is on - looks good to me - still wet in this photo so has a shine. New tin again so required lots of stirring. Went on a treat. I like the only slight variation with the RLM 73 (H244) and looking forward to when it is dry. Started masking and painting the canopies - the long way (one direction of framing at a time) but the only way I am up to at the moment! Using 10mm Tamiya masking tape but slicing it longways for some bits so make it more flexible for following the curves of the canopies. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hockeyboy76 Posted January 18, 2018 Share Posted January 18, 2018 Just caught up on your builds. Love the “bare” kit. Toothpaste for polishing plastic. What’s the crack dude? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ventora3300 Posted January 18, 2018 Author Share Posted January 18, 2018 (edited) 17 hours ago, Hockeyboy76 said: Just caught up on your builds. Love the “bare” kit. Toothpaste for polishing plastic. What’s the crack dude? Thanks. The toothpaste (must be cheap) is a Tip from the brethern on BM. It polishes your teeth, doesn't it? It certainly seems to work on plastic and also cloudy canopies, when I've made a mess of them as well. I think it contains very fine granules that do the polishing. When am I getting a drive in the Auto Union Type D? - that was an excellent build. Regards, Mike. Edited January 19, 2018 by Ventora3300 accuracy! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hockeyboy76 Posted January 18, 2018 Share Posted January 18, 2018 I will try that next time I do a bare metal finish. As for the Type D, it’s just warming up round the back of the garage. 🤫 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ventora3300 Posted January 25, 2018 Author Share Posted January 25, 2018 Peeled the masking tape off the He.115 now and a balancing horn has disappeared - need to make a visit to the 'spare' kit again. Well impressed with the greens, and the contrast. Hopefully the final matt cote will remove the oily look to the H243. Of course, by brush painting enamels, there are raised edges where the masking tape has been - I feel I am stepping along on the journey that many modellers have made and will be casting my eyes towards a spray gun just shortly (maybe try the obligatory brush painting with acrylics first, though). Just to try to reduce the raised edges, I gave a very gentle rub with wet fine grit paper - worked a bit on some areas but I didn't push it too far. I was conscious of removing some of the depth of green in some places. Touching up any areas where the masking has not gone to plan and trying to get the canopies masked and finished. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rabbit Leader Posted January 25, 2018 Share Posted January 25, 2018 These two Heinkels are looking splendid Mike and the banana's look ripe enough to eat now!!! So your thinking about an airbrush? Well as demonstrated on here, there are some fabulous hand brush modelers, however I do believe that in time it would be wise to slowly progress to a cheap-ish airbrush. Hopefully you will take to it like a duck to water however it can be extremely frustrating and highly rewarding at the same time. When I transitioned it felt like I lost twenty years of modelling experience, however a few encouraging builds under the belt and you will re-gain those 'lost years'. Don't get me wrong, I still have modelling sessions when I think "what the hell has gone wrong", but it's all in the learning and in this case practice very much makes perfect (well not quite - just using a famous saying). Anyway - these builds are motoring along nicely and it appears that the finishing line is not that far away. Cheers.. Dave 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ventora3300 Posted January 25, 2018 Author Share Posted January 25, 2018 2 hours ago, Rabbit Leader said: These two Heinkels are looking splendid Mike and the banana's look ripe enough to eat now!!! So your thinking about an airbrush? Well as demonstrated on here, there are some fabulous hand brush modelers, however I do believe that in time it would be wise to slowly progress to a cheap-ish airbrush. Hopefully you will take to it like a duck to water however it can be extremely frustrating and highly rewarding at the same time. When I transitioned it felt like I lost twenty years of modelling experience, however a few encouraging builds under the belt and you will re-gain those 'lost years'. Don't get me wrong, I still have modelling sessions when I think "what the hell has gone wrong", but it's all in the learning and in this case practice very much makes perfect (well not quite - just using a famous saying). Anyway - these builds are motoring along nicely and it appears that the finishing line is not that far away. Cheers.. Dave Many thanks Dave and I was thinking airbrush even though I said 'spray gun' (I might use that on 1/1 scale rather than 1/72). A thought came to me that paint brushing fairly thick enamels works well on the 'vintage' Airfix 'raised detail' type surfaces because the detail pokes up out of the 'pool' of paint and with the paint flowing slightly off the top of the detail, may give an impression that the detail has depth rather than height. I am thinking that airbrushing will be ideal on the smoother/recessed detail surfaces of the more modern kits although I am lining up a new tool Airfix 'starter set' which has acrylics included and will brush paint that to see how it turns out. However, saying all that, the Matchbox He.115 has a mix of raised panel lines and recessed ones (I won't say 'trench') but the canopy framing is definitely 'raised'. No rivets though so nothing to hide brush marks on the smooth panels. It will be a close run thing to get this this second build completed before the deadline hence my support for an extension! Hope your own excellent builds are still in the game. Regards, Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ventora3300 Posted February 1, 2018 Author Share Posted February 1, 2018 (edited) Missing balancing horn has been replaced from the ‘spare’ kit and painted. Coat of Gloss Cote has been applied....and the sun has come out! Also, I spent some time in making my own masking for the front canopy panes by applying the Tamiya masking tape as before but then trimming round the framing with a really sharp craft knife. First time I’ve done this and I will wait with bated breath to see how it looks when the masking is peeled off pane by pane. (The framing on these canopies is pretty heavy – may have been designed to have been painted in by hand). However, I am expecting to have to do a tidy up using a cocktail stick. Transfers are on! Once again, these behaved beautifully with no cracking and plenty of adhesion. Followed up with some Decalfix. I used the same transfers option as I used on the ‘bare’ kit so we get a direct comparison. The squadron letters on the fuselage seem to be showing a bit of silvering but no doubt this will be due to the surface of the paint there and the fact that I only did one coat of gloss. I mentioned previously that I was keen to see if the model would float once finished and I put a bit of effort into making sure that the float joints were sealed all round and the floats were watertight. I actually tested them to see and they did indeed float on their own however, once attached to the rest of the kit, the whole thing sank until the wings hit the water. If the weight of the completed kit is scaled up (x 72), it is far below the actual weight of the real thing so why doesn’t it float? I had the feeling that some characteristic of the floats was obviously not directly scalable and it turned out to be the buoyancy or ability to support weight – this is actually a function of the density of the water so in simple terms, if the floats are scaled down by x72, then the density of the water would have to scale up by the same to be capable of similar performance. So, the 1/72 He.115 will perhaps float on my breakfast porridge or in the bucket of wallpaper paste that I am using to decorate with at the moment but there is no way I’m going to try that! Also, I was keen to ‘balance’ the kit so that it sat on the front portion of the floats rather than tilting backwards. I put the kit on a round skewer on a set of scales and pressed down on the front of the fuselage until the He.115 rotated level. The scales showed around 45g required. I bought some fishing weights and sure enough, if you perch them on the front of the kit, it does level up but there is no way that weights of this size will fit in the front of the fuselage and remain hidden so that the crew is visible. They could possibly go in the front of the floats out of sight but we’ll leave that ‘until the next time’. Before... After.... So, it looks like I will have to be happy with just the spinning props!! On with painting the canopies…. Edited February 1, 2018 by Ventora3300 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ventora3300 Posted February 5, 2018 Author Share Posted February 5, 2018 (edited) Back to the ‘bare’ kit and I painted in the underside of the wingtips and fuselage between the crosses in Yellow H69. I wanted to use masking tape here rather than paint free-hand so I covered the underside and fuselage crosses with gloss coat to protect them and gingerly masked over the top. The yellow took about four coats to cover properly and I dried between the coats with a hot air gun (on low setting!) to speed up the process. Yellow looks good but true to form, the masking tape lifted bits of three of the decals. Back to the spare kit and installed the spare decals over the existing - worked very well! A coat of Gloss Cote on the unpainted He.115 – lovely - ready for the aerial wire as the finishing touch. On the painted He.115, painting of front canopy completed and masking peeled off the panes. Looks OK but once I cemented the canopy to the fuselage, I noticed that one of the horizontal frame lines painted in blue should really be in green to match the colour change line on the fuselage…… Also, you can see that the panes have degraded in clarity due to all the gluing and handling. All good practice for the next time. Two coats of Matt Cote applied. Ladders now installed and I decided to change their colour from Gunmetal to Matt Black (as per the mini paint plan). However, as a small experiment in ‘weathering’, I left the rungs in Gunmetal and painted the side rails in Matt Black – these ladders have been used, you know! Small top transparency now cemented on and the framing on that will need to be masked and painted – being such a small part, I thought it would be more easily done once on the fuselage. Lovely and shiny – that’s what the front canopy should look like! Engine run..... On with masking and painting the top canopy… Edited February 5, 2018 by Ventora3300 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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