sunray

Thanks Craig.

Thanks again to everyone for the kind comments most appreciated as always.

Thanks everyone for the kind comments. I am happy you like it. It is an amazing subject that the more you find out about it the more fascinated it becomes. Would I do another one? Yes no problem. For an old kit apart from the windscreen and all those rivets its not bad. The only problem now is what do I do next?

Here is my attempt of Testor's 1/48 Cessna O-2A Skymaster. I loved this build from start to finish. Here are a few photo's of the finished article and also here is the link to the full build. http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234985641-148-testors-cessna-o-2a-skymaster/page-1

Thanks lads. Today I made my display stand from my usual materials which are a scrap piece of oak flooring and a brass rod. The oak base was cut to size, then I routed the edges, rubbed it down with a fine sanding sponge and finally polished it with natural coloured wax. The brass rod was cut to size using the red pipe cutter and the bend was done using the blue pipe bender. Then it was just a case of polishing it was brass polish. Once I decided where the brass tube was going be on the stand I drilled a hole and using CA glue I glued it into position. Using CA glue again in the brass tube and steel bolt I attached the O-2 holding it in the position I wanted it to be in until the glue cured. I then drilled a small hole in the wing just in front of the left boom. This is for the aerial which went back to the top of the left tail fin. For this I used EZ Line and CA glue. For the whip antenna on top of the cabin I used a piece of stretched sprue cut and glue in place and painted black. Now for the final job which was to touch up the spots with matt varnish on the wing and fin where you could see the shiny spots where the CA glue had dried. And thats it all finished. I will try and post up the final reveal photo's tonight and as they say, I would like to thank everyone for their kind comments, help and support which are most appreciated as ever. Here is the link to the reveal photo's http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234991505-148-testors-cessna-o-2a-skymaster-dont-shoot-in-flight/

Thanks lads. Here are a few a few photo's of hows I am getting on. I gave the decals a coat of Vallejo's Satin Varnish and airbrush cleaner in a 50/50 mix to seal the decals. I added a touch of chipping around bolt heads and side panels. Then I made my oil wash from burnt umber, black and thinner. Due to the problem with the cracking paint I decided to add a heavier wash than I was going to. Oh well it all part of the fun. With the wash added it was just a case of a tiny amount of oil thinner on a cotton bud to spread the wash around. That done I gave it another coat of satin varnish again to seal everything and once dry I started to remove the window masks and add the stores using CA glue for the rockets and Extra Thin for the gun pods. The last job tonight was to add the props.

Thanks guys. Last few weeks I didn't have time to do much but when I got back to my shed, I got on with sealing the paint with a few coats of Klear and thats when I had a bit of trouble. The Klear had started to crack and split the white Tamyia paint but not the grey. I have had this before with Klear and I thought it was caused by the paint not being completely dry but this time no. The white XF2 has had over a week to dry. I have also thought it could be the air temp in the shed being too hot but when I was spraying the Klear it was 61 degrees F. All I can think of is the white paint itself as the grey XF20 wasn't touched. To get around this I left it over night and swapped over from the Klear to using Simoniz Clear Acrylic Lacquer as it dries fast to a hard gloss finish. As I have said it was only the white that was affected. To help remedy the problem all I did was mask off the affected areas and spray them with Model Air white with 20% Vallejo Gloss Varnish and a few drops of Vallejo thinner, all mixed in the airbrush cup. I didn't want to use XF2 again and the Vallejo mix hopefully would help fill in some of the cracks, give a soft gloss finish and also because Vallejo is a slightly a different shade of white it would add a bit of modulation to the white on the wing. If you know what I mean. Anyway that done on to the decaling. I used a mixture of the kit decals and the after-market ones which were straight forward to apply using Micro Set and Sol. You can just make out where the crack were but a bit of weathering should sort that out. I also added the decals to the rocket and gun pods. I didn't add any decals to the props as they weren't very good so they were just masked and sprayed.

I managed to do a bit of painting today. First I primed with Badger Primer then I did a touch of pre-shading with thinned Tamiya Black. The good thing I like about Badger Primer is that it dries fast allowing you to get on and thats what I did. The base colour for the O-2 is FS 16473 ADC Grey and the closest I had was Tamiya XF20 Medium Grey. Just to lighten it up a touch I added a tiny amount of Tamiya XF2 White and I thinned to about 50%. The majority of the top of the wing is white with grey along the leading edge. As a rule I would spray the lighter colour first but on this occasion I decided to spray the grey first as it was easier to mask this way around latter on. I didn't use any masking tape at this stage as I just painted the top of the wing freehand allowing the grey to just overlap where the white is going to go, then I sprayed the rest of the plane grey. Now out came the masking tape and I then sprayed the white and Tamiya XF 85 Rubber Black on the nose and tail. I also sprayed the minigun and rocket pods.

Thanks Simon. I haven't done much lately due to watching the Rugby World Cup. I managed to get tickets to watch the "All Blacks" play Tonga at St James Park in Newcastle, absolutely fantastic. Any way here is what I have been up to. The detail on the under-wing stores, the miniguns and rockets wasn't much to write home about so I thought I would tidy them up a bit. The minigun pods where just tubes so I re-scribed the panel lines and using a few bits of brass tubing and CA glue I added some gun barrels to add a touch of interest. The rockets that came with the kit weren't very good as you can see below. So they had to join my spares box. The photo in the kit instructions had rocket pods attached so I ordered a resin set by Czech Masters. You get six pods in the set but I only need two but i think the rest will come in handy in the future. You do get pylons as well but I will be using the kit ones. To attach the pods to the pylons I removed the two plastic pins on the pylon that was to hold the kit rockets and sanded them smooth. Then I drilled a few holes in the pylon and using CA glue I attached two pieces of copper wire and went the glue cured I cut the wire to the length I wanted. Then I assembled the rocket pods and I used the copper wire in the pylons to mark where to drill the holes in the new rocket pods. Here are a few photo's of the minigun and rocket pods dry fitted as they will be attached later on. Next I made the pitot tube from a bent pin and syringe needle using the kit part as reference. I prefer to make pitot tubes, antennas, etc from metal parts if I can so they won't snap off later on; well thats the plan anyway. All that was left to do was to attach the fin antenna and a aerial mount then I masked up the glass using tamiya tape and maskol ready for painting.

Thanks Craig. Here is the sight glued into place. I next attached the wing struts, skips and a rectangular panel under the fuselage. I did plan to use the kit panel but I glued it on the wrong way round so I filed it off and made a replacement. After that I sanded down a few gaps. With them done I could finally attach the glass. The windscreen was attached using first thin CA glue and then PVA. The good thing about vacuum canopies is that they a flexible which allows me to reduce the gaps at the sides where the windscreen joins the fuselage. Then it was just a case of gluing in the rest of the glass. To finish off I made the curved antenna from bent copper wire and used CA glue to attach to the fuselage. I did this because I looked at the kit part and it did look too strong.

Thanks lads. No I didn't use any release agent. The moulds are so flexible that the plugs nearly pop out. The problem with P38 is that it can't be poured as its so thiick so you have to be aware of bubbles. I hope this helps.

I didn't like the look of the kit landing lights so I decided to see if I could do better. I used a bit of thin plasticard to cover up the seam lines of the wings in the light housing and for the lens I am going to use scrap bits of acrylic rod. Using a razor saw I cut the rod to roughly the size I wanted and then with the saw again I cut the rod in half giving me two half moons. I then filed the lens to size and drilled a small hole in each one to act as a bulb. Then I glued each lens to the wing using thin CA glue and once they had cured I filed, sanded and polished them to get a good shine. With that done I painted and weathered the inside of the cabin roof. Once that had dried I glued the wing to the fuselage. This being an old kit I was expected a few gaps and I was right but these are easily sorted by using plastic shims and filler. With the wing attached then came the booms, tail plane, rear engine cowling and rear engine exhausts which again I used a syringe needle for them. The booms and tail plane were attached to the fuselage and went together easier than I expected as did the alignment. There were a few gaps but again I used plastic shims, etc. What I will do now is let everything cure and harden overnight and then it will be time for a little sanding. While I was waiting I made the gun sight but I had a problem as I couldn't find any photo's of a sight. That was until my mate Tony of the Connecticut Air & Space Center came to the rescue. The guys there are restoring an O-2 and he kindly took a few photo's for me, what a star! From this I had ago of making one from plastic right angled rod, a small plastic disc and thin clear acrylic from the packing of the collar on a new shirt. Not perfect but it will do. I am sorry about the photo's but my camera was having problems with it being so small.

Thanks mate. This is the car filler I used. In the box is a 60ml tube of filler and a small sachet of harder which cost about £5.50. You only need a small amount of filler so this should last me a while. I followed the instructions which were straight forward and mixed it on an old tile using a wooden ice lolly stick a put it in the mould trying not to create too many bubbles in the mould. I put it to one side and waited for it to cure which took about 20 minutes. The filler does smell a bit so I would mix it in a ventilated area or as I did it in front of my spray booth. Once it hardens it just a case of removing it from the mould which was easily do with no damage to the mould or new plug. As you can see there were still a few holes caused by bubbles but these were sorted using a few drops of CA glue on a cocktail stick and lightly sanded. As with the other plugs I tidied the edges up and on it went to the the vac former. The plug was a lot stronger than the plaster one but the only thing I was worried about was how would it react to heat. It took a few minutes to make the canopy on the vac former as always. Then it came to removing the canopy from the plug which was easier and faster than the plaster and no damage was caused at all to the plug. The only problem was this when the canopy came off the plug. Oh well back to the drawing board I thought. The plug has melted to the canopy. But on a closer inspection I noticed it wasn't burnt on it was just a residue off the plug and could be rubbed off was a cocktail stick. So using Tamiya Coarse Polishing Compound and a cotton bud I polished off the residue. Here is how I got on. I also noticed the shiny appearance of the plug had gone but this was restored by buffing it. You can just make out the buffed surface on the right and the un-buffed on the left side. All that needs to be done now is to tidy up the new canopy and thats where I am off to do now.

I have just made a plug from car filler (Isopon P.38 Easy Sand from Halfords UK). You have to mix it with a touch of harder, its a bit thick as you would expect for car filler and it stinks. It is styrene based and cures in about 10 minutes. It comes out of the mould without any problems and it doesn't look too bad. There are one or two bubble holes but they can be fixed with CA glue. I am going to leave over night to fully cure just to be on the safe side and have a go with the vac former tomorrow. I will let you know how I get on.

Just Thought I would let you know how I got on. Here is the acrylic varnish I used which I got from B & Q (diy store in the UK). And this is what I used to polish at a lower speed. Here is the result you get. I made a canopy with the polished plug but I didn't have any of the PETG plastic of the same thickness of the one I made with the unpolished plug, so I had to use a thicker piece. The CA glue works perfectly in filling in holes and small repairs on the plaster then allowing the plaster to be polished. The varnish enables the plaster to be polish to a high sheen which I thought would be excellent for diorama builders as when polished the plaster looks similar to white marble and its cheap. I made the vacuum formed canopy and I thought the varnish might protect the detail on the plug when you try to separate the plug from the canopy, but sadly not. So I found using plaster as a plug I would need to make a new plug for each canopy which is no problem as the plaster is cheap, easy to get hold of and cures quite fast. I thought the varnish having a high temperature rating would work but I had mixed results. On the new vac canopy you get a residue left on the inside which is from the varnish but the good news is that it can be easily removed leaving a smooth finish but you can still see one or two imperfections left by the plug but not as many as without varnish. So in conclusion if I was going to use plaster as a plug. If I was to use thin PETG plastic I wouldn't bother with the varnish but on thicker PETG plastic I would because the thicker plastic amplifies any imperfections like a magnifying glass in the plastic. Next time I think I will have a go at using car filler as a plug for a canopy and see how I get on. To finish on a positive note I have really enjoyed experimenting with using plaster, also casting moulds with silicone rubber, etc which is really fun and easy to do. The hardest part was finding the bits of Lego as my lads are teenagers now and borrowing my wife's kitchen scales. I also find that now if I loose or damage a kit part and I can't get a replacement I can always have ago at making my own.

Thanks Tom. At the minute I am playing around with how to polish the plaster plug. What I am finding is the finished canopy is really clear but as you would expect if there is a mark or uneven surface on the plaster plug, it shows up on the inside of the canopy even though you get a really smooth finish on the outside. If you try to rub down or polish the raw plaster I found it is too delicate and small holes start to appear in the plug which in turn show up on the inside of the finished canopy and you could easily loose some detail as well I have tried a few things but what seems to work is when the plug is completely dry, I carefully wipe off any dust off the plug and then I give it a light coat of Plasti-Kote Super Clear gloss spray varnish. I am using this varnish as it has a high temperature range. The plaster draws the varnish straight in which is what I want it to do then about 10 minutes later I give it a heavy coat, which again is drawn into the plaster leaving a matt even look. I did this a few more times and left it over night to dry. What I was hoping is that varnish will give the plaster a harder finish and thats just what it does. Using a battery Dremel with a buffer wheel I am able to polish the surface of the plaster to make it shine which allows me to see any imperfections such a small air holes and scratches without losing any detail. That leads me on to my next problem. How to repair the plug if there is a scratch or sort out any small holes? I could recast the plug as the plaster is cheap enough but I thought it was a bit of a waste if there was just a small hole caused by an air bubble. So I thought I would varnish it as I have said before, give it a polish and I used thin CA glue to fill any holes, cracks or marks. I just left the glue dry without using any accelerator just in case it reacted with anything, then its was just a case of rubbing down the area with a fine skinny stick and polishing with the dremel to make it shine. I wasn't able to use the plug tonight but I will give it a go tomorrow and let you know how it comes out.

Thanks guys.

Here is a quick update. I bought the cheapest casting plaster of paris I could find from Hobbycraft for £2.00 for a 1kg bag. I gave the mould a quick rinse of water to make sure there wasn't any dust or hair in it so it was ready for the mix. I made a small mix up which was straight forward , it says on the bag of 1 part water to 2 parts plaster which I did. I added the powder to the water slowly and mixing it as it went in careful not to create too many bubbles. The plaster goes off pretty quick so as soon as it was ready I slowly poured in the plaster in the mould slowly to allow the plaster to fill the mould again without creating any bubbles. With that done I tapped the sides of the mould to try to ex-spell any trapped air and just waited about 30 minutes for the plaster to cure. I took the newly made plaster plug out of the mould which came out really easily and then its just a case of checking it to see if there are any large holes where air was trapped. If not I just tidied up the base of the plug cutting off any unwanted plaster. The process is some easy and cheap I made a few more plugs just in case. I then glued a small piece of wood cut from an ice lolly stick to slightly raise the plug when its placed in the vacuum former. I also used a small piece of "White Tac" to keep the plug in place while in the vac former. Then I put in a small sheet of PETG clear plastic in the vac former, turned the heater on, when the plastic starts to bow down on went the vacuum, I lowered the now heated plastic, heater off, gave it about 1 minute to cool and then vacuum off. That done I then cut out the plug and canopy from the and carefully I cut around the plug with scissors and using cocktail sticks I release the canopy from the plug. When I first tried this on the Airfix Hawk canopy I damaged the plug which made me cheesed off for a minute, until I realised that the plug was really cheap to make and only took about 30 minutes to make. Thats why I made a few spare plugs just in case. The beauty of doing it this way, was its cheap and fast. It still amazes how well it picks up the detail. Now its just a case of tidying everything along the edges with a skinny stick and to see how it looks on the fuselage.

Thanks lads. Before making the windows I decided to add a touch of detail to the ceiling of the cabin. I could of just added square pieces of plasticard to act as ceiling liners but I changed my mind and added cables, etc to make it look more interesting. Its not based on any photo's but just a guess how I think it could look like. The reason I did this is because there are that many windows in the cabin that you could easily spot how bare the ceiling looked, so with a few pieces of wire and plastic that was quickly changed. Now I just made the clear acrylic for the windows cut to size and as normal tested the fit. As I am having the aircraft banking to the left I adjusted the ailerons using a razor saw and glued in position. As with the wings I had to sort out the rivets on the tail plane and booms. I also did a bit of re-scribing on them as well. The windscreen isn't the best fit so I have decided to make a replacement using my vacuum former. Normally I would use the kit part as the plug but I have noticed using the clear kit parts, that if you have to use them a few times, small hairline cracks start to appear inside the part So after having a look on the internet I decided this is the road I was going to take. Using the kit part as a pattern I would make a silicone mould and then using plaster of paris to produce the plug. The main reason for using plaster of paris was basically the cost just in case it doesn't work. First I used Lego to make the jacket to hold in the liquid silicone. Then I rolled out plasticine for the base of the mould and to hold the pattern in place. I added some plasticine to give the part a bit of support and to help form the shape I wanted for the plug. The photo shows only two layers of Lego, this is just to show you how the part sits in the jacket. Before I poured in the silicone I added another layer of Lego so the height of the jacket was well clear of the top of the part. The silicone kit I used was bought off Amazon for around £27 and it consists of 1.1 kg of silicone rubber and a bottle of the hardener. Using kitchen scales I weighed out the silicone in a plastic drinks cup and then after giving the hardener a good shake I added it to the cup of silicone. The ratio was 10 parts silicone to one part hardener. Then I mixed it together with a wooden ice lolly stick until it produced a uniform pink colour trying not to make too many bubbles. Now I just poured it into one corner the mould jacket slowly trying not trap any air in the mixture and letting it slowly fill the jacket pass the top of the kit part. I tapped the sides of the jacket to help the trapped air escape. I did this for about 10 minutes until I was happy I couldn't see any more bubbles raise to the surface. I then just left it to cure for approx 24 hours. Once cured I just broke open the Lego jacket, removed the plasticine and the part which came away without any problems from the newly formed mould. Then I just removed any unwanted silicone carefully. The detail the silicone picks up is quite impressive. Here is one of the spare canopies I had ago at before this one. Next is to use plaster of paris to produce the plug. I haven't done it yet for the Cessna but here is my first attempt using the plaster of paris on a canopy of an Airfix 1/48 Hawk which had a crack across it to see hows it comes out. To be continued.........

Thanks everyone for all the encouragement and kind comments which are most appreciated as always.

Thanks Bob. The way I do the panel lines is to sand them down lightly with a medium to fine skinny stick or well and dry paper just enough so you can see them to use them as a reference. Then using a flexible metal ruler, scribing templates, dymo tape or thin 3M insulation tape as a guide depending where the line is; as a guide I gently run the p cutter along the guide to cut the line. Don't apply any pressure just let the weight of the cutter bite into the plastic. Then do it again and again, just try to keep the cutter running along the guide. Once I am happy with all the scribing I use a fibre glass abrasive pen or fine wet & dry paper to flatten the lines and take off any ploughed scrap plastic. Then I clean out the line of plastic dust by running the p-cutter along the lines and I run a tiny drop of tamiya extra thin cement along the lines to tidy them up. If there was no line in the first place I use references and put a pin mark to mark the start and finish of where I want the line and use the guides (tape, rule,etc). I have an old kit wing to practise on every now and then as there is no easy way to re-scribe, I find its just down to practise. Here is another build I did that required the whole kit needing re-scribing that might help you. http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234976812-172-airfix-f-80-shooting-star/ If you have any more questions please feel free to get in touch.

Thanks lads. I have glued in the lower windows with PVA and attached the yokes, the pilots seat belts and pilot to the seat using CA glue for the yokes and belts and Tamiya extra thin for the pilot. When they were dry, I glued the fuselage halves together with no problems and a small amount of filling and sanding was required. Next I was looking at the front of the engine cowling which looked a bit boring so to improve it I decided to add some radiator grills. So I used basically the same method I did for the windows. That was to drill small holes around the shape I wanted to remove and then cut out with a modelling knife, file and sand to finish. For the grills themselves I used some fine mesh off a filter from our old washing machine which I kept when we replaced it. It was just a case of cutting to shape with scissors and gluing with CA glue. I was quite pleased with the result and I glued it to the front of the fuselage. I also attached the rear undercarriage cover to the fuselage and plugged the holes of the undercarriage legs with plasticard. For the cover there was a large gap but that was easily filled with a shim of plasticard cut to size and sanded. I then added the forward undercarriage cover which also required a shim and I replaced the kit moulded forward engine exhausts with ones made from syringe needles. Next job was the wings. Looking at the wings they were covered in raised rivets and panel lines. I was just going to lightly rub down the rivets to reduce their size but then I changed my mind and decided to rub down the rivets. Using a pointed scriber I made small holes to replace the rivets. Because the scriber slightly pushes up the plastic around the holes I rubbed them down so they would be flush. The reason for this was because when I add a wash later on it will just show the rivets slightly and they would be more to scale. Anyway thats the plan. I also rescribed the panel lines on the wings. All this was done before I assembled the wings. As you can see from the photo there were a lot of rivets. With that done it was just a case of assembling the wing halves and gluing. After tidying the wings up I had cut a hole for a window in centre of the wing for the cabin roof. As before I made a template of the kit window using frog tape. I marked a centre line on the wing and the template and just lined them up. Then I lightly scribed around the template to mark the window on the wing and using my drill again I drilled small holes inside the scribed line. As before I used a knife to join the holes up and removed most of the unwanted plastic. Then using a file and sanding stick I tidied up the window getting ready for the acrylic glass.

This isn't the fastest build but I have managed to get around to a bit of painting. First the pilot. I made the seat belts for the pilot from rolled lead and glued them to each side of the moulded buckle on the pilot. I made the belts longer than required to enable me to glue the belts to the side of the pilots seat. Then I sprayed the pilot with Tamiya XF1 black. I use black because I find if my painting is a bit untidy and I leave a small space between say the flesh colour of the face and the helmet, the black can pass as say the liner of the helmet or shadow. It works on the cuffs as well, etc. I used Vallejo paints for the helmet, hands and face and Citadel for the flight suit. I prefer to use these two makes of paint for brush painting as they go down really well. As you can see from the photo I have painted the inside of the cabin as well. I used Interior Green by LifeColor as well as using Citadel and Vallejo for the detail. When I was happy I gave it a coat of Klear then I used one of Vallejo's washes and their airbrush cleaner to move the wash around. The Klear protects the paint below from the affects of the cleaner. I painted the yokes as well. I haven't glued them in place yet or the pilot because I want to attach the lower windows first but it never hurts to test fit one more time.

Thanks Phil. I have done a few more little jobs. One was to add two small plastic strips in the roof of the fuselage to line up the the fuselage halves and to give it a bit of extra strength. The strips had to be thin to allow room for the pilot's head so it didn't touch the roof. Next I did so work on the pilot. As he came from a F-86 kit he was designed to have his right hand on the control column and his left on the throttles but for this kit I wanted his left hand on the yoke and his right on the throttles. First job was to cut off the hands using a razor saw. The reason being that the left hand had the palm facing down but I needed the palm facing across the body as if gripping onto the yoke. As for the right hand, that had the palm facing across the body when I needed the palm facing down as if controlling the throttles. As well as this the right arm came across the body as if to grip the control column of the jet but I needed it in line with the right leg to line up with the throttles. To do this a bit of filling was required then a few shims of plastic strip were needed to help the arm stay in the right position and fill a few gaps. The left arm needed less work as it just required gluing in position to allow the left hand to line up for the yoke. That done I drilled a few holes in the arms and hands and fitted two wire pins to enable reattaching the hands in the required positions. Once the glue had cured on the arms I sanded them down and I also took off so unwanted detail on the pilot's chest. As you can see from the photo's I also attached copper wire the the pilot's head and drilled a hole in the torso as I wanted to have the pilot to be looking slightly to the left when fitted. I checked the position was right by sitting the pilot in his seat just to be on the safe side. I then just glued his hands back on in the correct positions using the yoke and throttles as reference. Left first. Then right. I also added a strip of plastic on the pilot's seat to get him a bit higher in the seat and in the right position. After this I glued the pilot's head on with him looking slightly left as I have mentioned before. Then I checked the pilot's position yet again by test fitting the fuselage halves together.

Stunning stuff!