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CheshireGap

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  1. CheshireGap
    Plenty of headway on this one two in parallel to the Spit 22 Camoflage colours are down, I do like desert schemes! The underside has been grubbied up with some pastel dust and some Flory line wash Topside gets some weathering as well, again Flory wash, Dark Dirt rather than Black which is too stark for my liking. Chipping here is with a silver pencil, in future I will be using the sponge technique which seems to work better, especially with Citadel Runefang Steel (formerly Mithral Silver) After a gloss coat, next up are the kit Hasegawa decals, which went down beautifully. And the underside - the wash brings out the flap detail nicely
  2. CheshireGap
    Progress report! Camoflage is laid down, lots of blu-tac, lots of masking tape Once its all off it looks pretty good! Tail band, leading edges, walkways sprayed on, the new Grafo T1 is great here allowing fast colour changes and minimal amounts of paint to be mixed Some chipping added, using the sponge technique for the first time - it works! A close up of the chipping; that lovely smooth matt finish was soon to be lost by my usual gloss varnish troubles - pebbling! A light panel line wash has been added here. Decals down and the finishing straight is ahead...should point out that the decals are the worst part of this kit, too thick, ragged carrier film and don't respond to Microsol/Microset as well as others do. I had to replace the fin flashes with some spares from the Hasegawa Hurricane which were an exact match for size & width - thank god for standardisation in the RAF!
  3. CheshireGap
    Could I sing the benefits of a continuous double-action airbrush for eager beginners? You get the benefit of a double-action with the control of the paint flow, without any of the timing issues - which if you get wrong and turn off the air before the paint inevitably results in splatter with the next pass. With a continuous double-action there is no pressing down of the button for air flow, instead the inital pull back of the trigger (or button) releases the air, pulling back further releases the paint. The difference between a single action is that whereas with a single action you fix the paint flow and vary the air flow with the trigger, with a continous double-action you fix the air (over the compressor) and vary the paint, allowing for more control. The cake brush that Paul recommended seems not too far away in principle, the difference being the air is on all the time and not operated by the trigger. It just means you get an airbrush that is simpler to learn than a double-action, but that you won't outgrow too quickly; the only problem may be budget, they are pretty well all over your £50 limit. There are several out there, including Neo for Iwata TRN1 gravity feed, I have the H&S Grafo T2 side feed and love it, having struggled with double-action brushes. Remember if you do go for a side feed, you need to run at slightly higher psi than a gravity feed - which may mean the cheapest compressors are out too . Whatever you get you should think of it as longer term investment and get something that can grow with you.
  4. CheshireGap
    We have progress; chunks have been carved, p/e fitted plus a few extra pipes and top and bottom cowls are on. You see how much has come off the bottom, similar amounts came off the cylinder covers on the top. The fit at the front is not too bad. The top cowl could have fitted better where it joins the main fuselage if I had spent a little longer trying to work out what was snagging it, but I got impatient...the top line is not quite right as a result but it hoprfully won't look too bad when broken up by camouflage And here is the same engine detail after a wash & dry brush Unfortunately, this particular Spit also took its first flight yesterday, damage limited to a split seam under the fuselage, easily enough fixed in the event.
  5. CheshireGap
    So my plan to fit the top and bottom cowls on the nose has hit a snag - there is no way the engine will fit either the top cowl provided by Aires nor the bottom one from the kit. I now find myself carving chunks off the engine and thinning the two parts to be able to stick to my plan. There is work ahead but it looks like a fit is possible, not helped by dropping the engine during a test fit and breaking off the rear supercharger and one of the engine bearers...I thought this hobby was supposed to be fun??
  6. CheshireGap
    I dream of reaching this standard, great job!
  7. CheshireGap
    W.O.W.
  8. CheshireGap
    As well as the Spitfire 22/24, I have this offering from Hasegawa on the go; you would thing it would be the better kit, but although detail levels are higher, fit is dodgy in places meaning a lot more filling, sanding and rescribing. I blame the modular breakdown of the parts, clearly designed to allow multiple versions using the same moulds. I wish everyone could follow the recent Eduard approach and provide whole new fuselages and wings for other versions. The gun inserts, tropical filter, and underside joins are all poor. The cockpit is really rather good from the box, as much as you need considering only a closed canopy is provided. Only seat belts are lacking. Fit of the main parts is not so great; here you can see that some work has had to be done around the main wing root, and the wing gun inserts. At this point I had not discovered 3M Red putty, so Perfect Plastic Putty has been used, goes on great but getting a nice smooth finish and blend takes work and more applications. I am not going to post a pic of the underside join, that way no one will ever know how messy it is except me. This one is nearly ready for priming, had the fit been better getting here would have been pretty quick, as it happens it has been a bit of a drag.
  9. CheshireGap
    I have two on the go in parallel at the moment, the trickier of which is without doubt this Airfix 1/48 Spit 22/24, not because of any problems with the kit, but because so much work is required to wedge the Aires cockpit & engine sets into it. The kit was released recently by Eduard with the cockpit set bundled, but this is the original boxing, which means the decals are so old I will probably have to replace them. Everything starts where it normally does, in the office. This is the resin panel with the PE fascia all painted and lovely, so far so good. Then we have the sides, with much thinning required. Final fit is OK, but could be better if I had spent more time on it, some misalignment did mean the floor ended up not completely level, and the rear bulkhead & seat didn't really have enough room. Cutting the front off to take the Aires engine set was a scary proposition, I have not really done much in the way of major surgery before, but with a fine razor saw and a lot of subsequent trimming and filing it wasn't too bad. Above you can see the firewall in position, had to take a deep breath before fixing the top only, and then squeezing the sides in to fix to the wings. Some filling was required as you can see, but not too much considering how much clamping and cajoling was required As you can see the main wing to fuselage fit is very good, kudos to Airfix here, no filler and no sanding means no loss of detail. Straight from the box this would be a fairly easy build. The only serious filling so far is on the underside join. I am going to sing the praises of 3M Red Glazing Putty here, massive tube for a tenner, sticks hard, sands beautiful with a very nice blend to the edge, and takes rescribing way better than anything I have used previously. It does start to dry quickly though, so you have to apply it in small quantities in some haste. Just a little more sanding and cleaning up and this one is ready for primer, meantime we have the fun with the engine and associated panels to look forward to.
  10. CheshireGap
    Thank you for all the kind comments, as usual I see the mistakes before the good bits! I was a bit frustrated after applying the gloss as to how dark the colours went, and how the subtlety of the pastels was lost. I hoped that the matt varnish would take things back a little to how they were, but not so - does anyone know a gloss/matt varnish combo that leaves doesn't shift the colours so much? I guess its all about surface reflectiveness, so the flatter the matt the better. This shot shows how it looked just prior to the Tamiya Clear:
  11. CheshireGap
    A few shots of my latest, the Hasegawa kit with a replacement CMK cockpit originally designed for the Monogram kit, and new exhausts, Apart from a strange reaction between the Humbrol acrylic Dark Green and Tamiya Clear resulting in a very rough texture that needed polishing out, the build was fairly straightforward. Weathering was kept minimal with pastels and silver pencil, as a colour photo of the original aircraft shows it was fairly clean. The panel lines were washed with Flory Dark Dirt as it is not as stark as the black.
  12. CheshireGap
    Vbs do look gorgeous in a well done desert scheme, and this is a well done desert scheme, top stuff
  13. CheshireGap
    Top stuff, sets a standard to aim at for all those of us with a big Tiffie in the stash but currently to scared to get stuck in!
  14. CheshireGap
    Excellent finish that really captures the effect of faded paint that you see so often in contemporary photos but is so very hard to reproduce - this is as good as anyone could hope to get.
  15. CheshireGap
    Excellent finishing, you would almost think it was a scale or two larger.
  16. CheshireGap
    Thanks Rich, you have done a great job of being supportive to all the group builders and keeping us going, it is appreciated. I am quite pleased with the final result, though I do tend to see the flaws first as I know where they all are, I am sure I am not the only who looks at their own work with a more critical eye than the work of others. After the rather pebbly gloss coat it was a relief that things smoothed off with the matt varnish, otherwise I might have been inclined not to include a close-up in the gallery.
  17. CheshireGap
    A couple of extra views, first those landing lights, hopefully this one shows them up a bit better, plus another top view which also shows those kitchen foil reflector panels (I believe the pilot used them to see if the nosewheel had retracted) - they nearly worked as I had hoped, as it is they got a bit damaged going in as the superglue had got round the edges and spoiled the previously perfect fit of the parts. Next time I shall just use PVA
  18. CheshireGap
    P-38L "Geronimo II" (formerly "Shady's Lady") Hobbyboss 1/48th P-38L-5-LO Lightning Aires P-38L Resin Cockpit set
  19. CheshireGap
    OK a few final build pictures to post before the finished () items go in the gallery (was up late on this one!) The kill markings were, as predicted, a bit of a mare but finally went on, Hobbyboss next time print as one item please...a wash with diluted artist's gouache with some flow enhancer added followed in stages, wiped off with dampened kitchen towel and cotton buds...lots of cotton buds. The blade aerial is spare from the Academy kit since Hobbyboss don't provide one, god knows why not its very prominent on the real aircraft; wheels are superglued on, did I really forget to clean up that seam? And finally those landing lights; a disc of plastic card was cut out with 2mm Tamiya punch and clear tape used for the glass cover - this is quite tricky, lay on the tape, use a new blade to very carefully cut round the panel line and lift off...then ensure you don't stick your thumb over it later in the day...fortunately managed to repeat the operation to repair Invisible thread for the aerial wires, I cut down one side window as if lowered for pilot entry to allow a better view of the cockpit and ta-daaaaaaaaaaaaa! DONE! One for the gallery And after all that the bitch is a tail-sitter! you may notice some blu-tac in the gallery pictures...
  20. CheshireGap
    Progress creeps on...first round of weathering is completed including spraying some exhaust stains: I had an idea regarding the shiny plates on the inner cowlings: Hobbyboss supply them as clear parts which is wrong they are just supposed to be polished metal, so I superglued them to kitchen foil and cut them out, it looks OK so far, we'll see what they look like on later. Meanwhile a layer of gloss (which predictably I nearly screwed up) and it's decal time Hobbyboss have done a mixed job here: the decals are nice and thin, but tough and respond very well to Microset & Microsol, but then have a tendency to fold up on themselves, and once on stick pretty firmly so you have to get the positioning right almost first time every time. The 'No Step' decals for the cockpit side frames are almost cartoonish, too big with a funny rounded font, given the frames as supplied are too thin there is no way these are going to fit, I am going to have to think of an alternative here. In addition 5 kill markings (references suggest there should be only 4) are supplied in 4 parts each, which seems crazy, could they really not have been printed as one? 16 tiny decals are never going to line up properly, it's a nightmare!
  21. CheshireGap
    Well the obvious was staring me in the face and I honestly don't know why I didn't think of it or notice it before...one of the two schemes that come with the kit is an olive drab over neutral grey -L - Geronimo II! No adjustments to the scheme required, shame about the tenner spent on the Kagero sheet but hey-ho.
  22. CheshireGap
    Mike I can confirm that it is straight from the bottle over a gloss black primer, but I can also confirm that there was a stack of laundry drying in the room so I think Knikki has nailed it there and we can chalk this one down to humidity.Time to start using that heated airer...
  23. CheshireGap
    Just been on to Wings Palette, its new to me, but what a great site! There are a couple of very pain schemes on there which would involve very little in the way of modification or repainting, so I may just take a look at the decal stash and see what I have in the way of appropriate markings when I get home. Thanks for the pointer!
  24. CheshireGap
    Spirit of '76 is an -E and should have the shallow radiators, as per your F-4, so this is more than a bit what-if, being honest, its a good old-fashioned kludge. With the masking off she looks OK, as good as can be hoped for given the preceding mess. Scraping down to the Alclad layer provides some simple chipping effects, the hairspray doesn't really seem to be doing much for me, all the scrubbing in the world didn't dent the paint finish, guess it's almost too good . Tamiya weathering powders then gets some dirt and fading into the finish, key panel lines are highlighted with pencil, I still can't get the hang of washes too well, always seem to end up staining the finish, or lifting it, whereas the powders can be a subtle, or not, as you like Next up a yellow tip to the nose, plus some extensive staining behind the superchargers. Must say if I can do this much in 48 hours how come I took two months to get to here..?
  25. CheshireGap
    Not too much Rich, but I guess there is one shortcoming - Spirit of '76 is not an -L so I wandering into what if territory rather than just chucking it all in the bin; I am going to continue to post and try to hit the deadline, but I will exclude myself from the vote as I am in breach of the rules. So yesterday and today have been busy, after the disasters of the morning, lunch was spent with some ultimate airbrush cleaner, a toothbrush and a brillo pad... I actually quite like the look...Spirit of '76 is quite worn, so I rushed out to get a can of hairspray - this is a new technique for me so this could be fun - then on to a coat of neutral grey and this time a different tactic, very thin paint layered on gradually, it took flipping ages but seems to work. On with the masking: Then out with the Xtracrylix Faded Olive Drab, same approach thin paint layered on slowly, the better part of 45 minutes work before it is eventually opaque enough all over, but it is smooth Masking is off and you know what it looks ok...
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