BikingLampy

I'm a fraction ahead of you on an identical kit - but fannying around with some Eduard etch for the interior. Errm, about that rash assumption... Having already been through Brandy's WIP (excellent source of info!), I'd spotted the forward window issues and tried fitting them. They're WAAAAY too thick for the recesses in the fuselage. A combination of chamfering the edges and sanding them back once glued in has got them sorted, but I've not tried fitting the rear ones yet which still need to be clear once I've finished butchering them... I'm definitely planning to have them sorted before joining the fuselage halves, put it that way.

Thank y'all for the kind comments! The overspray in the turrets is much more noticeable in the plastic - its the matt varnish wot did it. I'd been playing with the turrets to check how they fitted so had taken the blutac bungs out of the bottom of them and then just gave them a squirt over when I was flat coating the rest of the oddments without thinking too hard... Conversely they look more obviously Brahms and Lizst in the pics than they do physically... The caveat to my "goes together nicely" comment is that like seemingly any new Airfix kit - be pretty anal about mould lines and paint on mating surfaces - its pretty easy to end up stacking up layers of paint which can chuck the fit out much further down the line if you're not careful.

This mostly went together very nicely – the exception being the bomb bay doors which are a rotten fit if you leave them closed and have no method of location at all if you want them open – hence a slightly bodgy 1/2 and 1/2 approach. Still haven’t got dipping transparencies sorted, not helped by getting overspray inside the turrets. <<sigh>>. Still – it looks OK from a normal distance. Eduard zoom in the cockpit, Vallejo and Tamiya paints, Alclad varnishes Hope you enjoy!

Cool - good info - thanks all. I'd guessed it was for varying the airflow through the rad, but the bit that concerned me was that if it was fully closed (and unvented), then there would be no airflow, so no cooling, but I guess as @Admiral Puff says - you'd want no airflow on startup to get the engines up to temp PDQ. The pics are great - I'd seen the top one before, but I'm not so sure about the rest. Re the top pic - the far plane WL-J appears to have its tailwheel up on a block. Any idea why? Thanks...

I'm partway through the Airfix 1/72 Whitley GR MkVII - Got as far as painting and assembling the engine nacelles. Each one has a flap underneath that can be posed open or closed (part C05 x2) The part has 4 long rectangular recesses in that could be simply pressings in the original aluminium; or alternatively they could be meshed over vents. If I was doing a scheme with a black underside it would be easy to bluff this, but as I'm doing the Coastal Command option with a white underside, if the recesses are meshed vents, then they'd show up as "dark" against the white paint. As the flap is directly behind the radiator, it would make sense that they could pass air open or closed - much like a Spitfire rad has an adjustable flap on the back to help avoid overheating on the ground, but then can be closed once airborne. I've had a google around but not come up with anything useful - so any ideas...? Thanks, BL.

Uschi Line. It’s a variation on the EZ Line theme. Massively stretchy, that’s for sure. A Battle of Taranto participant - it’s one of the OOB schemes

In my earlier modelling career, I hated biplanes with a vengeance. Horrible trying to get the wings on and lined up without everything turning into a horrible gluey mess, fragile when finished, impossible to paint. The idea of rigging one never even occurred to me. The one exception I recall was an Airfix (I think) Swordfish in white plastic. It was still a sticky mess, but it was actually robust enough to last the course. So as part of the learning challenge of getting back into this game - having got most of the basics to a passable standard - can I get a biplane together and rig it...? At that point memory pointed me in the direction of a Stringbag and here we are... The basic kit, in comparison to my previous Blenheim, just fell together. I was expecting the internal framework to be a proper wrestle, but it all just worked. The one fly in the ointment was that the 2 fuselage halves were covered in moulding flaws - like someone had taken a dremel to the tooling. Easy enough to scrape off I guess... The rigging element was a lot of thinking and planning first. I ended up painting all the wing halves individually, assembled the lower wing upper surfaces and the upper wing lower surfaces onto the fuselage, getting all the wiring done (Uschi line - impressive stuff) through predrilled holes, then sticking the outer surfaces on to hide the grot. Somewhat stressful, and I can't say I'm desperate to do it again, but I know the theory works now! Anyway - the pics...

Just started the same kit. I'll be pretty happy if it comes out like yours!

With faffing… I assembled the 3 pieces of cowling into a ring (painful - there was ), so it would push onto the backplate/cooling flap part, then mounted that onto the wing, dry, using the intake spider thingy. Paint, then disassemble, add the exhausts, the engine itself and the collector ring. Remount back on the wing. Basically saved me having to try and mask the exhausts and the collector.

Well, blimey - I didn't expect such overwhelming positivity - I thought I'd been a bit slipshod myself! The joy of natural light, a decent camera and Lightroom trickery... Thank you all! ...also forgot I'd got a couple of cockpit shots... The bombload is as supplied in the kit. Again - one of the annoyingly sloppy addenda in comparison to the exceptionally tightly toleranced main kit. Trying to get the bombs square to the mounts AND each other was far more challenging than it should have been, and they're still a little more on the p*ss than I'd like...

Another one done. Airfix Blenheim MkIV F. Kind of an irritating kit - the main bulk of it moulded to extremely tight tolerances, so getting it to fit was hard work (horiz. stabs. excepted!), but ultimately successful, but a lot of the silly little ancillaries like aerials are just "glue on where you feel like" - no pins or sockets, even when trying to fit a flat edge to a curved surface. I was a bit sloppy on the masking too in places, but it doesn't look too shabby. Eduard zoom in the cockpit, Quikboost exhausts and intakes to replace the awful kit ones. Meant to have a go at replacing the wingtip lights with clear, but forgot until I was well into painting - doh!

Its not desperately relevant, given how nice your scratch built ones are, but there is one on the Eduard PE fret that (I think) you've used for the seatbelts and instrument panels. More than fiddly enough for me!

An update on this - I seemed to be getting on OK once I'd ditched the W&N flow improver. I finished off that model and am now part way through the next one, except I've hit the same problem again. The tip dry/clogging issue seems to vary by colour - most aren't too bad and are workable, but the blacks and especially white are awful. Even heavily diluted, I maybe get 2 seconds of spraying before the stream starts to go splattery, the output tails of and the nozzle clogs. Highly frustrating. I'm having zero issues with Alclad primers/varnish or with Vallejo Metal colour Thorough cleaning between paint colours, I have the little reamer thingy, and I don't use the nozzle cap so I can pinch off the external build up easily, but I can see that as I paint, everytime I release the trigger, the needle pokes through the nozzle less and less This is what I think I should be aiming for, but at 15psi (by my gauge which I don't trust the accuracy of) I get poor atomisation. 15 minutes and I'd need a chisel to get the paint out the cup! If its not gone in 30secs I've mixed too much and its drying as I watch! I've just ordered some of the Vallejo Flow Improver. God knows when it'll get here at the mo, but I'll see what happens then.

You've obviously been brought up in a more genteel environment to me. The phrase is generally adaptable to your location of choice - when I was a student in Cambridge, it was "like throwing a chipolata down King's Parade"; as a current Sheffield resident, I probably should compare to Winnats Pass. Either which way, you get the idea - encased pork (by)product introduced to your large empty space of choice with some force. Anyway - back to the plastic...

I'm a fraction further ahead on the same kit (and a lot of the same AM!), and all your issues sound familiar. The turret transparency is similarly trashed. I'm just going to use the retracted version. Fettling the wings to fuselage took a while, but has come out reasonably well for me. Make sure you can get a decent match to the cockpit side sections too, before committing to glue! I have a feeling Airfix's tolerancing has been a bit too precise and the cumulative errors created by paint, mould lines and the odd bit of warpage conspire to leave stuff not fitting. I had to clamp quite heavily to get the 2 wing spars to sit nicely against the central wing sections, and if they're out, it pushes everything else out. Ailerons do fit, but its bloody tight - check for mould lines on the centre hinge bit on the wing, and on the ends of the aileron itself. Bomb bay door fitment is mince. I've fettled mine to flush with the rest of the fuselage now, but there's some chunky gaps like you have. I'm going with flaps down, so no problem for me, there Horizontal stabilizers? Yup. Like chucking sausages down Oxford Street. Sorting them is the next job.

Its been a wee while since I got my act together to process pics and post them, but currently sat with my thumb stuck somewhere unmentionable courtesy of CV19, so here's a quick catch up. Hot off the bench - Airfix Welligton Mk.1A. OOB + an Eduard Zoom PE set. Full interior too! Aldi special Airfix Curtiss Tomahawk IIB. OOB Tamiya Mosquito FB MkVI. Aftermarket seats, added some extra detailing to the cockpit, most of which now can't be seen... Made some mistakes, learnt some stuff, hopefully will carry the lessons forward to the next one and make new, different, exciting ballsups.

Looks like we may have a winner.... Just tried again, diluted 1:1 and while it wasn't perfect, much improved. Also mixing smaller batches (5 drops each at a time) to stop it going off in the cup. Even managed to do a bit of a postshade to try and restore some of the preshade obliterated by the random spurting earlier, diluted 4:1. That's a first (although dark grey on black is not too likely to go wrong! Only problem now is that I'm very low on thinner, and not sure when the order I put in over the weekend will arrive!

Getting driven absolutely ****ing mental here. I'm getting massive amounts of tip dry/clogging trying to spray pretty diluted paint (nato black at the moment) and I'm busy turning what was promising to be quite a nice Wellington into a disaster zone. I'm using 4 drops of W&N flow improver, 5 drops Vallejo thinner to 15 drops of paint. (mixed in the cup by back flowing then a quick stir with a cocktail stick) I get maybe 2 or 3 secs of normal (ish) spraying before the output tails off to nothing. Or it might suddenly spurt an enormous amount. Working the needle back and forth at full blast brings dried up gunge out, then maybe another second or 2 of normal spray. I absolutely can't paint in a predictable manner. Spending more time and paint squirting into thin air to try and unclog it than pointing at the model The brush is an H&S Evolution - I've tried 0.2 and 0.5mm tips - I just get bigger, messier splats with the bigger needle Running the compressor at 20psi as its the lowest pressure I can actually get paint to come out at, and it gives me some headroom for blasting the clogging out. I'm washing loads of water though between cupfuls, and scraping out the nozzle, but still only get a couple of seconds spraying. What am I doing wrong? I've had reasonable (although never astounding, possibly down to my abilities) results with VMA in the past, and I've now got quite a range of their paints as they're cheapish and easyish for me to get hold of, but it doesn't half bug the **** out of me that a paint (and I quote from the website) "especially formulated for airbrushing" can be such a pain to use in the tool it was supposedly designed for. Surely the first thing you'd engineer out is tip drying???? Advice gratefully received! Thanks, BL

As it happens, its the Mk1A/C, but same colour call out in the kit.

Cool, thanks.

Hi, I'm a good chunk of the way through building a 72nd Airfix Wellington. On the underside of the wings, a good chunk outboard of the engines there's some slightly random looking plumbing (parts D22 & 23). Just wondering what they're for? They're not directly exhaust related. Maybe warm air vented from the engine bay for de-icing? Fuel dump pipes? Either way they look like a last minute "oh sh*t we forgot....." addition/bodge, as they must be quite draggy and they have to articulate as they cross the flaps too, Wondering how to paint them too. The instructions colour call out is gunmetal, same as they exhaust, but if they don't get proper hot, that would seem weird, and they would also surely be painted black to blend in to the wing? Ideas? Thanks! BL

Coming to the close of an Aldi special Airfix Tomahawk IIb kit in 1/72, and I'm a little confused about aerials. I'm doing the OOB version - F GA from 112 Squadron in Libya (PO Neville Duke). Being a starter kit, Airfix give no aerial details. Pictures of the real thing I've found are indistinct (post crash!) and the assorted model builds I've looked at seem to do a variety of things, most of which ignore the existing radio mast (or delete it) and just have the wires going from the tail to the wingtips. An aftermarket decal set (AML) suggests a wire from the mast to the tail as well. Googling "Curtiss Tomahawk aerials" brings up an old BM thread which suggests the radios weren't fitted, but I think that was only for Far East Flying Tiger 'craft, ...which kinda begs the question - why is it so different to an equivalent era UK based plane (eg Spitfire) . Weren't the radios standardised across the RAF? ..and then modelling technique.. I've tried stretching sprue before, which I've had average to poor results with. I've been nicking the moultings from my (long haired) girlfriend to make hairials, but they go saggy with ambient temp. changes, so I'm set to buy some Uschi line. However I'm concerned about attaching it neatly and effectively to a nearly finished model - especially onto the blank area near the wingtips, where I'm not going to want a big old dab of glue showing, and I'll also need to hold it, under tension, steady enough for long enough to set. Ideas would be gratefully appreciated. I'm currently out of superglue, so any favoured brands best for the job would be taken onboard too - I've just been buying the 3 packs of Loctite from Sainsburys up to now, and have had mixed attempts at doing anything delicate with it - either I apply it direct from the tube and risk it flooding everywhere, or I'm faffing around with needles or cocktail sticks and by the time I get the glue near the model it's dry... Thank y'all! BL

Apologies that this isn't an "actual" WIP, but its for an aircraft kit and its in progress, so... (and there seems to be much more traffic here than in the assorted Tips & Tricks fora) I'm at the stage of needing to mask up the canopy for my 1/72 Airfix Tomahawk. Thought I'd try this dipping in Pledge thing (again - having had a dribble disaster with my last attempt). I've seen (on assorted YouTube vids) it suggested that dunking the part in Windex (active part is Acetone) or neat Acetone to clean it first is a good thing, so i dug the nairvarnish remover out (mostly Acetone) and dunked away. To my horror the part instantly frosted - absolutely opaque) Having dried it out, I've tried polishing off the frosted surface, but it doesn't seem to be shifting at all. Any other way I can rescue it? Many thanks, BL

OK, now you've pointed out that canopy issue, its a bit of a game changer. Now I know about it, it just won't cut the mustard for me to build an early XIX that's quite so obviously wrong, so I need to change my plans and go with a late version that fits the kit better. I may well indulge in the spinner/prop though, as even to my untutored eye the kit one looks wrong. ...well - instructive as ever - thanks one and all..!

Just starting into an Airfix 1/72 PR XIX. I'd like to use the Xtradecal set to build RM643, as the invasion stripes add a bit of interest. ...but I have a few questions... (most of which have no doubt been answered before, for which my apologies!) Landing gear - it appears I need 4 slot wheels - of which there are a set in the kit. Are these the correct size? (they're much smaller than the 3 spoke ones) Most of the pics that come up googling are of a 1/48 kit on the Vexillum Militaris site* - this shows the landing gear and the inside faces of the gear covers as silver, but no clear underside shot of the wheelwells - should they be silver/unpainted, interior green or PRU blue? I need fishtail exhausts. Anyone know if the Quikboost ones for a FuJimi mkXIV will fit (QB72265) or can you recommend a better alternative? Cockpit - This appears to be pre-pressurization, so I know I need to reinstate the access hatch on the port side. What do I need to do to the bulkhead. Its a plain flat piece of plastic at the mo - presumably it needs some holes in it...? Some normal wall mounted oxygen tanks are needed for the pilot too, I guess (ala earlier Spits)? I don't want to go mad on the cockpit - going to use the kit, closed, canopy - so not too much to be seen, but getting the basics right would be nice. Thanks! BL *edit - who I've just realised also posts on here!