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Andy G

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Posts posted by Andy G

  1. Hello and welcome to the EBMA Hobby & Craft sub forum.

    So, who are EBMA?  We setup in 2017 to produce a range of storage units to help organise your workbench.  The range is designed and produced in the UK, mostly being laser cut from MDF.  The variety of storage has and continues to increase and we've added a number of tools and jigs to aid model making.

     

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    We've attended a number of shows over the last couple of years and will continue to do so.  The range is also available through our website

    We're a small company that prides itself in listening to what you the customer wants and we try and implement suggestions into the designs, so we'd love to hear from you.  

     

    Over the next few months we will be introducing storage for the following paints and pigments etc,

    • Revell paints
    • Zero paints - separate drawers for 30ml and 60ml bottles along with a drawer that will take a mix
    • 35ml+ bottles. i.e. those commonly used for storing pigments
    • Mig Productions/Abteilung pigment bottles - the strange 'D' shaped bottles of pigments (not the big ones)
    • Railmatch / New Humbrol acrylic

     

    Additionally we hope to introduce a new wing jig that we are currently developing (see separate topic).

  2. Dennis, WIP, Seahawk,

    Thanks for your responses.  I'm going to get hold of some of those Alley Cat exhausts.

    I'm using MRP paints and their OD comes in two forms pre and post 1943.  I'm using post 1943 for the main body, perhaps I'll get a bottle of the earlier version for the control surfaces.

    As for the nose a paint patch is probably more likely than the neutral grey wrapping further up than usual.  Now I've got guess at the colour of the patch.  I'd guess that it would be a green, either some form of OD or RAF Dark Green.

     

    Cheers

    Andy

  3. Hello,

    I'm currently building a representation of the original Kwicherbichen in July 1944.  There are plenty of photos of the current Kwicherbichen but the only contemporary photo I can find is this one

    https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205211346

    The border between neutral grey and olive drab varies from plane to plane, but Kwicherbichen's nose appears to be unique.  Is that lighter colour the neutral grey wrapping up higher than elsewhere or is it a patch of a different colour?  The rudder appears to be a different colour but is this due to a change of angle.  The rudders of these Dakotas also appear a different colour - 

    https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205211773

     

    The Airfix kit doesn't cater for the porcupine section of the exhaust on Kwicherbichen.  Does anybody know of a suitable source?

     

    Cheers

    Andy

  4. Hi Martian,

    I’ve used MRP paint a few times and really like them.  I used them straight from the bottle and with a low pressure, 10-15psi.  I also used Mr.Hobby thinners for initial cleaning the airbrush out.  They’re lacquer based so use in a well ventilated space.  Also there have been odd reports of bottles breaking when people have shaken them so probably best to not be too vigorous with them.

    Anyway, give them a try and you’ll probably enjoy them.  I’ll be using a few bottles later to hopefully touch up the black basing underside on the Wellington which is very, very slowly crawling towards transfer time.

     

    Andy

    • Like 1
  5. Some of mine are nostalgia, certainly this one is and it may not have got this far if it wasn't, it's really not worth the effort with more recent kits available.  It does depend upon your motive though, if you enjoy and are prepared to put the effort in then you probably get more bang for your buck with the older kits than with the latest hi-fidelity easy fit super kit.  For example this cost me about £7 I think whereas the new Airfix was about £28 and the older one includes a crew, albeit some of them look like they may be relatives of Martian.

    I'm just waiting for the re-issue of the 88mm and half-track.

    I do wonder how many kits I must have built as a kid, I keep seeing people building older ones and thinking, "I had one of those, I'd forgotten all about it."  I'd love to know what happened to them as well, I know one spitfire got flown into the wall - can't remember why, but have no recollection of binning any others.

     

    Very slow progress on the Wellington - the engine cowls have had the exhaust rings masked off (previously painted) and the tape sealed with klear ready for painting.

    On 11/6/2018 at 12:20 AM, Martian Hale said:

    The Albatross is a Blitzbau by my standards! Glad you like it though. There should be some news about it post Telford.

     

    Martian 👽

    I'll look forward to it.

     

    Andy

  6. On 11/4/2018 at 7:52 PM, Martian Hale said:

    This is looking good! I have a few of these early Airfix Wellingtons and may well do something similar for a quick stress busting build.

     

    Martian 👽

    Thanks Martian.  "quick stress busting build", think I've been building this about as long as you've been at that Albatross, which looks very nice by the way.

    On 11/4/2018 at 8:01 PM, Jinxman said:

    That looks great considering what it started as - crying out for some decals!

    Soon, soon but it will probably be a couple of weeks or so as I need to get some different blacks from the LHS to do the black!  

    10 hours ago, Buzby061 said:

    Very impressive. 

     

    I think you can apply Turd Polisher to your CV

     

    Pete

    If only I could manage it at work!

    9 hours ago, J Sherratt said:

    Hi Andy. It looks as though your Wellington is coming on well. Nice work. I remember I built one of these back in my school days, but it hasn't survivied house moves and must have gone to the great bin in the sky at some point though a few other models did make it. Cheers, John

    Thanks John.  I've built two in the past, but have no idea where they went, nor any of the other models from my youth/childhood.

     

    Only a small amount done tonight but the brown has been extended downwards in the couple of places that were a bit short and a few other places touched up.

     

    Andy

    • Like 1
  7. Well it's been far too long since I updated this thread.  My apologies but life caught up and it became difficult to get much modelling done never mind photograph it.  The Wimpey has plodded on, only taking a backseat whilst I got a Mosquito and Do17 across the line and also did some test weathering on a paint mule - more practice required!

     

    Much of the work has unsurprisingly been fill, prime, sand, repeat,  It's now reasonable and the time has come to put the top coats on.  I'm having a go at black basing.  I had a test of pre-shading but wasn't convinced by it, plus there's not exactly a lot of panels on the Wellington.  Yesterday I marked out the camo outlines and applied the dark earth.  Then before going out (Bohemmian Rhapsody is well recommended) I put the Mr.Hyde putty on - and applied some more black primer to cover the brown overspray.

    30778190297_31cf14b37f_b.jpg

    This morning I went for the dark green and the great unveiling

    45667918852_285b116928_b.jpg

    I knew the putty would move overtime but didn't expect it to be overnight - rats!  I've spent the rest of the day trying to rectify the black.  Here she is with two coats of Klear 

    30778185367_75788dd93a_b.jpg

    45667909392_2b382c4484_b.jpg

    30778179097_dd83d51d53_b.jpg

    It's been a lot more work than I was expecting.  I think I'm happy with the black basing, but I'm probably going back to white tak worms rather than use the putty again.  I'm too slow at masking to be able to rely on getting the masking and painting both done in a single evening.  

    There's a bit of touching up to do on the sides of fuselage where I've not brought the colour down far enough and I need to apply the colour to the engines as well.  I've gone back to using the kit engines rather than the Lancaster's mainly due to not being able to work out what to do with the exhausts.  The Lancaster's were clearly different to the Wellington's but photos of a Mk.III's exhausts are hard to come by due to them being 'twixt engine and fuselage.

     

    I'll try and not take so long before putting up another update.

     

    Andy

    • Like 3
  8. Firstly apologies for the radio silence over the last couple of weeks, I had a show to get ready for last weekend and this week I've had a very pleasant upturn in business which turned what was planned as a relaxing week into a busy one - can't complain though.

    There has been some steady progress this week.  Firstly the crew are all painted.  Basically followed Stew Dapple's process but haven't reached his standard yet 

    2018-03-18-11-36-27-002

    The bomb aimer's window has had some dissolved putty applied to blend the rear corners into the body.

    2018-03-18-11-42-52-004

    The wings and the tail are on

    2018-03-18-11-46-43-006

    Putty has been applied to the engine nacelles and to the wing fuselage joints.

    2018-03-18-11-45-26-0052018-03-18-11-52-03-008

    The wing joints were quite wide even after inserting strips of microstrip into the top of the joint in an effort to fill some of it up.  I think I've found a better way of using the Mr.Dissolved Putty.  Previously I had been leaving it to go off for a bit before cleaning it up with a cotton bud and IPA (more wasted drink!).  For the wings it was cleaned up almost as soon as it was applied and this seems a much cleaner way of working with it.

    Trying to line anything up on this plane is very tricky as everything is wonky

    2018-03-18-11-53-00-009

    I don't think it's a problem with wear as the two halves of the fuselage met reasonably well apart from the very front but if I get the top and bottom seams lined up vertically the bottom of the fuselage is far from flat.  Hoh hum, not a lot I can do about it, nor want to with the new mould on its way.

    Further work this morning, not yet photo'd has seen the canopy and turrets kleared, the stabilisers fitted along with the pilots.

    I've tried to clean up the sprue damage on the cockpit but it hasn't been particularly successful which is annoying with it being smack in the front middle.  The pilots each had booster cushions of 30 thou plasticard fitted and painted before being inserted into their office.  The cockpit was then pva'd into place and is currently drying.  

    The stabilisers were unsurprisingly odd.  The starboard stab took 30 thou of plasticard glued under the tab before it touched the sides of the slot in the fuselage.  The stabiliser was glued into place before attention turned to the port side which fitted well right from the start.  Whilst the port side seemed to fit well it was subsequently found that whilst the starboard side elevator joint was roughly at 90 degrees to the fuselage the port side pointed backwards quite noticeably if viewed from above.  Straightening the joint out produced a gap of about 4-5mm at the rear edge.  I took the pragmatic view that I didn't really know what the underlying cause of the issue was and it wasn't that apparent unless looking directly down on the tail plane.  It was therefore glued up sharpish.

    Next up will be blending the stabilisers and cockpit glass into the fuselage and then masking for an investigatory coat of primer, I can't see me getting away without some remedial work after the primer.

    • Like 10
  9. Chopping the aerials off like that - you learn something new everyday, thanks.  Mind if I tag along.  I’ve got one of these in the stash having watched ‘Southern Comfort’ being thrown around the sky like a fighter at Caernarfon Airport a few years back.

    • Like 1
  10. A mammoth session last night and today has seen quite a bit of progress though  it seemed quite slow at the time.  Firstly things got quite ugly last night with a gradual build up of Mr.Surfacer to give something to file at in front of the bomb aimer's window.

    2018-03-03-11-29-07-0122018-03-03-11-30-24-0152018-03-03-11-30-53-016

    The window had been masked off and PPP applied and cleaned up around the other three sides.  The PPP will need more work as it is quite rough and is tending to dissolve as I try and clean the window up tonight, a job for Mr.Dissolved Putty I think.

    Whilst the different applications of Mr.Surfacer were drying I took to rubbing back the geodesic representation on the main wings and stabilisers.  Once this had been done I then scribed the panel lines - leading edge panel on wings and stabilisers and wing tips, trailing edge and flaps on the main wings.

     

    This morning I set to with the files

    2018-03-03-21-26-09-0192018-03-03-21-26-34-020

    Quite pleased with how that is going.  I don't think it will ever be perfect because everything is so misshapen, but it's certainly an improvement on the starting point.  The extra splodge of Mr.Surfacer has been applied after the turret was tried to see what work was required to get the very front looking better.  It took quite a lot of work to get the turret to fit and actually split the fuselage in that little sticky out bit at the top.  The parts that Airfix intended to trap the turret by were sawn off, then the base was filed and then some more and then more etc. etc.  Then the top of the fuselage and then the bottom until eventually something like this was obtained

    2018-03-03-21-28-16-021

    I thought it was nearly done, but clearly the camera thinks otherwise.  A bit of filing to the starboard fuselage to level things out and also sort out that extra bit of Mr.Surfacer.

    Tail end has been dealt with as well, though not quite as extensively

    2018-03-03-21-28-44-022

    The main wings have had plenty of work done on them.  The ailerons have had all of their work completed and have been glued in place.  Realising that it would then be time for the engine nacelles I had to to make a decision about the surface detail as rescribing the leading edge panel was going to be easiest without the nacelles in place.  I decided to stick to plan A and partially (I hope) sanded back the detail and then scribed the panels.  The nacelles have then been glued on and the port side has had Mr Dissolved Putty applied and 'cleaned' up.  A bit of work was done on the locating pins between the two halves of each nacelle and the resulting joins are not too bad.

     

    2018-03-03-21-33-21-0252018-03-03-21-34-32-026

    So everything was going swimmingly.  Let's see what the engines look like

    38790414510_25b95f6fb7_z.jpg

    Oh!

    25729942997_725223ce61_z.jpg

    Hmmm, probably best described as 'vague' and definitely 'orrid!

    Time to go completely away from the original plan.  I have in the stash two Lancaster BIIs that are destined to become a Manchester and a Lincoln at some point (it's Woody's fault!).

    2018-03-03-21-44-50-036

    More importantly, they won't be needing this

    2018-03-03-21-43-57-035

    Airfix have even nicely moulded the propeller hubs even though the Lanc has them buried in spinners.

    Cruel comparisons

    40558068172_694a77d929_b.jpg2018-03-03-21-39-17-031 by Andy Goodman, on Flickr

    2018-03-03-21-39-55-0322018-03-03-21-39-17-031

    To be fair there's about fifty years between the moulds and the Lancaster cylinders could still be better - no, I'm not going there!

    The exhausts will clearly need to be addressed as they are different between the two planes.

    If I've got this wrong somebody please let me know, though it will be a while before the engines get fixed on.

     

    Fixing the wings on won't be far off but lining them up is going to be tricky as the fuselage is misshapen and wonky, trying to work out what to take as vertical is going to be a challenge.  If there are no head on photos at the end you know it didn't go well.

     

    So plenty of fun has been had with filler and files and there's plenty of cleaning up to be done before the primer is broken out.

    • Like 9
  11. Hi Martin,

    I'm not sure how much of the surface detail is going to be left.  The original plan was to just rub it back a bit to tone it down, but it's gradually disappearing in places.  I may wait until the first coat of primer is on to make a decision.  Looking at photos of the real thing the fuselage ribs are noticeable but the wings not so much so I may rub the wings back and just scribe some of the panels - leading edge, wing tips, flaps.

    If it wasn't for the nostalgia trip with the upcoming new edition this may well have been side tracked almost straight away - but I'm not being beaten now.

    The pilots are definitely the peer over the dashboard variety.  Hindsight shows that I should have put the office on top of its locating block rather than in it and also moved the seats forward, I think they are too far back in reality.  What I'll probably end up doing is packing their backsides with hunks of plasticard - sounds painful!

    Glad you are enjoying it, I'm certainly enjoying the challenge even if the end result is not going to be 100% accurate.

    Andy

  12. A bit more progress in the sanding, filling, bodging into shape process over the last couple of days.

    The sink mark in front of the office looks to have been dealt with

    2018-03-01-21-50-45-0012018-03-01-22-31-37-002

    I'm reserving judgement on the office floor sink mark until I've got a coat of primer on it.

    The bomb aimer's glass has been Futured and glued into place as best I can, this is going to take some work with various fillers.

    2018-03-01-22-31-42-003

    I've also done most of the work needed on the port aileron - removed the pips from either end and extended it with plasticard that has then been filed back to shape.  The wing itself has had strips of microstrip glued to the edge and then filed and sanded smooth, all with the aim of lessening the gap.

    2018-03-01-22-31-45-0042018-03-01-22-31-52-005

    The port wing is the lower.  The aileron isn't fixed yet and appears to have moved - the left hand end doesn't actually have a gap!

    The aileron may yet be sanded down as it is proud of the wing.

    The horizontal stabilisers have been dealt with along with the elevators - ejector marks are thankfully on the lower side.

    2018-03-01-22-32-01-006

    The port stabiliser is a force fit into the fuselage but the starboard has a good millimetre of slop.  It looks as though the front of each elevator are going to need a bit of dressing.

    Finally, the stuff of nightmares

    2018-03-01-22-32-08-007

     

    The bomb aimer's window and the front of the fuselage are going to take a fair amount of work to rectify / blend in - I may be sometime ....

    • Like 6
  13. Pete, I definitely prefer IPA over White Lightning, though the closest I've got to the latter was being in the bottling plant but not a drop passed my lips, unlike the former.  My recollections are also completely devoid of these horrors.  Memory may be using rose tinted spectacles but I'm pretty sure Dad didn't have to drill out the turret gun slots and I know I certainly didn't on the later build as I wouldn't have had the means to do it in those days.

     

    It's been a busy few days but I've managed to grab some modelling time here and there.  The fuselage has now been sealed up and Mr.Dissolved Putty applied along the seams.  Sealing it up was a pain trying to align the two halves.  I did it bit by bit, lining up the two halves and applying the MekPak by capillary action before waiting for it to set and then moving on.  It didn't take very long for each section but the combination of the black plastic and the 'ribbing' made the alignment very difficult to see.  I wish I'd put some plasticard alignment strips on the inside particularly in the bomb bay and just behind it as it would have made the lining up much better.

     

    Top view with Mr.Dissolved Putty applied

    2018-02-26-19-37-21-003

    The round splodge in front of the cockpit is a sink mark.  It's since been smoothed back and then a lot more Mr.Surfacer 500 applied as the Dissolved Putty was quite weak even after being left overnight and rubbed away very quickly.  Also the area affected was much larger than I originally thought.  At the rear of the fuselage you can see one of the joyous highlights that I have to look forward to.

     

    The lower fuselage after a first round of sanding

    2018-02-26-19-37-43-004

    I've since discovered that Wellingtons did not have symmetrical bomb doors so I can't get away with a seam down the middle of the bomb bay - more Mr.Surfacer, more sanding.  The two circles to the rear are sink marks and again the Dissolved Putty was soft and has been topped up with Mr.Surfacer

     

    2018-02-26-19-43-41-010

    The office floor location block has caused a rather noticeable rectangular sink mark on the outside

    The short shot trailing edge of the port wing has been dealt with by applying Mr.Dissolved Putty all along the upper edge.  Thankfully the lower wing was complete and was able to be used as a guide/support for the putty.  Once set the upper wing was carefully filed and sanded back.  Quite pleased with how this bit is coming out

    2018-02-26-19-41-56-009

     

    Not so pleased with this bit - 

    2018-02-26-19-41-07-007

    Under side of the starboard wing complete with partially removed finger print.

     

    Finally the Dissolved Putty has been applied to the leading edge of both wings.  The photo shows before and after sanding (port is the sanded wing).

    2018-02-26-19-40-39-006

     

    Right, off to find some White Lightning and spare sprue to make a stronger putty.

    • Like 4
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