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January 2

Nigel ( @Clashcityrocker ), Steve ( @stevehnz ), thank you very much for the kind words!

January 1

10 hours ago, Bertie Psmith said:

Two of the best quality! Nice.

Thanks Bertie! Very kind!

January 1

Hi Chris ( @bigbadbadge ), Greg ( @GREG DESTEC ),

Thank you very much for your appreciation!

A Happy New Year for you, too!

Jaime

January 1

Dear All,

In 2021 I only managed to finish two models. Here they are.

1. Heinkel He 178 V1 - first jet aircraft in History (Special Hobby/MPM 1/72)

This was a challenging build. It fought me back in every step of the build. In the end it turned out well, but it definitely isn't a beginner's model.

The WIP is here and the RFI is here.

IMAG7343

IMAG7346

IMAG7357

IMAG7358

2. USS Greeneville (Hobby Boss 1/350)

This is my first submarine build since returning to modelling. It was a simple build. The real challenge was trying to weather it realistically. It turned out satisfactorily for a first attempt. I have a few more submarines in the stash now.

The WIP is here and the RFI is here.

IMAG7429

IMAG7435

IMAG7439

IMAG7441

Thanks for looking.

Jaime

November 9, 2021

1 hour ago, giemme said:

Lovely detailing and painting in the cockpit, Jaime - way to get the best out of an OOB build

Ciao

Thanks Giorgio!

November 8, 2021

Hi again,

After a long period away from this build, I've finally made some progress last week in making air-intakes for the jet engines, which was scaring me away from the build.

However, I still must update the build log with work done earlier this year, from January to March.

First, I decided to complete seat with the foot-rests protruding in front of the seat. These were done with 0.13 mm-think plasticard:

IMAG7154

The foot-rests were painted by paintbrush:

IMAG7155

The raised detail on the instrument panel and side panels was highlighted by dry-brushing:

IMAG7156

IMAG7157

The next step was applying a dark wash to the cockpit parts, after gloss-coating these parts. I used Vallejo's greased earth acrylic wash:

IMAG7159

A detail of the gloss-coated cockpit parts before applying the wash:

IMAG7160

After the wash, a matt coat was applied, resulting in this:

IMAG7163

The cockpit walls turned out very dark because I didn't remove the excess wash:

IMAG7164

I used some spare PE seat belts from a Cobra helicopter for this build, as they look very similar to the seat belts used in this aircraft. The seat belts were painted still in the PE fret:

IMAG7158

I decided to try a recently acquired liquid chrome marker to paint the buckles:

IMAG7165

Here's the result:

IMAG7166

The seat belts were cut off the fret:

IMAG7174

... applied to the seat:

IMAG7175

The seat was glued to the cockpit base:

IMAG7176

The cockpit base was glued to the port fuselage half:

IMAG7180

The model needs some weight on the nose to avoid becoming a tail seater. I used miliput to glue lead balls in place:

IMAG7181

I had to close the front of the cockpit base in order to avoid seeing the lead in the nose:

IMAG7189

The fuselage halves were glued together:

IMAG7190

IMAG7194

I applied tiny drops of Aqua Gloss on the instrument faces to simulate the glass covers:

IMAG7171

Finally, the instrument panel was glued in place:

IMAG7221

Thanks for looking

Cheers

Jaime

August 23, 2021

On 19/08/2021 at 10:22, F-32 said:

Very cool build, I especially like the water line mark - nicely done

Thanks a lot! It's my first submarine, I wasn't sure about the weathering and tried to not overdue it.

July 27, 2021

4 hours ago, Bertie Psmith said:

I still think he's pulling our legs. That's the woodiest wooden base ever.

Has the submarine had a puppy?

I swear it's a plastic base. The WIP pictures don't lie

I believe the "puppy" is some kind of remote controlled mini-sub but I must admit I didn't look for information on it.

Cheers

Jaime

July 20, 2021

5 hours ago, Adm Lord De Univers said:

Very helpful Jaime (I've screenshot'd your instructions too - thank you). The effect is quite astonishing and hands down the best stand/base I've seen - you could've told me it was wood and I wouldn't have queried it.

Greeneville is still looking fantastic too!

David

Thanks David! Very kind and much appreciated!

July 20, 2021

On 18/07/2021 at 23:30, Adm Lord De Univers said:

can we have some closeups of that base please?

In reply to @Adm Lord De Univers request, here are some pictures of the base, showing the wood-like effect I tried to achieve:

IMAG7454

IMAG7455

IMAG7456

IMAG7458

IMAG7459

The base was primed with Alclad Black Primer and Microfiller. Next, the holders were painted Gunze Metal Color MC219 Brass, which provides a very good metal effect. After masking the holders, I painted the base with Gunze H84 Mahogany. This was gloss coated with Microgloss and the wood grain effect was done by spreading spots of AMMO MIG-3512 Oilbrusher Dark Brown along the length of the base using a flat brush. To seal both the base and holdera, I applied a good coat of Alclad Gloss Kote.

Hope this is helpful.

Cheers

Jaime

July 18, 2021

9 hours ago, Adm Lord De Univers said:

Jaime, this is a great build and I think you've nailed trying to mimic the real life photos in the wip.

Hi David, thank you very much for your interest and kind words. Much appreciated!

9 hours ago, Adm Lord De Univers said:

can we have some closeups of that base please?

I'll certainly post close up photos of the base. I'll do it tomorrow and let you know when the thread is updated.

Cheers

Jaime

July 18, 2021

I added a link to the RFI photos in the last post of the build.

It can also be accessed here.

Cheers

Jaime

July 18, 2021

Hello,

This is my build of Hobby Boss 1/350 USS Greeneville. It's also my first submarine and maritime build since I returned to the hobby in 2014 (I'm mainly an aircraft guy).

It is a simple kit to build and comes with a few PE parts to improve the propellers. Most effort was spent trying to get a (hopefully) realistic weathering. This was obtained by a combination of different tones of gray on the black areas of the model, pre-shading, grey wash and staining along the waterline. The WIP thread can be found here.

Here are the pictures of the finished model. All comments are very much welcome.

IMAG7429

IMAG7430

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IMAG7432

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IMAG7439

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IMAG7441

IMAG7442

IMAG7443

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IMAG7446

Cheers

Jaime

July 18, 2021

7 minutes ago, Richard E said:

Tha's a very realistic finish JR.

Unfortunately the links to the images are broken but Pierre's @Kagou RFI thread gives a good descripton of the tools and techniques he used to weather his submarine models and @Roger Newsome also applied a very realistic finish to his Alpha Class build.

Thank you very much Richard, and thanks for the links. I'll take that into account for my next subs. I have the Zvezda 1/350 Kursk in the stash for a future build.

Cheers

Jaime

July 18, 2021

Thanks Jeff! Much appreciated!

I couldn't find much information on weathering submarine models,, so I had to improvise in order to try and reproduce what I saw in the pictures of the real thing.

Cheers

JR

July 17, 2021

51 minutes ago, S-boat 55 said:

Very nice weathering, great build imo

Thank you very much. Much appreciated!

July 17, 2021

Hello again,

Continuing with the build, I took some time to think about how best to weather the model. I opted to keep it subtle and decided to create some tonal variation on the dark top half of the hull. For that, I applied a pre-shading layer using white, along the lines of water flow when the sub is floating on the surface:

IMAG7395

This was followed by thin layers of NATO Black:

IMAG7396

After removing the masking, I got this:

IMAG7397

IMAG7398

A microgloss coat was applied in preparation for the decals. Here's the setup for decaling:

IMAG7400

There are few decals to apply, only the ID number on the sail and the water line scales on the bow and rudder:

IMAG7401

I also decided to try and replicate a would finish for the base of the stand. First, I gloss coated the base and, next, I applied spots of dark brown oil, which were spread with a flat brush to simulate the wood grain.

Here's the mahogany-painted and microgloss-coated base:

IMAG7402

After spreading the dark brown oil:

IMAG7414

IMAG7415

I still wanted to weather the model a bit more, in order to reproduce the weathering below from the waterline, as seen in this picture:

My first approach was to use a grey wash by Vallejo. Here's the set-up (the model had another microgloss coat to seal the decals):

IMAG7416

Before applying the wash, I applied masking tape along the waterline:

IMAG7417

The tape was loosely held to the hull, in order to allow the wash to spread unevenly below the waterline.

IMAG7418

The wash was applied vertically from the walkway to the waterline. The excess was removed with damp cotton buds shortly after. It worked but the wash tone was too dark and didn't stand out from the top hull's tone. In order to produce a better result, I decided to apply highly diluted Sky with a sponge over the matt wash. I didn't remask along the waterline.

Here's the tool:

IMAG7421

The resulting weathering:

IMAG7422

A flat coat (Alclad) was applied to the model, mini-sub and small parts.

Next, I glued the propeller of the mini-sub:

IMAG7423

The same for the main model:

IMAG7425

The pointy thingies where glued in place on top of the sail:

IMAG7425

Finally, the mini-sub was piggy-backed on the submarine:

IMAG7426

The completed model on the stand:

IMAG7427

I'll post better pictures latter in the RFI area.

Thanks for looking.

Jaime

NOTE: the RFI photos can be found here.

July 17, 2021

Hello again,

This kit is simple assembly-wise and there aren't significant fit problems. The horizontal seam between the two hull-halves was almost completely eliminated with sanding and polishing sticks. I had to use bits of thin plasticard sheet to fill in a few gaps I myself created when carving out the slots for the fins. The only gap due the kit parts was in the join between one of the tail planes and the hull:

IMAG7359

IMAG7362

The narrower gaps and seams were taken care of with PPP:

IMAG7363

The few PE parts were, then, dealt with. There's one for the propellers of the piggy-backed sub. Here is a comparison with the plastic version:

IMAG7360

There are PE parts for the hatch on the sail:

IMAG7364

And there's a pair of PE parts for the sub propellers. I guess they should be glued together for increased strength. So, I cut one off the frame and CA-glued it to the other:

IMAG7365

Here's the end result:

IMAG7366

The smaller parts were cleaned of moulding marks and glued to toothpicks for painting:

IMAG7367

The sub and the smaller parts were all primed with Alclad's Black Primer and Microfiller:

IMAG7374

PPP was used again to tackle small seams along the hull joins. This wasn't very successful and in the end these seams were made to vanish with thin layers of primer:

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The propellers were painted brass:

IMAG7383

The same for the holders of the stand:

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Next, I used Gunze's Rousset to paint the hull:

IMAG7385

The hull was masked using a combination of masking tape and kitchen cling-film:

IMAG7386

The rest of the sub should be black but a real sub is never like that. I used several pictures of the real thing for inspiration for the choice of colours. This was especially interesting for showing several tones of grey on the hull, walkways and sail:

I chose RLM66 for the lighter grey tones on the sail, Gunze's ocean grey for the walkways and Tamiya's NATO Black for the hull. I initially chose Gunze's Tire Black for the darker greys of the sail but it proved too dark for my likings and was painted NATO Black as well.

Here's the application of the RLM66 grey on the sail and ocean grey on the walkways:

IMAG7391

Next, I masked these areas before applying the NATO Black to the hull:

IMAG7392

IMAG7393

The Tire Black intended for the sail proved to be too dark but I used it to cover the oversprays of rousset and greys before proceeding:

IMAG7394

That's all for now. Thanks for looking.

Jaime

July 4, 2021

Dear All,

While building my He 178 V1, which fought me every step of the build, I decided to build something really simple to have some breaks from the fight. I opted for a submarine.

So, here is the build thread of my first modern submarine: the Hobby Boss 1/350 USS Greeneville.

For starters, here are the mandatory pictures of the box art and box contents:

IMAG7236

Apart from the hull halves and stand, there are only two sprues:

IMAG7237

There's also a small PE fret:

IMAG7238

Finally, a small decal sheet. However, according to the painting and decal instructions, decals 1, 6 and 7 are not used.

IMAG7399

The build started with the sail and the horizontal tailplanes:

IMAG7267

It was necessary to carve out indents for the foreplane. I overdid it, as only the curved indents were needed:

IMAG7268

The foreplane was glued in place:

IMAG7269

Indents were also carved out for the horizontal tailplanes:

IMAG7270

The small submarine that piggybacked on the bigger sub was glued together:

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A few holes had to be drilled out on the top hull half. These holes are for installing the pads on which the small submarine is installed:

IMAG7272

The hull halves were glued together:

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There are a few spots demanding attention. For instance, this rectangular depression near the horizontal fin of the small sub needs a piece of plasticard:

IMAG7274

The areas around the foreplane also need attention, due to the excessive carving out:

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The sail was glued in place:

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The pads for the small sub were then installed, as well as the mooring bollards :

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Finally, the tailplanes were glued in place:

IMAG7310

That's all for now. Thanks for looking.

Jaime

June 16, 2021

On 10/01/2021 at 16:06, Tailspin Turtle said:

Strictly speaking, those red and yellow “handles” on the sides of the ejection seat were there to keep the pilot’s legs from flailing when he came out of the cockpit into the free stream air. The pilot was supposed to put his feet into something like pans on the front edge of the bottom of the seat and pull those handles into a vertical position (the early seats required a separate action to arm the seat and accomplish some preliminary functions before the face curtain was pulled). The “handles” should therefore be angled forward out of the way of the side consoles normally. Also see https://images.app.goo.gl/haFZu7FhKGgn2JwJ8

Note that the illustration is misleading in that the seat would normally have a seat cushion/survival kit in the bucket and a back-pack parachute in it (these were standard GFE and often left out of the aircraft manufacturer’s illustrations).

Thank you for the explanation. I wasn't aware of these details and followed the pictures of the cockpit which I inserted in my first post of this thread. In the museum aircraft, the handles are positioned vertically and so did I in my scratch building. I'm afraid the fuselage was already closed when I read your explanation, and there was no way to modify the position of the handles (I still have to post those pictures, though).

Cheers

Jaime

June 16, 2021

2 hours ago, Wulfman said:

A lovely build, looks as cute as a bunny !

Wulfman

Indeed Thank you very much!

June 16, 2021

2 minutes ago, Shalako said:

Any progress?

Hello @Shalako, thanks for your interest. I did progress a bit but didn't have the time to update the thread yet. I still have to solve the problem of how to create acceptable intake tubing.

Cheers

Jaime

June 16, 2021

5 hours ago, billn53 said:

Looking at your very fine final result, one would never suspect the serious challenges that this kit placed in your way. Well done!

4 hours ago, Giampiero Piva said:

Very nice ! Congrats.

3 hours ago, roginoz said:

Built this model a while back and, having seen your excellent rendition, think I'll strip mine down 'n' start again.

I think I lost the love half way through the build and, having seen your result, I know I can do better. Doubt it will be better than yours, though !

Rog

57 minutes ago, Terry1954 said:

I watched all the remedial work you had to do, and now see this excellent result. Well done indeed on a fine example of an important step in aviation history.

Terry

32 minutes ago, Duncan B said:

Having attempted this kit myself I know how much work you must have done to get it over the finish line in such a good shape, well done.

Duncan B

Thank you very much for the very kind comments!

Cheers

Jaime

June 16, 2021

Hello,

This is my rendition of Special Hobby's reboxing of MPM's Heinkel He 178 V1. This was the first jet aircraft to fly in the History of Aviation, in August 1939, a few days before the beginning of WWII.

This kit is a short-run affair and presented all kinds of challenges. In fact, it fought me back in every step of the build. Anyway, I learned a few tricks but it isn't a "quick build", as I expected from the small number of parts. The WIP can be found here.

Some notable points of the build:

The kit comes with a small PE fret with the instrument panel and a few other external details but no seat belts
I added seat belts from Eduard's WWII Luftwaffe Fighter seat belt PE set
Panel lines had to be completely rescribed, as they weren't aligned when joining the two halves of the fuselage
Metallic colours are Alclad's Aluminium, Polished Aluminium and Burnt Iron
I used a black base technique (Alclad's Black Primer) and pre-shading with Gunze's Acrylic Sky
The main colour is Gunze's Acrylic RLM02
Weathering was kept light: I used a dark brown acrylic wash and removed most of it (Vallejo's Greased Earth)
Panel lines were enhanced using the same wash

Here are the final pictures.

IMAG7343