jrlx

June 2, 2015

Hello Rato, thanks for your kind words. As I said in my WIP thread, your own build of this kit was truly inspirational for me and I tried to replicate several of your techniques. Thanks

June 1, 2015

Thanks, Leonl. I tried not to overdo it, since these aircraft didn't fly much, due to lack of fuel by the end of the war.

June 1, 2015

EDIT: this is the first of three entries I made in the Phantom STGB in 2015. I wasn't able to finish any in time. Then I tried to finish the builds as regular WIPs. I run into problems with the decals for the Royal Navy Phantom, which were partially solved, but lead me to lose my enthusiasm for the builds.

Then, I tried to finish the RN bird in the KUTA IX GB, as it was the one most nearly finished. This was the last update done before moving the thread to that GB. Though I progressed a bit (till this post), I still didn't finish it.

Now it's back in the regular WIP area. I hope to finish it soon.

-------------------

Hello,

This is my first entry into a GB. This will be a test to my efficiency, since up to now, I've taken several months to finish my models. With less than two months to go, I guess this will be a good incentive to work faster

Since the objective of the build is to improve my efficiency, I'll build it OOB.

Anyway, my entry is Fujimi's Royal Navy Phantom in 1/72:

IMAG1736

I believe this was the second boxing of their British Phantom and had a few inaccuracies. However, the level of detail and quality of moulding is very good.

The sprues:

IMAG1737

IMAG1738

IMAG1739

and the decals:

IMAG1740

I'll make the aircraft based on Ark Royal, which had the omega on a white and red background on the tail fin.

I started last Saturday's night by cutting the small parts off the sprues. Here are the parts for one of the ejection seats:

IMAG1916

These were dry-fit, with blu-tak holding them together:

IMAG1915

The cockpit base, with raised detail on the side consoles:

IMAG1917

The seat was dry-fit on the cockpit base:

IMAG1913

Up to now, everything fits well.

I also cut the remaining cockpit parts off the sprues and super-glued everything to the tips of toothpicks, to ease the painting process. Here are the instrument panels and control stick:

IMAG1918

And here are all small parts that are ready for painting and some that need putty to fill in ejection marks (those on the two blobs of blu-tak on the right):

IMAG1933

Next, I took the main parts off the sprues (fuselage, wings) and dry-fit them together. I found that the two fuselage halves are a bit warped and will need some strong clamping on the back end:

IMAG1919

IMAG1921

IMAG1923

Apart from the warping consequences mentioned above, everything fits very well. However, I'll have to insert a sprue rod spacer in the fuselage, to eliminate the small gaps on both wing roots:

IMAG1920

IMAG1922

The warping problems can be seen here, just near the exhausts, below the back tip of the lower wing part:

IMAG1926

There's also a slight misalignment between the top and lower wing parts on one of the wheel wells, though the wing edges themselves are perfectly aligned:

IMAG1924

I'm not sure I'll be able to correct this. The other side is better aligned:

IMAG1925

That's all for now. All comments are welcome.

Cheers,

Jaime

June 1, 2015

Gremlin56, batcode, kira666, PlaStix, thanks for your appreciation! It means a lot!

May 30, 2015

Thanks for your kind words, CedB. Yes, I'm very happy with the results and especially with what I learned building this model

Cheers

Jaime

May 30, 2015

Marvel Onkey, Spitfire31, thank you for your kind words. It really is 1/72 but I'm a bit obsessed with detail, I'm afraid... I wasn't aware of the gear legs inaccuracy but I tried to correct other more glaring errors, as described in my WIP thread.

Cheers

Jaime

May 30, 2015

Thanks for your kind words, Joe. I've already published the RFI post here

Cheers

Jaime

May 30, 2015

Thanks, Rob. It's very kind of you.

Jaime

May 29, 2015

Dear Fellow Modellers,

I've finished yesterday my first Luftwaffe fighter: Revell's Bf 109 G10 in 1/72. Of the two options offered by the kit, I chose the option of the IV. Gruppe/JG 27, early 1945, Berlin aircraft, with yellow underside wing tips.

The WIP thread is here

My main objective when I started this build was to learn how to paint mottled camouflages. I managed to do it successfully and also learned a lot more.

The notable learning points of this build were the following:

this was my first Luftwaffe mottled camouflage
also my first use of resin parts: the exhausts
I scratch built several parts:
- seat belts, using painted masking tape and electrical wire for the buckles
- armoured glass support structure made out of plastic sheet
- armoured glass and gun sight made out of acetate
- I cut the canopy piece and assembled the moving part in the open position
- canopy's support arm made out of elastic fishing line
- engine cover hinges made out of elastic fishing line
- navigation lights on the wings' tips
- cannons made out of plastic rods and masking tape
- cannon cartridge ejection holes on the belly
first use of chipping fluid
first use of pigment fixing fluid (this didn't result very well)

Here are the pictures of the finished build. I apologise in advance for the large number of pictures.

First, the general views:

And now, some details.

The cockpit with open canopy, showing the seat belts and (further down) the instrument panel:

The cannons:

The exhausts and exhaust stains on the sides of the fuselage:

The chipped paint on the port wing root, over which access to the cockpit was made:

The weathering of the wings' top surfaces, showing dirty streaks along the direction of air flow, and the navigation lights on the tips:

The same for the under surfaces:

The fuel tank, landing gear and wheel wells:

And to finish with, the Bf 109 together with my other finished models (Spit Mk I, Hurry Mk IIc and Grumman Duck - I've published RFI posts for all of them):

I hope you liked. All comments are much appreciated.

Cheers,

Jaime

May 29, 2015

Thanks, Sean. I really appreciate your opinion.

Jaime

May 29, 2015

CedB, philp, thanks for your interest and kind words. I'll post the RFI photos later today.

Cheers

Jaime

May 29, 2015

Dear fellow modellers,

This is the last post in this WIP because I finished the model yesterday.

I spent the night sessions of Monday through Wednesday repairing the damaged yellow underside tip of the port wing, which I had accidentally damaged with two drops of glue. In the repair process, I managed to damage the blue area adjacent to the yellow tip with some yellow overspray... So, I also had to repair this blue area. Finally, I managed to have everything in order for the finishing coats of flat varnish.

With these steps behind me, I moved on to finishing the remaining bits.

First, I glued the moving part of the canopy in the open position. The following photo shows the model and canopy just prior to glueing:

IMAG1846

I used super-glue and the result was as follows:

IMAG1847

The next step was the installation of the antenna wires and the supporting arm that kept the canopy in the open position (this can be seen here). These parts were made out of elastic fishing line, glued with super-glue. In order to make it easier to install the ends of the lines in place, I made a few very small holes with a pin vice.

The following picture shows the hole between the fixation points of the seat belts, which I made to fix one end of the canopy's supporting arm, and a hole on the spine of the aircraft, aft of the cockpit, to fix one end of the antenna wire:

IMAG1848

The next photo shows the hole I made on the spine of the aircraft, just ahead of the tail fin (in the green band), to fix the lower end of the vertical wire of the antenna:

IMAG1850

Following this, I installed the longitudinal wire of the antenna. First I glued the end nearer the cockpit with a drop of super-glue. Then, I stretched the elastic wire and glued the other end to the tail fin, as seen in the photo:

IMAG1851

While the glue cured for a short while, I proceeded to the installation of the canopy's supporting arm. First, glued the lower end of the fishing line:

IMAG1852

Then, I stretched the line and glued the other end to the canopy's edge. After a few moments of curing time, I cut the line to measure:

IMAG1853

The last step of this process was to install the vertical wire of the antenna. Again, I glued first the lower end of the elastic line:

IMAG1854

Finally, I stretched the line a bit and glued it to the longitudinal wire. This was not an immediate success, because the vertical line kept getting loose. In the end, I had to cut the vertical line to measure first, and then glued the top end to the longitudinal wire. This is the final result:

IMAG1856

Now I had to paint the lines in dark grey. I choose to use Tamiya's XF-63 German Grey. This is very similar to Gunze's RLM 66 Schwarzgrau (Black Grey) but Tamiya's is flat, while Gunze's is satin. So, using Tamiya's I wouldn't need an additional application of flat varnish just for the wires.

Before painting, I applied some masking: I already had done enough mistakes...

IMAG1857

Now I could paint the wires, which I did with a nº 0 detail brush. Here's the result for the antenna wires:

IMAG1858

and for the canopy's supporting arm:

IMAG1859

The last step was removing the masking from the navigation lights on the wing tips, and that was it! Done!

Here's just a photo of the finished product. I'll post the final photos on a RFI thread:

IMAG1882

The notable learning points of this build were the following:

this was my first Luftwaffe mottled camouflage
also my first use of resin parts: the exhausts
I scratch built several parts:
- seat belts using painted masking tape and electrical wire for the buckles
- armoured glass support structure made out of plastic sheet
- armoured glass and gun sight made out of acetate
- I cutted the canopy piece and assembled the moving part in the open position
- canopy's support arm made out of elastic fishing line
- engine cover hinges made out of elastic fishing line
first use of chipping fluid
first use of pigment fixing fluid (this didn't result very well)

It took me about 6 months to finish this build (from Nov2014 to May2015), though I was also working on two other models at the same time and had holidays in between. However, this build allowed me to test several new techniques successfully and I learned a lot. I'm quite pleased with the end result

I hope you liked. Thanks for your attention and comments to this thread. All additional comments are very welcome.

Please see the RFI thread I'll post later today.

Cheers

Jaime

May 26, 2015

Thanks CedB! I hope my long posts are not too boring. This was to keep up to date with the work I did over the weekend. On Saturday I just applied the matt coats. The pictures were all taken on Sunday (except for the two first pictures of the belts, which are older)

Cheers

Jaime

May 25, 2015

Rob, Blitz23, thanks very much for your interest and kind words

The Tempest and Typhoon will be on hold for some time, I'm afraid... I only took the main parts of the Typhoon from the sprues yet. I'm trying to finish the Bf 109 and the Spit Mk XIV (my current most advanced WIPs) to start two British Phantoms for the Phantom GB (one Royal Navy and on RAF).

Jaime

May 25, 2015

Hello again,

I intended to finish the Bf 109 during the week-end but I didn't manage to do it... Things tend to take longer than expected and, then, mistakes are made...

Anyway, I started by applying at least three coats of matt varnish (Microscale's Micro Flat), in crossed directions to ensure a good matt finish. The varnish was thoroughly stirred prior to loading the airbrush. I left the model to dry for a day.

Then I finished the seat belts. I started to do these some time ago, using Tamiya masking tape, painted with a light sand colour. Here is the tape, first drawn with pencil, and then already cut and painted:

IMAG1513

IMAG1514

The buckles were made out of thin electrical wire, painted with silver:

IMAG1827

These were fixed in place with drops of super-glue. I'll have to apply some matt varnish later to kill the glue's glossiness:

IMAG1830

Next step was the installation of exhausts. This was a tricky business because they had to be installed through the open front of the model and space was really narrow.

Here is the initial set-up:

IMAG1820

Here they are after installation:

IMAG1821

IMAG1822

Then, I closed the nose of the plane. I used Tamiya's thin glue to melt the plastic together and then applied super-glue to provide strength:

IMAG1825

IMAG1826

Installation of the propeller followed. First, the propeller and backplate (a single piece), which, according to the kit's instructions, should not be glued in order to be able to rotate:

IMAG1831

Then, the spinner. Unfortunately the spinner didn't have proper location tabs in order to stick with the propeller piece. So, I had to glue it directly to the aircraft nose. So much for the spinning propeller... (not really a problem, this isn't a toy!):

IMAG1832

I moved on to the canopy and armoured glass piece. First I glued a piece of acetate to the armoured glass supporting structure, in order to simulate the said glass:

IMAG1818

IMAG1819

An x-acto blade removed the excess acetate.

Then I removed the masking from the canopy and the results were quite pleasing:

IMAG1823

IMAG1824

The armoured glass structure was, then, glued to the interior of the canopy:

IMAG1844

IMAG1845

After all this, I moved on to the last step of weathering: pigments.

I used Vallejo's black and brown pigments, applied with a small detail brush, with successive applications to build up the effect. I didn't want to overdone it, however.

I used the black pigment to create the exhaust stains on the sides of the fuselage. According to pictures of operational aircraft, these stains created an arch along the curvature of the top surface of the wings. Here's my attempt, on the port side:

IMAG1837

and on the starboard side:

IMAG1838

I also used black pigments for the stains created by the cannon blasts (difficult to notice due to the dark camouflage colours):

IMAG1836

Next, I used a mix of black and brown pigments to create streak marks due to air flow around the bases of antennas, control surface hinges, etc. Here are the marks along the bulges on the top surfaces of the wings:

IMAG1835

and on the underside:

IMAG1839

Detail of the starboard wing's underside:

IMAG1840

Detail of the port wing's underside:

IMAG1843

To finish with, I applied brown pigments to the landing gear and wheel wells:

IMAG1842

I used Mig's pigment fixer liquid, applied with a brush, to fix the pigments in place. Results were mixed... parts got diluted in the liquid and ended up looking like paint instead of textured pigments.

I also damaged the yellow underside tip of the port wing, apparently with two drops of glue. So, I'll have to repair this, which is quite annoying at this stage.

After that, I'll apply a final flat coat and install the canopy in the open position. To finish with, I'll install the antenna wire.

Hope you liked the post. Thanks for looking.

Cheers

Jaime

May 22, 2015

Superb build and great progress, CedB! I'm amazed with your rate of progress! It'll take me ages to finish my "Belle" when I finally get the courage to build it... Anyway, your WIP thread will be a great reference. I'm already convinced to buy a masking set

May 22, 2015

Thanks CedB! Too kind words, as always.

May 22, 2015

EXCELLENT ..SUPER start to a beautiful aircraft. .

HOUSTON, thanks for your kind words.

be careful with the undercarriage struts...broke mine...but then I did have trouble seeing them

FalkeEins, thanks for the advice. The parts are really small. I'll be extra careful.

Cheers

Jaime

May 22, 2015

Latest developments on the Bf 109.

I started assembling the small parts.

Here are the main gear legs glued to the wheel well doors:

IMAG1809

They were glued in place with a drop of super-glue. I had to drill a hole for the tail wheel:

IMAG1810

Here's the tail wheel in place as well:

IMAG1811

Then, I installed the small parts under the wings: antenna, aileron balance masses, pitot tube (this one on the leading edge).

Detail of the starboard wing, showing the flap balance mass:

IMAG1813

Detail of the port wing, showing the flap balance mass, antenna and pitot tube:

IMAG1814

I also made cannons from 0.75 mm plastic rods, wound by a stripe of masking tape, and drilled with a 0.3 mm mini-drill. These were primed, painted with metal black, and installed in place of the original "cannons", which were really poor:

IMAG1815

The model is now like shown in the following picture. There is also an antenna on the spine, aft of the cockpit:

IMAG1816

In the meanwhile, I also took care of the exhausts. Since the kit exhausts are really bad, I decided to replace them by resin ones from Quickboost. This is my first use of resin parts.

Here are the original exhausts, photographed early in the build:

IMAG1135

I even drilled holes to make them more reallistic and painted them but in the end gave up and bought the resin replacements.

The resin parts had to be sawed off the holding block. It should be noted that resin dust is cancer inducing, so I used gloves, respirator mask and sawed off the pieces over a damp piece of kitchen paper, to keep the dust in place. Here's the first one already out of the block:

IMAG1652

And now, both. As can be seen, the level of detail is much better:

IMAG1653

The exhausts were fixed to a strip of card with Blu-Tack blobs, for priming with Alclad Grey Primer (exhausts for a Typhoon and a Tempest I'll be building soon are also shown):

IMAG1658

After painting with Alclad Burnt Iron, this was the result:

IMAG1808

They are ready for installation.

The aircraft is now ready to receive a good coat of flat varnish and some small parts still need to be applied after that: canopy, wheels, exhausts and propeller.

There's still a weathering step missing: exhaust marks and cannon shooting marks. These will be applied over the flat coat, since they will be made with pigments and these adhere better to flat coats.

That's all for now. The WIP is now up to date with the state of works on this model. Hopefully, I'll finish it over the weekend.

Thanks for looking.

Jaime

May 21, 2015

Really good build Jaime, keep up the good work. Joe.

Joe, thanks a lot! Hopefully, I'll finish it over the weekend.

Jaime

May 21, 2015

Some more work on the Bf 109.

With decals applied, I moved on to some chipping. I had applied Mig's chipping fluid over silver paint in areas that should have worn painting. This was done before painting with the camouflage colours (both upper and underside).

Now, using the point of an x-acto blade, followed by 1000 grit sand paper, I chipped away the painting on:

the wing roots (more on the port side than on the starboard side, since access to the cockipt was done on the port wing)
edges of engine cover panels and hinges
edges of cockpit and canopy
along the edges of control surfaces that were metallic

I didn't chip too much. On the one hand I didn't want to overdo the effect, on the other I read these aircraft didn't get much use due to lack of fuel (end of the war), so they shouldn't be too weathered.

The following pictures show the results.

Port wing root:

IMAG1767

Starboard wing root:

IMAG1769

Engine cover panels and hinges:

IMAG1769

Control surfaces:

IMAG1770

Next, I applied a new gloss cover, to protect the decals, prior to further weathering.

The following weathering step was applying a dark wash, in order to achieve a dirty / worn look and to accentuate the panel lines. For this I used Vallejo's acrylic "Oiled Earth" wash. The following picture shows the set-up, just before applying the wash with a flat brush:

IMAG1782

I used a "sludge wash", where the paint is abundantly applied all over the aircraft, with strokes in the direction of the air flow. This process is not recommended for the faint of heart... A "pin wash", just along the panel lines, is a better option for those...

Here's the result, on the top surfaces:

IMAG1783

and on the under surfaces:

IMAG1784

After 10 minutes drying time (please, don't let it dry much more than this, otherwise the wash will stick...), I removed the excess with damp Q-tips, always with strokes in the direction of the airflow.

The resulting upper surfaces:

IMAG1785

and under surfaces:

IMAG1786

In detail:

IMAG1798

IMAG1794

Hopefully, the model now looks a bit more realistic.

I applied the same procedure to the fuel tank.

Wash applied:

IMAG1787

Excess removed:

IMAG1790

The small parts got the same treatment. Wash applied:

IMAG1788

Excess removed:

IMAG1789

That's all for now. Almost catching up with the present state of the works.

Hope you liked it.

Jaime

May 21, 2015

Again, thank you all for the kind words

Jaime

May 20, 2015

Rob, CedB, thanks for your kind words. They're really much appreciated.

The paints used are Gunze Mr Hobby Colour acrylics. They're really very good and have the right tones for aircraft camouflages of different countries (RAF WWII and modern, RLM, FS, Japan WWII). They spray marvellously (it is very difficult to make them clog the airbrush - the same can't be said of Tamiya or Vallejo...) and the finish is superb.

Cheers

Jaime

May 20, 2015

Some more progress on the Bf 109.

With the main painting behind me, I moved on to decaling. I used the kit decals. The swastikas came from an Xtradecal sheet.

My decaling method uses Micro Set and Micro Sol to ensure proper adhesion of decals to the surfaces. Here's the set-up, just before starting applying the decals:

IMAG1732

Though in total there were only approximately 30 decals, it took me two night sessions to apply them all.

The following pictures show the end results. These were taken before applying an additional coat of gloss varnish over the decals:

IMAG1747

IMAG1748

IMAG1749

IMAG1750

The fuel tank also had some decals:

IMAG1753

And the spinner spiral was a decal too:

IMAG1751

The decals were thin and reacted well to the setting solutions.

I did a couple of mistakes:

I applied the swastikas in the end. The kit decaling instructions do not envisage enough space for the swastikas, therefore these are slightly overlapping the Werk Nummer on the tail fin. The Werk Nummer decals should be applied after the swastikas and slightly shifted to the rudder.
The green tail band conformed beautifully to the fuselage but I wasn't careful enough and didn't make the visible end of the band to align with the underside longitudinal panel line.

That's it for now.

Thanks for looking

Jaime

May 20, 2015

Having finished the camouflage, I still had to paint the yellow underside wingtips to finish the main painting.

I had applied white primer to these, to ensure a brighter yellow, and kept them masked while painting the rest of the aircraft.

Now, I removed the masking from the wingtips and masked the rest of the wings' undersides, using kitchen cling film and masking tape:

IMAG1702

After painting the wingtips with RLM 04 - Gelb (yellow), this was the result:

IMAG1714

I had also painted the propeller blades, backplate and spinner cone. For this I used as reference Barracuda Decals' profiles in their 1/32 Bf 109 G10 decal sheets. It seems that most of these aircraft had the propeller backplate painted 1/3 white, 2/3 RLM 70 - Schwarzgrün (Black Green), even when they had a spiral on the spinner cone. The propeller blades where also RLM 70 and the cone was black. So, I decided to use these colours. The following picture shows the propeller and cone already painted (on the left we can see the armoured glass holding structure that will be installed inside the moving part of the canopy, painted RLM 66):

IMAG1704

I had to scratch build the flaps' trim tabs. Although the kit instructions direct us to paint these, the flap ones are missing. I made them from 0.5 mm thick plastic sheet:

IMAG1724

The trim tabs (wing flaps and elevators) were painted RLM 23 - Rot (Red):

IMAG1725

To finish with, in preparation for decaling, I applied a good gloss varnish coat, using Microscale's Micro Gloss.

Hope you found this interesting.

Cheers,

Jaime

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