jrlx

February 7, 2021

Very well done! Congrats!

Cheers

Jaime

February 7, 2021

Great job and nice to see a historic Portuguese Air Force aircraft being built!

10 hours ago, JOCKNEY said:

I wonder if my old mate Jaime @jrlx has been watching this ?

Pat, thanks for calling my attention to this build. I haven't been very active in Britmodeller recently and didn't notice it. By the way, I built this kit as a kid. At the time it was very refined compared to most kits available. I still have the remains somewhere.

Cheers

Jaime

January 9, 2021

Hi again,

As I said before, due to some inaccuracies of this kit, this project won't be an OOB build. One of the areas which I want to improve is the intakes, for which I decided to scratch-build the intake tubing. For that, I started trying to create a template out of paper, from which a plasticard piece would be made and bent to proper shape. After several tries with paper cuts, I was convince I had managed to create a proper template and cut the corresponding pieces in plastic from a 0.13mm plasticard sheet.

This picture shows the paper template on top (the one on the right is already bent) and the plasticard templates on the bottom:

IMAG7134

Unfortunately, after several tries, I didn't manage to get properly shaped intakes by bending the plastic templates. This is due to the complex variation of the tubing from front to back. I decided to put this task to rest and move to other areas of the build, while thinking on a better way to build the intakes (possibly with two pieces of plastic per intake, but we'll see).

Another area to improve is the compressor faces of the jet engines. The front face is open and needs to be closed by a piece of plasticard. On these pieces I scribed radial lines to simulate the compressor face blades. This picture shows the piece on the left ready:

IMAG7135

This is how they look after glueing in place. Hopefully, a coat of steel paint will make them look ok. The ejector marks on the parts shouldn't be visible after installing the intake ducts, so I didn't remove them:

IMAG7136

I also scribed radial lines on the exhaust ends of the jet engines:

IMAG7137

End result, ready for painting:

IMAG7138

Next, I decided to scribe several panel lines that are missing on the underside of the wings. The most prominent are those of the wheel well door which covers the well. It is shown on the painting scheme of the kit, so I decided to scale the scheme in the photocopier to the size of the wing part and cut a paper template for scribing these panel lines. However, the scheme is not dimensionally correct: the inner part of the wing is wider than the corresponding section of the plastic part. I opted for scaling so that the outer part of the wing in the scheme would correspond to the real size of the same section of the wing part. A scaling of 226% was applied. Using the resulting paper template, I scribed the wheel door on one of the wings, as shown in this picture:

IMAG7139

There are other lines that must be scribed on the control surfaces (trim tabs) and some lines are missing or incorrect. While searching the net for blueprints and pictures showing these details, I found that the wheel door already scribed wasn't exactly correct: the top and bottom edges shouldn't be parallel but slightly angled towards one another. I'll have to rectify that.

Right now I'm figuring out the proper placement of the additional lines to scribe. This is not so easy, because the available blueprints are not very detailed or consistent with the pictures of the walk-arounds. More on this latter.

Thanks for looking

Jaime

January 4, 2021

On 03/01/2021 at 08:56, Filbert_Wang said:

Amazing work, the effect of the mottling of the camo has worked superbly!

Thank you very much! As I said elsewhere, I used a combination of "black base" and "marbling" with two lighter tones of green for pre-shade. I've been trying this technique in my latest builds as an alternative to the classic grey primer plus black pre-shading of panel lines.

Cheers

Jaime

January 2, 2021

3 hours ago, Matthew1974 said:

Excellent well used look!

Thank you very much Matthew!

January 2, 2021

57 minutes ago, PlaStix said:

Hi Jaime. Hope you are well. Well that is a stunningly impressive Cobra. The way you have built, painted and finished it makes it look far bigger than 1/72. Very well done.

Kind regards,

Stix

Thank you very much Stix! You're very kind!

January 2, 2021

56 minutes ago, russ c said:

Fantastic `cobra there, looks superb.

Cheers Russ ( still impatiently waiting for an `up to date` 1/48 kit )

Thank you very much Russ!

Some types in some scales seem to get systematically neglected. For instance, I'm still waiting for a modern tooling Alpha Jet in 1/72.

January 2, 2021

Hi again,

a small update with some recent progress.

I applied Alclad Black Primer & Microfiller to the cockpit parts:

IMAG7125

and to the inner cockpit walls:

IMAG7126

Since the side panels are black, I masked them on the cockpit tube before painting the interior colour:

IMAG7127

The front and back coamings of the cockpit were also masked:

IMAG7128

After painting the interior grey (Gunze H317 Dark Gull Grey), the masking was removed:

IMAG7130

I'll dry brush the instruments latter with grey and silver to make them stand out.

IMAG7133

The other colours on the small parts were brush painted. The ejection handles of the seat were first white based:

IMAG7129

Next, I painted the yellow handles:

IMAG7131

Finally, I painted the red handle and the red stipes on the yellow handles:

IMAG7132

I'll add seatbelts from a spare PE set.

I'm now trying to make the intake tubings from plasticard but I've been a bit stuck on this task. I'll report latter, when I manage to finish them.

Cheers

Jaime

January 2, 2021

16 hours ago, Sky Keg said:

Well done Jaime!!! I really like the subtle differences in color / tonal variations.

Mike

Thank you very much Mike! I used the "black base" + "marbling" technique.

December 31, 2020

Great output! I especially liked the Intruder :clap2:

Cheers

Jaime

December 30, 2020

2 hours ago, rob85 said:

That’s beautiful work Jaime, really love the finish on that paint work.

Rob

Thank you very much Rob!

December 30, 2020

2 hours ago, PlaStix said:

Hi Jaime. Hope you are well. Great to see your builds collected together - and what a lovely collection! There may only be three but the subjects are all interesting and, as always, beautifully made and finished. Very well done!

I hope you have a Very Happy New Year.

Kind regards,

Stix

Thank you very much Stix! You're very kind! I also wish you a Very Happy New Year! May it be infinitely better than 2020

Cheers

Jaime

December 29, 2020

Dear friends,

In 2020 I managed to reach again my maximum of three completed models in a year. Two of those were started in earlier years (yes, I'm a slow builder and have a tendency to complicate with all sorts of added detail).

So, here are the pictures and some info on the builds:

1. B-1 "Excalibur" (Academy 1/260)

It's a simple and relatively old kit. My aim with this build was just to test the "black base" technique. Accuracy was not an objective.

The WIP is here and the RFI is here.

IMAG6795

IMAG6798

IMAG6799

IMAG6803

2. Soviet Ekranoplan: A-90 "Orlyonok" (Zvezda, 1/144)

This is my build of the A-90 Ekranoplan in Soviet markings, as stationed in the Caspian Sea in 1990. The kit is Zvezda's and was built out of the box. The only modifications were fuselage windows made of Contacta Clear glue (after drilling the necessary holes on the fuselage) and Uschi elastic wire for the antenna wire on top of the fuselage.

The WIP can be found here and the RFI is here.

IMAG6809

IMAG6813

IMAG6817

IMAG6828

3. Marines attack helicopter AH-1G Cobra, Vietnam 1970 (AZ Model, 1/72)

This one is detailed with Brengun's PE set. I used the "black base" technique plus "marbling" with two lighter tones of green to provide some tonal variance under a thin layer of the final camouflage colour.

The WIP thread is here and the RFI is here.

IMAG7086

IMAG7095

IMAG7100

IMAG6995

Thanks for looking

Cheers

Jaime

December 29, 2020

1 minute ago, John_W said:

Very nice. I like the Vietnam era Cobra, much smoother cleaner lines before all the lumps and bumps got added.

Thank you very much! I agree with you: this version of the Cobra is very smooth. Nevertheless, I have some latter versions in the stash: the Italeri/Revell Super-cobra and the Dream Models Viper. I'm also waiting for delivery of the Special Hobby "Early Tails" Cobra boxing.

Cheers

Jaime

December 29, 2020

12 minutes ago, Booty003 said:

That looks fantastic, the cockpit is especially smart. Those dials are superb.

Thank you very much! The Brengun PE set is very good regarding the instrument panels.

December 29, 2020

2 hours ago, F-32 said:

Awesome build, such a good looking helicopter

Thank you very much!

December 28, 2020

Very impressive work! Congrats! :clap2:

Cheers

Jaime

December 28, 2020

Hi Stix!

Excellent collection of models! Superb work as always! Your brush painting puts us all, airbrushers, to shame 😳

Cheers

Jaime

December 27, 2020

16 hours ago, giemme said:

Off to a great start already, Jaime!

I'm in, if you don't mind

Ciao

Hi Giorgio! It's always a pleasure to have you on board! I hope I won't disapoint!

10 hours ago, Tailspin Turtle said:

Some notes here: https://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2009/12/f2h-banshee-modeling-notes.html

The most noticeable, sort of, is the nose landing gear difference from the F2H-1/2 Banshees.

I failed to mention that in the -3/4s, a large radar scope was added on the right side of the instrument panel. It is missing from the kit’s instrument panel and is one of the less significant but still somewhat visible differences between the -1/2s and the -3/4s.

Note: I’ve just modified that post to add an illustration of the -3/4 instrument panel and one of the bit fillet added to the horizontal stabilizer.

Thank you very much for the link: very interesting and useful.

7 hours ago, David H said:

Nice to see the -3 "Bigger Banjo" getting some love. It wasn't what one would call a flashy performer, but it proved very dependable and it provided McDonnell with enough cash to go on to bigger and better things.

-d-

I find these 50's jets quite interesting and have a few different types in my stash.

Cheers

Jaime

December 27, 2020

@CedB @giemme @Dennis_C @swralph @112 Squadron @corsaircorp @desert falcon @the MDman @Serkan Sen

Thank you all very much for your interest and appreciation!

I've now added a few pictures of the cockpit during the build, before closing the canopy. These show the level of detail provided by the Brengun PE set, especially on the instrument panels, which look superb.

This kit was really difficult. Now I'm waiting for the delivery of Special Hobby's AH-1G "Early Tails" boxing, which I hope will be easier to build. I still have to order the Brengun PE set for it, though.

Cheers

Jaime

December 26, 2020

4 hours ago, CedB said:

Superb detailed work as usual Jaime.

That mottled pre-shade was particularly effective.

Great job

Thank you very much Ced! Very kind, as always!

December 26, 2020

Dear All,

Having finished an AZ Model AH-1G Cobra in mid-December, which gave me a fight almost every step of the way, I decided to build something simple and out-of-the-box. I opted for Academy's F2H-3, which seemed quite simple and has been recently re-boxed.

Here's a picture of the box art, sprues and decals:

IMAG7109

The decal sheet in detail. It's printed by Cartograf, should perform flawlessly:

IMAG7110

The decals allow one of seven schemes to be built. On the box side we can see six of these:

IMAG7111

However, I'll build the box-art scheme, which is also shown on the top sides of the box:

IMAG7112

There's a good picture of this aircraft on the net:

There's also a video of flight operations of VF-41 aboard another carrier (USS Forrestal) around the same time:

There are two detailed walk-arounds on the net:

https://www.cybermodeler.com/aircraft/f2h/f2h_walk.shtml

http://www.primeportal.net/hangar/bill_spidle2/f2h_126419/

I started the build by removing the cockpit parts from the sprues:

IMAG7113

The instrument panel and side panels have raised detail to represent the instrumentation but there are no decals for that. The control column is a poor representation of the real thing. The ejection seat needs some scratch built additions to represent the ejection handles.

These handles are shown in the following pictures of the real thing: there's one on each side of the seat, in red and yellow stripes,

There's also a red handle on the top of the seat, visible through the canopy on this picture:

I made the handles from 0.2 mm copper wire. The seat was drilled on the proper places and the pre-bent wires were glued in place with CA. Here's the final result:

IMAG7119

The ejection mark on the floor of the cockpit tube isn't completely covered by the seat. So, I applied a circular piece of plasticard and a bit of Perfect Plastic Putty (PPP) to make it disappear:

IMAG7115

The bulkhead on the back of the cockpit tube was glued in place:

IMAG7117

The cockpit parts are ready for painting:

IMAG7120

The fuselage and wing parts were also removed from the sprues:

IMAG7114

The fit seems to be good. The main and nose wheel wells are very poor: too shallow and with no detail whatsoever. I'll try to improve them somehow. Another problematic area are the air intakes, which lack the inner tubing leading to the compressor faces of the turbines (though these are schematically represented in the kit).

Here is a picture of the real thing:

Front compressor face and intake tubing

Rear compressor face and exhaust tubing:

The kit parts for the front compressor faces (bottom of the image) and rear compressor faces (four parts on the top left of the image):

IMAG7122

I'll try to make the intake tubing from thin plasticard sheet but it will be complicated. In the meanwhile, I glued in place two parts that represent the vertical sidewalls of the intakes:

IMAG7121

I noticed that the openings for the canons on the sides of the front fuselage are simple holes (visible on the left edge of the previous picture), allowing the inside of the model to be seen. To avoid this, I used thin plasticard to create tubings for these openings.

Here are they glued in place on the inside of the fuselage halves:

IMAG7123

Here's a front view of the result:

IMAG7124

Well, so much for my intentions of building the kit OOB...

The cockpit parts and the inside walls of the cockpit on the fuselage halves were primed with Alclad Black Primer and Microfiller but I didn't take pictures yet.

That's all for now. Thanks for looking.

Jaime

December 26, 2020

Dear All,

I've recently finished this model, which was started in October 2016 and shelved in December of the same year. I resumed work on it in July 2020 and pressed on till finishing it, though it fought me hard every step of the way. Here are some notable points of the build:

The kit has good detail out of the box and the shapes look good but fit is a bit "vague", which caused several difficulties.
As usual, I also complicated the build by adding the Brengun PE set, which improves detail considerably and is highly recommended.
I tried to use the Pavla vacform canopy but it turned out to be a bit short in length (either by design or my lack of ability in cutting it out of the mould), therefore I ended up using the kit supplied transparent part.
I used Alclad Black Primer and Microfiller covered with a "marbling" layer made up of two different lighter greens, to create some tonal variance to the Field Green camouflage
I used metallic paints from Alclad and Gunze's and Tamyia's acrylics
The other paints used were Gunze's acrylics

In the end I'm pleased with the results, though there are a few errors. The detailed WIP thread is here.

So, here are the pictures:

1. General views

IMAG7086

IMAG7087

IMAG7088

IMAG7089

IMAG7090 / IMAG7091

IMAG7092

IMAG7093

IMAG7094

IMAG7095

IMAG7096

IMAG7097

IMAG7100

2. Detailed views

IMAG7101

IMAG7102

IMAG7103

IMAG7104

IMAG7105

IMAG7107

IMAG7106

IMAG7108

3. Cockpit (during the build, before closing the canopy)

IMAG6908

IMAG6913

IMAG6992

IMAG6995

IMAG7008

IMAG7012

Thank you all for looking. As always, all comments are very welcome.

Cheers

Jaime

December 26, 2020

Hi again,

Next step of the build was installing the gun turret under the nose. The turret had a rotating cannon and grenade launcher installed. Since there are openings on the underside of the turret, allowing the inside to be visible, I decided to add pieces of painted sprue to simulate the ends of the guns inside the turret. The following picture shows all the parts:

IMAG7066

The guns were installed. The painted side of the pieces of sprue was installed facing the openings on the underside of the turret:

IMAG7067

IMAG7068

When seen from the underside, the sprue pieces can be seen:

IMAG7069

Next, the turret was glued in place:

IMAG7070

IMAG7071

The remaining small parts were glued in place: the pitot tube on the nose:

IMAG7072

the blade antenna under the fuselage (the joint was improved by filling with CA glue and painting with matte black):

IMAG7073

and the tail probe:

IMAG7074

The canopy masking was removed, revealing that some dust and pieces of PPP had managed to find their way into the cockpit. The dark wash also spread under the masking near the front frames of the canopy but that was easily removed with the damp tip of a toothpick:

IMAG7075

Here's an overview of the current state of the build:

IMAG7076

Detailed view of the top presence light, already painted with transparent red over a base of chrome silver:

IMAG7077

I still had to glue the skids in place. In order to allow enough time to position the skids correctly, I decided to use 5 min Araldite. This epoxy glue allows 5 min working time, hardens in 20 min and provides maximum strength after 2 hours.

I used a LEGO rig to align the skids properly:

IMAG7078

IMAG7079

IMAG7080

After 2 hours of curing time, the Araldite-glued skids still didn't stand the weight of the model (the Araldite tube I used is a couple of years old), so I left the model on the rig for at least half a day more and, then, reinforced the joints between the skids and fuselage with CA. Very diluted brush-applied paint was applied to repair the paint job around the joints.

Next, the main rotor was glued in place:

IMAG7081

The last PE parts were installed, closing the opening around the main rotor shaft:

IMAG7083

To finish with, I glued the tail rotor in place.

Here are two pictures of the completed model. More will follow in a RFI post.

IMAG7084

IMAG7085

Thanks for looking.

Jaime

EDIT: the RFI post with better final pictures is here.

December 25, 2020

Hi again,

With the main colour applied, the next step was painting the yellow tail band. I delimited the area using masking tape:

IMAG7036

The rest of the fuselage was protected using kitchen cling-film:

IMAG7037

The tail band was first painted flat white, as a base for the yellow:

IMAG7038

The tips of the rotors are also yellow, so they were painted white first as well

IMAG7039

Here's the end result for the tail band:

IMAG7040

and for the rotors:

IMAG7041

There's also a tail probe, which was painted yellow with red stripes:

IMAG7044

The fuselage and all the small parts were sealed with a microgloss coat, in preparation for decaling. Here's the set-up for decal application:

IMAG7045

There aren't many decals and they behaved very well. The decals were sealed with another coat of microgloss. The final result can be seen in the next pictures:

IMAG7048

IMAG7049

The next step was applying a dark wash to the fuselage and all small parts. This was done using Vallejo's acrylic "Oiled Earth" wash. Here's the operation under way:

IMAG7050

Next, the fuselage and small parts received a coat of Alclad Flat, to give them the final finish. There were several small task to conclude however.

First, the exhaust ring and PE guards were glued in place. I also brush-painted the intake grids with Gunze's H18 Steel. The presence light on top of the engine tower was first painted Tamiya's Chrome Silver. It will later receive a coat of transparent red:

IMAG7051

The PE parts for the armament were applied:

IMAG7052

Here we can see the armament by the fuselage:

IMAG7054

Before glueing the armament in place there were a few smallish PE parts to install on the wings: parts 32, 33 and 34 on the picture below

IMAG7056

These parts make up a mechanism to be installed between the centre pylon and the lower surface of the wing. Here are the the parts for one of the mechanisms glued together, before installation on the wing: