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Tomathee

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Everything posted by Tomathee

  1. Hi folks, my three year old is really into his trains at the moment, and a couple of relatives have hinted at getting him a trainset for Christmas. I, as I'm sure most of us would have had one during childhood and I can't deny being more keen on this than some of the other things he's been interested in (Paw Patrol, Peppa Pig etc). However one of my main negatives was the standard loop on a plain board getting boring quickly. So I'm keen to look into what other things I can do once the initial novelty wears off. I've read a few sites but I'm yet to find a decent and active forum to look at (similar to here) work in progress and so on, there doesn't appear to be a Britmodeller equivalent for that world. So can anyone point me towards a good place to lurk for the next few months while we confirm his interest so I can get a few ideas. Thanks
  2. Thanks guys, good to hear similar wavelengths. As said I've been cutting back as builds seem to re-appear, or they do the same article for different versions of the same model etc and you get different magazines picking up the same model at different months so its duplication to avoid. I agree YouTube is excellent and I subscribe to a few channels, and it's free of course and sometimes the comments on the videos are quite valuable. I'll stick with paper in some form as it's nice to read with breakfast etc, perhaps look around for some books to add. I've also had in mind to make a list or sheet of the magazines I've read so that I can find what I need, currently if I want to find articles of e.g. a ship build I have to flick through the contents of each one which is annoying, but that in itself is another task for the 'needs doing but I've several dozen things I'd rather do' list. Cheers again
  3. Hi folks, having a ponder after dropping another £4.75 on a magazine at lunchtime. Do you guys go more for books or magazines? I must have a decent pile of finished magazines (30+) and a few to catch up on, I used to buy around one a month, although I've slowed as similar subjects have started to pop up. I'm not loyal to a brand and my usual method of choosing is by the front cover highlights, I look out for at least two builds I'm interested in, and a quick flick through of those as I've noticed some of the headliners don't go past a few pages, and fairly often I leave empty handed if there's not enough of interest in any of the mags that month. The previews and all that sort of fluff don't really interest me as I don't need to spend the extra on new releases when there's such a wealth of older (cheaper) kits around, and it's 90% builds I'm interested in reading about. Every time I come out of the shop I think something along the lines of "for the price of a few magazines I could just get a book", with more fleshed out builds, less adverts and easier to locate once they go away onto a shelf or cupboard. So against the idea - a lot of the books I look at (using Amazon, never seen one in a shop) include a section for beginners. While I'm always on the lookout for new tips and ways to do things outside of through build threads, I don't need a few dozen pages telling me to buy sanding sticks and the other basics. Being a book doesn't necessarily equal a lot of content, many of those I looked at were around £20 and less than 200 pages, so comparing against magazines that seem to have around the 90 mark, even taking out the adverts I wonder if there's a great deal of difference. Taking a book with 5 builds, if one or two aren't of interest it's a decent chunk of waste paper, magazines with more builds in shorter form suffer less so. Anyway, that's enough of my rainy Monday afternoon ramblings, just looking for other peoples approach. There's only so many different ways I can read about painting a tank green or brown and I'm always on the lookout for the cheapest/most efficient option of learning. Thanks
  4. Thanks Lars, it's an alright kit, I've put a couple of issues I've encountered in the updates but I've no idea how it compares to other ships, only the other models I've built, which are low in number anyway so I'm not the authority but I think it's a decent standard for the price of it and hours it will provide. All moved in, unpacked and everything as I'd like it without multiple to-do lists is a completely different matter though.
  5. Well I knew it had been a while but four and a half months is a poor show, in terms of progress and updates. Having a three year old limits free time to after ~7pm every day, and once chores are done and spending time with the other half I get between one and three (if I'm lucky) hours to myself. Demanding of that is the constant push to declutter following our house move, work on the house, trying to keep up with a select few TV shows and getting some time to model, and that's just the things that come to mind straight away. I feel somewhat fortunate that I didn't begin the hobby pre-child as I don't really know what I'd now be missing out on, as I imagine there would have been opportunities to crack on once home from work, or spend a Saturday afternoon to push on with builds. Anyway to bring the highlights, pressing on with sub-assemblies was fairly straight forward, I've put a couple of pics below, no need to put every section I think. A couple of issues worth mentioning are the windows, I couldn't figure out a way to tidy them up, the windows were usually at the edge of parts that came together like teeth, and they could have done with a bit of filling and sanding but I couldn't think of a way to do it for such a small area without causing more trouble in over-filling and the subsequent removal messing up the shape of the windows or some other detail anyway, perhaps this is something that I could have tried Mr Surfacer on, for future reference. One of the mast/aerials(?) wasn't clear how high it sat, so that was guess work. Some of the locating pins were too large and needed cutting off. I tried to thin them down but ended up shaving off something else on the surface detail. I think I lost one of the floats off an aircraft, small chance it will turn up in the toolbox but not knowing my luck. There were some caps to go under the turrets meant to hold them in place but the pins sticking out of the turrets aren't long enough to be able to get a good bond so I think I'll have to just glue them down, good chance those caps will fall off inside the closed up hull anyway. Battleships! Once I'd done as many as I thought I could ahead of any painting I put the hull top and bottom together, this seemed to need quite a lot of perfect plastic putty to get a level seam line, but I found that wet wipes work pretty well for getting the excess off, rather than getting it all over my fingers. To be revisited down the post as I came back to it after some painting. On with painting and I decided rightly or wrongly to do the deck first. Before anything else was glued on that I would have to mask around, and because it was a lighter colour. I bought a Vallejo Deck tan colour but it looked quite grey to me so again, rightly or wrongly I left it out and went with Tamiya XF57 Buff, I must have picked it up from another thread as an idea, and I wouldn't know if I had the right shade or anything in either case. I had a familiar issue of it being too thick despite flow enhancer and at least 50/50 thinner. It had killed off the lines of the deck so I delicately sanded it back with 1200 grit and redid it just enough to get the coverage and not flood it. If there's one thing I'm looking forward to it is getting a desk space and airbrush bought to start practising with. Unfortunately the combination of using a brush and my heavy handedness wiped out my attempt at preshading the deck boards, below is what they were like before painting commenced. For a wash I went with Burnt Sienna thinned with turps substitute. It was my first time using these and for once it was something that did what it said, and was fairly straight forward to apply. Before & after; About this stage I decided I still wasn't happy with the join between the hull halves. So I masked close to it and went in with more perfect plastic putty, I probably needed to as being around the area with the black stripe along the water line I guess it will draw the eye and the seam will be more obvious. After this I tried to figure out the order of painting - hull red, black stripe, main blue/grey/whatever shade. But I couldn't at the time and just went with doing the red first. Along with the deck tan I bought that I didn't like, I bought hull red from Vallejo that I also didn't like, it's just too brown for me. Maybe it should be like that but everything I've seen leads me to believe it should be red, and at the time I think I read that the vallejo hull red is more aligned to the hull red that would be put on a Japanese ship, but I'm not versed enough to know. If someone comes along and tells me mine is too red and I need to do X instead then I know for next time at least. Being on a bit of a budget I used what I had and found a colour I liked, bit of a crime mixing brands but it was 8:1 Humbrol Bright Gloss Red to the Vallejo hull red. Thinned with water it took several coats but I think it looks OK, it will fit in with the other areas of my level of painting skill. I don't know what the second largest deck above the main one is called, so I went with first floor (sorry). I painted it buff as before but tried a raw umber wash to see what the difference was, it's definitely darker than the burnt sienna but I'm not sure either which I like better or which is a better representation (if either are). So this one is open to the audience... I found a pic while test fitting some gun or other to show the issue I had earlier with the window halves and them needing filler and sanding but not being sure how to do it on such a delicate scale, I'll have the same issue with this when I come to fit it; To bring the content to a close, I was last testing out the main paint colour and order of work. I've read through a couple of amazing build threads on here of 1/200 scale Arizona's and one used the Vallejo Grey Blue so I'm going with that. There's no mention of darkening it however it does seem a bit on the light side for me, purely from a common sense perspective, along with looking at the other build to use the colour and the paint chart in the instructions. The areas in this aren't all solid as I was messing around with thinning but it's a general idea. It brought me into a good idea however, if I were to use black primer (as with the example I read) it should darken the final outcome enough, and if I mask off the hull red I can use that as my water line as well, if that sounds like a good plan, few less coats of paint being slopped on to cause issues? I still need to decide how to mask/paint detail on the deck but I'll save that for another day. Thanks for reading so far, any comments welcome
  6. Tomathee

    Hull Red?

    I bought some Vallejo Hull Red for the bottom of the USS Arizona model I'm working on, I added some flow improver and thinned it, but trying it out seems far too dark, well on the way to brown. I can't believe that is correct, based on my idea of what it would look like, the colour of the instructions and other build threads of similar. So on to the stupid question, do I simply add in some white until I get the lighter shade I want? The untrained Picasso in me is saying that might turn it pink but I thought I'd check before wasting an evening wondering why I wasn't getting a normal red shade for my efforts. Thanks
  7. Thanks Nick, progress has slowed so your advice comes in good time. As you say an airbrush means different techniques, hopefully to be sorted out this year. In the meantime I'll try your method for the portholes.
  8. Hi folks, Have been plodding through my first ship build, enjoyable as every other subject I've tried so I'll do more at some point, must speed up completing models though. I've almost finished the sub assemblies as far as I can go and have started to plan out how I'll paint it all. First though I wondered what the done thing is re. portholes, I vaguely remember a post or magazine article or some other source mentioning that they drilled them out but is that the norm? The only other options that come to mind are ignore it and paint with the rest, put a drop of (gloss?) black in or some method of adding some clear material to represent the glass, which I'm not especially keen on at this scale. I read a through WiP threads but none made it clear how the author had handled it. On to the paint, I have the decks to do as a wooden/tan sort of colour and the rest as sea/Mediterranean blue (Arizona, every website I looked at descended into what colour each part was on what date. I'm nowhere near skilled enough to make an accurate replica so choosing the colour isn't my issue, I'll go with what I already have or what's easily available). As I haven't glued anything to the hull am I better doing the deck, then masking it for the rest or vice versa? Seems a lot of fiddly shapes eithe way. I'm still brush painting so I figured there's less risk of breaking something off if I keep everything separate but correct me if I'm wrong. Many thanks!
  9. Some fantastic work spaces and clearly a lot of work being done on them. I'm particularly interested in a couple of examples where people have used kitchen worktops (assuming) rather than a desk, and what that entailed. I'm going to devote some space to a permanent modelling area sharing slightly with a PC and that is an interesting option especially putting it around a corner. Curious on the cost as well as the planning and what other bits were needed to go with it. To add my current surroundings, see below. Recently moved and the previously passable dining table/pack away every night method didn't survive the move with purchase of a new table. It will benefit in the long term as we have regained a spare room, with enough space once various mountains of boxes are distributed to the yet to be arranged shed and floored loft, then desk planning can commence. Until then....
  10. Howdy folks, bit of a wordy start but I've some catching up to do. As alluded to when I finished my last build thread in June (plus however long had passed since finishing the model) I put a stop to further work due to the likelihood of a house move. That eventually happened at the end of September and the several weeks since have been mostly filled with decorating and unpacking in any free time. The past week has slowed down a bit while waiting for things to happen (furniture deliveries, free days for painting etc) but by no means are we 'back to normal', if that ever existed. The spare room is a bombsite, there are boxes still at relatives, most rooms are still to be decorated, there's a long list. Anyway back on topic, with occasional glimmers of free time I started putting back together some of the 'fun' stuff rather than endless boxes of crockery and tea lights. Fortunately (depending on how I look at it), the PC gaming I had used to fill the time in the past several months didn't really click (doesn't share a room with main TV to play from the sofa among other things) so I quickly turned back to what I needed to do to get modelling back up and running. I unearthed the box with all the tools/paints etc from my brothers house amongst several tons of Christmas decorations and emptied it into a cupboard space I had secretly been keeping free. However the box(es) with the models were and still have not revealed themselves. Not wanting to wait, as the next several carloads will be the aforementioned decs in time for December and cause another few weeks of delay I needed something new to at least fill the gap. I headed to my local with a spare tenner in hand (note, if I ever had space to grow a proper stash it will be lethal to me currently working within a lunchtime walk of a very good model shop). I ended up in a choice between a Tamiya 1/35 land rover, a Revell 1/700 ship (USS Indianapolis possibly) and what I ended up with, chosen as I thought it would be easier to paint than the land rover, given I temporarily have even less space than the part time dining table I had use of before (sold for a new one so I won't be risking paint spillages etc, and it may be a while for sufficient space to appear in the spare room to look at desks/tables to work on). So I'm currently down to a tray on a corner table in the lounge, by the way plumped for Arizona as the other one appeared to be just a waterline from the wording on the box. For £7.25 I'm not too bothered about what I end up with, I've never done a ship before so I'm not expecting miracles. Hopefully it will be a fairly quick turn-around to get back warmed up while other things happen (kits turning up, unpacking to clear space at least temporarily to use instead of a tray, boarding the attic to take junk out of the spare room leads to sorting out a permanent desk/table, which leads to opening the door for an airbrush, and so on). In the build-up to moving I wrapped up another hobby and sold/moved everything on (tropical fishkeeping), it had held little interest for me for some years and aside from maintenance I hadn't really wanted to do anything with it, so it's been liberating to have one less thing on my plate. It had played on my mind that perhaps the same would happen here, and that with new surroundings I wouldn't have the same interest. Glad to report from unpacking the boxes of tools and paints I couldn't wait to get started though. I also realised that this week was my 2nd anniversary of joining BM, so I had a push to get everything in place and create a free hour to make a start. Given the reduced space and some of the frustrations of the three models I've so far completed (I know, terrible work rate), I decided to have a bit of a restart and simplify things for myself. I think with all the reading of magazines, forums, youtube builds etc I'd picked up so many things that I was trying to remember and juggle in when I did my builds that I gave myself a bit of information overload which took away some of the enjoyment. I think I'd become so occupied with trying to follow every applicable tip to reduce the chance of getting something wrong that I was skipping some of the newbie things that I should have been learning from. So with this and a good few of the kits in my modest stash that were bought specifically as cheap practice/trial runs etc I'm going to go a bit more freehand with things and see where it takes me, try to figure out build orders or when to paint certain things for myself and if it goes wrong then meh, it's a cheap kit that would likely never get displayed anyway so no harm done. That said I'd be interested in anything basic I can do to avoid having just a solid mass of grey or navy blue for the majority of the main colour (I did notice the majority of posts were dedicated to the colour argument but I'm going to avoid asking anything on that subject). Obligatory shot, always something nice about opening them and checking the parts for missing. For the time I had left I put the stand together, but left off the name plate while I figure out how to paint it, to show the name off against a background colour somehow. I skipped the bottom parts such as propellers as they would probably break easily this early on without anywhere to stand it. Instead I moved on to start the turrets, it was easy enough getting them straight, but not so much getting all three of the guns at the same level, and even once they were level and put away upon checking they have either moved or were in fact not level to begin with, may be overly critical though, but given I'll probably do more ships at some future point it's something I'd want to find a better way of doing. Going to press on as much as possible with sub-assemblies such as those before anything bigger comes together while I work out painting and suchlike. Happy to be back on the trail but as always the competition for free time means two nights have already passed without any further progress.
  11. On with the final post, I'm not going to bother with a separate thread of the Ready for Inspection forum as there's not really anything to comment on and I'm a bit 'meh' about the final result. I'm regretting snapping up the several kits I went after on ebay when I started out 18 or so months ago. They were bought as cheap testers to pick up skills etc and based a bit more on price rather than what I wanted to build. Yes I could leave them be but the realist in me is trying to keep to a limited stash (granted it's grown from 8 max to 10 max to now 12 max) and clearing them allows me to buy something else guilt free. I could also get rid but given how cheap they were to begin with it's not worth the hassle, and I hate throwing anything away unless it's broken beyond repair. So I will get through them, my medium term plan is that by the time we've moved and the dust has settled and I get one more built I'll have sorted out an airbrush so I'll have a couple of duds to practice on as I know that will take some getting used to. One of the habits I've gotten into is making notes as I go, patchy this time but hopefully will improve in future. Useful for me as I started this back in November, so a lot has been forgotten. One thing that I noticed and forgot to include the other day was getting the tracks round the sprocket wheels. Apart from the issues I detailed I found that the inside edge wasn't raised to the same level as the outside edge with the teeth. So I had to wrap a thin strip of plasticard around the wheel on the inside edge so that the tracks would sit flat. Another minor thing was trying a wash on the figure with I believe 90% thinner to 10% flat black paint, then a 10% buff wash over it, seemed to work out quite well. Back on track following the last update there's very little to add, one of the decals somehow slipped away from where I put it that I missed or moved on from keeping my eye on too early before it dried. It came out a bit darker than actual in a lot of the pictures, to be honest I can't remember if I added a drop of white to the main coats to lighten it up as recommended in several sources to avoid it looking like a dark block with no distinguishing features, I think I did but maybe a bit more was needed. I'll end with some final photos, did quite like the name they'd given it, any photography tips welcome along with the model itself. Only just noticed the black spot at the end of his nose :/ So there it is, I'll put it away in a tupperware for now to keep the dust off and the either get it out at a later date if I have some sort of display shelf/cabinet, or if I use it for a diorama. It was an ok build apart from the tracks which were awful bending them around the wheels. I still have work to do on my brush painting which I'm a little disappointed with. I'm not sure that I've grasped the different times when sanding may be required and to what extent, and I suspect I'm still brushing a little heavy, need to just leave it rather than going over areas again straight away. I definitely plan on doing another M1 in future and I keep seeing the nice ones from the likes of Rye Field models but it's a long way off in wanting to get the skills and experience to do a job worthy of the price tag and complexity of it. Next up for me is most likely a 1:144 F18 that hopefully I'll start work on in a few months from a proper desk in the new house. Between now and then I have a book and several magazines to read through, along with the endless youtube and forum browsing to keep me occupied, there's also the Steam summer sale just started so even more games to stock up on and not play, sound familiar?
  12. Long overdue for an update, things began moving re. selling our flat so I decided after this was complete I'd not start another one until the dust has settled wherever we end up. So it's been stretched out longer than I'd planned to keep my hand in the hobby, but hey it's finished now (or I'm calling it finished). Meanwhile the flat has sold and we have an offer accepted on a house (including mental note of new stash location and small permanent work area in the spare bedroom so hopefully an airbrush is one step closer), so the future is bright. Winding back to February I got on with the tracks. The instructions say Tire(?) black for the pads and steel for the rest, the only way I could see around trying to paint steel into the intricate details was to prime it all in black, then do the in my case rubber black over it all, then a layer of matt varnish to hopefully protect it, followed by, again substituting in metallic grey all over. I then did a gloss coat for the benefit of the steel that was to remain, and gently sanded the track pads back to the underlying rubber black. Don't know if this was a good idea, or the best idea but it seemed to turn out ok. Not sure what would happen if for example the areas to sand back weren't flat or sat lower or same level as those to leave but I'll cross that bridge later. Next was getting the wheels on, fairly straight forward as the main set came in single pieces with the front and rear separates. Then it was the tracks which were an absolute nightmare, they needed wrapping around the wheels and the instructions suggested cutting part way through to make bending them easier. This did not work, no matter how far I cut they simply wouldn't bend far enough to wrap around and several times ended up either cutting too deep or bending too hard and breaking them. Eventually they were stuck in sections of one or two links, once broken there was no hope of gluing them back together. I also gave up on using the top run, it's covered anyway but wouldn't fit right once I begun fitting the top of the body. After that frustration there wasn't a lot left to do, the top half of the body went on easily enough. As did the side skirts In between all that I finished the figure as per the instructions. I've never liked painting figures (well faces mostly) and I don't think I ever will come to like it but they add a lot in my opinion. The turret dropped into place which brings me to the end of the photos I have so far. I've since glossed it, added the decals, matt varnish and put on the final details such as machine guns. Don't think I've missed out much but most of this was at least 2 months ago now. Will do a final update next time I get the camera out and close this off. Then it's just magazines and youtube to satisfy my modelling for a short time. Thanks for reading
  13. Cheers, airbrush and compressor is top of my list once we have a house sorted in the near future. Currently have nowhere suitable to use one (dining table) or store it (away from an inquisitive two year old). I'll add the book to the list of those to look out for, it's growing quicker than I can buy and read them though.
  14. Thanks for all the input, good discussion points. I have some flow improver, Daler Rowney? That I usually add in a few ml to a pot when I open it, as long as I remember. So far with the tamiya paints I've used they've been more for detail than large area where it would show up more, but I've heard before that they're bad for brushing on so I've avoided them if there's another option. I did the tracks last night and it looks passable for them being what they are, being beat up and probably some attempted weathering later on. I think the main colour painting looks rough more from my preparation than the paint - think I used to low grit and maybe not enough thinner etc. Debating the suggestion about another coat to lighten it up a bit or pushing on and adding it to my notes for next time.
  15. Cheers, I guess I was thinking more along the lines of several years down the line at my pace when I have a few complete next to each other and this is half the size of everything else, but saying that I have a couple of 1/48 armour kits as well, also have ebay impulse buying to thank for that. The paints are all brushed acrylic, bit of a mish mash though as I'm trying to avoid unnecessary spending in general (saving for a house), and the hobby specifically (rather build up the cash for an airbrush once the former is sorted). Off the top of my head it's a Humbrol dark green and matt black from a starter kit, AK interactive Rubber Tires for the track pads (next update), no Tamiya yet although I've been told their Metallic Grey is near enough to steel.
  16. Brief update as I've not had much worth writing about so far and I'm mostly wanting to get this done and out the way. For the sake of a couple of quid I should have just gone straight in with a normal (1/35) scale model instead of a 'practice run' with this. Not had any real problems with the building of it so far, the bottom was made up of four parts, most of the wheels come as one piece attachments which are on, the turret is done apart from a couple of details and the frame around the back, and the figure is mostly complete. I had to use some filler on the figure where the arms attached, and where the turret halves joined, although it might not have been necessary. The main gun had a separate smaller part at the end which I had a go at drilling out, it seemed to go well so I also tried to go smaller and do the machine gun and the smoke launchers which were a bit more hit and miss. This bought me to the main painting stage, which I'm disliking more with each build. I've got a couple of things to try next time but as with my first build I'm not bothered enough about the final outcome of this to go as far as stripping back and starting fresh, so it is what it is. Primed with AK black primer thinned 50/50, quick sand with 2000 grit, then on with a few thinned dark green coats, rubbing with an old tshirt in between. Once the wheels had dried I did flat black around the outsides. Turret - gap around edge after assembly that I probably didn't need to waste time on filling... IMG_20161126_223116756 by Tom Noble, on Flickr IMG_20161205_225747251 by Tom Noble, on Flickr Lower hull, I did some experimenting on the inside to try and improve my painting, with different primers and thinners, coats etc IMG_20161121_213419177_BURST000_COVER_TOP by Tom Noble, on Flickr Main gun tip that I managed to drill out successfully IMG_20161123_212727325 by Tom Noble, on Flickr Three main parts after painting IMG_20170109_210440435 by Tom Noble, on Flickr Wheels, did dark green all over, then black around the outsides before touching up the insides with green after. The figure was primed and helmet painted dark green at that stage. IMG_20170120_221153888 by Tom Noble, on Flickr Next I'm finishing off the tracks, I've primed them black and gone over with rubber tyres. The instructions say steel on the rest so first I've tried painting it on and going over the raised parts which should be back with a cotton bud. If that doesn't work I did a coat of matt varnish after the rubber tyres paint so I'll try sanding gently to take the steel off. Also the figure to finish and try to make some attempt and looking decent.
  17. Seasons Greetings! As the title really, I think I've missed a step or have a step to take still during priming and it's not turned out great. That alongside a couple of issues with previous models has lead me looking for a specific point by point guide but I haven't come across anywhere that has it in one place. So I thought I'd see what the folk of here go with and make a plan from that. Now I have a range of sanding sticks/sponges/sheets/needles etc of different grit, haven't yet chopped up an old tshirt or pair of jeans as some places suggest is included in the toolkit. I've put below roughly what I've done in my short modelling career as a starter so hopefully the gaps in my practice will show up once the replies start coming in from better knowledgeable people. I used a spray can primer on one model, which seemed to give a better finish than the brush painting which I do everything else in, so I know my technique needs improving and practice, just becoming a little frustrating to see the primer come out poor and knowing it will impact the final finish. One example of such is that I'm fairly certain I apply too much pressure, and with sanding a bit of sprue off it's easy to check progress, you can see it, sand it, run nail along to check periodically until it is smooth with the rest. However when it's just to prepare a layer of primer or paint ready for the next layer I have no real clue what I'm looking for, so more often than not end up taking off too much. Also, particularly with primer I'm never sure how 'good' a finish I should be looking for, as it's going to be covered over. So I've always ended up doing more than one coat, which I guess adds to the final amount of paint which is on a model and could make things worse if more is used than necessary. As a final point, are there instances where sanding shouldn't be done and whatever is being applied left as it is? Removing from sprue - a stick or sponge, around 200 grit Before priming - Don't sand (should I, for the primer to stick down better?) Between primer coats - After not sanding resulted in a poor finish on a previous model I've now tried sanding with 1200 grit and water, then buffer/polisher (if there's a difference?) after reading some other threads and websites, however it's given a poor finish (can see marks from the paper) and taken it back to the plastic in places (acrylic primer, had at least 2 days to dry) After primer, before paint - 1200 then 2000 grit and water Between paint coats - 1200 grit then polisher After last paint coat - as above Then nothing after than once I start putting on varnish, decals etc. So there it is, any help appreciated.
  18. This is my 'dipping toes in the water' first armour build, bought as a trial although I'm fairly well decided it's what I want to do not solely, but in majority to aircraft, as my last few purchases and magazine reads have swayed towards this area. Dioramas appeal and once I've a few builds under my belt I want to give that a go. As a tester I thought smaller scale might be better but after going with that idea for my first aircraft I kind of regret not just going for the 'regular' 1/35 from the beginning. Picked up for £3 from ebay and hoping to knock through it quickly and move on to something to really get into. There's 54 parts and it's single colour, no clear parts, not much masking needed, so hopefully less things for me to trip up on. Have had a few evenings on it already which I'll update once I get the pics sorted, also switched over to using flickr so apologies for issues with the images. From the box/instructions - The E1 was the prototype to replace the 105mm cannon with a 120mm gun. Entered mass production in 1985 as the M-1A1 for US Marines & US Army. Yes that is a Beatties label! Don't know if plastic goes brittle over time but I've definitely noticed a change in cutting bits off the sprues compared to the other two I recently built. Sprue shots & decals. Could have done with one of the instructions perhaps, 9 steps plus paint and decals. Will post the actual work so far in a day or two. Thanks for reading, didn't see any of these underway or completed but if anyone has any comments that would be appreciated.
  19. Don't think I've got enough space on the floor of my hull to try out all these new ideas . Thanks anyway, black + gloss in whichever format seems the way. This will seem suitably well thought out once I come back later to grizzle after mullering the barrel open with the pin vice I bought earlier.....
  20. Cheers guys, as you say it's a small part in a smaller scale so I'm probably spending too much time thinking on it. I realised none of the options involving a bit of laminating sheet would work as there's raised detail I'd never be able to wrap it around or cut round it. The photos I looked through on google seemed to show little or no colour (said the colourblind person). Black looked a little closer than silver, so to take a shortcut as the plastic is already black I'll just go for gloss varnish over it, and use masking fluid to protect during the rest of the build. For reference-
  21. Thanks John, I managed to split one of the G's once or twice even, not sure if it shows in the pics I put here or the other thread but my some lucky mishap there's some wash in the area to distract the eye! Don't think there's much to be done for the shark mouth I could tell before I put it in the water that it I'd have to pick which areas to get right. Good luck with your build Tom
  22. Howdy, just started my first armour model last night, M1 Abrams 1/72. Following suspicions I googled as one of the parts I thought should have been a clear part rather than standard plastic. According to Wikipedia its an optical periscope. Although I'm fairly new at modeling and brand new at armour I'd like to do it right (or as close to right as my abilities allow). Just looking for tips, so far I've come up with either using gloss varnish on the part, maybe black coat underneath? Or replacing with/putting over the top a clear sheet, such as a piece of pilfered laminating pouch? Also is standard transparent correct or do I need to try using a clear colour over it? Many thanks
  23. Hi folks, Finally seen my second model across the finish line. Was never going to be a showstopper but I've gotten what I wanted from it in the form of plenty of lessons learned, and warming up towards something I would be ok with showing the light of day again. Didn't add anything of note, used the included paints where possible despite their flaws, mish mash for the rest - Vallejo, Xtracrylix mostly. For anyone interested here is the - WiP Thread Thanks for looking
  24. Final update, decided against EZ line for now due to the cost of it, and I tried stretching sprue but couldn't get it anywhere near thin enough. Went with some 'invisible' thread instead. Also trialled the thing of holding a warm match close by to make it tighten up but I either couldn't get it right or had the wrong material (might be for fishing line?!?). In the end I figured it out without the magic of google for a change. Cutting thread longer than needed I used a dab of superglue to attach the ends to the wings. Once dried plenty I wrapped some white tac around the other end, then pulling it tight past the point on the tail I wanted to glue down and stuck it to hold whilst the glue set. Messed up a bit in not making one thread long enough, it reached but I couldn't get the glue to set while holding it taut with tweezers, maybe need some quicker drying glue for next time. Gluing more than once has made a bit of mess on the wing but I'll have to live with it, seems to have worked so far though. I also solved my missing part (pitot?), among the stretched sprue from the above was a bit around close enough to replace the part I lost some time ago. To get the thicker end (when trying to find out what it was called photos looked like it was a tube but on the original part and instructions it's thicker at the outside end) I dabbed a bit of PVA glue on with a cocktail stick, took a couple of attempts before it matched close enough to the original. Gluing on the last parts - propellor, wheels & wheel bay doors, drop tank went without issue. I decided to have a go with a wash, although there was little in the way of panel lines for it to make use of, way back in the beginning I discovered raised panel lines are better off sanded back and I wasn't ready to try re-scribing so it's been left mostly smooth. UMP dark dirt was used, seemed to work ok where it could - wheel wells and other such areas. Maybe a filter would be better in this sort of situation in future, especially in this case being based in North Africa. Think that is all, have done some photos without the junk in the background for the RFI. Thanks for reading and inputting/supporting/answering questions etc, see you for the next one!
  25. Two updates in a week, not sure what's gotten into me! Decals on, few problem areas along the way, partly the decals - didn't want to come off the backing paper, didn't want to stick to the area I wanted to put them, did want to stick to anything else I used trying to re-position them. This caused one or two cases of folding over and a couple of splits. The other part was user error with Humbrol Decalfix. I believed I was following the same process as with my other model, maybe it worked fine with that and not this time, or maybe (more likely) I remembered incorrectly. Anyway I went with soak decal in small pot of decalfix, paint decalfix onto area of model, place decal, paint more decalfix over, wipe off excess. The first session of doing these was a bit of a disaster and was where the majority of issues occurred. So for the second night I went with warm water to soak and lay on the area, place decal, paint decalfix over, remove excess. This seemed to work a lot better in both getting the decal off the backing and re-positioning it. Lesson learned, and I think I'll keep a notepad handy when building for stuff like that and also for the questions I think of during but forget by the time I visit the forum. Third evening needed due to the first taking so long, would have given myself two in any case as the red spot on the roundels(?) was separate to the rest of it, and the mouth came as four decals and even doing two in one go resulted in much knocking and re-positioning. So on to the pics, bottom first, straight forward although one side looks a little wrinkled, pretty happy with where I managed to get the red spots to stick. The decalfix has gone over some of the gloss, obvious on the right edge. Hopefully will clear up once I go over it with some more gloss to seal them. The main decal here split when trying to get it off the backing, could have been a bit more to the right and been worse I guess (left side of the yellow ring). Might have been down to using decalfix the first night to soften the backing paper for removal, thinking about it I guess it would do the complete opposite? Also it didn't show up in any of the pics I took but the flag on the tail came as one decal which folded over the edge. I knew with the struggles I'd already had and my skill level in general that I'd never get it right without a lot of trouble so decided to cut it in half and do the left and right side of the tail separately. There's a small gap along the edge where the camo shows between the red corner. Since this I've just painted over the edge in red so will see how that turns out. Straight away I knew the mouth decals would be the hardest part. It came in four parts, the two sides and two smaller decals for just below the propeller. Between the instructions and the box art it looks like these should fill the whole area over all the camoflage, but I could find no way of achieving that. I figured the side panels would be a lot more visible so getting them right should take priority. I got them lined up as best I could but as you will see it could have been better. Maybe I should have trimmed the clear film a bit closer to get the decal nearer the edge of the intake(?). They also overlap at the bottom a bit and one split again coming off the backing, have tidied as best I could and there is a small gap, I didn't want to pull them up and lay them down too much for fear of ripping them and making it worse than it would be if they were just a little off perfect placement. The smaller parts I just fit in the gap in the most lined up way I could, I'm hoping the propeller will cover most of it. Along the bottom where the decals overlap I've since touched up with some black to try and make a smoother line, will get a pic of the difference for next time. Currently touching up those two areas, then onto another gloss coat, not sure if I'll use the rattle can or brush on more Clear. After that I think it's just a matt coat and add on the last bits, need to check out EZ line as there might be some sort of aerial or cable thing from the tail to the end of each wing. Thanks as always for reading.
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