TheBaron

Ace stuff Ed. Hope you're enjoying the airbrush, these results look great! Tony

Delicious. An eye-catching scheme. Your perseverance with those decals has really been worth it, to produce such a lovely piece of work! Bravo! Tony

A splendid piece of work Dean. Congratulations. BTW it was only reading Turbofan's post that made me aware that the first few photos were the model with a backdrop; I took them as actual reference shots. Just shows it doesn't always have to be digital effects but just plain good old photographiic prowess in order to get such a great result. The Concorde often used to fly over my grandparents' garden in Kingston, so this brought back pleasant memories of shattered peace and quiet as the white bird soared overhead Well done sir! Tony

Great stuff Simon.Your work on those barrels really pays off visually. Tony

Modelling like a Time Lord sir! That's an amazing sonic screwdriver you've got there; I had no idea such a tool//process existed! That looks a really useful technique to have up your sleeve. I appreciate you bringing this to our attention. Kind regards, Tony

Surging forward now! That camo's looking most fine John - you must be feeling real pleased with this day's work You've really modulated the aircraft impressively with that preshade, it's got a real sense of something occupying space (that sounds daft but you know what I mean...visual presence etc.). Can we expect a reprise of the 'brown trouser' technique on the weathering? Keep it up sir. There's more Meatbox here than a whole Fray Bentos factory... Tony

Time will tell on that geezer I managed to get a few hours free around lunchtime so it's largely been paint and mask day today. I'd finished up yesterday by putting some stripes on the various fuel tanks: I felt the white looked a little too pristine compared to some of the contemporary colour photos of the NF.14 in service, and as there's a number of bits and pieces that came with the Dremel clone, I decided to see if buffing-up with one of those fluffy-looking polishing heads might knock the white back a little on the drop tanks: Personally I was rather pleased with the effect - not aiming for any colour-scaling effects ( I remain to be convinced) but more just an aesthetic tweak. Before bed last night I'd also blapped a bit of Payne's grey on the undercarriage and left that to dry, prior to rubbing that back down later: This was the final condition of the bird last night after masking the nether regions - less Meatbox and more 'uncooked Croissant': Today's first task therefore was to shoot some DSG as the first part of the upper camouflage pattern. I just did this freehand, leaving the approximate areas free for Dark Green to be added later on: The resulting appearance seemed ok, so I left that to dry for a bit and zoomed off bang in some extra fence posts and a soak pit for the chicken and duck runs. Whilst pickaxing through the hardpan in best 'I was a convict in the chain-gang' style, I gave some thought to the next masking stage. I'd been toying with the idea for some time of using adhesive transparencies, of the kind used to cover library books (or my kids' schoolbooks every September). I've come to realize that I'm not exactly fond of the Blue/White Tack method for 1/72 work - I just don't find it precise or controllable enough at creating the contours for areas where the camouflage is quite ravelled and has lots of twists and turns on a very small scale. I'd previously looked at CedB's lovely results with scaled paper masks (based on printouts from the painting instructions that come with the kit), but noted the dimensional issues involved when transferring such layouts from 2D images to 3D models. It seemed to me that working with transparencies might kills two birds with one stone, in that you can draw an outline of the camouflage exactly where you want it, and then cut this up to make masks that will self-adhere. I'm sure this has been done umpteen times before, but I'll post the steps that I used if anyone wants to use them. Here's some transparency sections cut off of a roll. Baby Nissen huts anyone? I decided to start at the smallest areas of the aircraft and work forwards. You can see how this process works in drawing out the mask directly onto the tailplane from the painting instructions. Once drawn in situ, (what's also nice is the way you can see how your drawing aligns with the panel lines) you can just cut out the mask with a scalpel and the reapply it: *One thing to warn you about if you're going to try this: don't stick the plastic straight onto your build - make sure you remove some of the tackiness of the material by sticking it several times onto other surfaces first (or in my case the cutting mat still covered with sandings of filler...), otherwise you'll risk lifting any painted surfaces/primer. You just want it to be sticky enough to stay in place on vertical surfaces, no more.* Doing the wings using the same procedure: And the final result - ready for some greenery! What I like about this approach is the way that you can draw and curve the camouflage around complex contours in a controlled manner, one that lets you work in increments and correct as you go. What I don't like of course is the fact that I've never tried this procedure before and have no idea what the results might be. I'm too knackered for another spraying session this evening, so will report in tomorrow with results, good or bad as they may be. Here's the other current undertaking: extending Egg Station Zebra: Over and out comrades, Tony

*Humouring rumours*

You are right. It is the black helicopters that are spraying the contrails. The hypersonic craft are the ones used to ferry our lizard overlords between the UN General Assembly and their base at the North Pole. This is old news. If you remove the IR filter from a webcam and attach it to a cheap telescope, this is enough to allow you to see both kinds of craft, though at these longer wavelengths the resolution is quite poor, especially if there is a lot of moisture in the atmosphere.

I think you made the right decision on the interior framing Woody. That looks nicely busy. Tony

Huzzah! That's one hell of a Sherbet Lemon you've got there old son How many coats of yellow did that underside take you to do in the end? I'm glad the brass rubbing technique paid off for you as well. It's given me a serious sense of dayza vue looking at all that masking you've on the underside as I spent a whack of bench time today doing the same -only yours is neater! Mine looks like a badly-made croissant at present.... Hope your chicken are laying well How many have you got? Great seeing the progress John - wer'e definitely nearing the endgame now. All hail the custard King! Tony

Phil: Thanks for that. I guess that was the karma of the universe just re-adjusting itself when the build went all pear-shaped during the week John: How dense does a guy have to be to forget an entire airbrush? I ask you... Mind you, I did manage to forget where I left my car in the car-park at work last week as well, so this was only the latest in a series of blonde moments. Nowt of note to report as of today on the Filler-Queen: I put some white stripes on the fuel tanks and masked the undersides off in preparation for the top camo earlier. I'd hope to shoot the DSG tomorrow, but don't anticipate doing much more as we're in the process of rebuilding chicken and duck houses. Top tip: If you ever need an AFV massively weathered, just leave it near a couple of Aylesbury ducks for an afternoon. By the time you come back it'll look like it's been on several tours of duty. Hope you're all having a good weekend, modelling or not Tony PS. Can anyone tell me why there's a syringe in the emojis for the forum? Is there a secret section I don't know about?

Between yourself and Simmerit, these builds have taken on an almost religious air of dedication Continues to transfix Wafu Tony

Gesamtkunstwerk. 'Nuff said.

Nice patient stuff Sgt. Tony

You've paint on already and I'm only just seeing this. Liking the interior work so far Tony

I had the chance of a 3/4 day today and with a certain sphere-based European contest kicking off this evening, I decided to put yesterday's setback behind me and get stuck in to an early session at the bench. It shows you what a funk I was in last night when the airbrush went mammaries vertical that I clean forgot the compressor actually came with two airbrushes at the time - the smaller of the two I'd been using, and another larger-capacity one. What a klutz! If that all sounds a bit casual, it's largely due I think to tunnel vision on my learning to use an airbrush again (in plain view of Britmodellers) after 35 years, and thinking that the other brush looked more for area work (or spray tanning, as the translated instructions helpfully hinted..) rather than the delicacy of modelling. Hence I mentally filed it away in a corner under 'instantly forgotten about'.... Having proven my mental frailty, I felt honour bound therefore to man up and test the beast. Despite being bigger and having larger cups, (oo-eer missus) it has the same diameter needle: Suction- rather than gravity-fed, but I have to say that of the two brushes, this is the better by far. It immediately handled smoother and more confidently in my fist, and produces a more controllable spray than its sibling. A wise man would have tested both at the start of course.... Confidence thus restored, it was back to re-pre-shading the undersides: So far, so good As a precaution against foolishly spraying in poor light - like last night - I've moved the spray booth under a main and a fill light to eradicate any future incidence of shadows. The milkiness of the booth's plastic also helps bounce the photons around as well. Finally, re-application of the homebrew SGM, about three very thinned coats: The results this time = much more pleasing than the previous 'Dried Mucus' paint-scheme... I'm feeling in much better form having got this back on track. That, and the tray of long-neck Heinekens in the fridge awaiting the Friday night kick off... Kind regards to all, Tony

Noah's Ark. Bloody brilliant! Tony

71chally: Appreciate your kind comments - thanks! John: Thanks for that; looks like I'll be footering around with that damn nozzle for a day or two Musing over whether a temporary replacement O ring can be cut out of a power cord outer covering. Not pretty, but possible. I'll do some tests and report back his time tomorrow. Be a shame to hit an obstacle now that paint is here. Your bird's cracking on nicely BTW.Tony

Handsome my man, just handsome In an alternate reality that pre-shade of yours would be a bone fide camouflage scheme, oddly appealing! Legs and wheel are looking pukka too... Hope you didn't strain anything at ballet

Tomo: Thanks I think.... I've nothing on this guy however: John: Thanks mate. Bit of a disaster on the paint front my end tonight which will put a spanner in the works (see the horror below) WV908: Glad you're enjoying the shennigans sir. Let me be a warning from history about the effort it takes to update this kit Actually I'm being harsh, for its age it's not a bad kit, and a good basis to build up detail on if you're so inclined. It's just that we're used to higher tolerances these days I guess. That said, I won't be trying something like this again for a while... A mixed evening tonight, ending on a sour note. I managed to get a blast of primer on the radome trolley before breakfast, and spent the day rather happy with the way it turned out: Feeling quite buoyant, I settled in for an hour or two at the bench this evening, putting a bit of makeup on the trolley and radar unit: So far, so good. A final (minimal) weathering for them later before the final fit together I think. I probably mentioned before, but NF.14s generally seemed to be well maintained on operational service, so little in wear and tear to be done on this aircraft later. Not having any paints that were close to the required colours, I started tonight by mixing up a Sea Grey Medium from black, white and sky Tamiya acrylics. (I don't do ratios, only visual appearrances...) Feeling that I hadn't done a bad job in matching my colour references, I decided to put a test coat on the undersides. Result: disaster! I made the mistake of spraying with only a single light source (which of course left some areas poorly defined due to shading) so I didn't notice until too late that something ghastly was going on with my (cheap Chinese but reliable) airbrush. What alerted me was that the pressure started pulsing and before I could switch off, the beast basically let out a large sneeze of paint all over the underside. By the Holy Scrottle of St.Dagbard, the air was blue with curses and Mrs. Baron had to usher the Baronlets from the family hut. Mercifully I was spraying a test mix heavily diluted with thinner, so I can ( I think) redo this without having to strip the paint off. TBH I'll give it the 'cold light of day' treatment tomorrow after work and decide a course of action then. So what went wrong? I stripped the brush completely of every part, washed down with both cleaner, and then a light scrub with IPA to make sure there was no residue anywhere. Result: brush still sputters, plus I notice it is spraying off to one side. Clean out paint bowl and flow areas. Check the needle isn't bent using a magnifying lens. Needle fine, no paint blockages. Results, still sputters, and even a burst of backflush now. Airbrush is now in imminent danger of Scud-like exit via window. Deep breath and a close visual inspection with the magnifying lens reveals that there is now a visible offset between the nozzle and the nozzle cap (definite that is at x7 magnification, not the naked eye..), leading to the off-centre spray pattern and blockage problems. Unscrewing the front assembly reveals the O-ring for the nozzle cap (which presumably kept it centred previously), is now missing, presumed lost in action. As I'm off on hols within the fortnight and don't want to leave this unfinished and leave John in the lurch on this dual-buld project, I need a plan. No funds for a new brush and nowhere near me likely to sell such small replacement O-rings, so... If I slightly unscrew the nozzle cap, it seems to centre-up the alignment between itself and the nozzle - not perfectly, but as a temporary measure I hope this will prove sufficient to finish the paint work. I'll run a test tomorrow night.... I shall bid you good night as I relocate some gin from an exterior location to somewhere inward of myself. Vermouth and an olive will be involved. Tony

Looking good. Some nice detail on that kit Alan. Tony

No work on the aircraft itself today; I got down to business of building a maintenance trolley for the radome instead, as this job had been staring back at me accusingly. One of drawings that John Aero kindly posted up a while back in answer to my queries on the AI.21 radar was especially helpful, in that it showed part of the nose removal procedure. Not having a drawing of the trolley that would have held the radome during removal, I decided to plump for producing a modified version of the trolley in the drawing that was used to remove the nose unit itself behind the radome, figuring (perhaps naively) that the two would be similar in build. Today's job therefore was to turn this: into the trolley in the drawing below: The wise and experienced ones amongst you will immediately suppose the shortest route is to construct this would be from brass tubing, rather than wire left over from building chicken runs. Well, I don't have said tubing, and there's nowhere round my neck of the woods selling the stuff, so 2mm steel agricultural wire it is. Rather stupidly I thought that I could do the required cutting and filing by eye: Yuk! No way these are up to the mark by a million miles. To the bin with you! All I've ended up doing here is apparently making my own nails by hand. Well, brain kicked in after some coffee with a small production line idea. 1. Grind trolley legs down to uniform size with Dremel clone: 2. Turn Dremel-clone into a lathe by clamping it in the vice, in order to reduce the diameter of the upper part of the posts with a grinding head held in pliers: 3. Result - a more regular, and hopefully realistic leg than previously. At this scale I'm not grinding the upper parts of the legs down to the very thin diameter shown in the drawing, as I'm concerned at weakening the structure. I feel this is a necessary compromise. 4. Repeat x4: The necessary clearance for the trolley to fit under the nose at this scale is about 13mm: The horizontal framework needs to be box section rather than circular, so out with some of the wire to the big iron vice in the shed and some amateur blacksmithing with the hammer to bang the wire from circular to square. Back inside and the results soldered together: Once the uprights are attached (CA this time, as my soldering is laughable...) there are definite hints of trolley-dom appearing. The rear set of legs are deliberately shorter than the front ones due to the curving profile of the radome, if it is to be held horizontally. Having discarded a wild notion about pressing a tail-wheel into some clay and using liquid sprue to make casts, brain again saved a foolish detour by suggesting some plastic tubing, cut to size and filled: Phew! With diagonal bracing in place and the wheels now on the bus, I reckon that will do for one day: I'm intending to paint the trolley an olive green, largely due to lack of evidence as to what hue it should be. If anyone can tell me accurate colours for late 50s RAF maintenance kit though I'd be delighted. Off to some Canberra references now. Night all, and thanks for reading as ever. Tony

Just took a look at Magnus' work Sten. A really good effort that gives a good idea of the Xtrakit option in terms of the build process.Thanks for that, Tony

Looking at a few closeups of the canopy (where it joins the fuselage), I realized I had a little cosmetic work to do at the front. At bit of tape to stop me turning the nose area into battered fish with the filler and a modest improvement when it's sanded down: Once tarted up a bit it should answer. Also been fiddling about with a little yellow on the nose interior to modulate the green a little. Half-heartedly at this stage, I'll admit: I'll spend more time later when things are more advanced. Whilst splattering Klear around at the weekend trying to knock up a window for the nose-wheel gear, I also tried a larger scale version on the front wheel well: Using a bit of tape as a base I put about 1.5ml into the well from a dropper, hoping the self-levelling qualities of the Klear will get rid of the rather pronounced central valley in that region of the fuselage. Leaving that to dry overnight meant I could snort on some preshade as this evening's sole task: I'd already put some flat black on the nose and front of the intakes last night (masking off the insides of the intake for that was a bit of a trial) so got down to work with the airbrush, first with an attempt at modulation by misting on a thin layer of white onto the upper surfaces, then the usual drill on the black preshade. Don't look at the clumsy drop of paint on the underside of the port wing root - the last blasted thing I managed to do tonight whilst lifting the brush away to clean it at the end I'd spent ages boxing in the wheel wells with cardboard and Blu-Tak, though won't be surprised if something still manages to creep in during the course of painting. Paint, like love, changes everything <sigh>