TheBaron

Thanks for all the replies chaps. Tony

Has anyone made this limited run 1/72 kit, currently up on Ebay here: http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/281968097600 Rather disarmingly the box contained the rubric 'adjustment and filling of parts required' as well as the warning 'for experienced modellers only', though it does promise resin and metal parts. I'm tempted but hadn't heard of this manufacturer before. Tony

I can feel your pain from here John Was there a coat of varnish or Klear on before going for the wash? If not, was the paintwork acrylic or enamels in terms of reacting with turps when trying to wash off the oils? I'd be curious about the source of info for putting thick undiluted oil paint on for a wash effect, I'd not heard of that technique - it sounds odd given the sheer amount of paint that you'd have to pull back off again. Sending positive vibes for the recovery operation! Tony

Lovely work. I really like the visual textures you're creating. Gives the airframe a real feeling of depth and solidity in the light. Looking forwards to seeing what you do with the oil streaking. Tony

What primer/basecoat did you use on this John? Am on the lookout for recommendations...

It's been a busy week between work, family, and repairing the winter ravages to the garden, so this is the first chance to catch up on what's been a bit done here and there in spare moments... To list the tasks carried out on the build since the weekend: 1.Redid the shrouds on the fuselage (where the elevator and rudder cables enter the fuselage). My original scratching was too crude and out of scale so redid these with finer stretched sprue. They're on the point of being such fine detail that they are almost impossible to work down to any smaller a size without the aid of electron miscroscopy... 2.Noticed that on some phtogoraphs (of both wartime and restored) airframes that there are what are referred to as 'lugged sleeves' on the oleo legs and interplane struts. I've attempted to mimic the raised relief of these elements with fine-grade electrical foil cut from out of a computer VGA cable (kitchen foil felt too big). 3.Began work on rear assembly of the 18" torpedo. Having cut off the solid moulding on the original I marked out and began using plasticard to make the rudder housing. (Don't expect individual propeller blades at this scale with my limited skills/patience..) You can see how clunky the original looks alongside the newer version: 4. I decided that things weren't complicated enough so late last night decided to have TAG standing up in the finished build. This meant cutting up the sitting original, adding some Revell Plasto to rough out a new upright body form, and sculpting this with a scalpel and pin when dry, before adding the left raised arm from an old 00 scale Airfix astronaut figure, which although having a bulky spacesuit to contend with, actually matched the FAA flying suit quite well after a bit of 'nip and tuck' with the scalpel. Master! The creature lives! The end result looks passable at this scale. I had to add the raised arm as if he's standing in the original pose with both hands by his side, it looked like he was relieving himself into the rear cockpit á la urinal...Here he is proudly pointing to his new torpedo: 5. Most recent task was to pay some attention to the cockpit edges. One either side are two mountings (which I've seen used to mount both a compass on various stations for operations, as well as a flag on LS326). These are more pronounced on the port side so the fuselage was scalloped out using a hot sewing machine needled to produce the required embayment and some angled sprue added for the collar. The starboard side only needed angled sprue as there are no embayments on that side, I've no idea why. In the photo here you can see I'm adding a compass on the rear port mounting: Once that's done I hope to add the remaining parts to the rear of the torp tomorrow, by which time hopefully a contour gauge will have arrrived to let me make a proper job of building of the cockpit interior - including the additional fuel tank. Thanks for looking! Tony

Coming along really nicely John. Is that the great Tom Baker looking down benevolently at your work? 🤔

Beautiful work. I'm watching this closely, Best, Tony

Bookmarked👍

I've just read this thread through from the very beginning and can only say it's a masterclass of patience and skill to someone like myself only recently returned to modelling. I'll be following this build through to the end! Great stuff. Tony

Just to add my penn'orth to this great <ahem> thread...If you have an old VGA cable from a PC and cut it open there are a whole host of very thin wires that can be salvaged, many of them finely-braided and ready to use as cables, ropes etc at different scales. There's also plenty of very fine (thinner that kitchen foil) foil that might well be usable as canvas, fabrics etc. You find a lot of these cables thrown out of office clearances and the like as newer PCs use DVI cables nowadays. (Haven't cut one of these up yet..) All the best, Tony

Smashing piece. In terms of texture and colour you've created something exquisitely tactile - you can almost feel the dust! All the best. Tony

LIkewise John. The detailing here is gobsmacking. Love the seatbelts! I'm no expert in the oils department but can only say I've used W&N oils both before and after both gloss and matt varnish layers and been pleased with the depth and translucency they can give; however I'm still very much learning myself from trial and error...The obvious thing to watch out for is that whaterver you dilute the oils with isn't going to react with the paint scheme or varnish. Tony

So I was digging around online earlier as I needed to find some closeups of the 18" torp carried by the Swordfish, when I came across this little gem of an RAF wartime information film: Practically everything you need to know about said item including loads of closeups of exterior and interior mechanisms, which will be dead handy for later in the build. Now I know why torpedoes have two sets of propellers.... https://archive.org/details/75624AircraftTorpedo Anyway, a little more work in and around domestic duties today, along the painstaking lines of scratching up some exterior detail on the elevator and rudder rigging points. I used some stretched sprue cut diagonally to different lengths for the shrouds where the cables enter the fuselage mid-section. As well as this I used the same technique with different cross sections to build up some detailing around the ballast inspection hatch and catapult tube: Texture-wise I know the surfaces look as rough as can be in their current state and some of the added detail need reducing with a file to keep in scale as much as possible, so that further down the road some patient sanding is called for. For now though I'm focussing on building up the structure to the required level. I see John is hard at work on his superb 1/48 Tamiya build over at: http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234999461-my-first-wip-148th-scale-tamiya-fairey-swordfish-mk2/ It's nice to have two different scales under way at the same time! One last thing. If anyone is building a Sunderland or Catalina, I found this this excellent two-reel wartime Ministry of Information film about Coastal Command: There's a ton of interiors of all areas of a Sunderland ('T for Tommy'!), turrets, crew areas (not quite as much of the Cat interior) as well as some nice exteriors showing wartime weathering of paint. The moving footage gives a greater sense of spatiality than stills I feel, as well as being able to see the various items of eqpt. (turrets etc.) actually in motion. Some Beauforts and Hudsons from Iceland also put in an appearance later on. You can find it here: https://archive.org/details/81522CoastalCommandAmericanVersion Tony

Good luck with the build! You've a few more bits than mine to juggle with

Dear all, Just spent the last 15 minutes practically crying with laughter at reading this modelling thread / work of postmodern literature. The wealth of modelling obsession, cultural allusion and wry domesticity is, as they say, 'hypnotically unputdownable'. Brightened up my Sunday morning no end. Thanks chaps. Tony

What a quixotic vehicle! Will be following this build with interest. Good luck! Tony

Bravo! A dedicated piece of resurrection. Looking forward to the final stages of this marathon effort. Tony

Impressive piece of work, I'll be following your progress on this one with interest Peter. The frontal view of the Dornier's glazing always reminds me of how some German bombers seem to slightly resemble medieval suits of armour in shape and form. Best wishes, Tony

I'd just like to echo the above comments about the 'inspirational' nature of your work. Great to see this subject produced to such a high finish. And yes, be great to see a Wasp. Got to look in the cockpit of one at Yeovilton a few years back and amazed at how basic the airframe seemed in protecting the crew from the elements.. Tony

A lovely build of an evocative subject. Tony

[still] waiting for plasticard and sanding sticks to arrive so continuing to obsess over detailing the Stringbag. Having consulted a number of sources I've decided that at this scale items like elevator/rudder cabling, ballast inspection panel etc all need attention. In absence of any PE I might experiment with metal foil for those (slightly) raised areas like the triangular housing that the rear Vickers gun could recess into. The Matchbox model also leaves out the lower fuselage windows for the pilot so I've drilled cut and filed these: As the rear cockpit will need some scratch building I've had to resort to a (sensitive engineering types look away now...) brute force elegant method of moulding blu-tack in order to generate interior profiles for bulkheads and cockpit surrounds: Hopefully next week will see supplies delivered so that I can get on with further buidling as I'm itching to move forward on this now... Tony

Cheers Smudge. I'll try and work that into the diorama!

Just came across this thread Mark and can only say how magnificent your work looks. Tony

A certain burst of madness this evening after ordering some materials to scratch build, something that I've never attempted before. Having opened out the crew area to receive an additional fuel tank for this Taranto build, I looked up some Swordfish details and began my first attempt at scribing in some detail onto the (quite basic) fuselage: Using the above used 'hot drill bit' technique to mark in fastening points etc. Whilst doing this I noticed an access panel on the Matchbox mould which seemed to be out of place (below the cockpit) so filled this and rescribed another one further back along the fuselage. Is there such a thing as over-detailing at 1/72 scale? Whilst this fit was upon me I also shaved the rear of the torpedo with a view to scratching up prop and rudders when my plasticard order arrives: