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Squibby

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Squibby last won the day on February 10 2023

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    Wellington, New Zealand

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  1. How do you cut and form plasticard so cleanly and accurately at that scale. Fantastic work all around!
  2. Hi All, After finishing up my long winded P51D build I've decided to keep the momentum going and crack on with a new project. Somewhat simpler and more straight forward this time I hope... The subject in question is Tamiya's excellent 1/72 scale Mosquito Mk VI kit, which I'm going to finish in the kit provided markings for the Coastal Command bird 'NEoD'. I think this scheme will give me a nice excuse to weather the paintwork a bit and I was not really keen on masking camo anyway ๐Ÿ˜„ I'm not going to go into exhaustive step by step detail in this log, just keep updates on major bits of progress. I've started with the cockpit because why break tradition, even though the kit would have you start with the engine / wheel pods for some reason. Here is my completed cockpit and sidewalls before I close up the fuselage. I couldn't help myself and added some more details. Some highlights of the cockpit sections, The front fuselage sections comes separate (for different marks I presume) to the main fuselage bits. They join nicely but have a couple of visible alignment tabs on the inside that needed to be removed and the seam filled. No real drama's here though. There were a few ejector pin marks that needed filling, annoyingly one was located in the nicely molded door detail. I just covered it up partially with a warning sign ๐Ÿ˜ Base colour was Tamiya XF-71 'Cockpit Green' and black bits were sprayed in XF-85 'Rubber Black'. Details were brushed with various Vallejo Model colour paints I scratch built the flare rack and fire extinguishers. Some wiring was added to the sidewalls and from the radios. Not particularly accurate but makes things look a bit more busy. The pilot's seat got a cushion made added from thick bit of styrene sheet. The seat cushions were roughed up with a knife and given a wash of extra thin to smooth them out. The belts are all scratch built from champagne bottle wrapping foil (stiffer and easier to pose). I punched the holes using a needle from the back so there would be a raised lip around them. I thought of using some Eduard PE belts but I didn't really want to mess around with PE for a enclosed cabin. I decided to forgo the kit IP decal which was quite simple and painted the instrument dials myself using a sharpened toothpick and and white oil paint. I added the glass with clear epoxy, though it's not visible with the lighting I used. The rear of the radios were hollow so needed to be closed up with thin styrene sheet. The radios didn't fit too nicely, the receiver box ended up obscuring one side of the transmitter box. I solved this somewhat by cutting the mounting tab off the transmitter box so I could position it across slightly...but not too far or the canopy won't fit. Hope you'll follow along, cheers for viewing.
  3. Cheers all for the comments, I'm really proud of this one. @Toryu Cheers, I just ended up using Tamiya XF-5 flat green straight out of the jar. In the end though from photos I've seen the green varied quite a bit, probably since they just repainted it with whatever was available at the time. @RadMax8 Cheers mate, it was tough and really sapped my mojo at times hence the long build time. I finished off heavily detailed areas like the cockpit and just lost the will to continue for months. I'm glad I did finally dust it off (literally) and finish it. My daughter is a shade over 16 months, and what you describe is also essentially my life these days as well ๐Ÿ˜„. Modelling time is very limited so I'm not sure how long it'll take me to finish another one of these detailed builds, I may stick to the realm of quicker 1/72 scale projects for a bit.
  4. Looking good, I think I saw the real thing once in Japan.
  5. Fantastic work, nice and grubby, really like the tape lines.
  6. Great job with the build. The weathering looks great.
  7. Wow that's some impressive weathering and a great diorama to boot. Love the moody photos as well, really sells the look.
  8. Hi All, I finally crossed the finish line with this build which took the better part of 2+ years on and off with a long hiatus in between due to the arrival of my daughter... I had long started the build before she shattered our idle existence so the scheme I selected turned out to be quite prophetic ๐Ÿ˜„ In any case the plane is built from the highly regarded old Tamiya 1/48 scale kit, and to be honest there are better kits out there now that are far more detailed out of the box. I made significant modifications to the kit cockpit and scratch built a lot of additional detail to compensate for the fairly basic detailing I started with. I also re-built the incorrect wheel bays from scratch which represented the most significant bit of scratch building I have yet undertaken. Aftermarket bits are limited to a set of Eduard Steel series seatbelts and a Falcon Vacform canopy (also my first time working with these). I used Vallejo Metal Colour acylics for the NMF applied using a multi layer shading technique to generate some subtle variation in the metal finish. I was after a realistically worn dull oxidized look that's seen in period photos. Markings are from a Lifelike Decals set. More details in the build thread linked below. Build Thread Thanks for looking ๐Ÿ™‚
  9. Cheers all, @Biggles87 The little vice is made by 'Uโ€‘star' I got it from a online store in Aus, https://www.bnamodelworld.com/clamps-vices-hobby-tools-supplies-u-star-ua-90631?zenid=8eb849dfc5a7185b4a90dd99efbe6a4e I'm sure you'd find something similar in your neck of the woods. Really useful little thing.
  10. I spent the past couple of days fidding around with tiny added details, lights, and paint touchups but I think I've run out of parts to fix and bits to add. I'll have to call this one finally done. ๐Ÿ˜ฎ I'm currently working on some proper RFI photos, but here is one WIP shot to show it all together. Thanks to all who followed this long and meandering build, I must have lost a few of you along the way since I started in '17. I hope it's been informative and potentially helpful for the P51 STGB currently going on. I think I've picked my next target. I'm going back to 1/72 scale where I don't need to worry myself with all the super detailing. I've got a nice Tamiya Mosquito sitting on my desk that should hopefully prove to be a nice relaxing build.
  11. Happy new year to you all (I think you lot on the wrong side of the world have made it by now right?) @giemme thanks for the suggestion, I think I'll just leave it be, I'd have to remove it to mess around with it and it looks convincing enough as long as you don't look at it too closely ๐Ÿ˜ I moved onto the last bits and pieces and tackled the prop. First up was to fix the excessive flair on the prop cuffs, I just took to each prop with a file, the following photo shoes how much I took off. While still probably a little too flared, I can't take them down too much or they'll look too off centre once fitted. After painting decaling and weathering... I weathered the reverse side of the blades a bit quite heavily while leaving the front side intact. I added small chips and an even wearing down of the leading edge using acrylic aluminum paint and a fine brush / sharpened toothpick. The fading was partially done with shading and application of grey oil paint which I streaked across the blade using a wide bristly brush dampened in thinner and then cleaned up and faded towards the root with a cotton bud. The decals were dulled down with some light dust coloured pigment and the prop hub got some chips and some hydraulic fluid streaks around the joint line That completes the last of the major bits, I've only got some minor detailing bits to add and I can call this 2+ year project finished. Oh and on a side note I few posts back I was complaining about some wrinkles in the aluminium foil 'paneling' around the main canopy. Turns out if you use the back end of a metal scalpel and really carefully rub you can burnish it smooth without damaging the paint. I'm quite happy with that since my eye kept being drawn to it.
  12. I whipped up the rear view mirror using the rounded end of a sprue runner tacked onto a bit of square styrene rod. And here is the finished bit, painted up and fitted to the canopy. I ended up trying to a paint a mirror finish using chrome but it didn't turn out too good due to the roughness of the surface which I couldn't really smooth out. I was thinking of sticking on a disk of reflective foil but the mirror is too large for my punch set and too small to cut with a circle cutter (also I don't want a hole in the middle). This may have to do unless I think of something.
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