GrahamB

Many thanks guys. I'll try for the combination of more dilution, higher pressure and greater distance. The Alclad black is pretty smooth so it is my technique at fault. GrahamB

Hi knowledgeable folk of Britmodeller, can anyone give me any advice about airbrushing Vallejo's Metal Color paints, please? I bought several of the aluminium colours but have no success in getting a smooth finish (as I can get with the solvent-based Alclad range). It is just orange peel, orange peel, orange peel..... So frustrating as I like the colours and the lack of smell/easy clean-up. I'm using an H & S Evolution with 0.4 mm needle and an Iwata compressor, spraying over Alclad black primer. Any help gratefully received. Cheers GrahamB

Thanks. The water base is an acrylic molding paste - my brand here is 'Golden' (dries white). There is also a clear gel in the same range that can be used as an over-glaze/detail-builder and filler around any hull-base gaps. Painted with Vallejo acrylics. Semi-gloss varnish to finish. I've still got lots to learn with this - there are some fantastic examples out there by other ship modelers. Cheers GrahamB

Hi Chaps, here's one a finished a couple of months ago - it also won a prize at the NZ IPMS Model Expo back in April. Combrig 1/700 kit with scratched brass (soldered joints) masts and yards, added coal shute covers, ash-truck tracks, boat oars, etc and as much rigging as I could interpolate. This was both black and brown eazy-line stuff de-stranded to single threads for halyards etc and Caenis thread for most standing rigging. I found an image on the interweb showing Monmouth with new stockless anchor fit and obvious repainting near the hawse holes. A major botch that I didn't notice was quite a bit of blue overspray from the sea base - I thought I had masked sufficiently. Doh! Dedicated to the 690 or more men and boys lost with the ship, Battle of Coronel, 1 November 1914, at least 9 of whom had been to my old school - Royal Hospital School ("Cradle of the Navy") - until the 1930s where Maritime Museum Greenwich is now. Cheers, GrahamB

I like it! The red-white stripes and the black-white disruptive camouflage really enhance an already handsome ship. Cheers Graham

Good Hurricane models never fail to please. Nice one. Cheers, GrahamB

Nicely done and a great tribute to your grandfather. The WNW Pup is still one of their best kits. As for the lower wing fit, I posted a fix for this on the WW1aircraft modelling site a couple of years ago. Shave off the the little blips on the floor of part D5 flush with A26 fitted temporarily. These can interfere with the sitting of the frames A34 and A33 (although they are designed to lock in these). It does not resolve the slight gap between the fuselage and the lower ring root - I shimmed the airfoil profile of parts D1 and D4 with 0.05thou plastic. Cheers GrahamB

Just excellent. Cheers GrahamB

Absolutely beautiful and really skillful build. These ships of the pre-WW1 period, and through that war, have immense character and I'd like to see some released as kits so that the amazingly varied dazzle patterns could be used. Cheers, GrahamB

Very dramatic. Backbreaking ride I would imagine.

Thanks chaps. Martin - having two matelots painting the sides was partly inspired by Monsarrat's comments somewhere in the relevant chapter in "Three Corvettes" about how proud and impressed they were by the new camouflage scheme - so perhaps he intended keeping it in good nick. Cheers GrahamB

Thanks guys. Chuck - your story also resonates because if they had know each other your father could have seen my grandfather on the beaches somewhere. He was Royal Horse Artillery and according to my mother he had been in the water for nearly 48 hours before being picked up - I don't know anything else. He was discharged unfit after this with skin problems but re-enlisted in 1945 eventually becoming member of the King's Troop and taking part in the adventure in 1948 of "rescuing" Mountbatten's polo ponies from Palestine, back to Malta. Cheers GrahamB

Hi Brad, I can't help with Tamiya or Gunze acrylics as I don't have the complete range. However there are two acrylic paints that are very decent matches for the RLM 77 versions given by the Eagle Editions chart and that in Merrick's Luftwaffe Colours & Markings. Please note these are decent visual matches not spectroscopic as per Nick Millman! RLM 77 Eagle Editions: Vallejo Grey Primer (airbrush use) RLM 77 Luftwaffe C & C: Vallejo 990 Light Grey (Modelcolor but can be sprayed with thinner) Note that the latter is a darker and bluer grey than the former - quite a difference. I hope this helps. Cheers GrahamB

Thanks guys for the support and plaudits. I feel a bit bad as I've been AWOL from the site for a year or more after feeling embarrassed and guilty for a non-too-temperate post back then. The site seems to go from strength to strength. Cheers, GrahamB

A lovely WEM resin/brass kit, 1/350 scale, of the elegant Kingfisher-Class coast sloop HMS Shearwater, completed in 1939 I think. It may not be wholely accurate as photos of this particular vessel are hard to find although I had the nice article by John Lambert in Military Modelling Annual No.3 on HMS Kingfisher. By this time (1942-43) she probably had an open bridge on top of the old merchant style enclosed version and possibly enlarged maindeck Oerlikon positions. I wanted to do this ship as it was the first command of Nicholas Monsarrat (Cruel Sea) - he had previously been 1st Lieutenant on the sister ship HMS Guillemot; both of these were based at Harwich doing East Coast convoy escorts and patrols (see his book "Three Corvettes"). Cheers, GrahamB

This is the nice Tamiya 1/700 E-Class destroyer built as a G-Class - HMS Grenade. Used WEM brass set as it suited. Nice camouflage based on both profiles in Alan Raven's Camouflage Volume One: Royal Navy 1939-1941 and a couple of images found on the interweb. HMS Grenade sunk by Luftwaffe during Dunkirk evacuations. Cheers, GrahamB

Here is the delightful Wienermodellbau 1/350 resin kit of the ca.1900 Austro-Hungarian torpedo boat SMS (KUK) Elster. I've added the awning supports and a few other mods like inserting brass tube into the portholes almost flush to represent the brass rims. Nice kit for a beginner to resin kits if built from the box though. Cheers, GrahamB

Very nice - must get one of these. We could also do with the earlier marks with Tiger radials - as in Fowler's aircraft in the film Chicken Run! Cheers GrahamB

One I finished last year. The upper surface colour is still debatable and may have been the dark brown/chocolate PC12 not this reddish dope (here WEM Italian Rosso Ruggine). All national markings painted not decals, using Precision Paints Roundel Red and Roundel Blue enamels. A very nice kit. Cheers, GrahamB

Thanks Dave - I've already emailed Gary Hatcher but not heard back yet though. Cheers Graham from very soggy NZ

Can anyone please let me know by PM Paul's contact details as I'd like to offer him some information/research about some colours he mentioned in the recent (April) issue of SAM? Many thanks. GrahamB

Hi Graham, I am not being stupid or blind here. Production colours on the Bombay show the scalloped lower edge to the DE/DG camouflage with the 'Sky' below, looking somewhat dark. Later images of 1940/41 aircraft can show this demarcation obliterated - presumably indicating a repaint with a Middle East blue - or changed into nice broad 'scallops' when 'desert' colours were applied on top (in Australian service) - possibly with Azure Blue. Definitely worth some closer looks. Cheers, GrahamB

Hi, I wonder what colour that 'Sky' was on the Bombays if they were wearing it pre-June 1940 (those aircraft with scalloped margin between DG/DE and undersurfaces)? It would seem to pre-date the widespread introduction of 'true' MAP Sky? Also some of the photos suggest that this colour was somewhat darker than MAP Sky - too early for Azure Blue. Perhaps one of the the duck-egg green/eau de nil/duck-egg blue variants. 216 Squadron Bombays were repainted black/Night on undersides as well at some point when they were night-bombing. Cheers, GrahamB Been waiting for this one a long time.

Hi, ta. The rib tapes are very thin, beautifully rendered on the wing surfaces by WNW, and they do not reach the trailing edges. I (tediously) masked all of them and sprayed them a buffish brown linen colour, as my premise was that the wings were either clear-doped bleached linen on the upper surfaces and possibly dyed (pale blue) below (as WNW suggest). The translucency in photos of the wings and the appearance of the rib tapes does not suggest paint application although the underwing cross panels look as if they are opaque (but not white) and may have been coated with tinted dope (zinc oxide plus and ultramarine pigment?) - as seen on Fokker F.1 and some Dr.1 before the streaking and enamel blue was applied. I just gave these masked-off areas an extra coat of the blue until my pre-shading of the wing spars disappeared. Roland 'sky' colour schemes are very controversial still - even the eye-witness evidence is contradictory. Ray Rimell is preparing some notes on this subject for a future Windsock. Cheers, GrahamB

Hi Bill, just caught up with this one. A beautiful clean job. Looks great. Cheers, GrahamB