Jim Kiker

Hey Navy, Actually I have read that comment; perhaps I failed to write a precise question. It is clear from the photos that the underwing codes are not black, so that it a fact even though the comment uses words like "suggests..." The wording in the comment sounds to me like the author is not yet sure what color was used. Was it white? Was it pale grey? Was it a much-lightened shade of Sky? I am hoping that someone knows and has some documentation on what that color was. Unfortunately, I do not think Airfix know based on how their comment was worded. I am quite aware of how difficult it can be to pin down a detail like this, and if one does not know the answer it makes good corporate sense to be very careful in dealing with it in one's instructions. Thanks for the post! Cheers, Jim

Hey Navy, Thanks for the information and the picture; I'm glad to know I'm not so foolish after all and I look forward to carrying on with my build. Cheers, Jim

About the camera pod for WJ236 from the new Airfix kit... I am going to ask a foolish question. Here is a picture of WJ236 that got me going for a Sea Fury in the first place. I look at this picture as one not overly familiar with the Sea Fury, and I look at the parts in the kit for the underwing tanks and the bombs, and I get the idea that the larger 90 gallon tanks in the kit are/appear to be too large. I also think I remember reading somewhere that the bigger tanks were not used on operations much, mainly used for ferry flights. And so the foolish question: is it certain that this picture shows the big tanks, or the small ones? And either way, how do we know? Please do enlighten me, and thanks in advance for the help! Cheers, Jim P.S. I have also read recently that the bombs in this picture are actually canisters for dropping leaflets, based I presume on the raised line on the right-hand bomb that looks a bit like the raised lip where the top and bottom half of the device mate up. Same question- how do we know it's a canister and not a bomb? Bonus points for this one! :-) P.P.S. Ok, last one- what color are the underwing codes, and what is the answer based on? I have asked this one before but no one seems to know...

Hi Warhawk, Regarding your first question, much of the cockpit would remain the same. Exceptions include a small panel on each side of the cockpit with two instruments; these are a fuel gauge and tank pressure, I believe, for the wing tanks that take up the leading edge of the wings back to the main spar. This is often referred to as the Bowser wing. As I am sure you know, there is no gun sight but it is replaced by the main camera control panel. Armor plate behind the seat and that upper piece behind the pilot's head and shoulders is problematic; some recce Spits retained that armor and some did not. Absent a picture of the cockpit of the specific aircraft you are doing, I would leave both in place. HTH, Jim

Hi Tony, I am coming late to the party but I do have a question. At the beginning you mentioned that the cowling doors are a bit small. I am not entirely sure what pieces you are referencing; I presume the cylinder shaped halves between the front cowl ring to just in front of the exhausts. Is that correct? If so, could one add shims to the top and bottom edges of the fuselage pieces to bring the doors out flush? If not, would you educate me? I do not have the kit parts to look at just yet. Thanks in advance, Jim

Good evening all, At this point the Y-wing’s nose section had been painted in the base pale gray color. Painting the yellow-gold “swooshes” and the canopy are next. Using my scale plans, I laid out the lines for the swooshes. I made several copies of these in case they were needed. My buddy Boz then laid out some 2” Tamiya tape on a cutting board. The swoosh shape was cut out, received some tacky glue, and was then pressed down onto the tape. The shape was cut into the tape by hand. Then we turned another swoosh upside down to get a mirror image and cut a new piece of tape, then repeated the process twice more. The result is a three-piece set of tapes for each swoosh, and enough repeats to do the top and bottom of the nose. All these pieces were cut a bit “long” to give some wiggle room; once the pieces were in place, the rest of the front end was taped off. With these fairly simple shapes, the swoosh masks could be cut by hand, albeit a professionally trained one (not mine!), but could have been passed to one of the professional masking makers out on the internet. I used a dark yellow shade of paint and laid on the swooshes. Shortly after paint application I carefully peeled off the masking to let the painted edges settle a bit; this helps keep me from having noticeable ridges of paint along the masked lines. Once the swooshes cured, I masked off around the canopy and covered the rest of the nose and painted the canopies, using a mixed shade similar to RAF Medium Sea Gray. Here is a look at the top of the nose with all this painting done. Now it is time to do some weathering. First up was to put an acrylic gloss clear coat over the solvent-based paints to seal the whole nose. Thanks to my deeply scribed panel lines and the dark-ish undercoat, the lines were visible but not as uniform as I prefer, so I mixed a wash of medium gray-blue using oil paint and naphtha (lighter fluid) and added that to all the panel lines in a pin wash. They actually look darker than I normally prefer (due to the depth of the scribing), but they fit into the Star Wars universe pretty well so that was good enough. Next I did some paint chipping. I used the pale gray base coat on the swooshes and a darker gray to do chips in the pale gray base color, all done by dry brushing. The torpedo blast tubes got a very thin coat of dark gray paint followed by some pastels. I later sprayed some clear gloss to seal that and added another layer of pastels in and sealed it again. I’m not entirely satisfied with them, but I do not want to get them overdone. Here is the lower nose after the first couple of weathering passes. And here is the top of the nose. I added pastels here and there around the nose to create smudging and some sort of dirty stains, trying to give the impression of dirt and gunk being blown back when the vehicle passes through atmosphere. The trick is to not be symmetrical; sort of a logical but abstract effect. Applying the pastels with a small, stiff brush I use for dry brushing gives very subtle effects even when I use straight black pastel. I added more small paint chipping on the left side of the nose. The canopies open up to the right, so the left side gets a lot of foot traffic resulting in more chipping and accumulation of dirt. Since the swooshes were fairly dark, I took some white pastel and brushed it over parts of the yellow to lighten it up a bit and blend them into the overall paint. Here is the bottom again... Finally, I applied some chipping along the bottom edges of the canopy, and used colored pencils to add wear to the canopies’ edges. I masked off the dividing point between the front windscreen and the two canopy sections and drew on the panel lines with a sharpened, soft leaded pencil. The canopies and the rest of the nose then got a clear flat acrylic finishing coat. Besides sealing everything in, that also flattened the metallic sheen of the pencil lines, turning them into normal-looking joint lines. Note that the finish is just a touch off of dead flat; once I got that done I really liked the look versus “dead flat” so I quit while I was ahead! And now the moment of truth was at hand. I peeled away the masking of the cockpit windows. To my relief and happiness, there was no hint of overspray having gotten into the cockpit during painting. There are a few spots on the outside of the canopy that need a bit of clean up where the masks did not stay quite snug on the surface, but that is not a big issue. Sierra Hotel! I'm getting towards the end of the journey now. The rear vectrals are assembled and will soon be mounted to the booms. There are lots of detail pieces to be made and added, but it's all straight forward. Onward! Cheers, Jim

Hi all, It's time and past for another update to my Y-wing. I finished work on the nose section and glued the canopy in place. You may recall that I made a shallow raised lip around the cockpit. I chose to mix up some two part epoxy, spread it along the inside edge of the entire canopy, then gently set it into place and taped down the front and rear ends of the canopy. Almost no squeeze out occurred, and I think and hope I got a continuous seal all the way around the canopy. I used the tape lines I laid on the canopy earlier to add masking for the front, rear, and side windows as you can see below; this is the last time we will be able to see the crew very well. With all that done, I used clear cling-wrap and tape to mask off the rear of the model prior to painting; it saved a ton of time and masking tape and has served well through all the base color painting. First up was to paint the canopy with it's interior color and also put some primer on the nose. I chose a medium blue gray paint (same as one of the shades in the interior) to do both jobs at once. This revealed a number of small spots along the edges of the nose that needed more filling and sanding. This gets us to this point: Next, it was finally time for some base paint which I applied to the entire nose. As you can see, it's starting to look like the front end of a Y-wing! Next time we will continue with masking and spraying the Yellow "swooshes" and the canopy will get its main color coat. Stay tuned! Cheers, Jim

Markings question for WJ236, one of Airfix kit's in-box selections. I saw a single picture of this a/c years ago as cover art for a book on the Sea Fury that I should have bought. It's been the one I want to do ever since and I want to do her justice. Regarding the underwing serial codes, the kit markings are in Sky but the picture I remember seems to show these codes in a much lighter color that the under surface. How then to do we know that the original serials were repainted in "fresh Sky" instead of white, or even very pale grey? Thanks, Jim

To Thom and Chris, Thanks for the compliments and I'm glad you are enjoying the article. I've come to enjoy documenting my builds very much! More to come soon. Cheers, Jim

Hi John, If you might be open to another color scheme, I know of one you might like. RON 29 was one of the U.S. Navy squadrons in the Mediterranean in the mid-war years as was mentioned earlier. Those boats did not carry the rocket launchers nor the forward 30mm cannon, but they did carry torpedoes (with the rear ones moved further aft), the 40 mm Bofors, the two twin .50 cal machine guns in the turrets, and the forward 20mm Oerlikon cannon. The thing is, these boast were painted in an overall Thayer Blue with Ocean Blue (dark blue) decks. Some of the upper flat areas such as the roof of the day cabin may also have been in the dark blue. If you Google on U.S. Navy WWII Thayer Blue color chip, you should be able to see the color; it is a light grayish-blue color, and to my eyes it has a hint of RAF Azure Blue in it as well. In addition, the first few feet of the deck at the bow was painted yellow and the last few feet of deck at the stern was painted red as (I believe) air recognition signals. These markings came to me from a book on Coastal Forces and there are a couple of PT boat models on the web that reflect what the scheme looks like when done. Others here will likely have more specific information to hand; I am away from my information just now so I have dealt in generalities. IIRC, Thayer Blue was a U.S. Navy color, but I suspect that the air recognition colors came from local Royal Navy stocks, so a dark-ish yellow (similar to RAF Trainer Yellow), and Red (RAF Dull Red for roundels) may well have been used. Since I've taken so long to get onto my Merit PT boat kit, I'm happy to share the information! HTH, Jim

Hi all, What with long summer and a big yard to care for, not to mention the strange case of Photobucket, I took an unexpectedly long break from the Y-wing. I have now picked things up again, so welcome back! At the last posting, I managed to get the upper nose section glued on, but with a small error. The back edge should have had an overhang at the rear but wound up almost flush with the rear bulkhead , as well as being a bit messy. After much thought, I decided to make a strip about 1/16” wide to fit from one side to the other. The piece runs straight across and kicks forward on both ends to match the line of the rear upper edge. This results in a tiny edge to edge surface for gluing; to give some additional gluing area I made a “reinforcing plate” for the center back of the bulkhead from .020” plastic sheet. I chose to paint, attach, and finish this little plate before trying to glue on the edge piece. I also cut out the two nose side pieces and glued them in place and competed several rounds of fill, sand, and smooth; I thought I would need to have the rear ends in place to give a bit more gluing surface for the edge strip at the ends. I also added a short length of solder on the outer sections of the strip to represent some pipes running just under the trailing edge in order to provide some extra gluing surfaces along the outer ends. In the following image you can see the faired in upper trailing edge of the nose. I also set the vacuformed canopy partially in place; it needs a tiny bit of spreading to seat fully against the upper nose area. The windows have been taped up and once I glue the canopy into place I will be ready to paint the entire front end. Well, it took a while to get the sides of the nose in place and sanding things down was tricky due to the thin plastic, but I've got that done and the added trailing edge looks good; a coat of paint to serve as a primer will tell the tale. More to come! Cheers, Jim

Hi all, In the last episode, Our Hero was ready to assemble the vectral pieces, complete the cockpit and nose section, and begin final finishing… Actually, by mid-May 2017 I was getting further and further behind schedule; I was planning on taking the finished model to WonderFest, one of the really neat modeling conventions anywhere. This year the ‘Fest was held on the first weekend of June. With two weeks left, it was still possible but I needed to get the front LED’s in place and add the fiber optics with the cockpit tub mounted. That was not without its own issues. With about four days left, I hit a snag in getting the upper nose into place; while I was thoroughly bummed I knew I just needed to leave her unfinished rather than completely screwing her up in a rush. I previously showed a picture of the crew while still in work. Here they are verifying the fit of them and the front seater's instrument panel. Once they were mostly complete I used some tan paint to prime them, then brush painted the base colors of orange (a bit faded in this case)and off-white for the back seater’s chest protector; the pilot has opted not to wear that bit of kit since it was not comfortable for her to wear. Medium Sea Grey was used for the harness and parachute straps, dark gray for the chest packs, and so on. I masked off the figures’ heads and spray painted the helmets a very pale gray. I painted the faces with a base coat of flesh and a darker shade around the eyes, lips, etc.; I chose not to try to paint the eyes based on a figure painting guide I found and I like how that turned out. If you look back at the figures in work, you will see a fine white line across their faces; my plan was to mix up some clear epoxy, add some clear yellow to it, and just drop it into the top half of the faces, relying on the .010” plastic rod I had glued on to “catch” the epoxy and make a semi-clear visor. It nearly worked pretty well. Meanwhile, the seats got a coat of Medium Sea Grey, olive green padding, a gloss clear coat, some darker washes, and a clear flat coat before going into the cockpit. As an aside, a couple of weeks after these pictures were made my buddy Wally informed me that Star Wars helmets cannot be a single color without some markings on them. So I dutifully dug around in my decal stash and came up with some tiny round decals. Here the crew is nearly done. Next up was to build the instrument panels. They were made with .015” clear for the main panels, with .020” solid rear pieces (actually the back side of the instrument panel) and .040” strip glued around the edges to make a shallow box. I glued an additional .010” sheet onto the clear sheet that had been pre-drilled to make holes to represent the gauges. The gauges were taped off and the whole box painted off black. I had a set of old instrument decals which are black faces with the instrument markings left clear. These I applied individually; this was a struggle with old decals that did not want to stay put. If you scroll back up to the previous picture, you will see the finished panels as well as the crew. I glued the cockpit tub into the nose, having added shims and made the cockpit floor as level and true as I could. Once the instrument panels were ready, they were glued into place and holes were drilled into the side edges, going through the original side pieces of the main fuselage. With that done I simply threaded one fiber optic strand into each end of the assemblies. The plan was for the light to splash around inside the boxes and gently illuminate the dials from behind. That almost worked but the light is very dim and will largely go un-noticed unless you look in from the rear angles. Ah well… two strands might have done much better! I then added two fiber optic strands on each side console of the pilot and the WSO, adding a heavy coat of clear red and clear yellow to the ends. These turned out as desired, visible from each side but not bright. In my experience cockpit lighting is mostly set to be dim to lessen the impact on the crew’s night vision. In any event, to be honest it was a struggle to get everything into place; if the fiber optics remain unbroken through this time next year I will be very thankful! The last cockpit items were the front coaming set over the pilot’s instrument panel, and the control sticks. The sticks were made similar to modern fighters, a central short stick above a fixed pedestal (and by far the easiest way to fit a control stick into a cramped cockpit). Being in a hurry at that point, I did not take a picture of the nose with the fiber optics in place before the top of the nose was glued on; still, you can see some of the strands in the picture below. Alternating between the front and the rear end, I figured out a way to build the rear maneuvering vectrals inside the rings. These are only a general match for the usual Y-wing units, but I did design them as if they will work as thrust diverters mimicking the use of rudders and elevators on a real vehicle. Remember too that these units should be a bit beefier to handle maneuvering with a higher bomb load. The vertical pieces make up the rudder and a fixed forward support unit while the horizontal pieces represent the elevators. Each vertical and horizontal piece has two thicknesses of .015” sheet making the skins, with .030” spacers in between; the horizontal pieces were assembled and then cut in half. Here are the pieces ready for assembly. The assembly on the right is just pieced together for a fit check; not bad! The vertical one piece assemblies were installed first with two pieces of .030” brass tube mounted from the outside in and pushed part of the way in. The horizontal pieces were held in place on one side, and a single piece of .030” brass was used to go fully across the span of the elevators (through the rudder assembly). This gives the two assemblies a bit more rigidity. The upper and lower vertical pieces were then pushed home, all glued in with epoxy. If you look at how thin the outer rings are (having been vacuformed, remember), I needed to build as much strength into these units as I could manage; even so they will always be somewhat fragile. On the other hand, they do look pretty much in scale which pleases me a great deal. Here are the finished assemblies, minus the inner rings which will be added soon. Upper left shows the rudder on the back side; middle right shows the "front face" with the elevator pieces facing forward and the front of the rudder assembly. See you all next time! Cheers, Jim

Hi Mis, And there I was, thinking that the new kit in 1/1000 would naturally be a bit smaller than the older 1/700 kit; who knew? In any event, thank you so much for your reply; it answered all my questions and then some and I am most appreciative! Cheers, Jim

Hi all, I'll start by saying that I know essentially nothing about the whole Yamato saga, let alone anything about the ships. I have a Y-wing project close to the finish line and I have been thinking about more Sci Fi. I've read through this thread and gotten interested in the new Andromeda kit that seems to be just hitting the market. First, I want to know what size the new 1/1000 Andromeda will be when finished? I've been looking around on-line and found differing sizes for the box, but little hint of the model itself. Second, there also appears to be a 1/700 kit already out; how big is it and is there lighting in it or available elsewhere? Third, would it be simple for a relatively new-to-lighting modeler to successfully disconnect the new model's sound mechanism? Enlightenment I seek from the learned councils! Thanks, Jim

Hi Brad, There is a lot of excellent information here and there are choices to be had in terms of the modeling. I have started a similar project although it was moved to the "I'll get back to this later" pile. I like the Airfix PR XIX, it has good shapes, the bowser wing (so no extensive filling of fighter wing panel lines), and full cameras all ready to go. I lopped off the nose about 1/8" behind the engine panel lines and mated up a Merlin front end. I used the Aeroclub Mk IX engine parts, tweaked so that the leading edge of the wing fairing fits the leading edge of the PR XIX wing's leading edges. The vertical fin can be cut down using a standard Mk IX piece to trace the line onto the inside of each fin, and then replace the rudder. The different rear canopy section can be had by using the PR XIX canopy (kit or vac) by installing the deeper clear piece and moving the lower frame line up when painting it. Beyond that, other things you will need to source/make include the PR XI's deeper chin, and also you will need to add Mk IX style smaller radiators under the wings. So while this is not a short list of items, none of them is particularly difficult. Just my two quatloos; we will be eager to see pictures when you get on with this! Cheers, Jim

Hi Crane, Fernando, and all, Writing from the western side of the Atlantic, several things come to mind. In the IPMS world, U.S. judges generally are knowledgeable at the higher levels, but remember that for us, whomever shows up at a show may act as a judge or a trainee at least but may know very little about specific markings. Our IPMS rules put "accuracy" 'way down the list of things to judge against such as no seams, no glue marks, good basic finishing, and so on; this was done specifically because judges cannot know all there is to know about every aircraft (or any other set of vehicles that number in the thousands). However, this does not stop the occasional judge looking at a specific model and ruling it out (or trying to) because it's the wrong shade of Olive Drab. That is human nature to a large degree, and difficult to police at the more local shows. Finally, in the U.S. only the Out of the Box categories require the instruction sheet to accompany the model. Basically I think that there are soft limits to what the modeler can do and still have a "mainstream" semi-accurate representation of that magic "moment in history." However, in my view the fact that Olive Drab varies a great deal should not mean that you may freely use chartreuse or teal just because you like them, IF you want a relatively close approximation to a real vehicle. My one personal gripe with some what-ifers or more artistic modelers is that often times the artistic models are not designated as, shall I say, a non-accurate scheme; when other less experienced modelers see that sort of model, they often conclude that "that's the way that vehicle looked, so I'll make mine like that." For example, think of the Spanish school of finishing in which every panel line is shaded/washed and the center of every skin panel is lightened. It is artistic and it certainly breaks up the expanse of a single color; however not very many operational aircraft ever really look like that. It is artistic and surely technically challenging, just not so true to most real subjects. In the end we each model as we see fit and that's cool; just be sure to let others know if you are doing a what-if or filling in the gaps of what is known so that others will not inadvertently be led astray with their modeling. My two quatloos; cheers all!

Hi all, For those of you who have chosen to reply, I thank you for all the kind words and I'm glad you are enjoying this thread! For Gimme, I have a couple of buddies who did not care to be referred to as Model Geeks. They are both big fans of American football, so I asked a few questions. Do you know the players? "Yes." Do you keep up with all the statistics? "Yes." Do you belong to a formal tailgating group? "Of course!" I see, I said; you guys are football geeks! They started to get a little steamed, then cooled down; they had to admit that they are indeed football and modeling geeks. Personally, I am happy to admit I'm a model geek; everyone is a geek about something. So mate, no need to feel old and sad. Embrace your inner geek and seek happiness where it lies. As for the Y-wing, it is certainly true that no two movie model Y-wings were exactly the same, although for the most part they are actually pretty close for anyone who is not a Star Wars fan geek. Remember too that no one who worked on those models or the movie itself knew that it would go Nova when released. At that point, it became time to cash in with merchandise, media, models, and eventually, nostalgia. That led to the novels, the cross sections books, and tons of other things. They had to create new answers to the "why do the ships look like that?" questions. And that, in my opinion, gives some modelers fits and others freedom. There were something like five studio filming Y-wing models plus a few purpose-built pyrotechnic ships designed to be blown up. A generation of modelers continue to figure out what pieces from what kits were used on each of those models and then recreate a particular Y-wing in studio scale. I have to admire the time and effort and money that takes, but I have always wanted a smaller, less expensive version. That said, I have to admit I've poured a lot of time and effort into my Y-wing, so maybe it's not so different after all. To each his own! Cheers all, Jim

Hi all, And now on to the lights! While I had checked the basic ship wiring earlier on, I wasn't sure I would get it all correct to hook up to the stand. As you can see below, that first test worked fine. The stand is a basic box made from PVC, made by one of my model geek buddies (thanks, Free!). The stand itself is brass tubing and is capped off with a 1/8" male RCA plug. Wiring runs into the base and is connected to a switch and then to a port for a wall wort (a DC converter, much like our cell phones come with). I get six volts from the Wart, and with the switch I can turn the power off the take-down of the model a simple lift off affair. Finally, I have working lights! The first next thing I've done is mount the engine exhausts into the rear end of the engine nacelles. Once I connected the lights to their reflectors and that connected to the exhaust housings, the wires were carefully pulled to the front to help the engines into place. Popping the model onto her stand and flipping the switch, I get this: Needless to say, I'm very pleased with the engine lights. I'm now working on both the maneuvering vectrals and on the cockpit/crew. I'd like to tip my hat to my buddy Boz for volunteering to do the soldering; I am learning how to do it but he did the work, and between the two of us we figured out where the initial glitches were. Getting the lights on certainly gave me a recharge keep the build going, so stay tuned for the final installments. Cheers all, Jim

Hi all, One thing I have noticed over time is that some modelers attempt to weather GSB with a lighter blue; this usually results in a less than authentic looking lighter blue model; as Dana has pointed out, the photos generally show more of a faded or chalky appearance. I also note from many pictures that the GSB paint often seemed to weather slightly lighter than the stars and bars markings on the upper wing and fuselage. And finally, I note that many modelers want to add overall light washes in the panel lines, which can easily lead to the toy-like appearance we work hard not to get to. So what to do? With the basic GSB paint you are using, whatever it's source, I would spray a little silver paint along the leading edges of the wings, tails and vertical fin, and along the wing roots first; this will allow you smooth/scrape off the GSB later to reveal 'bare metal'. Next, after laying on my GSB and letting it cure, I would take a small amount of the base paint, add just enough lighter gray to see it begin to lighten, and spray a light coat of it over the upper surfaces of the model. A thin coat without a definite edge is what I'd shoot for. Next, I would take a medium gray and apply a filter over the upper surfaces. Filter, meaning a small drop of the gray mixed into an airbrush cup of thinner and sprayed on in quick passes. I'm shooting to get just a slight change in the tone of the upper surface blue; if I can really see the contrast between before and after, it's too much. When I think I could use one more pass, I've learned to stop! Now I can apply the usual clear gloss to prep for decals (that is my normal process; you're may vary). If I haven't made too much of a change in the paint when I over-coated the decals with clear to seal them in, I can add a tiny amount of the mid-light gray into the clear and use it as a second filter to lighten the upper surfaces and the markings markings; I'll use straight clear to overcoat the lower surfaces. Washes: I am not a fan of using the same wash for all the various panel lines; it does not look realistic in my view. Even on dark surfaces, the major panel line joints such as along the removable panels, the engine cowlings, and the control surfaces, will create shadows and appear darker than the surface colors. I use artist's oils and Naptha (lighter fluid) for my washes, but whatever medium you use, I recommend starting with Payne's Gray (a dark bluish gray) and only add a little straight black. When applied, I want this wash to be darker than the base paint but not necessarily straight black. This wash only goes into those main panel lines where there are control surfaces, removable panels, or access hatches. The places where one panel butts up against another but are not normally removable get a different wash. I prefer a "general" wash over GSB to be just a little bit lighter that the base paint. I prefer to start with the Payne's Gray and lighten it up with white or a light tan, just until I can see that it's just barely lighter than the top layer of paint, NOT a light gray or a light tan. For a final finish, I go for a semi-flat clear overcoat over the whole model, and a really flat clear finish lightly laid on the upper surfaces. One huge caveat: Do NOT try all this directly on your current project! Practice a bit first on some scrap (I prefer excess model parts to sheet plastic since they are three dimensional) and see how the look of the GSB changes with different amounts of lighter tones laid over it. In my case, I am such a slow builder that I often practice my most tried and true finishes on some scrap plastic kit bits before bringing in my current model for the real painting sessions. There are no silver bullets to be found here, just lots of practice and a fair bit of prior research and some experimenting to find a combination that gets me close to what I see in the pictures. Good luck, and I look forward to seeing how you make out! HTH, Jim

Hi all and for Jamie, I have the Tamiya kit in 1/48 scale and have plans to finish her as Mk Ic from 1942. I have an older set of resin horizontal tails for the early flat configuration. I do not have my information handy, but I am interested in your offer of resin correction pieces. Do you reckon I can make use of the appropriate version that you are thinking about? Thanks, Jim P.S. The model is a beaut!

Hi Brad, Check out this link to a discussion here on Britmodeller: http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234963847-spitfire-and-mustang-pru/ I quite like the Mustang in the reconnaissance role in overall PRU Blue. You would need to add the camera ports but in 1/48 scale I think they have been covered by aftermarket parts. Definitely different! HTH, Jim

Hi Caerbannog, Very nice work and a very pretty model! Regarding the inner landing gear doors, like the D's, the B and C Mustang's doors will also generally bleed down and drop open. This was common on the Merlin powered Mustangs. The gear doors opened and closed with the gear cycling on Allison engine variants, so on those Mustangs the doors were normally up when the aircraft was parked. HTH, Jim

Hi all, Just a note to say that this is not another update; I had some duplicate text and pictures that somehow got added in. In the meantime, thanks to all of you who have replied and know that I appreciate the good vibes! Cheers, Jim

Good evening all, Time once again for an update, and it feels like a significant one to me! With the rear end of the fuselage complete and painted/finished, it's nearly to the point where I cannot hold the model and work on it, so I will be getting all the lighting and power connections soldered up very soon and use the stand to hold the model during the final push to completion. In the meantime, I painted and installed most of the external "repair" pipes that are so common on the Y-wing. Using 1/16" copper rod, I had bent up and fitted two pipes running for and aft along the upper edge of the fuselage (one to each side), and one on each side on the upper wings. Taking note of the various colors, I eliminated straight copper, brown, rust, and orange, all colors I've seen on various models that ultimately didn't suit me. I went back to the pictures of the studio model that was given to Alan Ladd, and was pleasantly surprised- those external pipes are a pale golden metallic color. Enough to be visible yet not be the first thing an observer will notice- just up my alley. The pipes got a couple of coats of gray primer, then a light coat of Alclad Pale Burnt Metal, and two coats of clear gloss acrylic to keep the paint from being easily chipped. In the first picture below, the fuselage pipes have been installed, while the wing pieces are displayed out front along with an extra piece of copper rod to show off the finish. As more pieces go on, the assembly sequence looms larger and larger; after this photo above was taken, I mounted the two wing pipes into position and made the next big step- I attached the two engine pods permanently on the wing spars. Here is the result: The R2 unit and the wheeled thingie up between the engine oil pans at the top of the rear fuselage are just sitting in place, but they do reveal that almost all of the interior fuselage equipment is now in place. I could not resist taping on one of the engine domes; I think they turned out rather well. I have planned for some time to have a couple of obvious repairs involving those pipes. The first one you can see above just to the right of the R2 unit's socket; a section of damaged pipe was neatly cut out and capped off, and the slightly browner pipe available in the repair shop that day has been angled down into the main line. Finally, here is the other local repair job. A stray blaster bolt sliced the right hand wing pipe and damaged the surface beneath. Maintenance repaired the hole in the wing skin with a metal patch and sealed it with the local brew of patching compound, then repaired a section of pipe with a handy piece of new pipe and sealed off the ends; at least, that's my story and I'm sticking to it! Well, that's all for now. Once I get the lighting sorted out, I'll get the engine exhaust assemblies mounted, construct the maneuvering vectrals, and then it is on to the cockpit! Cheers, Jim

Hi all, On the other hand, railway engines are many feet long, depending upon your orientation! :-) Cheers, Jim