Kitchen Modeller

Hi Andy - What I did was super glue the end of the light wire at a right angle to the end of the bigger wire and let it dry - it was then easy to get the wrap going - then a wee blob of glue at the other end to secure it - not sure if this is of any help. Your timing is funny on this as I had just cottoned on to this myself - I think what threw me was the tamiya moulding of said floatation device - it looked simply like it was part of the seat. After looking at alot of reference photos I realised what this was actually supposed to be - so I decided to strip back what I'd done and make some adjustments: I removed most of the paint - and then took my hobby knife to the thing to try and make it look more like it's supposed to - I just gauged out little strips and made alot of scratches - this was surprisingly easy and I was pretty happy with the result. When I was done, I coated the whole section with tamiya thin to clean it and melt off the the hard edges. This also gives me the opportunity to do some hairspray technique on the seat as I meant to first time round. I'll probably paint the cushion a light khaki colour as you suggested - I have been unable to find any direct sources for this so any guidance here would be helpful. More to follow soon! Cheers John

Nice work Sam - Riveting looks pretty good from here - I know how hard it is but looks like you pulled it off Glad you've discovered the wonders of mr surfacer and MLT - it really is the best primer though I still sometimes use tamiya fine surface primer for little jobs. Cheers - John

Looks like I missed this one aswell Opus This is great - really like the weathering you did and the chipping looks great - it's not too much and very convincing - did you do this with a brush?

A good pair tweezers and a hobby knife will get you through most situations - you could also look at forking out for one of those PE bending kits which I believe are brilliant - but expensive - I haven't made the plunge on one of those yet but probably will when I meet a PE fret that demands it Most of your PE worries are over as far as these kits go so something to think about... Love what you've done so far - they're going to turn out great

Thanks guys - this scheme is quite popular and no wonder - blue on metallic silver - forget about it:) Thanks Christer:) As you know, the cockpit on P51's is quite big and open so well worth the time to spruce it up as much as possible I think - Chipping on the seat was all dry brushing and painted on chips - it's okay - I meant to hair spray it but forgot - most of the dodgy chipping will be covered by the seatbelts so I'm not too bothered Do it Thom - get that Mustang you won't regret it - I promise I have a wee update on work I did last night - just continuing with the cockpit. I did some detailing on the cockpit walls: I used a mix of some PE and the kit details - the PE contrasted quite starkly with the kit details so I painted the PE to try and blend it in a little more - honestly however, seeing it installed, I think next time I'll just use the kit detail and forego the PE completely - The PE is basically flat with painted on details - I think if I'd just used the kit details, it would have ended up being nicer - so one to learn from. The components where all painted with vallejo model colour - blends of black and different greys - I painted on some labels with a fine detail brush. Still more work to do on these but it's looking okay so far. I carried out the weathering on the cockpit floor using vellejo chipping medium - I neglected to clear coat the wood finish, which came back to sting me - as when I started the chipping process, some of the brown started coming away as well - so ended up doing 3 layer chipping - you can see some of the interior green - thankfully this only happened near the top, which will be covered by the pilots seat - so no biggie. I put the instrument panel together which looks quite nice I think - The kit version looked pretty good too so I wouldn't say this is a must have for the kit - but the PE version will do nicely. I painted the head rest also with vellejo red leather mixed with some brown. I'll add some shading to this later. The seat got some shading with some oils - greens and yellows though you can hardly see this in the photo - I'll add some more layers later too. The oil cooler and radiator got some PE grills glued into place - these will be painted aluminium - I'm wondering should I paint the intake corridors aluminum too? The kit instructions are not clear on this so some suggestions would be appreciated! So another dry fit: So it's coming along - I have a few more details to add and paint and I'll probably do some oil paint shading here and there, just add some more texture - not sure if it needs a wash per say - I'll leave this till last and make a call then. Thanks for dropping by... John

Thanks John Hi Richard I’ve never used super scale decals but I’m sure they’re fine. Most after market decals are pretty good in my own experience. Re the photo - petie 2nd had at least 2 iterations, one with invasion stripes and one without - each slightly different - the decal sheet I have also has the name in white but I’m taking license here - I’ll post up the other photos I have on the next update, so you can compare. Also I’m super jealous that you have the new eduard kit! Waiting for someone to do wip on here so I can properly drool. Hint hint. Thanks Prop Duster!

I fell foul of this when I did my eduard dday spit - I put stencils over the invasion stripes which apparently is wrong - as the stencils would have been painted over when they hastily put on the stripes before the kickoff. But later, the stripes were applied in the factory so the stencils would have gone on over the stripes. So in theory both could be correct. Great work so far opus - sorry I missed this until now. Re. Your PE issues - it’s like all aspects of modeling - the more you do, the easier it gets - though it’s a proper pain initially- but it’s okay to pick and chose what bits you use / often I think the kit part looks better than the pe part so will often ignore the proper fiddley bits. Especially if they are buried deep in the model somewhere. It’s one of those things you pick up from practice. Also the glue you use - it helps to really get to know how the glue you’re using behaves with pe - sometimes a fast drying one is better in some situations - like sticky outy bits - levers etc - You can also use crystal clear or PVA which is great for instrument panels which takes longer to dry. Overall I really like pe and find that it can really add to the depth of a model - so sometimes it’s worth the pain. Hope this helps!

Hello folks - now this: With all the buzz about that new P51 kit from eduard, I thought I’d pop this one from the stash and get this oldie but still a goodie made. After my last 2 builds being nmf, I thought I’d do one more - hopefully using the lessons learned and expanding my alclad chops a little further. Also going a scale bigger to 1/48 - more plastic making more fun I hope. It will be nice doing a larger model after so many 1/72s - detailing those smaller models can be hard on the eyes..! (Maybe there’s a part of me that wants this built so I can justify buying the eduard one!!! ) In spite of its age, this looks like a pretty sweet kit. I’ve got some aftermarket: A big sheet of pe, including interior, precut masks and some resin wheels - all from eduard. I’m planning on doing petie 2nd - the scheme from the box art: I’m a sucker for nmf and blue schemes so this suits me fine. This image will be my primary source - as you can see she’s a well weathered beast with lots of nice tonal variations on the blue nose and airframe- I’ll be looking to recreate that. I understand that this plane survived the war and still flys today - on her 3rd engine:) But mine will be a portrayal of her dirty grimy wartime years. Of course this means using the dreaded Tamiya decals - I did shop around for some aftermarket ones but the good ones all seem to be sold out - maybe because of that aforementioned kit release. Into the build! First job was sticking some pe onto the pilots seat: I went about adding some details to the radio boxes at the rear of the cockpit. I drilled some holes for the wires and glued them in - used different gauges of copper wire. I looked at a few references for the placement of these - which pointed out some big inaccuracies in the kit but not to worry. I made an oxygen line by wrapping some small wire around big wire... First time I’ve tried this and it came out okay I think. I attached some more pe to the side walls: That green is what eduard thinks is correct for usaf interior green. Maybe sometimes it was that colour but I’ll be using a different shade so this is getting painted over. The hose was installed - I used some crystal clear to create the plugs for this - not very successful but it will do... I had already primed the surface with some Tamiya fine so I was now ready for some paint. I mixed up some tamiya flat green and flat yellow - also some interior green and some Olive drab to get this shade - Then lightened it with more yellow to do some highlights. I used a lighter shade on the seat bulkhead as some references showed that this was a lighter shade of green. The black head rest area was painted with Tamiya rubber black - then dry brushed with a light grey colour. The back section was also painted with rubber black and dry brushed in the same fashion - I also hand painted the frame with the same interior green color as before. The floor of the cockpit was painted using different shades of brown and rust colours from Vallejo model colour - more of a nod to wood grain as opposed a full wood grain finish. This will be covered with chipping medium and then a dark grey to simulate the rubber floor. Some details on the radio boxes where painted.. And lastly a quick dry fit to see how I’m going: So that’s it for the first few hours work With the bigger scale I have to get used to a slower pace but I’m very much enjoying it so far. I’d be keen to hear from anyone who’s built this to see if there’s any issues to be aware of - but from what I can gather it’s supposed to be more or less hassle free. More to follow soon. Thanks for checking in. Cheers John

Thanks for the kind comments fellas

Thanks Clive I've posted the RFI here:

Hi folks - so this is my latest - The Revell boxing of the Special hobby de Havilland Vampire - Mk4. I did this as another experiment with Alclad paints - I wanted to see if I could recreate a version of High speed silver by starting with a high sheen finish and winding it down to a more accurate portrayal with weathering - The experiment ultimately failed with the finish ending up basically as NMF which wasn't ideal - but it was still fun to do - Saying that, under some light conditions it does work - but fails as soon as you shine a light on it... as with the images below. Painted with Alclad - with Mr Hobby GX2 for the gloss black base - Weathered with oils and AK emamel washes - added Eduard interior PE set and modified the engine nozzle with some evergreen plastic tubing. Put in the rivets with the Rosie the riveter tool. RNZAF decals from Old Model Decals here in NZ. Here's a shot I did outside, just to show how the light changes the finish quite dramatically: WIP is here if you're interested: Thanks for looking

Fixed! Nice work on the vampire

Very nicely done - colours look spot on

Very nicely done - love that shade of blue

Same

Rocking on with this... As I’ve discussed, this experiment with alclad involved starting with a very shiny and reflective surface and winding it back with weathering... I’d done a fair bit of post shading already, which added lots of variation in the finish but didn’t really knock back the levels of sheen... so it was time to bring out the big weathering guns - let’s start with an oil sludge wash... This is a mix of black and white oil paint - to make up a dark grey - thinned with enamel thinners - I covered the entire upper half - let it dry and wiped it of with a dry paper towel. The same process was done underneath... So that did a good job of filling in the panel lines and did tone back the shiny finish - probably not as much as I wanted so went at it again... This time I mixed up a dirtier darker colour and did more of panel line wash - highlighting the lines and rivets more... That was an improvement so I left it there... was this enough to bring the finish down to something close to high speed silver...? No. Not even close. It’s still far too shiny and looks much closer to nmf than hss - but what the hey - it was a fun experiment and I learned abit more about using and weathering with these paints. Next up - undercarriage went on... With the wheels in place I reached a moment of truth - time to see if my efforts weighing down the nose would come to fruition... after a little drying time, I popped her on her legs... Nooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!! God damn everything to hell. Looking at the placement of the rear wheels, they’re actually placed more forward of the wheel wells which is why my earlier testing didn’t give me the same result. After a lot of language not suitable to publish in a family friendly publication such as this, I wondered how far I was off the mark. I grabbed a spare bit lead weight left over from the build and blue tacked it to the nose. It was enough to tip the balance. so small - small enough to fit into the front wheel well perhaps... Like so... and like mick jagger used to say: paint it black... Gave it another test.. Get in there ya good thing! With that we’re just about there. A few more bits to stick on and some touch ups and we’ll be home. Here she is now: These were taken under normal light conditions so not too shiny - it does light up as soon as you shine anything on it. But overall I’m pretty happy with how it turned out - it was a fun build and I learned a few new tricks. As always thanks for following along - and for the suggestions and supportive comments. They’re always appreciated . I’ll have this up on RFI pretty soon... Cheers John

Lol - I’ll pm you in the morning - bed time here in NZ

Nice work on this - great seeing a hurricane in these colors - I’m working on a decal sheet for Johnny reds hurricane if you’re interested..?

It’s probably a little off but maybe close enough?

This has been moving along despite life and work getting in the way I got the stickers on over the weekend... I used a mix of the kit decals - which were lovely and went on very nicely - and the after market decal sheet for RNZAF vampires that I bought from Old Model Decals here in NZ - These went on okay but needed a lot attention and many layers of Microsol to get them to adhere and sink into the recesses - I had to use the old trick of running a blade along the panel lines to get them to sink properly - even this didn't fix them entirely but they still went on okay - Compared to some decals (looking at you Tamiya) they were fine I got the bits ready for paint - undercarriage and wheels - I'm not going to use the drop tanks. Next up will be some weathering - with completion not far off that. Cheers John

This is a great photo - even accounting for colour correction, it really shows how beat up the surfaces got - so much fading... even on the canopy - great stuff. Nice job on the masking Sam - not far away from throwing some paint on

Very nice work Smithy - she came out really well - great job on the weathering

I’ve found you often get a better result doing it this way rather than precut masks which are often not a great fit... this will come out perfect I’m sure

Hi Paul - this will be something I can consider when I get to the end of the painting and weathering stage - if it's still far too shiny there will be a few options on the table - including using satin or even matt varnishes. But I'll be waiting till I get to the end of the road before I make that call. I'm pretty happy with how it looks at this point so I'm staying the course for now:)

Hi Stuart - you're not wrong - about the shiny silver thing - not the butt thing :) It is far too shiny right now - my plan is to tone it down as I progress - my thoughts being that it's easy to reduce the shininess - but impossible to take it from too dull to shiny. As I already said, there's clear coats and weathering to come which should tone it down - but I want it to have a decent amount of reflective tone which is why I'm doing it this way. I understand that yours and others opinions will be different but that's fine - I'm still happy to get the feedback, good or bad The last few photos in that last update were taken under a big light which probably made it look far more shiny than it actually is - under normal light conditions: Cheers