Kitchen Modeller

Just a quick update from the last couple of nights work - I started work on the weathering process. As I've discussed earlier, I wanted to try and differentiate the lacquered wings from the NMF using weathering - so it was time to put this to the test. I like to use oils for most of my weathering - they're very flexible and if you're not happy with the result, it's very easy to wipe it all off and start again... I wanted to try a new technique I played around with on my last couple of Alclad projects - it's a variation on an oil sludge wash. So I started off making up mix of black and white oil paint - to make a dark grey - this was thinned down with enamel thinner and spread over the wing... Pretty standard sludge wash so far - usually you would wait for this to dry, then wipe it off with a paper towel - however, before it dried, I wiped most of it off - more like a mopped most of it off - this left a very thin layer of paint on the model - this layer was allowed to dry properly: I then attacked the wing with some cotton buds. I used the cotton buds in a circular motion, trying to create areas where paint was taken off but left residue in other places - I would compare this to when you are blending with oils - trying to feather down an edge to some shading you've put down. I've done the 2 outer panels on this wing above. You can compare the effect to the rest of the wing. The idea is to leave very subtle residue in places to replicate the tonal variation seen on reference photos. After I'd completed the process on the wing: So it's not a perfect result but I like it - the process had also dulled the wings down considerably so there's now a fairly obvious difference between the fuselage and wing colour. The fuselage which be weathered differently so it retains its original colour. Not a great photo, but hopefully you can see the difference between the two... I also weathered the blue nose with a light dark grey wash and some blended highlights: The paint is still wet on these photos so I this finish will change once the paint is dry - or more dry...! That's it for now... Cheers John

Thanks Squibby - I’ve seen that video and it looks like a nice effect. I’ve tried and failed to find a NZ supplier for AK extreme so let me know if you find some. It’s supposed to be a nice paint. I might give it a crack with mr color silver 8 which is my go to for chipping effects and small details.

Thanks John - the decals have a couple of gloss coats over them at this stage so I think you’re correct in that they should be quite protected. Still... I’d prefer if I didn’t have to lol

Your weathered lacquered wing experiments look amazing - it will be interesting to see them transferred on the bigger scale. Are you using Vallejo metal colour metallics? I used them in the past and found them to be quite good but didn’t realize they had that translucent quality. Anyways - very much enjoying this thread - love your work

Thanks Dennis - be my guest! I understand that the actual colour was a much lighter blue than what appears on the refurbished versions flying today - which is why the kit calls out just flat blue I’d imagine.

Hi folks - After all of that decal horribleness, I went back to the paint - painting in the blue nose. After a lengthy masking session, I mixed up a dark base colour with these: Roughly half and half mix. This was sprayed on - then followed with some mottling with a a lighter mix, created by adding white to the base colour. The blending layer was mixed using Sky and flat blue - again roughly half and half... This looked nice but I over did this layer I felt - it was the colour I wanted but it was a little on the dark side- I did just a little post shading to lighten the colour a little. I then introduced a little chipping which was done with a fine detail brush and thinned Mr Color Silver 8. I then removed the masking to get it ready for the gloss clear coat - I was happy enough with this - I plan to weather this section further with washes and oils - nothing crazy, as I think it's just about there already. When that's complete, I'll mask it all off again and give it a matt finish. It seems my time saving idea to do the decals before painting this on was a silly idea. I just created more work for myself with the added risk of having to put masking tape of the decals. Live and learn. So here's where I'm at - the Petie 2nd decals is on and has had a further gloss coat to protect it. She's ready for some weathering Thanks for checking in - John

Looking great Sam. The colours look spot on...!

Thanks Squibby- I put the masking tape on the palm of my hand multiple times so there’s hardly any tackiness left - then lightly burnish it. I put very light very dry coats on to reduce the chance of bleed. It’s still risky but you can negate the risk. Re the solution- I use Microset followed by Microsol - I also used Tamiya markfit which I think might have caused the problem - it’s very hot so it might have weakened the decal in that spot - if I’d left it alone, Instead of trying to burnish it, it probably would have been fine. Thanks Biggles, I haven’t used AK Extreme metal - it’s a lacquer based paint? it doesn’t seem to be available here in NZ - but I’d imagine you could do the same thing If it was thinned enough. I’m hoping the clear coat will even it out a little...

Howdy folks - so the paint work continues... As before, I carried out some more post shading on the flaps and ailerons- using a mix of steel and magnesium, weathering and creating a filter effect alluding to these areas being nmf as opposed to painted surfaces.. Looking at the references I masked off some panels on the nose that I wanted to shade. These were lightly shaded with steel. As I mentioned before, alclad aircraft aluminum is quite translucent, so I went over some more panels trying to create more variation in tones. With different airbrush pressure you can create almost a different colour. You might be able to see the different shades on the rudder and trim above. All of this is the same colour. It’s quite a subtle effect, but using a different colour in these areas was going to contrast too much for me. I did some more of this on the underside, this time using a mottled effect to create variation. Again, all the same paint. With that I completed the alclad portion of the paint. A couple of coats of aqua gloss went on and she was ready for some stickers. You might have noticed that I’ve neglected to paint the blue nose. As there is just one decal to go onto the blue section, I’ve decided to put the decals on everywhere else, put a final gloss coat on, then tackle the nose section- which I’m hoping will mean less masking and clear coats. I want the blue section to have a fairly Matt finish. I might regret this decision but we’ll see how we go. I was using the kit decals which wasn’t ideal as I have a terrible track record using Tamiya decals. I find them very difficult to work with - they’re thick, tear easily and can be difficult to move around. This time proved to be no exception. Just about every large decal tore or gave me some trouble. Case in point. Decal number 2. The roundel on the upper wing looked like it was going on fine. Decal number 1 went on fine - roundel on the underside wing, thereby lulling me into a false sense of security. I was burnishing it with a cotton bud and the Centre inexplicably disintegrated. Just one of those things. Thankfully it was just the Centre so I was able to mask it off and spray the Centre white. Not a perfect fix but better than no decal. I don’t know why I keep using Tamiyas kit decals thinking they will be fine. They are never, never fine. The older the kit, the worse the decals are. Anyway, I ploughed on. As of now most of the decals are now on. Some very visible carrier film on most of them, so it will be a gloss coat and sanding which should reduce the effect a little. If I was super fussy, this would have ruined the build for me. Thankfully I’m easy going so will just have to live with the crap decals. I should know at this point that me and Tamiya decals don’t work - and that we should agree to disagree and move on with our lives. One day I’ll learn. Enjoy the rest of your weekend guys. Cheers John

Thanks guys My last few NMF models were good training leading up to this - and this is definitely my best result yet - however I still think there's ways I could have made it better - next time, I'll be putting the black gloss directly onto the plastic - I think that will give an even smoother result. Thanks Opus I am having fun with this This is true - the wings were painted silver and the fuselage was left as NMF. I did think about painting the wings a different colour to represent this - however looking through photos of P-51's from the period, the actual colour difference was very subtle and in some cases , hardly even there - I'd imagine it was quite stark when they left the factory but as it progressed in service, the difference seems to be less as the paint is subjected to weather and day to day grime which give the entire aircraft a uniform look. My issue with this was my current choice of colours available to me. If I went with a different colour, it would have looked very different to the fuselage colour which was something I wanted to avoid. If there was a difference, I wanted it to be subtle. So I've opted to create the difference through weathering - I'll use different shades of washes and oil weather on the wings and fuselage which will hopefully give the result I'm after. I know a lot of modellers choose to use different colours but when I see this, I always think that they look slightly odd or too clean, like they've just come from the factory - if that's the intention, then that's great but it's not what I want to do. So I'm using the same colour all over. I might do something different on the next Mustang however:)

Thanks Smithy! Thanks Squibby! I’m a huge admirer of your work so I’m very pleased you approve As I’m sure you’ve seen, I’ve stolen your ideas - sorry, was inspired by your ideas on your p-51 - I only found your thread after I’d finished the cockpit but my work on the wheel bays was very much a poor imitation of what you did. I was very happy to see your recent return to your mustang - discovering that you had a wee one to look after certainly explained the abrupt cessation:) (congratulations on that btw) it looks like we’re taking different directions on the external paint - ie paint type - but I’m pretty sure my efforts will pale in comparison to yours! Looking forward to seeing your build progress - I’m sure I’ll be drooling all the way

Thanks Sam - same - I had awful problems using alclad black gloss base and had to strip the model down on a couple of occasions. No such worries with this stuff. One thing I forgot to mention was after putting down the last coat, I fill the airbrush with mr leveling thinner, mixing it with whatever’s left in the cup and spray a coat of that over the still drying gx2. This helps it level out and really gives it a shine. I’ve never used a Dremel on a model before - I’m thinking about getting one but don’t really know what I’m looking for. If anyone has suggestions - especially for this part of the world I’d appreciate it!

Hi all - it's time for primer and paint... I mixed up my usual mix of Mr Surfacer 1500 black with Mr Leveling thinner 50/50 and sprayed that on in a couple of coats - one light, the next wet... This doesn't take long to dry - about 20 minutes - after which I started sanding it smooth using fairly high grit sanding sponges. I wanted to see if I could get any smoother so I tried using some polishing compound: I've used this before on canopies so wanted to see what effect it would have on the primer. It definitely made things smoother - I was trying to get it as smooth as possible before the black gloss coat. I did have one visible ghost seam under the tail: I applied some putty to this and sanded it out. The black gloss coat went on next. I used Mr Color GX2 which is easily the best black gloss I've tried so far. You spray it on pretty heavy but it levels out very nicely - this was probably my best result yet - however I've since learned that alot of people don't bother with the primer when using this stuff, as it acts like a pretty good primer on it's own - so I'll try this next time - I suspect that the finish might have been even better sprayed directly onto the plastic. There were some issues that I just noticed at this point - nothing crazy, just some rough scratches I hadn't noticed before - I was able to spot repair these by sanding them out and re-applying the GX2 to those spots. It blends in very nicely. However my ghost seam was still there - I tried a number of times to repair this but it kept re appearing. At this point the plastic had almost been sanded through and it was only them that I copped on that this join hadn't been glued properly - so no wonder it wouldn't disappear. I ended up attaching some plasticard to the entire area: And then sanding it down: It wasn't going to be perfect but better than before. This was painted and I was just about ready for paint. The base colour I was using for this was Alclad Airframe Aluminium - this was sprayed on in about 3 light coats: I left this over night and then did a little post shading the next morning: I wanted the gun covers to be reasonably dirty as these are panels that get handled fairly often - so masked these off and sprayed some Alclad steel around the panel edges. I then went and did a few touch ups with the base colour around the model where the paint was a little uneven - this worked as a post shading layer as well - because the paint is quite translucent, it settles differently to the base coats. I tried using this to my advantage, creating slight variations in the finish. You might be able to see this on the photo above. It's subtle but it's there. So rather than continuing with the painting, I'm going to put a clear coat on this - Although the paint is reasonably robust, it still very easy to create blemishes and scratches just handling it - the clear coat will protect the base layer so at least that's safe. That's it for now - more updates soon... Cheers John

Good call on finishing these - both look excellent Nice work! Which was the nicer kit in the end?

Hi all - hope you’re having a lovely weekend... I’ve been progressing this slowly but surely... After all of the detail work it was nice to finally glue some big bits on... Wings and tail stabilizers went on - without much fuss - fit was pretty good. Tiny tiny gap at the wing root but nothing worth getting my knickers in twist about. I had a decision to make over the radiator flap - the kit version was fine but I had a PE version to consider. The pe was tricky enough to bend correctly and then super glue together. It had some gaps but I reckoned I fill them with some more CA glue. Although it would have been easier to just use the plastic, I thought the pe would just look nicer so I installed it into the fuselage. I addressed the wing roots with some perfect plastic putty. And then wiped clean with some wet cotton buds... The other issue I needed to sort out was the very visible seam line on the out flow on the underside - it’s in a difficult spot where there’s no easy way to sand it - so I thought covering it up might be a better option. I cut a bit of plasticard and sanded it down to reduce the thickness as much as possible. Then glued it in place. That was then sanded back to blend it in... I’m hoping that does the job - we’ll see when I get the primer down. The front canopy wasn’t an amazing fit - the sprue gates are on the side that snugs into the dashboard so some very careful sanding is required. You can probably see from the photo that there is some minute gapage there. I decided to glue it in and put some perfect plastic putty to cover the gaps. The rear canopy went together okay - the glass was glued to the plastic with crystal clear - I masked off both sections - the front was glued into place with tamiya extra thin - I glued the rear section in with pva which should make it easy to remove later. When using the canopy to mask the cockpit I’ve found that it pays to make sure the seal is absolutely airtight - so I spent a good deal of time doing that. I ended up using pva on all the joins which seemed to do the job. Once I was happy no stray paint was going to make its way where it shouldn’t, I put down the interior colour. So she’s just about ready for some primer. It’s great to hit another mile stone and she’s beginning to look like a mustang. Thanks for checking in... Cheers John

Thanks Thom - I stole the idea from Wil Pattinson - he did a very in-depth video on how he detailed his 1/35 spitfire engine... Its long - but there are quite a few nuggets in there!

Hey folks - I've been off work this week with with Strep throat - so haven't been feeling very well - I have been working on this intermittently - before headaches and nausea force me to stop - I am on the mend however, so hopefully can start making some proper progress again soon... I painted the wheel bays - first with a coat of tamiya XF1 - flat black, followed with a couple of coats of XF4 to simulate zinc chromate: I then painted in some details with Mr Hobby Silver 8... Then some more detailing with Vellejo black and Citadel white: This then got a gloss clear coat in preparation for the washes. When this was dry I used a some Mig Shaft wash to dirty things up. So I'm happy enough with this - not as nice as the resin replacement available from Eduard but certainly better than the sparse kit version. I'll use the kit wheel covers to mask this and can then start putting the model together. I also did a wee bit of work on the canopy frame - attached some PE and drilled holes through the support: That's it for now - thanks for checking in... Cheers John

Great work Opus - she came out lovely - the build and paintwork is top notch and I really like the weathering effects and chipping - subtle and just right It was a great WIP too which I really enjoyed following along. One suggestion for future builds would be to check out some of the products that can be used to recreate the oil spills you put on the underside - I use this stuff which can be tricky to learn how to use but can give you a pretty nice effect... You can also use oil paint which also works quite well. Looking forward to seeing the other spit in all her glory

Thanks for the kind comments guys. Great tip - thanks Dennis I use this: Its for making fly fishing things I think. I slice it and put it on over the wire with tweezers - fiddley work but I'm guessing easier than using tape. I glued the engine cowlings into place: I did a bit of work removing the seam right in front of the canopy- I think it’s there but primer will tell. I rescribed a sanded out panel line and put in a couple of missing rivets. I just did this to have a wee break from wire work! Speaking of which... the rest of the wire work was completed. I then glued the wing halves together which was the only way to install the pe side walls. The kit has you gluing the wing under section into place first. But a dry test told me I could do it this way also. I installed the pe bay wheel walls - most of which went in nicely / however the front sections were tricky as hell - trying to get the bends in the right places. Then when I was putting one in, the Super glue dried super fast with the piece in the wrong place. I had to rip it apart removing it. I managed to bend the bits back into joint and finally got them in. I was pretty happy with the only wire work - I then started thinking about paint and masking. I thought about using the kit wheel covers - in my experience however, these rarely fit. They fit perfectly Thats great news as it means I can paint and weather these with the rest of the model - and it saves me a masking job. That’s it for now - another update when I get this painted. Thanks for checking in! Cheers John

Thanks for the kind words guys. Glad you’re enjoying the build so far. Thanks for that John - I used some copper wire with a blob of crystal clear to make it - painted it and installed it. A nice little bit of extra detail - thanks for the suggestion With that, I was finally able to close off the fuselage. I had done lots of dry fits so there was wasn’t any issues. Everything fit very nicely together and aligned correctly. So far, this is a very nice kit. You can just about see the flaps lever buried in the cockpit:) I did a little sanding and filling / using Tamiya white putty and sanding it off after a few hours dry time. This is just a first pass - some primer will show any issues. Turning now to the other area I wanted to modify - the wheel bays - the kit provides a fairly good but simplified version typical of most kits - the real version looks like this: This is a modern refurbished example but provides an idea of how crowded this area actually was. I’m not intending on replicating this exactly but I wanted to acknowledge it with some additional details. So some copper wire and CA glue - This is still a work in progress and is only part of the wheel bay - but I think I can busy things up a little. It’s pretty tedious work but I’m sure it will look nice when its all painted up. The eduard pe provides wall over lays for the wheelbay and should cover the seams between the 2 sections nicely. To be continued... Cheers John

@Biggles87 So this thing down there? I think I can add it - I was going to close up the fuselage tonight so you got that in just in time:)

Hi John - it would seem that I have - is there an image you could direct me to that shows that?

Hi folks / hope you’re having a fine weekend and getting some bench time - I got a little, between family time and sorting out house stuff so I can’t complain. Got the seat finished: Did some weathering / shading with some oil paint - added the seatbelts and gave the lot a wash with Tamiya panel line brown. A little part came off one of the straps - see the brown patch in the photo - first time this has happened. So I’ll try and touch that up at some point. I installed the ip, seat and control column at this point - doing some dry fitting with the fuselage to make sure everything was in the correct position. I did some more of the oil paint weathering else where in the cockpit: Nothing crazy, just added some layers of variation to areas that were looking a little undercooked or flat - including the seat cushion and head rest. So just about there - a couple of wee jobs and I can close up the fuselage. This is easily the most time I’ve put into a cockpit so far and I’m happy I did. Still lots I could have done better though - lots of lessons learned so hopefully the next one will be better. Thanks for looking in! Cheers John

Easy there partner - it will be finished when it’s finished! I say this as so many times I’ve rushed things trying to finish a model and end up doing a less than satisfactory job... everything looks great from here though - nice work on those tiny bits of pe. Re the landing gear - yours look fine but I’ve found it really pays to make sure there’s no flash lines showing- these can be a pain to remove properly but worth the effort. I use ak landing gear washes which are enamel and work nicely to dirty things up - then go back in and touch up the hydraulics...

Thanks Andy - I actually did find that one earlier this week - and must say, this prompted me to take action on my seat - this and Sqibbley's excellent build (which he doesn't seem to have finished unfortunately) I have no where near the same amount of talent as these 2 who make my efforts look pretty childish in comparison - but I'm here to have some fun and I've certainly learned alot already. This was my plan initially for this but I lost my strings in a recent house move - so I thought I'd give the wire a crack to see if I could do it - a guitar string would have worked better I suspect. Thanks Paul I'm planning on putting some light dustings of pigments down but otherwise it's more or less done. I have made a little more progress... The seat was repainted - this time utilizing the hairspray method - painted in Mr Hobby Silver 8 - some vellejo chipping medium - then my interior green mix - chipping done with a paintbrush and a tooth pick. I'm much happier with this compared to my earlier brush chipping efforts - this looks alot more convincing to me. I then went about painting the seat cushion - going for a brown / khaki colour... I tried to build up the colours in layers - dappling on washes to tone things down when the contrast got to extreme. I'm still find my way regarding brush painting like this - so I'm not overly happy with this result but it's the best I could do with my current skill set. Once that was done I reattached the side bars... I also did some more detailing on the side walls - Painted in some details - I also added a scratch built throttle control with some plasticard and stretched sprue. Other parts of the cockpit got some labels and some touch ups here and there... I'm going put down a matt clear coat over all of this and then do some weathering with oils - after which, I think I'll be close to getting this cockpit closed up... To be continued... Cheers John