mark.au

Well, despite a lot of downtime recovering from the heart thing the other week I’ve been mired in the the minutiae and a consequent mojo failure. I just want it to be over. Or, I’m subconsciously avoiding the rigging. Anyway, suffice to say, progress is slow… But then this happened. However, it’s not all lollipops and sherbet. In my effort to ensure a good lower wing seam I put too much dihedral into it which has the left the wing much too high. So, for now, the main struts are glued and setting up and I used the blutack to hold the cabane(sp?) struts at the correct angle until I can attach them to the fuselage. I’ve tested the amount of force required to bring the upper wing down to the correct height and connect the remaining struts and it’s minimal. It could all go pear shaped though. We’ll see soon enough. Other notables in these woefully inadequate photos are the stainless steel tubes I used for the tubes at the top of the undercarriage arms, drilling out the pitot tube, some minor weather about the place and the decals applied for the various airframe stencils. There’s some other stuff worth mentioning but apparently not worth photographing, I'll come back to those other details later. I’m running out of things to do to avoid rigging. But, having said that, there’s quite a few build threads here I need to catch up on, so there is that. Cheers.

That Stearman is proving to be a stubborn so and so as it actively pushes back on my attempts to bring it to a finish. Good thing it’s a leap year and I have an extra day to meet my February start date.

I’m in! Comic genius, I must get around to watching Peter Sellers again. Thanks, both. It’s more the control and opportunity to finesse the application that the lower pressure allows. I try to remember that I’m not just applying paint but am actually creating a 3D representation of a real object, not just its surface. Does that make sense? Today was about fixing the paint lift and finishing the major paint job. First, the fix. I didn’t sand the paint down, I simply rubbed it down with my thumb (it was applied very lightly anyway) and then sealed it with a clear coat. I allowed the clear gloss to pool slightly where the paint had lifted and then applied one more covering/blending coat. After that, it was a simple matter to mask and paint the white. I was very careful to keep within the lifted areas as I didn’t want to alter the patchy and worn appearance of managed to achieve first time around. It’s not perfect but you have to look really really closely to see when I made the repair. Next, the rudder. It was a bit of a mission to line everything up because the stripes have to blend across three planes at the tail. I made my best effort and threw some paint at it. I should note that I didn’t quite throw as much paint at the rudder as for the other surfaces as I wanted a slightly fade effect to its finish. While that was setting up, I painted the numbers. The view from above shows where I’d fixed the stripes on the tail and got them to line up with the fuselage stripes. When the rudder had set up and was able to be handled, I offered it up to the fuselage and took a couple of snaps to mark the end of major paint work. I won’t do any major texturing on this finish as I got my desired effects during the initial application. It will however get some weathering a bit later. Next I’ll prepare and paint up the remaining bits and pieces for the struts and undercarriage. As always, thanks for following and particularly the feedback. Cheers.

Both?

It’s a real joy to follow this, Chris.

Such a nice colour scheme/combination, and you’ve done your usual great job on it Alistair. Random thought bubble… I’d have been tempted to paint the grey first which would have simplified the masking significantly.

They’re both very nice indeed, and not easily identifiable as 72nd scale either.

Thank you all; JRK, Mark, Chris, David, Alistair, Dave James, Roger and CC for the kind words and best wishes. I hope so too! It'll be a few weeks until we find out once I wean off the meds and start pushing the HR again. That's why I waited three days before seeking advice when it all started, and that three days is why I couldn't be shocked back into rhythm for six weeks after that. After 24hrs in AFib there's too high a risk of clots having formed to get averted (shocked) back, you have to take thinners for six weeks. I have Flutter too, but that's the lessor of the issues for me. Glad you can manage it with the meds; I'm hoping to avoid a life on beta-blockers if I can because I'm not tolerating them very well. That's the ticket! The 1/48 Revell kit a real beauty, you'll really enjoy it. I was able to get a little bench time this morning. When we last saw the fuselage it was masked. Now it's painted... ...and then unmasked. Aside from the already mentioned paint lift there is surprisingly little touch up and adjustment to do. I'll take some in-progress pics of the repairs to show exactly what happened (some of the lift is visible below the "1" on the port side) but otherwise all that remains to be painted is the blue on the rudder and the black for the numbers. I'm going to use decals for the serial and model numbers on the tail. Cheers.

Thanks gents. Not a lot to show for this week. I managed to get the other wing painted and mask the fuselage. There’s going to be significant repairs required to the white on the fuselage as quite a lot lifted on the bottom as I was adjusting tape. It is unusual for me to get that much paint lift but I think I know why - much of the lifted paint is where I polished the seam and I think the surface is simply too smooth for the paint to grip. It’s not a difficult repair and most is in places that can’t be seen when it’s finished and on its wheels. What else? Oh, I also had catheter heart surgery to try and fix the persistent AFib I acquired a few months ago, so there was that. There’s a reason I mention this. When it started I had virtually no symptoms - I only knew something was off because my smart watch told me my resting HR was way up and so were my stress levels. Still, it was only after three days of that (thinking it would go away) did I call a nurse. When she asked me what my pulse felt like after I described my symptoms she told to go to emergency immediately. There’s a significant risk of stroke associated with AFib if left unmanaged, as well as heart attack and eventual heart failure. The last thing I ever thought I’d need to worry about was heart trouble because for decades I’ve been an obsessive endurance athlete; cycling, running and swimming. Turns out that’s what likely caused it, but that’s a different story…. So, whether or not you’re endurance obsessive like me or prefer more gentle exercise, or even none at all, check your pulse every so often to make sure it’s regular and steady - especially if you feel “off” or experience any unusual sensation in your chest (it’s not pain, and you might not even notice it unless you focus). Doing so might save your life. Cheers.

Very nice results, Bertie. Thanks for the rigging tutorial, all noted and bookmarked.

I think you’re right on both counts.

That spruce is a more elegant solution than my piece of dense foam. I’ve not been one for building concurrent multiples, I don’t have the patience to do everything twice. I much prefer the linear approach, building from one step to the next, indeed building towards the next step. I much admire those who can run a production line, or several builds at the same time, but I don’t the capacity. Your flexibility is therefore next level 😊 And, it apparently gets great results.

🤷‍♂️ See my comment in the Beaufighter thread.

Dunno what to say about the quality of your brush paint work that I haven’t said before… 🤷‍♂️

Third-ed. So far so very good.

Not only does lowering the pressure reduce overspray, it improves the finish too. Win/win! I use the damp cotton bud solution to overspray all the time because my paint control ambition and limited tolerance for the tedium of masking consistently exceeds my ability to actually keep the paint constrained to the target area. I’ve said elsewhere that it’s the little details like painting the inside of the elevators that bring these things to life. Yours is no exception.

Good to see you back at the bench CC 👍

Great detailed work in there. I’ve built a couple of Italeri’s Wessexes and enjoyed them both, I hope you do too.

I love it when paint gets flung about, particularly when it’s done well. Carry on.

I like your collective confidence... If nothing else works, there's always lighting and camera angles... 😉 Thanks for the kind words gents. I started painting the markings and preparing for the stripes. I painted the yellow for the various squadron markings and re-masked as you may see in the next pics. I also masked and painted the white backing for the US stars and bars. I wanted a contrast in paint depth between the white of the fuselage and the white in the markings. Not pictured but necessitating additional work was me forgetting that the US markings aren't symmetrical and I had to do some fancy masking footwork to repair three of the four which I'd started upside down. Then I girded my loins and started painting the stripes. To start with I focused on the upper wing. I took the pattern and spacing from the one I built previously as it's the only recall bird I have a photo of the real thing. The modern versions all have the stripes going the same way but the one I'm building clearly has this alternate pattern. I applied the paint the same way as I'd done with the white. The middle picture gives an idea of the approach; the starboard wing has 3, 2, and one pass respectively. The port wing has more or less five passes. When I had it where I wanted it, I painted into the stars and bars to solidify the colour and achieved the desired result of two colours with one paint! The blue is Paynes Grey, by the way. As you can see below, there's a couple of little bits of touch up required but I'm pretty happy with the result overall. I take that as a sort of proof of concept for the method, particularly for the two-for-one way of painting the stripes and US markings. Next, the lower wing and upper wing touch ups. Cheers.

If one were to analogise a model build to a battle, this one would perhaps be Stalingrad. A dogged, relentless drive to the required result without compromise or let. In equal measure fascinating and inspiring. A true BM WIP epic, I'll miss it when it's done.

If you hadn’t told me about the paint lifting on the second coat I’d have assumed it was some very effective paint distressing as part of your weathering process.

Brilliant.

Tremendous work, Roger, especially in that scale. Very impressive indeed.

In lieu of designing and cutting the masks, I worked on the engine. Much of my progress is once again lost to this WIP as I got in a groove and plowed on without photos... However, the process was fairly straightforward that being a black base followed by a metallic highlight for which I used SNJ metal powder applied with a soft brush and sealed with a semigloss clear coat. I used a combination of burnt sienna and brown acrylics for the exhausts. My departure form normal this time was on the ignition wires which I rarely bother with but in this scale really needed to be there. I used some lead wire and did one as a proof of concept (top left pic) and as I was pleased with how it turned out I did the rest in the same way. I drilled out the moulded spark plugs, glued the wires, used white acrylic applied thickly as the spark plug and the wire itself was painted black. Then, I simply folded each wire into the depths of the engine. I mixed up a grey for the crankcase and brushed it on which gives a battered look to the finish - a lucky accident rather than by design - and found a decal in the spares box for the data plate. Then, I couldn't resist offering it up to the fuselage... Almost completely happy with that, however some of the exhausts don't quite meet up with their respective cylinders and the gaps can be seen when the engine is viewed from the side. I need to come up with a solution to that which doesn't undo much of what I do like. Cheers.