Markh-75

Thanks Chris and Ali, (and indeed everyone) it WILL be finished, you can look forward to that. Low levels of concentration mean I cannot do what I would normally have 'just got done', I need to be 'in the groove', I still struggle a bit with tiredness, but enthusiasm is always sure to return and always does. I really enjoy modelling but I also know my limitations, when I can and cannot, and I dont try to force it because I will just make mistakes, and then next time have to spend time undoing them to put it right. I thus do it in stages and when I'm ready, I get back to do more, but it gives me time to think it through rather than just battering on. I know its only plastic but I like my plastic to look as best as I can get it, so its done in stages. Its taken time to learn my limits and work to them but its good that I do, avoids frustration and burn-out; an important lesson for me; just takes a little longer but I learned that there really is no hurry coz its a hobby.😀

That’s actually pretty low, jealousy in people is horrible. I’ve encountered it in many places in my life. But there doesn’t have to be, I guess it’s just in some peoples nature 😳.

Decided not to mask it, I have lightly pencilled in the curves and I'll just paint to those, to mask the wing floats would be risky as its just that one leg/spar holding it on, dont want to risk a breakage (the more a thing is handled, the more chance there is of it being damaged). There are really no straight paint lines on this so masking is out. Will be back onto this very soon. There is no hurry really.🙂

Today I fitted the wings and tail! Looks more like an aircraft now! The wings look rather straight here; I have since then, put the correct amount of angle in the wings by inserting a pin in each wing root under the wing to take up a gap and lift each wing to the correct angle; I put on some liquid poly and I'll let that set over night and see how it looks tomorrow. The wings being too flat in angle was creating confusion in how I'll fit the arms and sponsons properly! Next stage is to work out how to fit the sponsons and their legs! My model doesn't have the cut outs in the fuselage because I had to replace the fuselage! Nor does it have the holes for the legs to be fitted! I've marked where the holes should be but it doesn't guarantee it will work out!

Much better! Next stage is to do the masking so I can paint the upper half!

Its coming along nicely Alistair! very tidy!👍

Done a bit more on this today. On the Academy kit there are two holes to fit drop tanks; I filled these in, no drop tanks required. I used a needle file to open the machine gun ports and make them circular in appearance and used the pinnace to drill and open up the air intakes under the wings. I have done a few bits and bobs on the fuselage too; I glued in a plastic tab to block the hole for the stand (the academy kit comes with a stand), and extended the slot under the rear of the fuselage backwards so that the under-fin lines up with the rearmost of the rudder edge, fitted the under-fin and again fitted a plastic tab in the resultant slot in front of it to block it up; I'll spread some filler and rub both areas nice and smooth. I did some careful shaping for the centre between where the two wheels would have been, all smoothed out, much tidier. A detail I'm always conscious of on a model is the engine exhausts, and there were just two circles marked into the plastic so I found two short pieces of WD-40 straw and drilled two appropriate sized holes to put them in. The ring around the front of the engine cowling has a little air vent in it so I drilled that out too! Just needs a final rub with 2000 grade. The engine exhaust ports are now drilled out. I always open up things like this. I wanted this under-fin fitted as far back as possible. It left a small space in front which I glued in a plastic tab into. I have also fitted and glued in the little pipes for the exhausts, I'll give them a trim tomorrow and cut them in line with the underside. The little tab in front of the under-fin will be cut off tomorrow and some filler spread on the area. I also started cutting the beaching wheels out of the sprue and tidying them up ready to be painted, and filled in a small line between both halves of one of the sponsons, there was a gap there. My final task was to start preparing the tailplane, both of which have a small outriding auxiliary fin and rudder attached. I was considering using the Amodel parts for the tailplane but the surface details on them were not as good as on the Academy kit and the fit was different too. I carefully cut a slot in the end of the tailplane pieces and gently filed it open so that the fins and rudders will fit nicely in there when ready; one has a little bit of wire in it, it will keep the fin in a straight line when I come to glue them. I may fit the horizontals to the model and fit the verticals later, I have some work to do in lining up the legs for the sponsons to do yet. This part is an Amodel tailplane; the Academy parts have better detail on them and a different fitting too. These are the Academy tail parts. The wire is to keep the fin sitting straight in the gap for when I'm ready to glue these, more a reminder than anything else; if there is any slight hole or gap left I can take care of it with a little PVA on the end of a cocktail stick. I like to do all these little preparatory jobs while there isn't much more I can actually do on the model itself, its always good to be able to fit on a parts thats been painted up and glued. Got plenty of fettling and fiddling done today, I'm rather pleased.

Here we are with another coat on! (warm in here innit?)😂 This time I reduced the amount of thinners and allowed the paint to go on a little thicker, better coverage, one more coat like that I think, and when its dry I can start masking for the upper 'arf!

Yeah mine says intermediate blue but I’m not convinced, i think it’s too dark; I think I’ll use the blue/grey for the uppermost. Will go with Gull grey for the undies.

Yours is looking great! Did you paint yours with intermediate blue, or blue/grey? i’ll have to cut two little slots out of the tail plane to fit the little rudders, I can’t see it being too much of a problem really, I’ll just take my time with it. Thanks for sharing the picture of your Catfish! Now I have an idea what mine will be like, cheers.👍😀

Got some work done on this today, painted the interior and inside the cowling, glued in two very small squares of the little tabs with numbers on that you see on the sprues, just to cover the two little holes above the wheel recesses on the inside of the fuselage and later on I put a little bit of filler in on the outside. I painted the pilots seat and the joystick and painted the engine, cut off the tailwheel coz I wont need it, and shaved a long slot under the rear of the fuselage for the lower fin extension, that will be fitted once the fuselage is closed over. I also assembled the halves of the wings together. I'm hoping to close the fuselage tomorrow. The engine is now all painted and assembled, just a couple of touches to do. I painted the insides. These are the two little 'squareas' I filled in, I want this done before I close up the fuselage. I'll smooth them tomorrow. Its moving, steadily. (I mean the model).😂🤣

Gave the underside another coat this morning, looking good but needs a rub back here and there before I put anymore paint on it; it does need another coat but I think this time I'll put a little more paint than thinners, its a good paint, plenty smooth and easy to paint on but I think it needs a tad less thinning.

Have been listening to The Smiths of late, very much enjoy them; I like Morrissey too but I prefer The Smiths, they were actually a very good band, especially for the 90's and the past couple of days I've been listening to The Cure, another very good band, like The Smiths, plenty of variation in their music, Alice Cooper has been getting some ear time too!

I’m painting the model blue/grey so the spinner is now black, it’s been painted and I need to put the yellow tips on. It’s just a patience building exercise while I paint it (especially the white, lol). I quite like the patience building in thinning the paint and obviously some colours are easier to colour fill than others, but the patience part also helps me in many other areas of my life; I’m a lot calmer than I ever was and this really helps me and the people around me.🙂 Modelling is very beneficial for me.👍

I see, mine is a white framed glass cabinet, with only 3 shelves, but I’m managing it with Perspex risers and bridges, does fine.🙂

Excellent! I rather like the ol' F4's, more so the ones that the RAF used and fitted the Spey engines into! Always loved the ROAR when they took off!

Very nice job too! I always remember this kit with the two tailplane parts having those little cams on so that the tail could tilt up and down! Ahh, Memories😉

Can I ask what display cabinet you have? I have a couple of theirs but they say one of them doesnt have the option of additional shelves, just curious.😉

Time for a Kit-bash! Last time I did a kit bash was such a great success that its time to do another one! I made one good kit of a Helldiver out of two kits that had different things wrong with them. A couple of years back I bought the Amodel Wildcatfish kit , I started to build it, assembled the fuselage and went to fit the wings only to find that one wing is lower than the other! Since the wings are attached to the sponsons (and vice-versa) this would leave the whole model sitting cockeyed. Look at the wing roots. I was a little annoyed but I thought about it for a while and kept the kit anyway, decided that I could always base a conversion around an F4F fighter kit, so I bought a little ol' Academy kit for about £2 on eBay and put both away for now. That little Academy kit might be quite basic but in fact it has some very nice panel features on it! Now I have had some success with the Sword Seamew kit; its now had two coats of Insignia White on the underside, (needs a couple more), I thought it was time I got this little project started. The Amodel must be an early kit; its terrible, but I made a start anyway, I'll just merge the two kits together! I already have two little F4F models as diecasts so there is no point in having a third just now, but I could make a 'special' seaborne version of the Wildcat. The parts for both kits. I'll build the Academy kit and just transfer the parts for the other kit into that, I wont need landing gear as it has two large sponsons instead although there is beaching gear for it. Getting started wasnt as easy as that though because I needed to blank off the landing gear bay before I start assembling the fuselage! I got started on that today. I opened up the faulty fuselage and I saved the ventral fin and the pilots coaming on the Amodel is better so I cut that out too and the two blank panels covering the landing gear bays. I used the latter to blank-off the landing gear voids. I also had to rub the two circular panels thin around the edges so that the panels will sit flush. I needed to use these as they had the correct curve of the lower fuselage in the plastic, saved having to try and bend little plastic circles! In between painting the Seamew I'll do bits of the Wildcatfish too! I'll have to improvise most of the way because the parts are transferrable but the setting/mounting holes are on the duff kit.

I primed the underside of the floats in white primer and everything else in light grey, the grey kinda took over though.

Not been feeling great over the past couple of days, If I'm not well I just rest up, I tend not to have much get up and go when I feel like that, (felt more like it got up and went!😂) but I have made a start on painting. Its all primed and rubbed down, and it got its first coat of Colourcoats Insignia White this evening; doesn't look too pretty but its a start! I normally do the undersides first, I then mask for the upper sides and start painting. This will be the first time I've painted white with thinning! Gonna try something new on this one! All will be revealed if it works out! Like i said; its doesn't look too pretty just now but give it time! I was thinking about white/ intermediate blue and non specular sea blue but its a rather involved scheme for such a small model, so it'll be white undies and blue/grey everywhere else, as on the box.

I'll look for ward to that!

Yes it’s there, it’s not a real one but a piece of photo-etch I glued in. 🙂

I have done 'some' tidying, but not all as I need to re define some feature lines on the model; but I've now fitted the aerial and Pitot and the bomb pylons, careful application of supergloop at the wing sponsons (I believe thats the right name for them; calling them floats has me going back upstairs to make sure I flushed!!!😂🤣). I've just to complete the last details, add masking over the engine cowling and exhausts and the two cockpits and it'll be sprayed with Tamiya surface primer. White for the underside and grey for above! I'm a bit busy tomorrow but I might get it primed when I come back in the afternoon.😉

Ok, ugly or not, here it is! On the lower edge of the main float there is a lug that connects to the catapult on the launching rails, I drilled a hole in a small piece of etch and glued that in. I also attended to shaping the front of the engine cowling and got it looking the way I want it! I also fitted the floats to it, the main central float and the wing floats. I use whatever I have to trying hold things in the correct positions but if that doesn't quite work out I can use a tiny bit of liquid poly to soften the glue and then adjust it; the liquid poly dries pretty quick. I'll give it an hour or so like this and then I'll remove them and put the model in the jig the right way up. That will sit (after any necessary adjustments) over night and tomorrow I'll strengthen the join with a little superglue. It's really going together now! Looks more like a seaplane. For a good couple of years I had my doubts if I'd ever see this built up! I'm rather pleased with it. Next step is much tidying, masking, priming and then painting!