elger

Recovery and the finish is in sight!

Tamiya decals are a little thick, but I haven't had any problems with them other than that.

1 step forward, 5 steps back. I had decided on using Pro Modeler's weathering wash, figuring it would be the least likely to affect the metal paint. I forgot that it's impossible to clean from flat or semi-gloss surfaces, so I was completely unable to remove the wash from the stars and red markings on the nose. Took a deep breath and started sanding off the stars on the fuselage, and repainted the metal. I'm now going to take my usual way and coat it in Future, use decals for the stars on the fuselage, another coat of future, and then weather it with oil paints. I might lose some of the metallic sheen, but at least I'll be able to finish it.

Finishing the landing gear. Used some Vallejo pigments to simulate a little bit of mud. Thanks for looking!

I'm rather happy with how this is turning out. Had a bit of a scare this morning thinking that somehow one of the landing gear legs had vanished. Spent about an hour looking for it, in a panic, only to find it in a corner almost underneath the opening door when I had already given up. I painted on the markings with Humbrol enamels. For the stars I used some left over masks from Montex. As I said, I went back to enamels for the occasion. The smell of them was nostalgic, reminding me of my school days, but I was also reminded of how un-user friendly the tins are. Also forgot that enamels need to dry much longer than acrylics; the white will need a bit of touching up tomorrow but other than that so far so good. I will be using the Alley Cat decals for the tail numbers. Yesterday I also ventured to the local Games Workshop-shop and bought some of the 'shadowing' liquid which is what I'll be running down the seams next. That will be followed by some chipping with acrylics, and some general weathering. The final step will be to mist it with a very thin coat of Vallejo clear satin. I'm finding that the Extreme Metal paints do react to sweaty fingers so I just want to give it just a bit of protection. Still open to sugestions about that though. Thanks for looking!

Paint on. Used AK Interactive Extreme Metal which worked extremely well; was able to mask it without any problems. For the base coat I used their "polished aluminium", which looks a little too much like chrome. The other colours are "aluminium" and "dark aluminium". Hopefully tomorrow I can paint on the markings. I'm going back to enamels for the occasion. I'm faced with a dilemma; normally I would coat the model in Future and add the decals and weather it, sealing everything with a nice clear satin. But for this one, I don't want to lose the nice metallic look, so I'm planning to paint the markings with enamels (with the idea that they'll be a lot more durable than unsealed acrylics), and then use an acrylic wash for the panel lines and rivets. Does anyone have a better idea?

Fall break. Getting some work done! Masked and ready for paint. Primed with Tamiya shiny black from a rattle can. Tomorrow I'm planning to start painting the metal base coat. Thanks for looking!

Finished the engine. The kit engine is so nice that it felt wrong to cover it up completely; I will be gluing the side panels in place but I'll leave the top panel removable. That did force me to add most of the detail between the engine and firewall. I added some wires from old electrical cables and the Rolls Royce name plates from Eduard. thanks for looking!

It's been a while since the last update; was crazy busy during the summer. Enough complaining, I finished the cockpit today, huzzah! The first step was scratch building two cameras that can *just* be seen. This is a photo of most of the components completed, ready for paint. I added the Barracuda resin pieces, which are wonderful. Added the camera controls from Alley Cat, and scratch built some levers and switches that I noticed in a PR.XIX cockpit. Since these levers and switches pertain to fuel tanks, I thought there's a chance these were also fitted to mk XIs. Painted with Tamiya, Vallejo and Games Workshop acrylics. I added a shelf with 3 oxygen tanks. One is the oxygen tank simply from the kit, the other two were made from the kit's air tanks which have all but the exact same diameter of the oxygen tank. I based the configuration on the Airfix 1/48 PR.XIX kit. The seatbelts are from HGW Thanks for looking & comments are welcome as always. Elger

intuitively I always prefer OD B-17s as well, but when (not if ) I get one of these new B-17s I wouldn't mind a colourful late option. Somehow never liked the yellow tailed ones, but do really like the red markings seen on some of these in Mark Stylings profiles; the red checkers of "Betty Jo" (here http://www.markstyling.com/3ad_b17s3.htm) ; big red weathered triangle of "the silver lady" (here http://www.markstyling.com/303rd_b17s6.htm) or the ones with the dark blue bands seen here: http://www.markstyling.com/1ad_b17s5.htm. These markings makes them look like B-29s!

Donald Nijboer's book Graphic War includes several war time diagrams that refer to emergency procedures. On page 131 there is a diagram of the Mosquito bomber parachute drill. It clearly shows that the crew is supposed to use the hatch. The diagram is labeled Air Diagram 3201B and is dated August 1944. The procedure is explained in 5 diagrams which is accompanied by the following text. Notice the final sentence of the last step! Could that last sentence be more British? There are also some notes; which include among others the following: A little further, on page 134 and 135 there is a diagram explaining the "abandoning by parachute - Hampden I (emergency method)". This is Air Diagram 1333 and is dated September 1941. In 4 diagrams, the steps for abandoning are explained. I'm sure these emergency procedures were practiced in drills, but I wonder if all the steps were followed in case of a real emergency.

Finished the propeller Thanks for looking!

Bought the ICM kit a few weeks ago, but it would seem that the Revell kit includes some of the parts the ICM kit is missing, namely the night fighter exhausts and the gun pack. Oh well, Quickboost to the rescue?

One of the best Stukas I've ever seen!

it is a little nerve-wracking and it feels a bit wrong to destroy all of that exquisite surface detail on the wings

Before I'm starting with the actual construction I wanted to prepare some of the main parts. Alley Cat provides a very useful template for the panels that need to be added on the starboard fuselage. I simulated hinges by gluing stretched sprue onto the hinge line with Tamiya extra thin cement. When it was dry, I used a scalpel to make little notches. I primed the part to check for any issues. The Alley Cat set does not include a bump that is featured on the starboard nose panel. I "transplanted" one of the bumps from the machine gun covers which had just about the right shape. Getting the wings to PR.XI specification took a lot of effort. The resin replacement covers from Alley Cat fit with a bit of adjustment, but there was still a lot of filling and sanding needed. Alley Cat again provides a very useful scribing template for panels on top of the wing and the little round access covers on the lower wing, but for some panels on the lower wing you have to use other methods. The big bumps for the fuel pumps in front of the wheel wells work very well. The Alley Cat set alludes to the fuel vents on each end of the wings. Based on photos of the PR.XIX walk around on the Spitfire site (http://spitfiresite.com/2011/07/guided-tour-of-the-spitfire-pr-mk-xix-the-bowser-wing.html) and a very useful discussion here on Britmodeller a while ago (http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234949332-pr-spitfire-wingtip-vents/) I made the top part out of 0,5mm styrene rod, and the lower intake part from 1/48 P-38 air intakes from the spares box. Thanks for looking & feel free to comment!

That looks pretty magnificent!

thanks! the review was very helpful! Yeah it was too big in every direction - the other part, for the later style air intake, was too long but not too wide; this one was. I hope so! By the way, I think that the PR.XI has 3 oxygen bottles behind the seat like the PR.XIX, can anyone confirm that? But I was wondering, if thats the case, where do the airbottles go in these marks?

The Pr.Mk.XI might just be my favourite Spitfire. The deep chin and the unarmoured windscreen makes it look like a racing aircraft. And of all Pr.Mk.XIs, I think the neutral metal ones of the USAAF's 11th Squadron, 7th Photo Recon Group are the best looking of all. I've been wanting to build a large scale model of one of these aircraft for years, and 4 years ago I thought I'd out smarted myself by building a 1/72 version to satisfy the desire. It worked for a while, but after a few months after finishing that one the thoughts came back. What prompted me to start this project however was that when I was finishing my two Mosquitos I had been listening to the Star Wars soundtrack, and it's probably because of the red panels on the light background that makes it that this Spitfire reminds me of an X-wing. In addition, I had been somewhat obsessingly listening to Jack White's solo version of the Raconteurs song "Top Yourself", which makes me want to put USAAF stars on any aircraft. A couple of years ago Alley Cat released a conversion set for the wonderful Tamiya 1/32 Spitfire. In theory, this set contains all the parts needed for a 1/32 Spitfire XI. The "part 2" set comes with decals for PA944, which is the subject of a lovely short documentary which can be found on Youtube. I followed a few builds on this and other forums that used this conversion; these as well as the review on Large Scale Planes (http://www.largescaleplanes.com/reviews/review.php?rid=1160) point out the poor fit of some of the Alley Cat set parts. This screenshot is from the review on LSP: The first thing I started with therefore was to try to make sure that the nose part, that gives the XI its defining look, fit as well as possible. The resin part of my conversion set also fit very, very poorly. The Alley Cat set comes with 2 optional nose parts - one for the early carburetor intake and one for the later type. The one for the later style intake seems to fit a little better, but PA944 had the earlier one. The part for the early intake is simply much too big - it literally fits over the kit part. Getting the part to fit required a great deal of sanding and I added the rear section of the kit part to it. I ended up replacing all of the fasteners with little spare photoetched rings. I then primed the part with Tamiya white primer. it now "sort of" fits rather than not at all. And so ends the first installment of this build. Thanks for taking a look & feel free to comment! Elger

yup, that's true

I painted my Wellington leather brown on the inside to simulate the red dope that was used on the canvas. I believe the frames remained neutral metal. The cockpit remained black, in my interpretation. [/url]

Very nice model and photos

It's visible I think in these photos of RS712 http://www.mossie.org/Phil_Broad/PB_RS712_det_int_cockpit.htm Not in its normal location but it's there where the radios are. The Tamiya kit also includes the part, but it's not mentioned in the instructions. I think that the Revell instructions show it in the corrct position; including it in its proper place hides quite a lot of the sidewall detail though.

well I was inspired by Yoyuso's amazing Mosquito build (http://www.geocities.jp/yoyuso/mosquito/mosquitoe-1.html) and became obsessed with the notion (hence the "fever") that the Airfix fuselages are better than Tamiya's. They are, but whether it's worth all this trouble is another matter. Won't be doing this again probably :-)

the hairspray method