Neil

All the camo paint now seems dry enough at last, and have made a tentative start on enhancing some of the panel lines etc on the upper surface because I applied the camo colours too heavily and almost obliterated the pre-shading. Have applied a faint wash using Paynes Grey oil colour, thinned with White Spirit, on some of the upper wing, dingy hatch and around the armour plate on the fuselage sides below the cockpit. Hope to have all the panel lining/shading done within the next few days (time permitting). Finally beginning to look how I want it too ....

Good one, will make a nice change to see this version built, I don't recall seeing this one in model form before. Thinking about, did W4051 use the short span tailplanes similar to the Prototype? Not sure. (Don't take that remark as 'gospel' though, I will have to check to satisfy my own curiosity first!!).

Ta, peeps. Had a tentative go at enhancing some of the panel lines and adding some shading with some Paynes Grey oil paint today, but quickly stopped that little venture because the oil paint was 'sticking' to the upper camo surface and not wiping off and blending as it should. Obviously the camo colours are not quite 100% fully dry yet, so I will have to put this aside for a while to let it do it's own thing. Underside shot for now with the u/c, drop tanks, gun barrel etc just clipped in to see how things look overall. Itching to get this finished, everything always comes together with a coat of Matt varnish sprayed on.

I use them for all my rubber needs ...... cue the jokes Link to the rubber they do (I mainly use the M4511 and M4512): http://www.ambercomposites.co.uk/Tooling/tooling_10.html My last batch worked out at around £14 or £15 per kg, from memory.

Don't know how they compare price-wise, but you could try Amber Composites (they do the Elastosil rubbers).

I usually get mine from a boat/yacht supplier here in Norwich, they sell alot of glass-fibre materials and such. I dont have any invoices on me at the mo, so could not tell you how much they are exactly, but I am sure they are only a few pence. I mainly use the 10cc and 60cc ones, these:

I do like that, 'trific overall finish . Always liked the 'look' of the Typhoon too, very purposeful. Never tried those WEM paints, must have a go with them some time.

So they are, didn't notice that. Never thought about using them on the Halifax!!

Another quick view of all the sub assemblies before sticking them all together, including the exhausts, u/c doors and the 57mm gun barrel, the canopy framing still needs a coat of Matt Varnish too. The u/c doors are painted in lightened Humbrol No.78 Green, given a wash of thinned Tamiya Matt Black Acrylic, then dry-brushed with Humbrol 78 again which is lightened with a fair bit of White. The Redish-Brown patches on the doors are Bakelite rubbing pads. Don't remove the moulded round discs on the inside of the doors, they are access panels and not ejector pin marks. Exhausts were painted Humbrol No.26 Brown, given a wash of the Tamiya Black, then dry-brushed in slightly lightened Humbrol 26 again, trying to give a sort of blackened rusty-brown effect. All the decals are now on the airframe too, and the prop spinners will get a touch of weathering before fitting. The tyres could do with some dry-brushing also, maybe in a Brownish-Grey.

Lovely stuff. The wheel and bomb bays look stunning.

This bit may or may not be of use if you are building one of these. The inboard wing sections have some quite prominent rivets in the 'no step' areas where the decals go, and because most of the decal is clear carrier film I had a feeling that I may end up with lots of 'silvering' around the rivets. Decided to cut most of the clear areas away (the Black triangles on the spare decals in the foreground) so that they had a better chance of being drawn down onto the surface. With these clear areas cut away it does get very floppy ( Mrs .... ) so you have to be careful putting them on, once in place I used plenty of Micro Set and Micro Sol and left them overnight. Came back to the workshop the following morning and the decals had snuggled down very nicely around all of the raised detail, no silvering at all, . The Tamiya decals seem to work very well with those setting solutions, .

Mike Been looking through my pics and I think that the whole engine side access panels are in the upper camo colours. Highball: access panel looks camo'd to me...... ...... in the same way as this bomber version. Whatdya reckon?

Luckily you don't need any of those big fuselage letters, for the serial number how about this matey .... http://www.hannants.co.uk/search/?FULL=X48044 Hope to be sorting your stuff tomorrow Jen,

Decided to throw a couple of 'stickers' on just for the heck of it. Could not find any of the correct fuselage letters anywhere, so kind of cobbled some together. The White background to the letter '0' was cut from solid colour decal sheet, the internal corners where made with a punch and die set and the external corners where cut using one of those Tritool scribing templates and scalpel. For the Red part of the '0' I decided to use the Red letter 'S' on the Tamiya decal sheet with the centre cut out, and the gaps on the upright parts of the 'S' were filled with sections removed from the letter 'R', also from the Tamiya sheet. Initial pieces of decals cut with scalpel before soaking White background in position The 'S' in place, with the centre removed Gaps in the 'S' filled in Worked out ok, it's not 'precisely' the same as in the pic of the real aircraft, but it will do for me.

Nope, not on this occasion. I did use heavily thinned paint (thinned with cellulose thinners) with a faily low/gentle air pressure and the airbrush nozzle held as close to the surface as possible, to get a nice tight line. However, I had to go back a couple of times and alternate between the Grey and Green camo colours in the airbrush in order to get it right, touching in a couple of places here and there.

Yes, the camo is all freehand (courtesy of the Badger 100 .... ). That being said, it is not clear if it should be a hard edge or soft edge on the top/bottom interface from the black and white pics. So I did it with a soft edge ....

Ta peeps. Well allegedly/apparently/in theory it is bare Red primer. If you look at the side on black and white pic at the beginning of the thread, it is possible to just make out 'something' around the tailplane root. Primer sounds good enough to me. Another pic showing the opposite side of the canopy.

I'm pleased to say that it worked out quite nicely, . The vac canopy has been trimmed to it's final shape and the sprayed clear decal has been sliced up and layed on, and because the Interior Green was sprayed on the sheet first, that is what shows up on the inside of the canopy. Decals do not stick to bare plastic particularly well so I dipped the canopy in some Klear first, to help it grip. Actually this is something of a first for me because I have never bothered to coat any canopies in Klear before now. Will give it another dip before it is finally fixed in place just to seal the decals on, then carefully brush paint some Matt Varnish on the framework to match the final airframe finish. Canopy is just placed in position for effect at the moment.

You should see it when I'm sober ....

No, I have not used any Future, that is the Xtracolour straight from the tin (thinned with cellulose thinners).

Join the club mate, that makes two of us, Anyway, the stripey bits are masked ...... ...... and the stripey bits are on. The Black invasion stripes are not actually 'Black', they are a mix of approx three parts Gunship Grey with one part Black, this is because I will add some shading to the panel lines and such where they cross the 'Black' stripes, this shading will be in pure straight Black Oil Paint, and will show up against the Gunship Grey/Black mixture. (Drop tanks are just placed on 'cos I wanted to see how they looked). I have also deliberately made the stripes slightly wonky and with uneven widths, if you look at the black and white pics you will see what I mean, althoughy oddly enough it does not look too uneven on the painted model for some reason! Also added, what is thought to be, some Red Primer around the tailplane, which is a 50/50 mix of Humbrol Red No.60 and Humbrol Brown No.26. It may be a touch dark but that will have to do, not faffing around with it too much more. Used a bit of artistic licence and also added Red Primer around the opposite tailplane too, theoretically if possibly the tailcone was removed for repair or maintenance, that side may also of had a splosh of Primer too. That's my story anyway ......

Okey doke, a bit more progress. Pre shaded all the panel lines and such with some Humbrol Gloss Black, then gave the underside and the relevant areas on the upper surface a coat of Xtracolour Medium Sea Grey. Xtracolour Dark Green was then used to fill in the remaining camo pattern, and the nose section and the fairing where the 57mm gun protrudes have a coat of Ocean Grey, again using Xtracolour. (None of your nancy-boy Acrylics here .... ). I am reasonably happy with the shading on the underside, but I have applied a touch too much Grey/Green camo to the top surfaces and the shading effect is not as noticeable as I would like it, to remedy this I will enhance the lines etc with some thinned Paynes Grey Oil Colour once the camo is fully cured. A very faint wash with the Paynes Grey will also be applied to the invasion stripe sections once the Black areas have been applied, don't want these areas too heavily weathered. All airbrushing is done with a Badger 100. While I had the camo colours on the go, I also sprayed some clear decal sheet ready for when I tackle the canopy. A coat of Interior Green was sprayed on first, followed by the Grey/Green camo colours, the plan is to cut some thin strips of decal which will be 50% Grey and 50% Green on each length, then position them accordingly on the canopy so they match the surrounding camo pattern. Parts of the framing which are simply one colour will also be done in this way. A section of decal, right hand side in the pic, was left only Interior Green and this will be sliced up for the internal frame sections. Decided to do the canopy this way as a bit of a change from masking, no other reason really! Will see how it goes.

No need for the four-sided coin now, have thrown on a coat of Ocean Grey. Looks reasonably close, that will do.

Thats a possibility too!! A nice shiny coin-of-the-realm has been flipped. The nose will be painted Ocean Grey, or something very similar. It should definately be darker than Medium Sea Grey, and lighter than Dark Green. So decisive aren't I ?? :whistling:

Hmmm, without a colour pic there are several permutations to this aren't there? Sod it, I think I will be flipping a coin on this one I am afraid. Dare you all to prove me wrong once the nose is painted ....