Jeff J

Thank you for your encouraging words, Rabbit Leader. I was not discouraged, just grumpy!

My solution... Download the PDF of the Revell instruction sheet. Zoom in to 630%. Screenshot of the noise cone. Print. Now I just need wider masking tape (10mm not quite wide enough)

Is there any such thing as a one-to-one scale painting template for 1/72 scale model? I'm asking because I noticed last night that the paint diagram for the rebel model shows that there should be a black shape just in front of the pilots' windscreen presumably to prevent sun glare but there's no decal for it, and the instructions say it should be painted satin black anyway. So I figured if there is such a thing as a one-to-one scale painting diagram for a 1/72 model then I could just cut that bit out, lay it on top of a piece of masking tape, and then cut out the shape.

Minor disaster last night. I was happily, patiently, carefully applying the decals, and had completed the red/yellow/red flashing on the port side. The fuselage was resting on its port side as I finished the starboard flashings. Then as I was replacing the lid to the Micro Sol bottle I dropped it. Fluid everywhere. That was annoying enough (while it's not exactly expensive it's not cheap either), but then I found the fluid had been in contact with the front port side, resulting in the front 'Z' flash getting rolled up in to an unsolvable tangle. It's gone (sorry Ray, after all your kindness). The 'RESCUE SAUVETAGE' decal shown also got soaked on the right hand side, but fingers crossed it'll be okay after drying overnight. I still have the Matchbox decals so I'll fall back to the port flash from that sheet. My levels of Sol were about equal to the Micro Set, but now...

Also, if you have crew figurines, no shoes!

Fellow Twin Otter builders, this (sarcastic) YouTube video unwittingly features one: @Ray S @Rob S @Pappy @socjo1 @jrlx @Mjwomack @rossm

That one did settle down, as you have predicted, but has cracked a lot...

Hi, Ross, I've just tried one of the roundel decals... It's horrible! All bobbly and nasty looking. Are your decals still available?

Triple fail (paint bubble, total failure of the rear strut, partial failure of the front strut):

Okay, this is scary... The assembly was slightly nerve-wracking, but what will be more scary (and I'm fully anticipating re-assembly!) is freeing this construction from the blu-tack keeping the floats upright and still. Why the hell didn't I just do the wheels!?

From the photos I've seen it seems these struts should be a very light grey, not gloss yellow, but I've already painted them and taken them off the sprues... So this is my solution to hold them while I repaint them... ...while the fairings sent to me by @Ray S are drying...

Oh my, that's so sweet!

Those sprues look awfully familiar to me. I reckon I built one of these back in the day... Have fun! Yeah, totally thought you were going to open it!

Big thanks to @Ray S who sent me the missing parts I need to continue with my Twin Otter build. The superbly packaged package arrived this morning, so I'm back on track (and with some extra kitchen roll to clean my brushes!) Cheers, all!

Nice way to tribute the cat though. I had no idea we could print our own decals! This is very exciting, but how do you apply decals around such tiny, thin, and not-square surfaces/shapes such as prop tips?!

@PeterB (Nice cat!) For some reason I've only just seen your post. Are you saying one can buy 'blank' decals?! @CliffB Interesting technique, though I might need to reread your post to get my head round it!

Yes, please! Parts 10 and 11. Will PM you. Cheers

Correct. Anyone building the wheeled version of the Twotter will have these two parts going spare.

Oh that's a bugger! At least I'm not going entirely mad, but I'd swear in court that I'd not seen those two floatplane parts (at least not this year!)

I think I have a problem. For my Twin Otter I've decided to do the floatplane version. At step 13 (the final step) the instructions state to cement parts 10 and 11, which at a glance look very much like parts 13 and 14... I've painted parts 13 and 14, but cannot even FIND parts 10 and 11. In fact I struggled to find the space for them on the sprues, but finally realised the numbers for them are printed in a different and bigger font (I found the 11 pretty quickly, but it just looked like a couple of lines rather than a couple of 1s) I'm really puzzled about this, because I have NO recollection of seeing these things. I tend to paint almost everything on the sprues, only cutting off when I'm close to building which was really only in the last week or so. So, fellow Twotter builders, what do your parts 10 and 11 look like?

I've been a bit lax on the photo taking, sorry about that, but still making steady-but-slow progress. The 3-colour prop tips look striking at a distance, but close inspection shows wonkyness and uneven stripe thickness, plus those dreaded high edges where the masking tape was. Most of the painting is done though, just some final yellow coats to hide the filler, plus the floats to finish. The engines and props are on the wings though! Production will show over the next few days however, as my elder daughter is staying over so needs "her" room back (s'funny, I could have sworn it had become mine again)

Let's talk about propeller tip markings. The instructions show they should be red-white-red (d-e-d): ...over 2.5mm (I just eyeballed that measurement!) Doing the red first, as a single contiguous area was not terribly difficult, but masking off the two 'outer' red parts so that I can paint the white middle stripe is really freaking hard! After fiddling with the two types of Tamiya masking tape on the props, I experimented with water colour masking fluid either side of a piece of masking tape on the nose cone that I'm not using: This failed. As I took away the tape the set fluid just came away with it. What techniques do you use? Is modelling masking fluid better?

A day off work, travel not recommended, what else could I do but... Masking for gloss black markings: Yellow touch-ups and some pieces I'd missed: More touch-ups, attaching two of the four rear-wing stabilisers (is that what they are @Rabbit Leader?) and just for fun, clipped in the front wheel that I'm not going to use: ...because I'm going with the floats:

I've never used (Tamiya) masking tape before, but I'm very impressed with it. Look at those sharp lines! However, I've made a mistake on the rear wings. I've done an extra red bit, in this photo it's to the right of the wing shown, whereas the red should be straight across, except for the little bit at the top. This is very annoying. Other than leave it as it (inaccurate!) what can I do?!

Good lord! I'm the NINTH person to do the 'Twotter'?!