Dave Swindell

Two photo's on page 31, but not the one above, they're in the link though. Maintrack did a conversion kit for it in 1/72.

He'll be adding it once the decals are all sorted!

Sorry to hear that John. I was looking forward to seeing these two finished soon, but family comes first.

Nice one Ian

If you're goig to paint with acrylics, I'd recommend both washing and priming to be sure that the paint sticks, enamels I'd say both are optional

I don't have that one Peter. The Hendon mosquito is a post war ex TT35, maybe the white light had something to do with this? I'll look into it when I get home.

Primer can be useful when painting with enamels, but isn't essential. I never used it when I brush painted enamels before I had an airbrush, and don't always use it now unless there's been a lot of filling and sanding or its a resin kit. If I do use it its either Halfords ordinary white or grey depending on the top coat colours, I don't use the plastic primer as this is a reference primarily to the properties of the paint (flexible without cracking) rather than for the material it is to be applied to. If however you decide to use some of the water or alcohol based acrylic paints, then a primer Is pretty much essential as this type of paint has poor adhesive properties when painted directly onto plastic.

I'm away from my books at the moment, I don't recall references to a white ID light Peter, where did you read that?

Judging by the turnout at model shows, there's a good number of modellers need educating in the merits of washing themselves before giving them advice on washing their kits!

Don't know why, but I keep reading this as a "Fairly Long Range Airplane", and imagine that the manufacturer was being "slightly optimistic" when naming it!

Hopefully you've caught it in time, Bill. If its been running for a while with only the minimum oil in there, there's bound to be some residues that the new oil will flush out. Run for a while, drain and refill. Half pint seems about right for your average size fridge compressor, and semi synthetic will be fine.

Spot on mate, didn't get a chance to get a proper look as iwas drving in the roadworks, but that's it.

Large military transport, looked verly like a hercules but with a T tail, low level using scotch corner roundabout as a turning point yesterday afternoon???

Stew's ID lights are correct, the red light got moved on later production mosquitoes when the bulged bomb bay doors and extra PR cameras were introduced. The forward light in Peter's first photo should be red.

Nice one Ross! The other photo's clearly show the Percival scheme on the nacelles, and good details of the bomb bay crutch. A quick scan throough the report and p63 has a photo of the test instrumentation in the mosquito cockpit.

Hi Colin, sorry if I ruffled your feathers, it wasn't intended. My background is 35+ years as a marine engineer, the last 10 as Chief Engineer on large container ships. These carry a significant quantity of refrigerated cargo, I did 3 years as engineer operating the reefer plant (5 compressors as big as a small family car) and I'm still overall responsible for the maintenance of the reefer systems. I've also maintained and operated air compressors of all types and sizes and engines up to 100,000hp. When I first went to sea air compressors were invariably lubricated with mineral oils, and required regular maintenance (200-500hrs) which included stripping and cleaning the discharge valves to remove the coke from carried over and burnt oil. With modern synthetic oils this is now usually a check/quick clean at 1500-2000 hrs. Vacuum pumps use a special oil with a very low vapour pressure to enable them to pull very high vacuum levels. They will run fine on other oils, but won't achieve full vacuum. I've personally had a large reefer system under vacuum for a month to remove water after a condenser failure. Initially I was changing the oil every 30 minutes due to the level of water contamination being extracted from the system. Ordinary cheap compressor oil was used because a) vacuum pump oil is relatively expensive and b. we had limited stocks of vacuum pump oil on board, but we had hundreds of litre of compressor oil. I only switched to vacuum pump oil when I wasn't having to change the oil every day to pull the system down below 4 torr. That vacuum pump (Robinair) continued to give many years service afterwards. Modern car engine oils, eaven the cheaper ones, are quality refined products and are available in a viscosity range similar to compressor oils. They have additives to deal with combustion products and to withstand the higher temps found in an engine, but these wouldn't be detrimental to a compressor. Refrigeration oil is hygroscopic (attracts water) so cannot be used outside a sealed system without detriment to the oil and equipment in the long run. So, Bill has an old fridge compressor that has been adapted to power an air brush, he's aquired it for very little outlay and has run it for several years. His initial post leads me to believe the oil is deteriorating (smell) and is running low (he hasn't topped it up, and reduced oil quantity will lead to overheating and oil deterioration). The oil recommended by the manufacturer will have been a refrigeration oil, which as above is no longer suitable due to the change in duty of the compressor. To avoid and compatiility problems beween the old and new oil I recommended flushing the compressor, 2 changes of oil = ££££. For my Revell Omega (similar to Bill's but new built/purpose produced) a good quality synthetic oil is recommended, again ££££. Like most of us of a certain age and who drive a car, we're likely to have a can of engine oil in the garage, I have and I rather suspect Bill has. As this isn't going to incur any further cost, or do any further damage to the compressor, I suggested this as a replacement oil to see if the compressor performance improves. With the limited use a compressor of this type gets, I'd also suggest that if it works, it will be fine for the remaining life of the compressor. I wouldn't suggest using engine oil to top up a purpose designed compressor, I would recommend the same as the manufacturers, a 1 ltr can will last the lifetime of the compressor and is a small percentage of the cost of investing in a new compressor. Regarding the oil level sight glass, I hadn't misunderstood your comment as an instruction/recommendation to fit one, I was merely pointing out that to attempt to do so on a compressor such as Bill's would most likely damage the compressor. If the above advice works and Bill wants to check the oil level in the future, it won't be too difficult once he's done it before, to drain the oil, check it's condition & quantity, and refill the compressor. Hope this explains my reasoning for the above advice sufficiently

Got a bit of a theme going there Cliff! Nice to see the Puss Moth, I've been eyeing th Omega kit, but it's a bit on the pricy side. Quality doesn't look too bad though, so I'll be interested to see how it progresses.

Thanks Tony, been doing a bit on the cockpit detailing, photo update next week, I'm off for a long weekend to visit parents and home club model meet.

Percival's produced 195 BXVI's delivered 15/5/44 to 15/12/45, and 50 PR34's delivered between 6/9/45 and 26/7/46 to contract 3047, all PF serials. I'm not aware of any non standard colours being used, they apear to be the standard 3 colour bomber scheme Dark Green/Ocean Grey over Medium sea Grey but Percivals did use a different demarkation line between upper and lower surface colours, extending below the tailplane and wing, just below the starboard fuselage strake, and down the sides of the cowlings covering most of the side panels. This can just be discerned on the port inner cowling on the photo above. The following shows a line of Percival built Mosquitos. and the first of this line is also Percival The actual pattern of the uppers seems pretty close to the standard pattern.

Negative on that. You don't need to. You can, but synthetic oil is better. The compressor will run much cleaner and time between overhauls is significantly improved with synthetic oils (5-10 times longer), you don't get carbon build up on the discharge side like you do with mineral oil. A good quality car engine oil will work (an engine is just a compressor with added bang) but as always an oil specifically designed for the job will be much better. Agreed, that's why I recommended Bil measure the quantity he drained out to get an idea of the minimum capacity Yes, mine has a small sight glass, however adding one to Bill's compressor without causing it damage could be more hassle than it's worth

Yes. You need to open this to let air in (if you drain it through the suction line) or to let the oil out (and the air goes in the suction line) which ever is easier to use as the drain. It would be OK, better than fridge oil, but not as good as This is what I use Rather depends on what you want to spend, if you've got some good engine oil in stock and want to see if this improves the compressor performance it certainly won't do it any harm. However if your compressor has the original fridge oil in it and the compressor is starting to wear out filling it with expensive compressor oil isn't going to cure it.

Bill, the 3rd pipe will be for freon filling from when it was in a fridge. If there's a reasonable length, you could cut the end off this (lclose to the end as possible, you just want to open it up) Then tilt the compressor so that either this or the suction pipe connection is on the bottom, you should be able to drain it from there, the filling and suction should go into the same space, oil out of one, air in the other. Drain it into a container so you can get an idea of how much is in it eg old plastic mik bottle. If this works, you can put it right way up and fill through the filling tube at least as much as came out, best plus a bit more (20-30%?). I use a large bore syringe for this. My filling tube has a rubber cap on it, doesn't need to be pressure tight, just to keep dirt out

Hi Bill I have a Revell Omega compressor, which uses the same sort of compressor but specifically set up for airbrushing Don't know what's happening here, rather depends on what control circuits are being used for the compressor Yes and maybe My compressor uses a small amount of oil, carried over into the air tank which needs draining off periodically together with the condensate. As it uses oil it needs topping up occasionally as well, mine has a filling tube and a sight glass level gauge (which I guess yours doesn't have?) I doubt very much there'd be any refrigerant left in the compressor after a short while in use, however the smell is most likely related to the oil. Most refrigerant oils are hygroscopic (absorb water), not a problem in a sealed refrigerating system, but not good in an open compressor. If the oil in the compressor is the original oil from when it was recycled from the fridge, then given it's use it's probably well past it's sell by date and the smell is likely the oil breaking down and wear from compressor parts if it's not doing it's job properly. If you can work out a way of getting the oil out and refilling it to a working level I'd recommend draining it, refilling with a good quality synthetic compressor oil, running it off load (vent to atmosphere) for 10 minutes or so, then draining and refilling again. Flushing (filling twice) will get rid of most of the contaminants inside the compressor and will ensure there's no compatibility problems between the old and new oil. Here's what it probably looks like inside:- There's lots of stuff on google and youtube on abusing old fridge compressors.

Hi Roy Did you get charged postage on these? I can't see any postage costs without committing to buy? Have you received them? and if so do they have the spot shading on the tail? It's shown on the profile image they use, but isn't obvious on the decal image? Anybody know what the base colour for this scheme is (I Know, Dove Grey!) paint match/

That's the only photo I've found so far, I'd also assume standard factory camo. Note large serials under both wings, Shrouds on stbd engine exhausts, but nissing from at least port inner Main difference between BXVI and B35 was the engine Merlin 72/73 on BXVI and 113/114 on B35, modelling wise the airframe was pretty much the same. Aerial and equipment fit could vary on both. Yes, standard type bomb doors are fitted, modified with a longitunial slot between the doors for the tail fin and transverse slots to clear the extended carrier frame. Drawings (sketches) of the arrangement are in the SAM modellers datafile in the Mosquito.