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EricP

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Everything posted by EricP

  1. Decals are on, and I weathered the model a bit with Flory Models' Dirt Wash, before sealing it with a coat of Tamiya X-22 Gloss Clear, thinned with Mr Color Leveling Thinner and with a bit of Tamiya X-21 Flat Base to give it a semi-gloss sheen. The decal instructions (and contemporary pictures) show just the small "3" on the cowling, but I felt the rest of the model was a bit too plain, and used other "3" decals on the sheet to put one on the tail and one on the fuselage The prop has also been decalled ... looks a bit dirty as I had not wiped the Flory wash off yet. The decals are from Propagteam, and true to experience and what I have read, when they go on a surface, they are difficult to move. Luckily they are quite tough, but I still need to be careful and use lots of water to move them around. I lost one of the beaching gear frames, and needed to build it from scratch, using the other side as a pattern.
  2. Your builds are immaculate, Tom, and you make it look so effortless!
  3. Nicely done, Cliff! What decal paper do you use? The ones I used a few years ago (maybe 10?) were a bit too glossy, and the ink just globbed up. I'm sure technology has progressed since then.
  4. I agree with Cliff ... that looks better than my airbrushed efforts!
  5. Another quick update ... Canopy had been masked with Bare Metal Foil, and I just stuck it on a piece of masking tape to protect the interior, and sprayed several coats of Sea Blue. Guess what I forgot ... ... the interior color! Removing the masking is easy, just use a toothpick to gently scrape off one edge: Then fine tweezers will lift the foil up nicely, and if you are careful, in one piece. Canopy done. Like I said, a blind geriatric with 2 left thumbs (that's me!) can do a half-decent job with this technique, with no paint bleeds. Moving on, I attached the tank/radar/depth charge (I still haven't managed to find out what it is) to the bomb rack, and sprayed them gloss white. Prop was painted semi gloss black, left to dry, then masked And prop is done (except for decals) Engine face is attached to cowling I needed something to keep the prop hub in place, so just cut a round piece of plasticard that conforms to the opening at the back of the engine, and stuck that on a larger piece of plasticard. Test fit the prop onto the hub Instrument panel installed I just dotted some white onto the raised detail, nothing much can be seen through the thick canopy, so I did not have to be too subtle about it. Cowling (with engine) fitted on the aircraft (it's a tight push fit, I don't think I will need to use any cement) And just pop the canopy on to see how it all looks Next ... decaling
  6. Great progress. My experience with my build is that fitting the main float after painting was a lot of trouble as I had to tweak the alignment (no locating pins) and messed up the paint. On hindsight, I'd either pin it then paint before assembly, or assemble first then mask ... not as difficult as it it sounds. The exception would be the outrigger floats ... I knocked mine off several times before I pinned them and put them aside till the end of the build. Looking forward to your next update!
  7. Drink and build at the same time. It steadies the hands and brings clarity of mind to the build. Really. ;-)
  8. Nice one! I like the fact that a few people in this GB are building theirs in a diorama. Looking forward to how yours build up!
  9. Great work, Smudge! Simple but inspirational diorama!
  10. This will be spectacular in Gold! Looking forward to your WIP pics!
  11. Cliff, that's the best way I learnt, just one step below accurate pre-cut masks as the foil is super-thin and picks out even faint canopy frames, an advantage over thicker paper tape. What I do is cut a piece slightly larger than each panel to be masked, burnish it down with a cotton bud, and finish up with a toothpick to pick out the canopy framing. In this case, the frames are extremely heavy, so one could do it even with 2 left thumbs The other key to this is using a sharp, fresh blade ... I use surgical scalpel blades, which are sharper than the standard #11 X-acto type, but more fragile (I typically use a new one per kit, they only cost a few cents). Duller blades will snag on the foil and ruin the process.
  12. Thanks for the encouragement, Cliff & Deacon (C & D!) More pics ... canopy is masked with Bare Metal Foil: Engine face painted and drybrushed: Prop cleaned up a bit, but I'll need to check references to shape the blades properly. The exhaust stubs will have to be replaced ... they are molded badly and are not cylindrical, so I'll make some replacements. These are hard to fix as they're about 2mm long. Finally, the wheels of the beaching gear. From what I can tell, the hubs are painted grey so I'll leave them painted with Mr Surfacer, and do a dark grey for the tyres.
  13. Man, it has been weeks since I posted ... Things have progressed, but I've got a couple of parallel builds going on, plus my ham-fisted experimentation with a new paint (Lifecolor) resulted in things going slower than I hoped. The kit has some nice touches, e.g. a recess for a light of some sort below the wing (I can't find any reference to this, looks too big for a landing light). I had to enlarge and thin the recess, but the clear part fits perfectly in it. The kit is a classic short run mold, with very few locating pins. This part below is one of the few that has it, and thankfully it fits well. It's painted white and hangs off one of the bomb racks, can someone here tell me what it is? Depth charge? Radar pod? After a few weeks (unfortunately with no in-progress pics), this is where we're at: Top is Lifecolor Gloss Sea Blue. As its name implies, I expected this to be glossy, but it turned out a bit matt out of the airbrush. Thinned it with Lifecolor odorless thinner (that's the only one they have), so I'm a bit puzzled. On a parallel build, the dark grey on a Gripen came out beautifully satin after it dried. The side bits are Lifecolor Intermediate Blue, satiny after drying (and thinned to around the same proportion as the Sea Blue), go figure. The bottom is a classic case of mistakes followed by fixes ... bare plastic, then a layer of Mr Surfacer 1000, then Lifecolor Matt White, followed by Future, which was then ruined when overspray from touch-ups on the main float required me to respray Lifecolor, which did not cover well over the blue. In the end I went back to "old faithful", Tamiya Matt White thinned with Gunze Mr Color Levelling Thinner, which dried satiny. Sigh. I also made the mistake of putting the outrigger floats on too early, I knocked them off twice (and stuffed up the white on the wing with poor masking that allowed overspray to get on the white), before sanity kicked in and I pinned them. They will go on at the end of the build. The cockpit has been sprayed interior green, but I think that is wrong, I'll respray with yellow zinc chromate (and make sure my masking is done properly!).
  14. This looks very nice! Did they supply a jig for wing and tailplane dihedral, or you just eyeballed it?
  15. Nice! I'll be watching this ... haven't built any CMR, or any resin kits, for that matter, so your journey will be keenly followed
  16. Hoping to break my GB-non-completion streak with this hopefully OOB build. I bought this kit from the LHS maybe 15 years ago, but this GB inspired me to take it down from the shelf and give it a go. Box top Bottom This kit can be built equipped with floats or conventional undercarriage. IMHO, apart from this being the "FLOAT plane GB", the fixed wheel option is just a bit ordinary. Instructions are in Czech and English And line diagrams clearly illustrate the build sequence There aren't many parts to this kit as you can see from the parts illustration in the instructions Inside the long box, the parts trees are both wrapped in one plastic bag, with the decals and clear parts thrown in The clear canopy's pretty thick And here are the parts trees, front and back As you can see, this is a classic short-run kit, with no location/alignment pegs ... to me this is a good thing. On the sprue, it says it's made by Antares, to my knowledge Smer made one in this scale as well, I haven't seen the latter kit so don't know if they share the same genesis. The prop is nicely protected in the sprue, though there is minor flash on the blades Engine front's a bit featureless, but perhaps adequate for this scale Wing detail's also a bit simplified, though the panel lines may look good with a wash There is some nice detail engraving on the main float I need to check my references to see if those details are meant to be on the outrigger floats Instrument panel's a bit generic, but should look adequate with some detail painting under that thick canopy A few bombs are provided, together with sway braces, for mounting under the wings This is the floor of the cockpit ... lacking in detail and sits a bit high, but in photos I've found on the internet, the pilot also sits high One surprising thing is that they also provided a clear instrument panel as well as the opaque plastic one ... there are no decals for it, so I will skip the clear version ... to be continued.
  17. Following this build with interest, got one in the stash (the Canadian CP-140 boxing). The nose looks a bit funky, a bit blunt ... but that's just from eyeballing your kits and (admittedly poor) memory of the ones I've seen.
  18. Big big thanks to Antony & Chris for your tireless efforts and encouragement!
  19. Big, big thanks to the mods for keeping the enthusiasm up, this has been a fun GB! Happy New Year to everyone!
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