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Chaotic Mike

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Everything posted by Chaotic Mike

  1. Spent a little time doing the insignia today, courtesy of Maketar. A bit of touching up will be needed, but looking tidy... I'll need to tone the exhausts down, I think I will take them back to burnt iron rather than the orange paint. BE500, here we come...
  2. Looking at the colour pic of BE500, do you reckon the spinner is red? Just basing that on the colour of the fin flash - obviously there is an overall tint to the photograph.
  3. So I took a picture of it in its black undercoat. The intention was to then do a scuzzy looking Day Fighter scheme, but I'm quite liking the patchy way the black has come out - it looks tired. Now not sure if I will return to JX-E in all over black (but no Night Reaper), or carry on with the grubby camouflage look. Decisions, decisions...
  4. Boy, there's a lot there! I was going to show a photo of the kit in its black state, but figured it isn't very exciting!
  5. Seems to be a paucity of Tamiya acrylics in the Basingstoke area ATM. No problem, Revell Aqua Colour 50:50 diluted with Ultimate universal airbrush thinner gives a beautiful black finish (that I am going to cover up, mostly!) @Troy Smith, what colour do we think the spinner, Fuselage band and lettering are? I was assuming the band will be sky, the letters light grey, spinner who nose? (see what I did there...) Mike
  6. Meanwhile, looking closely at the pictures does, of course, show the other variation on cannon springs than what I have acquired. I *told* you not to tell me... 😁
  7. Thank you Troy, your input regarding what machine I might end up building was appreciated. One of the photos shows a Mark II that had been in the intruder scheme, then repainted in a day fighter scheme, but which then showed enormous areas of night showing through on the underside looked interesting...
  8. So after a week of fettling in the shed, and not a great deal of progress, what do we have? The two landing lights are dinky, featuring very delicate PE to be attached over the lenses. Makes a good effect, though, I also acquired Master cannon. They are quite lovely. And I don't want anyone telling me I should have got the variant with flat springs rather than circular section (or indeed the other way round... I can't remember!) I also spent more time than might be considered sane hollowing out the gap in the tail wheel where the two articulated arms are separated by a shock absorber. It gave me something to do whilst some primer was drying, or something. I predict challenging times ahead, getting the tail wheel in. Why I didn't do the sensible thing and assemble this *after* I installed the wheel must forever remain a mystery to you, and my forebrain. Also, observe this little pipe hiding almost invisibly in the wheel wells. Another example of something that I really ought have installed when the instructions suggested (ie before cementing in the resin wheel bay) rather than afterwards. Obviously, when finally assembled nobody will *ever* get to see it... Finally, I have been enhancing the various lines where flight surfaces meet the wings. There was an ugly gap where the outer flap butts up close to the inner, so I had to fill and polish prior to a simple rescribe that will have been done by the time the next instalment comes along. Th-th-th-th-th-th-that's all, folks...
  9. Loving the second from last picture, memories of before the ever more intrusive safety regulations kept everything far away.
  10. Flying along with this one... (see what I did there, I'll be here all week, etc...) First up, an undercoated wing root to see how its looking: Not bad, clearly there are opportunities for Perfect Plastic Putty, but given the absence of any kind of positive locating mechanism, I'm happy with that. The other side is similar: There is still a fraction of a step towards the rear, but with careful scraping I thing I can turn it into a panel that sits somewhere around there. Obvs the little dink on the leading edge doesn't have long to live, as well. What follows now is a salutary tale, which can be most easily summarized as RTFM! Because there aren't *that* many pieces, and because I've been doing this for a few decades now, I was blithely motoring along, getting the fuselage and wings together and polishing and eradicating seams (many...). Nowt wrong with that. Anyway, I was idly playing with the resin exhausts (that will go on at the end) and test fitting, when it occurred to me that they are a *very* loose fit within the cutouts, and that if I wasn't careful, I might lose them inside the fuselage, leaving a tricky extraction job on the cards. So I looked at the sprues, and the instructions. Hmmm... What are these? Of course! They are the blanking support plates that I should have cemented inside the nose before I assembled it. Brill. Now what? To recap, look at the size of this hole... Inspiration struck. Drill holes in the casting block behind the exhausts, insert brass tube and voila... What could possibly go wrong? As it turned out, not much. There will be some fettling required, but I think I have snatched a victory! Just need to remove a few millimetres, and/or drill the holes a bit deeper. Time to get tore into some rioja, I think...
  11. A bit more business, attaching the centre section and wings to the body. The starboard upper went quite well... But underneath was a different story: Port upper not as good as the other side... There's a major step to be dealt with towards the rear Leaving me with this at half time. Got to wait for various combinations of Revell Contacta Pro and CA to cure before approaching the smoothing phase. You can see that I was able to do something about the step on the starboard lower, via a winning combination of extra-thin CA, and muscle power distorting the shape of the wing whilst the glue went off. You can also see a nasty step where the rear of the centre section joins the fuselage. This will be tricky to blend, as it is marrying the flat metal panel of the centre section to the sculpted shape of the fabric covered fuselage. Something to worry about tomorrow!
  12. Perhaps the threatened new tool from Revell will take your fancy...
  13. As presaged in my Typhoon RFI, I am working my way through Hawker's WW2 single engine fighters, plus (eventually) a Nimrod. Having been immersed in resin for the last 2 builds, it's a bit weird working with polystyrene again. But, since it is a multimedia kit with plenty of resin and etch, I'll be making copious use of cyanoacrylate, and it is showing distinct signs of short-runnedness - very few locating pins, and plenty of flash. It's a nice kit though, and should build up nicely with a bit of care. Sadly, it's got me at the helm... I have heard Bad Things about how tricky it is to get the cockpit frame to stay together in the absence of locators. My technique involved drilling 0.2mm holes and using wire to reinforce things. A few pics... At t he time I took these pictures, I hadn't overpainted the photoetch for a few minor controls. The etch looked too thin to me, so I CA's it onto some plastic card and then sanded it to size - this had the fortunate side benefit of making it distinctly easier to attach the bits of etch onto the framework. The seat belts are HGW paper fabric, as fiddly as ever but I'm definitely getting the hang of them! Heavy chipping effects come courtesy of AK Interactive applied over Alclad dull aluminium, an under Tamiya IJN cockpit green. Having wrestled this area into submission, I moved onto painting and augmenting the cockpit walls. In real life, closed up, the grime from the washing is far more toned down. Having got this far, it was time to bring the fuselage halves together. The cockpit frame will come in from underneath once I have dealt with any seam issues. The nose is a bit squint - I had to resort to Squadron green instead of just sanding, because the step was too much. We'll see how well that has worked later, during undercoating. I'm not usually a fan of feathering filler - I usually get a different step, at the edge of the filler, but I have been being diligent with very fine abrasives used wet. I have also been working on the wings, because they are easy... The inserts in the landing light gaps are resin, sanded in from the back to enable the lattice to show through. There are a few micro cracks to tidy up, and I will probably put some filler around the edges of the framing to make a smooth surface. I have some Master brass cannon waiting to go into those holes. They are a very tight fit so I need to be careful when opening up the mounting holes a bit. Anyway, that's enough for now. Mike
  14. A 3" difference in 1/72 works out to about 0.04". Could that be engendered by a sanding error, instead of a rounding error? 😁
  15. It *might* be one of the RP rails being squint. Being resin, they were a little 'floppy' ...
  16. Thanks. I was going for a 'not too shabby' appearance.
  17. I have set sail on a themed collection of 1/32 Hawker single engined piston fighters, started because I enjoyed Special Hobby's Tempest V so much, and because of Lukgraph, Fly, Paul Fisher and Special Hobby (again) providing the raw materials. The Typhoon is a lovely piece of casting. Here it is. It is an entirely fictional representation of a 1B equipped with rockets wearing the early 1A identification stripes, ie *not* the invasion stripes we all know and love. The windscreen and canopy are Special Hobby spares that I acquired after borking several vacforms. Ham fisted? Moi? The very few decals I used (most of the major stuff is masked) silvered. Grr. And I did gloss it up first, too. General overview... Plan view... The tummy. The apparently kinky stripe on the starboard flap is an optical illusion. It's straight, really... Cockpit detail showing virtually nothing! But the SH windscreen blended in well... Nicely cast bits of undercarriage... Hope you like. I am currently working on Fly's Hurricane. The cockpit frame is tortuous, but I'll get there! Mike
  18. Even as we speak, I am wrestling the Fly kit into submission, lots of resin and PE, also (sadly) lots of flash. But I think it will build into a nice representation.
  19. PVA (white) glue is your friend... It dries transparent.
  20. I'm intrigued... Where does stress come from in printed parts? I'm not questioning the diagnosis, just wondering where/how stress builds up as each layer is cured. Is there micro-shrinkage, or something?
  21. It turned up last week. Impressively smooth prints!
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