amos brierley

Very nicely done. 😉

Thanks @Spookytooth for the shout out, I ‘m liking your take on tackling the internal geodetic structure, on the back of this I’ve placed an online order for one to give it a go. Here’s my take on tackling all things chrome: MOLOTOW Liquid Chrome. 😉

Hello everyone. Flap tracks - going white. A quick update, going to keep it simple. Sometimes I just don’t have the answers to all of the questions, and sometimes maybe I need not be concerned. I have already posted a photo of a Japanese Herk with its flaps down and there is also a photo of another Japanese Herk showing its inner flap structure as being gloss white. These are what I’m going run with in the absence of photos of this actual A/C. Lots of masking to be done first. This is what I think is fairly representative, but, with these flaps being down at a later date some exhaust staining and oils and grease’s weathering will tone down the colours and start to emphasise these details. If of course anyone has any suggestions feel free to let me know as it’s not too late for any changes. Thanks for looking. 😉

@Head in the clouds. thank you for the kind words, I’ve previously built two Airfix Avro Shackleton’s back to back , these may look similar but, they were as different as can be. Nearly three years later I had lots of smiles, with each model, whether it was just the kit parts or making something new for each variant these kept me on the boil. I see your dream, I’d say no need to lock ‘thi sell’ away because there’s always someone partying in the kitchen. 😛 Keep up the good work, and keep me inspired. 😉 ( I’ve added the laughter symbol for the comment about three years, made me chortle.)

Thank you Ali, hopefully I’ll keep the fwd motion going. 😉

Hello everyone…… an update! All change with the paints. It’s been a little while. I’ve not been idle, just couldn’t find time for an update. A quick shout out to @woody37 @Head in the clouds. and @AliGauld a thank you for supporting me over the last couple of weeks and months, and putting up with the bread bin jokes…… Dealing with my P.T.S.D . I’ve joined the 20 Sqn Facebook page in order to move my Gulf War Syndrome along , the upshot of this is that I now have an understanding of scanning photos. This means that I now know how to convert a photo into a digital image, I could use it if I so wished to do so in B.M. rather than just playing around with taking a photo of it with this iPad……. Soooo, with that in mind, and from a past @woody37 post , I had planned to post a few more photos Herk photos with my build but in my opinion I feel I have fallen short. With both of the Woody questions and and my new found skills, here’s me on a Hercules 1993 on route to Decimomannu. ( I still haven’t found my ATC flight log book.) Some where over Europe. I free styled it last time. Oups free styling doesn’t suit me, last time I forgot to add some bits and pieces. The Metallic Detail set……Firstly the louvred air vent is superb. Whilst the air scoop not so, it’s given as brass, but, it’s so small it’s a royal pain, the better option is to go with plastic rod. Then there’s the rain gutter, that needs adding, I’ve used brass wire. Here’s the real thing from Jordanian Herk at RIAT 2023. You’ve got to be careful with your variants as to what they’re offering, this is a J version. Airbrushes, these are important as I’m moving forward. Like the Only Fools and Horses series and “ Triggers brush” my Iwata is still going strong and in mint condition, I’ve only had three replacement needles and five nozzles in the past 25 years or so, it’s as good as new. 😺 I love it to pieces, but sometimes it just doesn’t get the job done. The cup is a tiny 5ml using this rascal would take me a month of Sundays tarting around with it. I’ve had the feeling that it’s not in tip-top condition and so a new nozzle has been ordered, a quick check of the length of the needle implies that at 2.5mm protruding is too much, it should be 2.05mm. I bought a new nozzle at £33 inc postage is steep, but gotta be done. Three - is the magic number. I love Iwata products, here are what I have or am about to use, first up is the Eclipse HP-BS, my favourite by far, but it’s cup is far too small for this big model. I’d simply spend too much time filling it up. (At the bottom,) is my Neo TRN2, I bought it because I’m left handed and my trigger finger sits on the left side of it, and it’s not a comfortable position at all. What I really need is the trigger to be slightly longer so as to be off set to the left. With the Eclipse air brushes negative point's, another airbrush is needed, the NEO has an easy to use trigger and a very big adjustable paint cup, this airbrush excels for large scale easy coverage. By that I’m talking about applying primer and large area coverage of the top coat, and this Herk demands a lot of paint. This airbrush is very easy to use but for me it’s more of a blaster than precision. Lastly Iwata CM-C custom. This expensive (@ the time £350) is all about precision, my aim is for soft edges to be as little as 3/32nd’s width. I don’t use this airbrush often as I don’t often need to use that big cup. All that will change in the coming weeks as I’ll need precision and lots of paint. What you’ve been doing for the last few weeks? ……… And then my head rolled off!!! Some weeks ago I visited MJR hobbies in Leigh for a “mouch around” and some MRP paints, every time I go I like to pick up 8-10 paints I don’t have in my collection. 10 paints - yes expensive £50 - ouch , but these are my paints of choice. Sowing the seeds of doubt. Back at home I was sorting my new paints into their rightful place, when one of them started to cast a doubt into my mind that I was barking up the wrong tree. But I ignored the thoughts….. Then a week later whilst on Fighter Control and looking at the Current Military photos was a Japanese Kawasaki C-2 air lifter. Even though I’ve looked at these before…….. the paint on the aircraft always always always look lighter than this Hercules. And so I went and revisited my collection of photos of this particular Herk. Lo and behold, some of the photos looked markedly lighter than my printed copies. That’s when my head rolled off! It turns out some of my printed copies have a markedly green tinge to them, GGGRRRRR. The printed copies are somewhat off. And that puts an end to my RLM78 theory. Back to the drawing board, having spent a lot of time barking up the wrong tree it felt like a kick in the teeth to start again. But. The answer came quickly. As well as the lower light blue colour being merely difficult to match the next colour up the Blue Grey hasn’t pleased me in any way shape or form, and the dark blue is just a little bit off too…… ONE STEP AT TIME. I started with that nagging feeling first MRP-073 L-29 Slovak A.F. Delfin. I did a spray out first then with a photo printed off that was better to my liking a comparison done. Better, but not quite right. Of all the colours to add to it to correct it was, yes you’ve guessed it the wrong RLM78, so L-29 Delfin + 15-20% RLM 78 and that’s where I’m at. As it happens I visited MJR Hobbies just yesterday to pick up some more paint, as you can see this Herk as used up some 55% of the bottle, and there’s still a ways to go yet. As I’ve said so far I’ve ‘jipped’ off model shows and club nights in order to concentrate on this kit. But the Hinckley model show has broken that. As this model is basically four shades of blue I was worried that I didn’t have enough weathering products to compliment this colour scheme. New and old , I’ve tried these pencils before but just couldn’t get on with them, maybe this time……. Blues and grey washes obviously, but, browns for the oils and lubricants that seep out. This set of photos are a better representation of the final colour. Previous posts I have also missed the application of gloss white in the interior area’s . The inner portion of the flaps still require the inner structure to be painted gloss white and the trailing edge top of the flaps need the upper camouflage colours to be applied. As I don’t have any photos of this inner flap structure I’m just free styling it. The bottom is getting there. Even though this model comes with en-scribed lines ( I’ve forgotten the proper name for this) they are shockingly bad, I’ve spent far too much time sorting this nonsense out, or so I thought…….l applied Gunzi primer to check things out, found a few errors and was surprised by how good everything looked or so I thought . A little bit more rectifying panel lines and onto the top colour…… only to find more errors. Not many but, 2-3 wonky, 2-3 tram lines ( new line next to the old one) and 2-3 not deep enough for me. Having applied the top coat the re-worked area’s thankfully just a little bit of paint has pulled off. I’ve just got one more session left with the bottom colour and then it’s back to the white paint. Some white has been applied previously. Then I’ve got to find a paint that I can use to weather this model creating wear and tear. Finally I can only sympathise with @Head in the clouds. and his endeavours to produce three Herks, two of which are older kits that need a full scribing, not a chore that I quite fancy. Thanks for looking. 😉

Great start, the RLM66 is a good shade for me , proper 66 is a black-grey , but even at 48th scale I think such a grey is still too dark. This looks very decent. 😉

Me too! Nicely-nicely done O.D. 😉

Look superb to me. 😉

Hello @Sebastien, here’s a selection of my photos from Newark and IWM Duxford. Hope these help. Ah, a jet engine… IWM Duxford under restoration. 😉

That’s nice, nice indeed. 😉

Wasn’t there a band called: …….ah it’s just come to me : Martha and the muffins…… 🎵

Ok, will do, it looks superb to me, the set up ( wings fwd and everything out ) , the clean finish looks crisp, and squadron colours all look good. 😉

Crazy looking machine, crazy paint scheme, crazy looking weapons, crazy any old angle antlers, crazy answer too………. I Love it! 👍 😺

Really different, really nicely-nicely done. 😉

Delicious. 😉

Ah, very nicely-nicely done. 😉

Looking good so far. 😉

I was drawn in by the title, I have no idea what it meant, now I know , ………. 😲 ……..👍 Nice. 😉

Wow, what took you so long to paint the middle of that figure? 😲 Joking aside very nicely done, very glad too see, 😉

Did you ever see the film Hot Tub Time Machine? (I’m of the opinion it was genius, but others think otherwise.) Could your bread bin be the same? You close the lid, then mutter monkey chit chat 🙈 chumbawumba, and lo and behold 😲 . And that’s how it work in “Amos’s” head. 😺

We still use a speedy brace these days, and use a ‘remove #10 bit’ , the remove bit has serrations on the remove side to grip . My favourite tip is to press down hard then turn, when that fails I go and get a fresh bit with fresh teeth failing that I go back to stores and try some stuff called ezygrip. It’s like a gritty brown soup , it fills in the metal that some knuckle head has graunched away. Failing this I go and get some bloke called Neil , why? Coz he’s got 💪 . ( Strong in the arm, thick in YED , as the saying goes.) Now if this fails which it rarely does, it’s back stores for the hernia bar kit, and finally if this rascal can’t sort out the problem it’s back to stores for the riggers kit and break out the drills and easy out bits. 🧰 ggggrrrrr. 😉

Sadly no I didn’t, at sometime in 1997 when it rolled up I’d never have been able to make a model of it (XV208) and I just wasn’t aware of stuff ( the big picture.) Now a days I’m much more savvy to taking in stuff. Whether the Elephant had packed his trunk and gone to Marshalls I don’t know. 🙂 This is a problem I’ve had for years, if I can’t make a model of it then it’s not getting photographed, that’s why in the past 10 years I’ve had to go back to various museums to pick up missing pieces. Times change and so has this “Amos”. 😉 ( As an aside I use Fighter Control for photos, Marshals are still servicing and repairing all things Hercules, the variety of operators is way bigger than when I was there.)

Hello everyone. My earliest photo of XV208. Hi @woody37 I’ve just been searching my past history box, sadly I can’t find my blue flight log book, I’ve seen it recently, it’s in that safe place called ‘god knows where’! What I can tell you Woody is this, I very well remember several Herk flights all to well. Firstly whilst I was serving in the RAF at Laarbruch Germany I was 20Sqn pan trash but I was shipped out with 2Sqn on the evening 12th Jan 1990 landing at Cyprus for fuel then flying in ‘hot’ to King Abdul Aziz air base on the morning of 13th Jan - from Operation Desert Shield shortly after became Gulf War 1. All the way there I slept on top of part of our load of equipment, a Houchin ground power unit, it was a damn comfortable sleep. You’re lucky to get me in this good mood, because for a long long while I couldn’t stand anything about this time of my life, P.T.S.D Gulf War Syndrome was a dark side of my life. But, I’ve been making headway into this problem more so recently. So here goes a world first, “Amos “ at war. (I hope this doesn’t offend anyone.) Secondly Woody, for those that don’t know being in the Air Cadets that is affiliated with a current RAF squadron had its benefits. Where possible we blagged some pleasure flights, whilst Woody was having a pleasurable time “Amossy” was in a bad place. So, I love all things t’do with aeroplanes, I work at BAE Systems on Eurofighter’s , love museums, model aeroplanes, history, everything aerospace except just one little thing, getting in them and getting air born. The flight that you’re remembering I hope I was on it too went like this: something didn’t ent sit well with me on this day. 🫢 My dad Trevor came along as well, as he was civilian volunteer, as we were taxing I felt less than happy, then we went roaring down the runway and just at the point of rotation - oh lord - I was ill. My dad said I was no son of his. Charming. 🙄. And another thing, the last time I was on a Puma hedge hopping that didn’t end well either…….. Well, enough sand bagging. Hi @Head in the clouds., the above photo of XV208 got me thinking and whilst I was trundling down memory lane I thought this photo was relevant. As I worked at Marshals Aerospace and this aeroplane was one of the last that I worked on, this is what I can tell you about it, it’s taken circa 1973 and it’s on the engine running pan, the big ‘bund’ of earth in the background gives this away. I paid this spot a visit on a few occasions……. Thanks for looking. 😉

Nicely-nicely done indeed, loving the teeth. 😉