maltadefender

Thanks Stew. Not a massive fan of the kit but perhaps I was spoilt by the Tamiya Mossie! I shall probably be pining for it when wrestling with a Roden!

All done. Not too much weathering - just a bit of muck on the wheels and a tiny bit of wear on the paint. I'll take some pretty pictures of it and pop it in the gallery soon.

Matt coat on and weathering done, only the lenses for the lights to colour and the radio wires to add, so I'm calling this one done as far as the thread goes. I'll pop the results in the gallery soonest.

I've just totted up who's modelled what so far... and also checked the calendar! Gladiator and Hurricane and then I think time will get the better of me. And with 30-odd Spitfires to salivate over I don't think any more are needed!

No criticisms needed on that little lot! Lovely.

Thanks chaps. Yes Steve it's Day Fighter Scheme with Night thrown on the underside. She'll get a flat coat and a little light weathering - just highlighting a few nooks and crannies in aluminium and then some 100-octane stains around the exhaust seems to be the way forward. Just letting the decal softener cure on this one and the P-40 while I finish off Upholder's etchwork and rigging.

All decals done. By this time tomorrow hopefully she'll be wrapped up and on to the next one.

All decals on. Thought I'd try the canopy on for size now that it's painted. Tomorrow I'll get this one finished and start sweating on the Gladiator!

Glad you like her chaps. Blessedly few stencils on a Mossie. Markings starting to go on too.

I thought that the spinner looked a bit 'toy town' so went over the scarlet paint with hull red. An improvement, I think. Now the warpaint's going on. Tell me, P-40 folk, is there some kind of ritual required at this stage? Dancing bare-chested round an open fire? Biting the head off a scorpion? Menace is growing some teeth here...

I'm deleting the Fiat from my list of candidates, as I won't get the camo done in time. That leaves the Spit and Hurricane as relatively straightforward builds, the Matilda as a tricky paint job and the Gladiator as a nerve-wracking wing alignment exercise. At the moment I'm leaning towards: Gladiator first then Spit then Hurricane then Matilda. What think you, chaps?

There's one internal frame that I accidentally painted MSG but a blind man would like to see it! Even better news is that the 1/48 kit comes with a Malta scheme and a Tilly, which was used in Malta too (I think I'm right in thinking that there never was an RAF blue Tilly in service during the war and Tamiya's dropped a clanger). I can't wait to do that one now, but there are a few builds to do before that one. Maybe the proposed de Havilland GB!

Just for Beard, I closed her up!

Hi Beard. I wanted to try and have the propeller spinning freely, so taped the top of the cowl on to get the camo right, now I'll stick the prop in there and glue it all shut. There might be method in the madness, but the jury is still out on that one!

Not all that quick... still waiting for the canopy masks but the camo is done.

Thanks Pat - she's starting to look a bit businesslike now:

Well whaddayaknow... the Mossie has got a canopy at last. That's one big step towards the finish line for this one.

I've mastered posting photos! Here are some of the pages from the proof. Thanks to all for sticking with the thread.

I've got three on the go and five candidates remaining. The Mosquito's masks arrived today so she's a step nearer the end, I'm pressing on with the P-40 and Upholder so my remaining picks for the GB are: 1/35 Matilda in 'Malta scheme' 1/48 Fiat CR.42 1/48 Sea Gladiator in either Navy or TLS finish 1/48 Hurricane Mk.I Trop 261 Sqn 1/48 Spitfire Mk.Vc 3-M Probably that's the order I'd choose to build them - that way if anything goes too horribly wrong with either of the 'bipes' I can redeem myself with a Spit or a Hurry!

Thanks, Tony! Yes yours is exactly how I want my little Upholder to look. Here's hoping! It's going to be without the N99 on the tower because I've seen it modelled (and the original photographed) both with and without identification. Frankly, I wouldn't know where to start looking for those decals... and I can't print white! Those blue trucks take me back. It was one of my Dad's favourite colours for modelling and he'd paint anything that colour if it stood still long enough. We had a Ford Prefect for a while that he rescued from the scrap yard and that got 'restored' with the very same paint. I've got some of his old builds around the house, and certainly this Matchbox Aston had a coat. Happy days!

Thanks, Rob! Here's how she looks this morning with all plastic and resin on except the propeller shafts and canon: I got a bit over-excited and put the masts on before the wood colour on top of the conning tower so it's all a bit splodgy at the moment! I've shaved that awkward join on top of the resin down flush this morning. A little more sanding and she will be ready up front. I'm going to put some of the etch on next and then get on with painting - which, being Malta, is a matter of guesswork! It seems that Upholder was repainted from grey/black camouflage into blue and hull red when she arrived at the 10th Submarine Flotilla at Lazaretto. The blue is depicted in many ways. Here is the 1/72 model of her on display in the Malta War Museum: And here is a colour profile: Of the two pictures above it would seem that the brighter blue of the model is closer to being correct. The actual shade was Royal Navy PB10, which best matched to Vallejo 965 which equates to Humbrol 25 Matt Blue. That's pretty bright but then so is the Med, and the object was to conceal her from aerial reconnaissance. I think I've got a pot of Humbrol 25 lying around. Will check later. First I need to put the railings on and finish the masts...

The etch is, naturally enough for 1/400, pretty tiny. I looked up ways to prime such small parts and saw a post on another forum which recommended using vinegar. Immerse the etch for up to an hour, rinse thoroughly in ice cold water and it will be sufficiently scored for paint to adhere. I didn't have any malt in the house so had to go with what the EU prefers us to call 'non-brewed condiment' for putting on fish and chips. You know: real vinegar. I don't know if metal can tell the difference but regardless of how the paint likes the metal now it makes me feel hungry just to sniff it. Meanwhile the hull went together and the rest of the plastic parts have so far fitted fine. I cut the resin bow section off its mount, trimmed it to fit the hull snugly, then shaped it to create an unbroken curve. I work with resin quite a lot for slot car bodies... this was much nicer! It looks like the conning tower is going to take quite a bit of fiddling and shaving to sit flat on the deck. I'd like to get that done before I go to bed.

It feels like I'm under-performing in this GB. I've got a Mosquito on hold because the canopy needs a set of masks and a 'quick and dirty' P-40B that is proving to be anything but quick. So while I await the kabuki tape assistance needed to finish both of my (current) aeroplanes I've decided to build something without a canopy. Or any windows, in fact. It's HMS Upholder. Despite the human story of the siege and the excitement caused by her heroic aerial defence, Malta's key role in the war was always offensive. The Royal Navy was pre-eminent in Malta's strategic role and in HMS Upholder the Island had an utterly devastating weapon, the most successful British submarine of the war, captained throughout by Lieutenant-Commander Malcolm David Wanklyn - who was awarded the Victoria Cross for his brilliant command. The Upholder was laid down in October 1939 and commissioned a year later. She left British waters for Malta in December 1940 and, in total, went on to complete 24 patrols, sinking 14 vessels totalling 93,031 tons of enemy shipping. Her victories included two other submarines, a destroyer, three troop ships and six cargo ships. On her 25th and final scheduled patrol before returning to Britain she was sighted and sunk with all hands, most probably by depth charges dropped from the Italian torpedo ship Pegaso which was patrolling north-east of Tripoli. The kit is from the Russian (I think) brand Mirage, which produced a 1/400 scale U-class submarine boxed as HMS Undine. Undine and Upholder were all-but indistinguishable: two of the first seven U-class submarines, all of which were built with both four internal and two external torpedo tubes. After these first seven submarines were completed and put into service, the external tubes were deleted from the 42 U-class submarines that would follow because they created an unwanted bow wave and often broke the surface at periscope depth. I've never built any kind of ship or boat before. It's a multimedia kit with plastic, resin and etch. It's all rather unfamiliar but it's all rather intriguing, and makes a change from aeroplanes for me. My stash of Malta bits remains fairly sprawling, so it's nice to pull something out of it that I would otherwise have struggled to get the courage up to attempt! Here goes, then...

Nonononono, Beard! What I meant was... ... oh dear! Ahhh poo. I've really made a mess of painting the canopy already. Time to strip, order some masks and repaint. Having the frames so massively raised has caused the masking tape to wrinkle and it's all just a runny mess. I'll get on with the rest and come back to the canopy.

I've got 190 envy! Lovely stuff.