rainstel109

Okies, on the home stretch now. I got the props and spinner together, all painted but not yet washed and weathered. I've just stuck 'em on the front using blu tak to give meself an opportunity to see how it looks. I've also completed the u/c, mounted the legs and now just need to dull them down a bit and do the muddied tyres. Lastly, I painted and weathered the Quick boost exhaustd and fitted those. All thats needed now is to separate the Eduard Mk IX spitfire's canopy and transfer the sliding portion to this one.

Right, I managed to get the second wash on and another coat of varnish followed by the oil dot paint wash, followed by the second from last matt coat. Before anyone else notices that the last letters on the fuselage are slightly out of line with the others. This was actually on the real thing and I've reproduced the position as near as I can working from a period photo. When the varnish has a cured for a bit, I'll need to "tidy up" the paintwork slightly and may even do a bit more post shading in certain areas.

Right, got the model varnish with a 50/50 mix of gloss and matt acrylic varnish for protection and managed to get the decals on afterwards. No real probs but the "Syhart" decals are extremely thin and have to be handled with a fair bit of delicacy (so I found them a pain but at least they're on) and for the roundels I used "Xtradecal" versions as I prefer the way they sit when applied with a setting solution. Just waiting for a while then I'll give it another coat of varnish. Just noticed that blue on the roundels appears to be a bit bright but its caused by the flash on the camera.

Update time kiddies, I managed to tone down the overall effect of the post shading as it was a bit too "in yer face" as it were (overdone) by blowing over the camo in the base colors to decrease the color contrasts. Then I carried out the oil paint dot wash using basically black and white to give a more defined appearance to the different paint shades and to avoid ending up with a mottled effect. This is me first go at it on a completed paint scheme so I erred on the side of safety (under did it). Once the paintwork has settled, I'll give it a coat of satin acrylic varnish to seal it as its gonna have another wash in Phil's dark dirt wash as a lot of the panel lines have been obliterated by the post washing spraying in the paint. I'll start looking at getting the decals on.

absolutely stunning work mate, well done.

Finally found a window of opportunity to get a bit done though not much. I got all the post shading done on the upper surfaces. Just gotta wait for a bit then I can tone the contrast down a touch, then I'll try having a go at the oil dot wash malarky and see how that looks, fingers crossed.

Thanks for the info guys, its not gonna be fitted then.

Greetings all, thought I'd post up here with ta few pics of the this model I'm currently doing. I've used the Quickboost nose, spinner and props to try and correct the errors in this kit, along with the Aires cockpit detail set (which surprisingly to me fitted reasonably well). Heres a few progress pics: I'm doing the aircaraft AP-D RM619 but I'm not using the kit decals as they don't give me any flexibility at all when painting due to the lettering, serial numbers, D-day stripes are printed in one lump as it were. I've got a pic of this particular aircraft taxying out at Lympne airfield showing the invasion stripes on the underside only. One question though, were the underside slipper tanks used all the time or only for certain periods? the reason i ask is that i'd rather not fit one (theres one provided in the kit box) as I reckon it spoils the lines of the model. Oh, and the crow bar is gonna be black

Lovely finish on the Tiffie mate, well done, and first class pics too.

Nice job there mate, well done. Incidentally, I too had probs with the wingroot/ fuselage join, I thunk it was down to the cockpit components frocing the lower fuselage halves apart a bit too far. Again, nice job.

That is outrageously good, lovely work there, well done.

Very very nice, well done mate.

Definately after the matt coat has been applied. It tends to grip the wax in the silver better than if the surface was glossy, just make sure the tip of the pencil is nice and sharp, this means you can make some very fine lines/ shapes etc and theres no danger of the silver going where you don't it to.

I used a "primasol" silver pencil available from "modelsRgo", they're not more than a coupla quid. Work very nice for chipping as you can put the chips exactly where you like without any of the normal difficulties encountered when using silver paint with a brush.

I must admit meself, when I first saw the sprue pics of this kit I thought they'd really overdone the rivets and in the photos of mine, these rivet lines do show up more than they seem to when looking at the completed/ painted kit, something to do with the way I take my photos maybe. When painted, they seem be more subdued, except on the white areas where the wash adds so much contrast, they tend to be far more pronounced. Where I do think they're overdone is on the wing leading edges, forward of where those black stencil lines are. I have a sneaky suspicion that these might have filled/ rubbed down? maybe someone here could clarify this. Either way, this kit is deffo worth building straight from the box certainly is the nicest kit of a Mk IX I've seen so far.

I found it to be real easy. The diameters of both the Eduard and true detail items are virtually identical so providing you're mating faces are square and flat, there no probs encountered fitting the after market jobbies. I just literally cleaned up the mating faces and glued them on, simples

The crowbar is now black . I'm in the process of looking at getting rid of that lower engine cowling panel line that shouldn't be there

Thanks for the kind remarks/ comments guys, its appreciated, makes building this kit worth it.

Ok, shes finally done, had a few problems along the way but nothing major. I had to replace the cannons with True details items as I knocked one of the kit ones off and lost it, and the decals were deffo over bright so they were replaced with items from Aeromaster. The kit was basically built oob with just the above items used, I also used the following: The kit (obviously ) Mr color (gunze) acrylics Model master enamel varnish. I'll start with a word about the kit itself, I reckon Eduard have raised the bar considerably with this kit, it really is that good. The amount and finesse of the surface detail is outstanding and really needs to be seen in the flesh to appreciate how good it just is. The fit is first class with minimal filling in of the joins and the overall quality of the plastic used is as good as you'll see anywhere. the accuracy looks just about spot on to me with a nice "bulbous" look to the nose which is due to the "humped" upper engine cowling being replicated properly. The props and spinner also look to correct also and make the whole front end look right. The wings also have a slight twist (wing wash out) which was used by the real thing to prevent the wingtips from stalling (hence theres not many aircraft that could out turn a Spit). This also makes the wing look right when viewed from certain angles. The instructions are very clear and precise and cover all aspects of the assembly nicely and I certainly don't recall any problems originating from them, which brings me on to the decals.... Imho the roundels are over bright going by what I've seen in various publications and photos and really need to be replaced with after market items. I think this over bright color usage is due to very late in the war the roundel color was lightened somewhat and appeared brighter, but I'm quite happy to be proved wrong, anyway, the darker roundels look right to me. Which brings me onto the rest of the decals, these being very thin and when applied have a tendency to allow the color underneath them to show through, almost going semi transparent, this is really bad when a white decal is placed over a black and white stripe 'frinstance. Again this could be solved by using after market jobbies as I did. The big question for me is....would build another?.....too damn right I would, I reckon this would benefit immensely from a bucketload of Eduard Brassin/ Aires slung at it, engine, gunbays, wheels, cockpit, etc, it'd make into an astounding model....and I'm already getting the urge to do one. Final conclusion, this is one hell of kit that deserves to built and if anyone likes spits and wants a collection, this HAS to be one to go for. On a side note I've noticed some of the parts that aren't used appear to be from an earlier version, Mk V maybe? If anyone has any questions regarding this kit, just post here and I'll me best to answer them, and oops, just realised I haven't washed and weathered the gun barrels! No biggie though and the paint needs to cure a bit anyway.

HI mate, the riveting tool is the trumpeter version but I removed the toothed wheel and mounted it in a 4" length of brass tube with a slot in the end and a spindle soldered in position to enable the wheel to rotate. This tube was then mounted in an old file handle. This makes the whole tool quite chunky and stops the wheel from wandering due to there being no flex in wheel spindle or handle, now when used, the whole tool feels a lot more solid and more accurate, and is also more comfortable to use. To do the riveting, I've got quite a few publications showing the rivet lines so these are just drawn onto the plastic and the lines followed by the rivet tool using a steel rule to give a straight line. Any lines that are on a curve I use that thick Dyno tape stuck down in the correct position next to where the rivet line is and used that as a straight line guide, I just had to do it a bit slower to prevent the teeth digging into the plastic dyno tape. I've done 4-5 kits using this method and it only takes 4-5 hours tops and that includes any corrections that have to be done.

I haven't posted here for a long while, been lurking for a long time though, so I thought I'd post up a few of a Tamiya 1/48 FW190D-9. I added the u/c legs wheels and doors from an Eduard kit as the Tamiya offerings are too small. I added rivets to the entire airframe and finished it in custom mixed acrylic gunze paint. I've still got the aerial wire to string and add the exhaust staining, but I reckon its complete enough to post up here. Hope you like it and all comments welcome

hannants have this priced up at £105, available later this month I believe