Navy Bird

Thanks - it's getting there. Cheers, Bill

OK, here goes: The one on the right was just a simple break, near the triangular bracket in the middle but easy to glue back together. The one on the left was where I lost about 4mm in the center with the funky curve and the bracket. So this is my attempt at recovering. I think the bracket is still a wee bit too large, so I'll sand some more. Luckily you actually won't see much of it as it will point down towards the engine - the curve on the triangle's hypotenuse follows the curve of the engine diameter. The picture is magnified somewhat, the actual length of the parts is around 39mm. Cheers, Bill

It's coming along, but rather slower than I like. (I won't make any comments about being 70 years old.) There is still quite a bit that I'd like to fix to make the paint job better, so stay tuned. Thanks Colin. I tend to always do the topside first, but I think that's just habit. I suppose it depends on whether the demarcation line is hard or soft. The tricky part on builds like this is the wraparound on the leading edges, especially with pylons that are printed as part of the wing. I'm glad I payed attention to that Adventures in Creative Masking self-teach Betamax tape. Embarrassing moment number 234: When I was masking off the forward fuselage to spray the white, I actually masked it as though I was going to spray the grey, which was, of course, already sprayed. Geesh. Only three? ⁉️ Did we meet the last time? I don't remember. But then, I don't remember a lot - just the other day I called my grandson Jasper, which, of course, is his dog. When I was reminded of this by my daughter, I thought wait, what? ***** If I get up the nerve, I'll post a pic of my attempt at fixing the air ducts in the engine bay. Don't laugh too hard. Cheers, Bill

I haven't been completely slacking off. (Only partially.) But I did find time to paint the engine bay and landing gear/wheel wells with Hataka Light Admiralty Grey (lacquer) and then paint and attach the engines. The metallic colours used on the Avons are all from Alclad and I tried to match a photo I found online. It seems like every photo I found of these engines looks different, so hey. I grimed up the engine bay a bit prior to installing the Avons - not that you can see much of it. Likewise the blades on the engine face and the exhaust details - these are buried so far inside the model it's difficult to see them without a strong light aimed directly at them. I still have some paint touch-up to do... Oh, yeah. The cooling duct work (which runs alongside the engines near the center bulkhead of the bay) and the arch that straddles the middle of the engines (that the engine covers attach to) is devilishly hard to remove from its forest of fingers. I broke them both, and lost one 4mm chunk in the ether. I've begun repairs by scratch-building the bit I lost - which just happens to be from the center of the port duct work and the bit that contains the triangular bracket to hold the arch. Going back through Tony's build, I see he broke one or two as well, so I'm in good company. I leave on Thursday to journey over to your green and pleasant land. Or, I'm going to Telford. I can't remember which. Looking forward to seeing you folks again. I'll be easy to spot - just look for the old guy with Mr. Color under his fingernails. Cheers, Bill

Somehow I missed this one - and a wonderfully used and abused Spitfire it is. Your pre-shading is really nice, I like it a lot. 👍👍👍 Cheers, Bill

Nice work. Stripes on armament are a royal pain no matter how you do it, especially in this scale. Cheers, Bill

Would they give me a ride to Telford? I could have saved the price of the train ticket... Cheers, Bill

Most recent purchase was a train ticket to get from Birmingham International airport to Telford for SMW. Google maps said it would take 14-15 hours to walk it - and then gave me a route that was all major highways. Can you walk along the shoulder of major highways in the UK? That's frowned upon over here. Bikes, too. I think Google might have been hallucinating again. Cheers, Bill

And a review on Aeroscale: https://aeroscale.net/news/anbarun-models-sea-vixen-faw-1 Cheers, Bill

Thanks, o tentacled one. I thought the same thing when I was building the MPM Sea Vixen - surely when I finish, someone will produce a better kit. And here it is! Thanks Richard. The colour photos in that gallery are really nice. I'll do some research on the specific plane I'm building and see if I can find any colour shots of the wing fold. If not, I'll look for similar serial codes, etc. I have to say, though, I really don't care for zinc chromate yellow. Yuck. But then, that area is always pretty mucky. I've never seen the Frog kit, but I really had high hopes for CyberHobby. Alas, it was obviously based on the MPM kit, especially the bulbous front end and the under-scale ejection seats. Yet their Meteor F.3 was so nice... A trip to the bar is always motivation for something, David. Even a Skyshark. In fact, that particular aeroplane might have been designed by the Douglas team whilst at the bar. Drinking. Heavily. ***** OK, just to prove I wasn't joking you folks about painting the beast, here she is. I haven't touched up any overspray or tape leakage yet, but she looks pretty clean. It's always gratifying when all that nasty red putty gets covered up. Oh, yeah - I didn't use any primer and had no tape lifts of paint. Nice. Being my first paint job on a 3D printed model, I wasn't sure how the paint would work on the resin surface. The paints used were Mr. Hobby H333 Extra Dark Sea Grey, H331 Dark Sea Grey, and H11 Flat White all thinned with Mr. Color Leveling Thinner. Maybe the solvent based thinner gave the aqueous paint some extra bite. Next up is the painting of the engine bay and landing gear wells. You may have noticed that I've left off the inboard main gear doors which are normally shut when on the ground. I'm going to pose them open as I have a lot of photos that show it that way. Plus, the Eduard PE set has some nice hinges and actuators for those doors. The rocket packs will be posed open. I think that is the way the kit is designed, and the fit is better that way. Cheers, Bill

Superb work on the landing gear wells! 👍 👍 👍 Cheers, Bill

Hey, remember this one? I've ordered the vacuform canopy from Hannants, along with a lot of other goodies, and it's been packed and is waiting for me to collect it at SMW. Since Hannants is not currently taking orders from the USA, due to you know who and you know what, I had to do a little address manipulation in my account settings so I could place the order. Now I get to pay VAT instead of a shipping charge... Cheers, Bill

I may have been wrong on the interior colour, as I just guessed from some not-so-good photos. You may want to do more research than I did to make sure you have the right colour. You're off to a good start and I hope you get the cowlings from High Planes in time. They make a big difference. Cheers, Bill

Thanks. The fix was pretty easy, but masking the underside for the white was a royal pain. It might have been easier to spray white first and then mask for the grey - but maybe not. ***** Anyway, once the white is dry, I'll pull off the masking tape and see where it needs to be touched up. Then I'll need to paint the engine bay and wheel wells. I believe the wheel wells, landing gear struts, and the exposed wing fold area are Light Admiralty Grey, but please correct me if I'm mistaken on that. I'm guessing the engine bay is metallic, but I don't really know. Can any of you guys advise? Cheers, Bill

Small setback today - I had finished up painting of the topside with EDSG and was masking off the bottom for white. I noticed that the seam on both sides up front (where the bottom section of the forward fuselage attaches - this is the section that has the rocket launchers and carries the cockpit) had come "undun." (Apologies to The Guess Who.) Not a big seam pop, but enough that it needs to be fixed. Ugh. Get out the superglue and putty again. Once I have that fixed, then I'll spray a bit more EDSG to cover it up and maybe then I can get going on the underside. Modelling. Sheesh. Cheers, Bill