nheather

The H&S brushes are the ones that immediately come to mind if you want a dual needle setup. Like the Evolution 2 in 1 - that can be bought for around your budget.

I don't think so. For those that do their airbrushing at the same workbench a dedicated compressor is better and more versatile. I can see it useful for modellers who don't have a dedicated workbench - like those that set up at a household table but have to clear away at the end of each session. Also as a secondary airbrush for those who want a portable solution like when going to clubs or a mate's house. I liken it to the broadband in my house - WiFi is great, very flexible but where the device is in a fixed position, like my gaming PC or my Sky Box then wired ethernet is far superior.

Not sure whether it is perfectly accurate or not but I really like their SU-76.

I’m no expert, but just had a google and these two websites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/76_mm_divisional_gun_M1942_(ZiS-3) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/76_mm_tank_gun_M1940_F-34 suggest that they used the same ammunition BR-350P for composite AP BR-350A for high explosive AP BR-350SP for solid AP F-354 for HE OF-350 for HE fragmentation Essentially, any brass shells that you can buy for the T-34 76mm would good for the 76mm anti-tank (or divisional gun) Cheers, Nigel

Can you even buy 2K printers these days. I wasn't looking at 4K for extra resolution but because that seems to be the standard resolution for the entry machines these days. But point taken - using the same reasoning, I'm not looking at 8K machines. I see those as extra cost when I don't really need it - also increase repair cost when you have to replace the LCD.

Must admit I like the price point of the Anycubic Mono 4K, which has a smaller build plate than your Mono X but I assume is the same otherwise. The Mars 3 was a good alternative but this seems to have been dropped now in favour of the Mars 3 Pro which is £100. The way I look at it, I can get an Ancubic Mono 4K and a Wash and Cure for the same price as a Mars 3 Pro. The Phrozen looks nice but that is pushing the budget even more and I find it hard to imagine that it is not that much better than the Anycubic Mono 4K to justify the extra £150.

Looking at first reason printer, budget of upto £300. At the lower end there is the Anycubic Mono 4K, at the top end there is the Elegoo Mars 3 Pro, and if I were to stretch the budget there is the Phozen Mini 4K. Rightly or wrongly I perceive an increase in quality, AnyCubic < Elegoo < Phrozen But at this entry level, is there any real difference. Interested to hear opinions from anyone who has tried one or more of these. Cheers, Nigel

Wow, that’s fantastic.

Thanks for the response, the mystery has now been solved thanks to the recent post by @Casey. That shows a real swatch of ‘Light Buff’ that looks yellow like the bombs in the photos and museums. My issue was not about the precise shade, I’m a ‘close enough’ sort of guy it was the fact that I was being shown conflicting information, one that that bombs were yellow and the other that they were a creamy brown colour. I wasn’t puzzled by the exact shade but by the fact that to my eyes they were two completely different colours, yellow and brown. The problem it seems is that the RGB representations do Light Buff are widely inaccurate.

Thanks, I find those colour swatches convincing - the 358 Light Buff looks a lot more yellow than the colour patches I had been seeing which were a lot more brown. As you show though, Humbrol 24 is pretty close, just needs a little toning down.

Thus artistic splats can be quite unrealistic. This is a tin top for linen Quite a bit different but I can see that it could be used. Mix it with some 24 and I think it will be pretty close to the photos. And could probably work as a scaled down colour on its own.

To be honest, the thread has grown legs. It started off with me simply asking “Airfix says Humbrol 24, were they really that yellow”. There were then several photos showing that they were indeed yellow, maybe a little lighter but pretty close to Humbrol 24 - and I’d have been happy with that. But then there was all the talk of them being Light Buff, which I don’t deny, but puzzled because it looks nothing like the colour in the photos. I carried on the discussion because I find the discrepancy intriguing and I like to understand things. So yes, I’m going to use Humbrol 24 (or similar) but I’ll probably tone it down and lighten it a little.

Firstly, I referred to trainer yellow purely because that is what Airfix tell you to use - Humbrol 24. But personally, I can see their reasoning. I don't deny that they were painted a paint called 'buff' but I do struggle with what my eyes tell me. Look at this Top left we have the Humbrol light buff, note that the tin lid is nothing like the artistic splash shown in one of the posts above Top right we have Humbrol trainer yellow Bottom left we have a swatch for BS381C 358 Bottom right we have a bomb from a museum in Finland Now I can sympathise with Airfix, because whilst none are a perfect match, to my eyes the Humbrol Trainer Yellow is closest by far. Cheers, Nigel

I agree with that ... All the photos are practically the same shade of yellow. Have they all been distorted in exactly the same way In the Wellington photo in particular the bombs are the same colour as the roundel ring. Pretty close in other photos too, like the Stirling. The photo taken at the Finland Museum isn't copies of copies of copies and yet it is the same yellow as in the archive pictures. And none of them look like the buff patches posted above.

I totally respect your knowledge and research and I'm confident that what you say is correct. So do you think those bombs in the photos are painted buff - do they look yellow to you - do you think that is a colour shift in the vintage photography (but what about the modern photos of the examples in Finland) or do you think that buff was actually more yellow than the colour swatches would suggest.

I agree they look more pale than the roundel, they also look quite Matt, faded out. But they still look yellow. To my eyes the bombs in the photos have all been yellow, different shades (or lustres) but definitely yellow. The buff looks more brown orange to me, not at all like the bombs in the photos.

Maybe it’s my eyes, my brain, or my screen, but the colour I am seeing is much closer to trainer yellow than the British Standard buff colour referenced above. Maybe I have ‘trainer yellow’ wrong but to me this colour is definitely yellow rather than buff. And I’m seeing the same yellow colour in all the photos in this thread.

That makes more sense because I am definitely seeing yellow, not buff.

Maybe it's my computer/monitor but to, my eyes, that looks a lot closer to trainer yellow than it does to the the buff (BS381c) patches.

Are those photos originally black and white and have been colourised - I ask because, in them, the colours looks more like trainer yellow than buff. I’m sure you are all correct and buff is the correct colour so wondering whether the photos have been colourised incorrectly.

I’ve noticed that some British early war bombs were a yellow colour. Airfix calls out trainer yellow (Humbrol 24) but we’re they really that stark a yellow or was it a more subdued colour? Is there a colour in Vallejo Model Air that is close enough?

My comment isn’t particularly helpful or encouraging but is my experience. When I started off as a beginner I went in with the common attitude of ‘get something cheap to start with’, I figured that expensive gear would be a waste as I would not have the skills to do it justice, that I would upgrade when my skills improved. So I bought a Chinese copy of an Iwata Revolution CR - it looked fantastic, very well made - but I struggled with it. Because ‘only a poor workman blames his tools’, I just put my failed attempts down to me - I had the mix wrong, I was using the wrong pressure, I was too close, I was too far away - I blamed myself. I bought books, I watched videos but couldn’t get reliable results. Eventually, I decided to go on a course at airbrushes.com. They told us to bring our airbrushes along (if we had one) but that there would be plenty of different Iwata airbrushes to use on the course (the course was a bit of a Iwata sales and marketing exercise to be honest, they are the UK distributor after all). So I started with my airbrush with ink on paper at the start of the course, I was still making the same mistakes or so I thought and then I switched to the genuine Iwata Revolution at my station. What a transformation, I was spraying fine, smooth and consistently. I came away with much lighter pockets having bought an Iwata TR. In this case it was the brush all the time. Essentially I had spent months fighting with an airbrush, cloned, built cheaply and with poor quality control - I had an iffy airbrush but as a beginner I was blaming myself. I have since seen quite a few of these cheap Chinese airbrushes, some have been great, some have been terrible, most somewhere in between, the problem is the inconsistency, you never know what you will get until you try it. Often, you can’t even put it right because spares aren’t available. Some time later, with experience under my belt, I went back to the Chinese airbrush to figure out what was wrong. I polished the needle, that didn’t really help. Then I looked at the nozzle seal and thought it looked badly moulded, rather distorted. I looked around for replacement o-rings without any success so I tried beeswax on the thread - that helped a lot and made the airbrush spray reasonably well. I still have it because I hate throwing things away, but haven’t used it since and probably never will. So my advice to beginners is to buy a branded airbrush, one with spares and support. You don’t have to get the top of the range, there are plenty of introductory brushes from the likes of H&S, Badger, Iwata, Iwata Neo, SparMax and others. So to the OP, based on my experience, you may not be doing anything wrong, it sounds like you are doing all the right stuff, it could be just the airbrush - poorly fitting seals, nozzle, needle etc. My first suggestion would be to use some beeswax on the nozzle thread to see if that improves things.

I’m not thinking it would be Special Black which was a very matt black, lamp black, apparently came off on the hands and looked tatty very quickly. I’m thinking the standard bomber black (night) - was that the same colour as used on the day fighter half and half scheme?

Was the ‘black’ used on the ‘half and half’ day fighter scheme the same as the ‘black’ used for bombers?

Hi, I mostly collect and occasionally build 1:35 Armour but recently, I started to collect 1:72 early WWII British aircraft. Wondering about the black used on bombers and the black/white undersides used on fighters. Was this pure black and pure white - and if so, would you paint with those or use a very dark grey and a very light grey. Also, Eau De Nil - when was it used - is it simply a colour before Sky, was it only used on certain aircraft types?