Fritag

Looks excellent in that photo, Richie. And I know that unusual spelling is correct n’all You will prevail, mate. You will prevail…

Good to hear it, Terry. Sounds to have been unpleasant. But hopefully now in the rear view mirror… 🤞. Such bravery deserves a reward There is presumably a good reason for risking all? Nice detailing Terry, bravo sir.

That is sublimely neat work, Colin. Found it late; but glad to have found it.

Gorgeous. Just the sort of finishing details that make all the difference in the world (and that I love). Mighty fine. Well if the likes of Tony and Alan are impressed who the heck am I to disagree I’m gonna need to pay more attention to helicopter builds. I’m missing out.

Agreed. Masterpiece is a word best used sparingly; but my gosh it applies here. Sounds nasty; hope you’re over it now Serkan. Gorgeous. Still have no idea how you’ve blended in all of those complex curves so perfectly. Complete mastery.

Now look at you all. Yep, it’s basically all your fault Alan… I was thinking RTV mould and resin casting. I might never have to learn how to draw a prop in fusion Serkan! You terrify me! Your Oxcart family designs are absolute masterpieces; the stress involved in trying to em justice would finish me orf! Yes! Exactly Don’t forget sketch/sketch/loft Bit more done despite a busy week at work and a quick trip to Essex to see my Dad (Typical drive down; roadworks on the A1 causing a tailback, crash on the M11 meaning a re-route down the A1 to the M25, and then a crash on the M25 causing another tailback.) Managed to tread on the kit tailwheel after I’d painted it… And lose half the bits. P’raps no real loss; it weren’t a pretty bit of moulding. Had a solution: Painted the prop. Little bit of chipping on the spinner, and oil work on the blades and spinner (trying to capture the patchy look that props can have: My effort: Assembled and painted the undercarriage and main wheels. Undercarriage doors still to do. Relieved to see you can see the flag storage racks through the underside hatch. Painted the printed exhausts: Oh - and I’ve unmasked the two cockpits and the wing lights (obvs.). So this is where she is now: Were off to the Shetlands (again) for a week at the end of next week; so there’ll be a short pause….

I somehow missed the previous update; so it’s a double pleasure for me With essential lubricant just in view behind the toolbox. Have to say them engine units look brilliant, Tom. You do know that bomb bay doors can close don’t you Tom? This is another remarkable build. Love it.

Very nice, Crisp. Convincingly grubby. What? I s’pose you had cup holders and a neat little clip for your sunglasses n’all. Bloomin’ eck…

Hugely enjoyable catch up. Old school filling and sanding, cutting edge CAD and printing plus Jigs n’all. Just need G along to call for paint! Bravo, James.

Ha. I’ve definitely got a soft spot for it now, Alistair. If there was any info out there (and there doesn’t seem to be - other than one grainy (useless) photo); I’d certainly build another of DR944 in her Martin Baker bang-seat testing role. Wot? Now that’s just selfish thinking Serkan I need you, not least in your capacity of Maestro of CAD/printing, as an inspiration! Tis isn’ it. Maybe they ran out of paint, or enthusiasm; or couldn’t quite make up their minds whether they really wanted a couple of Defiants… Anyways. When the Merlin XX was installed to make the Defiant II they rather inconveniently gave it a bigger prop a Rotol RS 5/6 of 11ft 9in diameter. The bigger spinner was easy to do in Fusion and I drew the basic shape of that way back in the beginning. But I’ve nowhere near enough info to draw a new airscrew in Fusion; and not enough enthusiam at the back end of the build to work out how to create a prop anyway… So I set to searching through the few kits I have stored in the attic and to my great good fortune one of the prop-options in a Tamiya 1/48 Mossie I’ve had for donkey’s years was exactly the right scale diameter and had a blade profile that looks more or less identical to photo’s of the Defiant Mk II’s prop. Result. Although in nicking one of the two mossie props I’m creating a problem for future me if I ever build the mossie (a way of think about consequences, that I’ve just purloined from Edward @Procopius 92 Squadron Lightning thread). Comparison prop piccie: So all I then had to do was make the printed new spinner fit around the Tamiya prop. Thus; front section: Rear section: Printed, and with the Tamiya prop. Front bit fits: As does the rear: As does the whole thing. Somewhat awkward photo, as the prop bits aren’t glued together yet. The prop and spinner are both black (save for the usual yellow prop endings) so at least I can glue it all together before painting. Another little task that was so much easier thanks to CAD and the printer…

Me too. The photo of the rudder with the decal on looked really food Richie, but you did right to remove it if it was bugging you. That feeling doesn’t go away… Seconded. Thanks Adrian

I do read em, and I do know you grumble about em. Don’t seem to prevent you making a good fist of em tho’…. Imagine if you actually liked doing em…. Smart plan, well executed Mark. Gorgeous photo. What a reward that view was after the climb!

Thing of beauty, Chris. Just for the avoidance of doubt, I mean the Vampire….

Jeepers, there’s just so much modelling to be done with these rotary things

Nicely done. Pretty sure we called it an Attitude Indicator. Think so, anyway. You lose interest in em when you’ve got a HUD

Good spot Crisp. Ain't it curious how some phrases just stick with you! Serkan, Recently I've been using the tamiya lacquer clear coats and the oil thinner I use is windsor & newton sansadoor. I've not had any problems (🤞) this build (colour coats enamels under the tamiya lacer); but then I've tried to use the oils as dry as possible, and not to work them with anything more than a slightly dampened (with sansadoor) brush. If the model surface looks shiny with sansadoor I've basically stopped working it an let it dry. I've been working away on one of my least favourite chores - getting the decals on; and that's done now. I had decals for DR945 JW-U, but not for DR944 which I'm doing on the semi-guess that it's JW-V. It was easy enough to find another couple of matching 4s to get 2 sets of DR944, but there I didn't have any Vs of the right size in the correct colours, so I had to make up two Vs on the model with strips of suitable colour codes. A pain, but doable. Oh, and I made the eyes to go with the sharks mouth by punching suitably sized circles of blue/white/red decals using a punch and die set. With that done I've dirtied up the decals a bit: . And give it a first flat coat. Anyway's, here's how it now looks: Time now to step back and decide whether or not to do any more weathering; and then to do the undercarriage, prop etc. Oh, and a couple of unforgiving close ups. Look away if your squeamish: I'm beginning to think I'll get it done by the time we've arranged to give em to Jim in September...

Had em both Bill. Walter arrived first and then a big yellow Sea King muscled in. I left them to it, to fight over me as t’were.

Me too Bill, For what it's worth (and there are as many opinions on this as there are people doing it...) my thinking on using oils is to avoid as far as possible mixing the wet colours together on the surface - as once they mix together it just becomes a uniformish dark sludge. I've just started on the markings on the Defiant and in this 'orrible unforgiving close up you can see that I've used some medium grey oil on both the white and the blue of the stars and bars. Just one colour so far - tiny dabs - spread out into little circles with a fine brush and then brushed and stippled mostly away with a bigger brush. No thinner used at all. I think I may stop there and not add any other colour. Haven't decided yet. At this close up you can see the separate patches of grey - but even that doesn't look unrealistic to me eyes (bit like all the dirty hand prints or what not you see on modern all-grey jets); and from just a bit further away the effect is more of the unevenly faded blue/unevenly dirty white that I was after. Just my tuppeny happeny worth. To be thought about and used or discarded as you think fit.

Terrific thread, Jamie. Enjoying your build with the bonus of the useful discussions it’s prompted. Great kit; I’m beginning to see a Hurricane in my future.

Terrific work on the bang seat, Chris; very much in keeping with the quality of the build.

OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG.

Well said, Johnny. Quite extraordinarily he’s having the same effect on me…. Sounds like just one more hack (I thought ‘bodge’ might be a bit unfair) to get an essentially ‘shouldn’t-fly’ machine to fly…..

Been in London for a couple of days. The cause for one night was some barristering to be done. The cause for the second was Mrs F deciding that she deserved to come down for a break while I worked - and why didn’t we stay over a other night to go see Carlos Acosta dance at the Royal Opera House…. Anyway, I mention this cos it links in a tangential way to the next steps in the Defiant build; so, seeing as I’m in the train on the way back North and have nothing better to do, follow me through… We stayed as we always do in London at the RAF club and the RAF club has (funny old thing) an extensive collection of aviation art, with paintings of aircraft in every wall of every floor (we’re getting there - hang on), and I’ve always been interested in how the aviation artists capture the way the real thing looks - particularly the way the real (weathered, dirtied and worn) surfaces reflect the light; the answer of course is by using lots of tonal variation in the paint. It’s very much a dappled sort of effect, and the parallels with what we do obvious - and it’s equally obvious that it’s no new insight to mention it; but I’m a simple minded sort of chap and it helps me to be reminded what I’m trying to achieve (and why) when it comes to the next stage in my own set of finishing techniques, which is the application of oils. Now every man and his dog uses oils, but for better or worse and inspired by the aviation artists, this is what I am doing at the mo’: On the Dark Earth bit of the camo, I’ve basically fixed on dark brown, yellow ochre and medium grey oils. Tiny dots of oils, spread out into a patch and juxtaposed and then stippled and worked with a dry brush until all that’s left is a change of tone to the underlying base colour. On the Dark Green I’ve been using black, a dark dirty grey (‘starship filth’) and medium grey. Sometimes I’ve applied several colours at a time. But usually I do one colour at a time as I want to avoid mixing the colours together. Here I’ve added the yellow ochre after partially stippling/working the dark brown so there’s not much chance of mixing the two. And the effect I’m getting is this (not all the camo is done). The upper fuselage might or might not get blended in a bit more. Like with pre or post shading it’s difficult to decide when to stop; and what looks good from one angle doesn’t always look good from another - ditto with viewing distance. These piccies are in greater close up than the intended viewing distance. On the sharksmouth I’ve just done some dirtying up for now. Feel like the sharks mouth needs more work. Anyways. That’s were the old girl is for now.

Not being of the Wessex community, and not knowing what droop stops are for, and being inclined to think that any aviation machine with a droop that needs stopping is rather suspect - I have no useful thoughts. I have however enjoyed the last several Bill posts enormously.

I’m going to follow @Bandsaw Steve’s lead and just quote what Chris says, he seem to have the knack of putting his finger on it….