Luke Piewalker

A little quick project. Two days from shop to finished (still needs a clear coat...)

Yeah, all I have are names... Those links are potentially handy, thanks. Camouflage is good, as I am getting sick of fifty-thousand shades of grey...

Not sure which section to put this in. Got myself an Academy Mig-29. Had that frisson of excitement when you open a kit from a manufacturer you haven't used before... Anyhoo, the paint colours are somewhat unspecific, the titles seem to mostly match Tamiya colours, any suggestions as to the appropriate choice of colours? I reckon I'm building it as a German one as I don't fancy an Iraqi one and I don't fancy spending a further 2/3 of what the model cost on Russian decals...

It's like an F111 crashed and the Russians decided to fix it with Mig31 parts...

I have limited space in the flat so I avoid sanding and fillering so it tends to be a bit of gentle scraping with a blade to try and smooth things off so seam lines tend to be a problem...

After a somewhat long gestation period (a few months in a plastic bag because I was sick of the '50 shades of grey' when it came time to do the weaponry... Anyhoo, a bit 'flashy', a bit 'gappy' and most annoyingly the instructions were somewhat contradictory and having the paint scheme in grayscale wasn't very useful either... If I can give one piece of advice, it would be to pain the rudder fins before you put them on, as the muilticoloured bits at the top are a right nuisance and it would have been a lot easier if they didn't have the rest of the model attached. I managed to get one of them pretty right, the other was a bit too long on the white, a bit too short on the blue. Anyhoo, transitions between the greys a bit harsh but as I said, I got to the point of insanity trying to get the greys to work... It looks like an A10, I'll take it... Not a good picture, but you can see the proportions seem to fit the decals...

What about the Stonehenge set from Spinal Tap? There was the Hubble Space Telescope mirror issue but that wasn't a metric/imperial issue. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter There was that one.

I may have another crack at it some day. Unfortunately I also found that any attempts to move the decals once they were a bit dried wasn't happening...

I'm calling this one finished... still a bit more decal softener and a clear coat to do... If ever there was a set of moulds in need of retirement I think it's these ones. The body halves didn't match up very well so there's a whacking great ledge up either side, I decided to go for the wheels up look as I think this aeroplane looks best with as few bits poking out as possible. The panel lines and other moulding details were all a bit faint and by the time I had paint on her I suffered a distinct lack of frames of reference for the decals. The aerial on the bottom and a couple of little fins on the tip tanks that didn't appear in any of the drawings didn't help either. Anyhoo, there she is...

Nice.

It certainly looks like a bicycle

Yeah, I didn't know if there was going to be any overlap of the numberplate over the stripes, so I put the stripes on first. And being 25 or so years old, any attempt at moving the decals resulted in them falling apart (as can be seen if you look closely). So when I put the numberplate on I arranged it to minimise the gap between it and the stripes, which just happens to be upside down I think. Given all the trouble I had with the paint, I'm quite happy how it turned out.

Hmmm... The more I look at it the more I think the front number plate is on upside down... If I ever do another one at least I'll know to put the number plate on before the stripes...

Back to airyplanes again, Starfighter next.

Finally finished this one The fairing seems to be a bit off to one side, but I didn't want to force anything.There was an awful lot of guesswork involved in trying to get the paint in the right places and I was only partially successful. I also found that with 25 year old decals if I got them in the wrong place loosening them up and moving them at a later time generally lead to them falling apart, so some of them just had to remain where they landed. It does look like a motorbike. Just about... from a distance...

Apparently it's Pantone 333 plus or minus a few.

I'll find out at the end how far away I have to stand to make it look good in the picture!

Yes... the blue does seem to be more of a 'transparent' than a solid colour at times...

Put some pva in the dials to give the effect of glass, seems to have worked ok.

This spraying attempt has lead to an orange peel finish....

The problem is my spraybooth is somewhat primitive... Or to put it another way, it's a couple of cardboard boxes in the bath.... Flat brush.... that's something I've not tried... I'll add such a brush to my shopping list, give it a bash.

Right... time for a timid rant... Painting white (and lighter shades of grey...) It never works for me... It's always patchy, a bit transparent... Over the years I lost a Vulcan to Humbrol White enamel which went on about a centimetre thick (I'm exaggerating slightly for effect, I was but a small boy, thinners were not a concept within my toolbox) White and light grey acrylics are some kind of minor nightmare (I have an A10 almost finished stored under a plastic bag because I got fed up of trying to deal with all the shades of light grey) I tried a Humbrol acrylic spray on my Tamiya NSR500 fairing and had a mild disaster with runs in some places, blotches in other and an astoundingly helpful tendency to blast the parts around the room... So I stripped that all off and tried again, managed to avoid any big thick blobs this time (I think) but still nothing like the finish I was hoping for... Might try sanding it to see if I can even it out this time... Only thing I haven't really tried is an airbrush, but cost and space considerations render that a no goer...

Now have a rolling chassis. All I need to do is have another attempt at painting the fairing...

The colour would originally have been Bianchi Celeste, a quick swing round the internet suggests in olden times it was a bit 'bluer' and it has changed over the years. See how where the spokes cross there is a little blob of solder, basically a bit of wire is wrapped around and then soldered in place. This is where I got the picture above from, there's a few close ups in case that helps. http://www.rentalbikeitaly.com/2011/07/fausto-coppi-bicycle-at-bianchi-head.html I don't think I've ever seen a model bike kit, I'm quite looking forward to this