Piper Cherokee 140 conversion from an Airfix Piper Arrow - Detailing

[Cheshiretaurus]

Windscreen is in and gaps filled with Vallejo filler

Masked off the windscreen by starting with the outlines, the filling in the centres with small rectangles, once done, the excess strips were cut away with a curved Swann Morton No.10 blade.

Sprayed the wing roots with HU33 matt black to represent the walk way on the right wing and the black rubber strips on the wing to fuselage join, I believe these are fitted to reduce interference drag.

A few blemishes still to remove, jumped the gun a little with the black, still need fit the fuel filler caps, tail tie down, flap hinges, door hinges and upper door latch, try to get them on tomorrow. Also tomorrow Im going to mask off the black areas and give it the 1st coat of gloss white

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasitic_drag#Interference_drag This wiki article suggests transonic speeds but as far as i'm aware its present at much lower speeds

Edited November 8, 2013 by Cheshiretaurus

[Cheshiretaurus]

A little experiment, Ive CAd a couple of 2mm lengths of 0.25mm plastic rod onto an scrap bit of wing that had already been given a coat of Halfords grey to resemble the already primed surface of the model then sanded each end, given it another coat of primer. Hopefully this will look convincing enough for the door hinges.

Just need to find a way of doing the latch at the top of the door now

Edited November 8, 2013 by Cheshiretaurus

[Cheshiretaurus]

More thoughts. I seem to have created intelligent PE parts that are miscreants and will not stay in the right place and fall off but get them in the wrong place and they stick fast and good. Frustrated. Just the flap hinges to go.

Edited November 9, 2013 by Cheshiretaurus

[Cheshiretaurus]

Bit more done

Door hinges and latch fitted from 0.25mm rod and PE fuel filler caps

Added the lower tail leading edge fairing from CA & bicarb and fitted the tie down point

Flap hinges, ive left the inboard one off as they are vulnerable to getting knocked off from the masking that will be going in that area.

Thanks for looking

Edited November 10, 2013 by Cheshiretaurus

[Cheshiretaurus]

1st coat of white has gone on the top surface tonight, do a coat on the on the under surface tomorrow, then wont be able to do much more until the end of the week.

[Cheshiretaurus]

Near disaster!

Tried to spray a second coat of white on the top surface last night and it went a bit wrong right from the start, I had managed to get some semi cured lumps of gloss in the paint resulting in spatter. Fortunately I spotted it right away and abandoned the session. I've let it cure overnight in the airing cupboard and sanded off the lumps this morning with fine wet n dry. (the lump above the door is supposed to be there, its the latch.

Trip to Hobbycraft for some more HU22 and painting has resumed today. At this rate with work commitments, I might have the white done by the end of next week. slow steady progress though.

Edited November 14, 2013 by Cheshiretaurus

[woody37]

It's come together rather quickly this week and looking rather pretty now

[perdu]

it's becoming a delight to look at

your work on the fine detail is great

paint? I wonder why it is always out to get us when we relax our guard

anyway, this is as good as I expected

[Cheshiretaurus]

Bit more experimenting this morning for the fuselage registration mark and really a proof of concept for the technique. Ive been trying get the cut out letters from the cutter to the model without much success with the letters getting stretched, distorted, folded over on them selves, torn, damaged and generally wonky. what I needed was a way of keeping everything intact in the transfer from printer to model.

Think I now have the solution..tested on a spare fuselage half.

A box was drawn around the artwork, the edges of this box corresponds to parts of the mode, the top line for the red/white border and the left/right for a panel line, bottom line is just to complete the box.

This was sent to the cutter to be cut out on frog tape, (Blade depth of 1 was used not 2 as shown)

The rest of masking tape outside the box was discarded

A piece of Tamiya tape was placed over the top and rubbed down.

The whole thing was vary carefully removed from the cutting mat with tweezers and a scalpel blade, making sure all the letters lift cleanly with the top piece of tape and transferred to the model using the edges of the rectangle to align it with the tape and panel line on the fuselage then rubbed down. Top line is a little out of place but don't forget this is mearly a proof of concept.

Remainder of tape was carefully removed making sure the letters stay behind.

Quick spray of Halford finest rattle can...

The result.... need a little more work cleaning up the artwork before the final version hopefully it wont be as rough as this, going to give it a practice on plastic card and red & white enamel first but I think I'm on the right tracks with this.

Have ordered some frisket film and going to try it with this too.

Edited November 16, 2013 by Cheshiretaurus

[Cheshiretaurus]

paint? I wonder why it is always out to get us when we relax our guard

Paint has got me again, Ive orange peeled it.

A combination of doing all the wrong things not thin enough, too close, to quick to dry (airing cupboard like a prat) and too inpatient putting too much on at a time. Fortunately I found this on another topic

Orange peel is easy to remedy. Just use some T-Cut

A trip to Halfords and it worked !

given it another sparingly, thin coat of paint and the orange peel seems to have gone. Hopefully wont do that again, well not at least until I become complacent again and forget.

I've noticed that a 140 doesn't have some of the lumps under the rear of the cabin floor, as depicted in the airfix kit, so during the rework on the paint I've filed these bits off and smoothed out the floor panels between the strengthening bars.

As opposed to this http://www.flickr.com/photos/supasmokey/7983496933/sizes/k/in/photolist-datvuR-aiDx9L-dNgocY-gqhfLR-fCwzyC-dUYAVE/

I'm away with work in a hotel room writing this so don't have the after pics to show but they will be posted in due course.

Also whilst being busy watching paint dry, I've created another mask, this time for the under wing registration. That cutter was well worth the money, one of the best tools I've bought for a while, highly recommended!

Mark

[milktrip]

The results from the cutter do look great. Think I'll investigate too.

Great work my friend and as I said before, excellent thread for tips.

Cheers

Aaron

[perdu]

This is getting betterall the time

You can usually get orange peel off with 1200 grit wet and dry too, polish afterwards with a soft cloth and toothpaste then the soft cloth again

I love the registration mask, brilliant

b

[Cheshiretaurus]

That damn paint is still out to get me! had one or two sticky parts still after 3 days where I mustn't have got all the T-Cut off although these were bits where I did put a bit too much on. Sticky bits have been removed with IPA followed by a light rub with fine micro mesh and a respray, hopefully that will be the last of the white spraying and I can start the red tomorrow, we shall see.

Plan for the lines on the spats is to make the wide white line in paint as a background for a decal for the lines printed on white decal film, might still need to paint the red lines on the front and rear with a fine brush as the complex curves might be beyond the capability of the decal.

I've also made the cut outs for the wheel hubs.

Masked off the white and sprayed the red along with the spinner. Think the spinner will need another coat

Some experimenting again with the red, I've cut some registration masks from tamiya tape and some from frisket film to see which works best, Initial thoughts are that frisket film will give better results but is much more difficult and temperamental to apply.

How does that dust sneak in from nowhere!

Alphabetty spaghetti anyone?

[Cheshiretaurus]

Spent the last few hours doing the masking, decided to use tamiya tape for the registration as the frisket film needs a bit more practice to work with I think.

Ready for red.

[Cheshiretaurus]

First coat of red.

Give it another tomorrow.

[milktrip]

Can't wait. Fingers crossed the stencil masks for the registration come good

[Cheshiretaurus]

Taken the tape off the spats tonight, should be fine once the decal is applied and stripes extended round the front.

Edited November 25, 2013 by Cheshiretaurus

[Cheshiretaurus]

Masking tape coming off....

1st wing, not bad, little over spray on leading edge

Bit more off

A few light bits of over spray here and there but overall not bad

Registration......here we go....

Not quite sure what happened on this side, think there might have been a bit of grease or T-Cut still around.

Port side not too bad though.

Think that completes the evening work, underwing registration next, but need to decide how best to remedy the blemishes over the next few days.

thanks for looking

Mark

[Cheshiretaurus]

Been checking pics of the masking, the only thing wrong on the mask was a bit of stray tape caught under the upper right of the W, but nothing more visible, Must have been something on the surface stopping the red from adhering. Think I'm going to mask the G, - & W again and respray, also need a little respray in other bits too.

[Cheshiretaurus]

Not fully satisfied with the painting I've done some rework, sanded the registrations off and resprayed white in that area, then using the Frisket Film masks this time, despite the fiddlyness of them. Took several attempts to get them in place, good job I cut several copies!, once in place I gave them a thin coat of white to seal the edges and left it to dry, then sprayed the red on top, left a couple of days to dry.

Used another Frisket Film mask for the underwing registration, this one went into place first time, Have I got this sussed or was it luck? Maybe 50:50

Gave it 2 coats of gloss black

Time to go to work, Thanks for looking

Mark

[Fritag]

She's been fighting you Mark - but your winning her around - and now she's just about putty in your hands - and she's looking gorgeous to boot. Such a good thread.

Steve

[perdu]

Mark, this is looking more like it! yahoo

A thought about unmasking such lettering, could you try running a sharp knife tip around the mask's painted edges before you unmask? This would give the quite strong paint film less to grab on to and cause less lifting from the surface along with the mask.

I know it is adding a layer of extra effort but to my mind would help you get a clean masked line all over.

And as Steve says, "looking gorgeous"

B

[Cheshiretaurus]

she's just about putty in your hands.

Very close to the truth Steve, when I was masking the under wing reg there was a crack and the left wing developed a bit of a wobble. once the masking was off a few drops of thin CA into the crack seems to have sorted it out.

sharp knife tip around the mask's painted edges before you unmask

Did think about that Bill, could do with a bit of practice on that and a steady hand before trying it but will be worth the effort, those fuselage letters are only 4.3mm high.

Thanks for the comments and encouragement chaps.

Edited December 2, 2013 by Cheshiretaurus

[Cheshiretaurus]

Taken Perdu's suggestion back in post 87 to make decals for the spats, thanks Bill & thanks for all the other suggestions that were made at the time.

Started the decals for the stripes on the spats, in my wisdom I only created a 3" stripe so thats rationed to 1/2" per side, Yes I could print more but I'll try and get away with what I have as the front and rear of each need to be hand painted anyway.

Only done one side on each spat so far, I'll give that side a coat of clear to seal it for handling before doing the other sides.

And the real one:-

Edited December 5, 2013 by Cheshiretaurus

[keefr22]

This is coming along really nicely! As you mention, it's difficult to remember when looking at the pics just how small she is, and that makes those painted on registrations even more impressive!

Lovely looking little aeroplane!