Nigel Heath Posted August 24, 2014 Share Posted August 24, 2014 That is so lovely, what a fantastically neat finish. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wolwe82 Posted August 24, 2014 Share Posted August 24, 2014 wow thats beautiful, so smooth! very nice 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sean Posted August 24, 2014 Share Posted August 24, 2014 Wow, gorgeous paint, Sean 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blastvader Posted August 25, 2014 Share Posted August 25, 2014 Amazing. That's a beautifully smooth finish you've achieved there. I can't wait to see her finished. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bengalensis Posted August 25, 2014 Author Share Posted August 25, 2014 Thanks a lot for you praise guys. I thought it was a good time to prepare the resin exhausts that came with the kit for some paint. When I took them out again they didn't look as good as I remembered them. This would not just be some cleaning up, nor are they round, at least not to me, as they should be. Instead of going to work on that I sat down searching for better parts online. Surely there must be round Griffon exhausts for late mark Spitfires in good resin somewhere. After a little while I had ordered some sets from Quickboost and SBS that Hannants had in stock. I hope something will be better than this and can be tweaked to fit. As I was packing this one up to do something else I realised I wasn't done with painting at all. There were two more things to do, the flat black anti glare strip in front of the canopy and the wing leading edges which are supposed to be some "polished graphite" in colour. Not sure what to use for that right now, so I masked up the anti glare panel. This was quickly sprayed with Lifecolor and masked off. So far so good, now need to find something for the leading edges. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wolwe82 Posted August 25, 2014 Share Posted August 25, 2014 she is looking realy beautiful, nice work 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nigel Heath Posted August 25, 2014 Share Posted August 25, 2014 Lovely work, as ever. So good to see this. Nigel 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bengalensis Posted August 26, 2014 Author Share Posted August 26, 2014 Thanks a lot guys, glad you like her. Polished graphite, in all pictures I have seen when she was in air the leading edges look black. Many on the ground too, while some look more like metal. I don't know. I did another masking package. Something more towards black felt right, so I used Lifecolor gloss black and mixed in some gloss gun metal that altered the black colour to a slight metal dark greyish tone. I sprayed a thin coat of gloss varnish on top of it. The difference from black is quite subtle and it looks mostly black, especially in photos, so I think I leave it like this. The tail antenna still survives... 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bengalensis Posted August 26, 2014 Author Share Posted August 26, 2014 I really want to get the spinner painted just to see it against the painted bird for the first time. There is however some preparation to be done first. I laid up the prop and spinner base diameters with three blade locations spread 120° in AutoCAD and printed. I also jigged a pen and drew the planes for the front and rear blades on the spinner. I'm trying to get a feeling for the spread I want between the front and rear blades when using the prop blurs. Or how to make things more complicated... I think I'll go with this, approx 30°. I added the front blade locations 30° off and the two diameters where the blades attach and printed a new template. I will need the two attachment diameters when I cut down the blades later. Then I drew the blade locations onto the spinner. Just need to keep track which is front and rear and not mix up the holes to be drilled. As I suspected the first coat of primer gave a good deal of ghost marks in my heavily reworked spinner. Given some patience to cure, sanding and repeating the process should bring it home and ready for a black base coat. I hope. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wolwe82 Posted August 26, 2014 Share Posted August 26, 2014 thats more and more beautiful every day! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wellzy Posted August 26, 2014 Share Posted August 26, 2014 I love looking at this build very nice work Les 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nigel Heath Posted August 26, 2014 Share Posted August 26, 2014 The tail antenna still survives... More lovely work and good to hear the news on the antenna. As it is metal I am sure it will be OK. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnonymousDFB1 Posted August 27, 2014 Share Posted August 27, 2014 Coming together nicely 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DannyB Posted August 27, 2014 Share Posted August 27, 2014 Looking great Jorgen! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trickyrich Posted August 28, 2014 Share Posted August 28, 2014 WOW Jörgen she’s looking amazing!!!! The paint job is awesome. You have to build yourself a bigger version!!! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bengalensis Posted August 28, 2014 Author Share Posted August 28, 2014 Many thanks, glad you like her. Rich, ideally I would like to do her in 1/24 if there were good base kits, but a 1/48 must happen one day, I hope. After three rounds of primer-sanding the spinner was ready for a coat of Humbrol gloss black base coat. Tomorrow should hopefully see some Alclad Polished Aluminum. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nigel Heath Posted August 28, 2014 Share Posted August 28, 2014 Tomorrow should hopefully see some Alclad Polished Aluminum. I look forward to that, I used Humbrol gloss black on my Rotodyne props followed by Alclad Polished Aluminum so am interested to see how it comes out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bengalensis Posted August 29, 2014 Author Share Posted August 29, 2014 Here's the spinner finished in Alclad Polished Aluminium. Now I need to add something along the blade circles to make it look more like rotation, and darken the line between the two sections. I just had to put it on the nose to have a good look. As soon as that large spinner takes up its place, the whole airframe comes together for me. Speed Bird. I hope my new resin exhaust stacks arrive soon... 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnonymousDFB1 Posted August 29, 2014 Share Posted August 29, 2014 Now that's looking good 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nigel Heath Posted August 29, 2014 Share Posted August 29, 2014 Excellent progress, now this really does look like polished aluminium: I am sure you know not to put any varnish on it as it will detract from the fantastic effect you have achieved. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bengalensis Posted August 31, 2014 Author Share Posted August 31, 2014 Yes, I never use any kind of varnish over Alclad, I think so far I have always found a way to arrange my order of painting to avoid having to. So far. Today I have worked a bit more on the propeller. I cut the blurs to the desired lengths and primed them with light grey Alclad primer. Then I sprayed them lightly with Tamiya Nato black, trying to get a thinner coat the further out towards the tips I got. I also sprayed some shadowing behind the blades on the two spinner sections while rotating it in an electric drill. No, I missed taking a picture, sorry. Then I wanted to but a lighter blur where the small notes are placed in the middle of the blades on the front side, so I marked up the references on a paper and taped them up. This is what I ended up with after some light grey spraying. I suppose I could have tried to make a whiter point in the middle. With the risk of messing it up more... Then I needed 40 mm circles of masking tape. My old circle drawing template goes to 36 mm, so I had to go searching. After a good while I found the lid of this can of curry. I taped one circle with the sticky side up on my template, positioned all the blades so I had spraying access, then placed the other circle on top. It almost worked, I had to cut a section and replace. Then I lifted the whole cake and rigged it for spraying. I tried to keep the spraying light and ended up with this. Again it might be possible to spray more coverage in the centre of the blades. This could probably be worked on a lot. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blastvader Posted August 31, 2014 Share Posted August 31, 2014 Great work with the alclad...and everything else for that matter When it comes to varnish and alclad, if you don't mind me derailing the thread for a slight second, how would you work around require a gloss coat for things like pin washes or if you wanted to weather the surface? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nigel Heath Posted September 1, 2014 Share Posted September 1, 2014 Excellent work Jorgen. After a good while I found the lid of this can of curry. That curry powder looks hardly used - I think you need to make more curries. I can provide recipes if you like. Nigel 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bengalensis Posted September 1, 2014 Author Share Posted September 1, 2014 Oh, that's a new can of curry from the stock pile, we always keep extras of these essential things so we never have the risk of running out of it... I do washing and weathering directly on Alclad surfaces like polished aluminium, which has so far worked well for the type of subjects I usually build. I'm not quite sure how I would make a heavily weathered NMF war bird as I haven't really been there. I started my day with the assembly of the propeller. It was a bit fiddly but worked out in the end. I needed four small silver decal circles, so I sharpened a flat syringe needle tip to create a punch tool and pressed out what I needed. These went onto the wings, and a small tapered decal piece on the anti glare panel. Then I cut a thin strip for the canopy frame. I also did a little work on some panel lines. When looking at good photos of the real bird sized 1/72-like there is hardly a visible panel line anywhere, so I won't do much more if anything. And some test fitting of the propeller when it was secure to handle. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DannyB Posted September 1, 2014 Share Posted September 1, 2014 Wow! She is really looking slick Jörgen! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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