What on Earth is Procopius building these days? -OR- I am Curious (Beaufighter)

[Pete in Lincs]

That's the reduction gearbox on the front of the engine.

(Having said that, I may be slightly wrong but not far off!)

Exhaust collection rings....

There are reams of discussion on here and on hyperscale.com.

Bronze/Copper whatever. Find some museum shots or

actual WW2 colour shots & go for it. Ambient light had an effect too.

Have a look at this beastie. Always wanted one. Imagine a thimble nose!

http://www.network54.com/Forum/149674/message/1419960721/the+latest+cad+on+kittyhawks+facebook+page%21%21%21%21%21%21%21%21+and+a+picture+of+a+f-106

I do like the sound of your Uncle.

Doctor Who isn't real. even less so in the case of Sylvester McCoy.

[Procopius]

Exhaust collection rings....

There are reams of discussion on here and on hyperscale.com.

Bronze/Copper whatever. Find some museum shots or

actual WW2 colour shots & go for it. Ambient light had an effect too.

Hmmm. I googled a bit, and it seems they were sometimes painted black. This seems easiest. BUT, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing: http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/21252-firedog-beaufighter-mk10/

In this thread, we see that the rockets were stored on a totally different sort of launcher, harrumph harrumph. What is with the RAF and weird one-off rocket rails that nobody makes? First the Hunter and now these, honestly! Well, it's too late to fix now, there are huge holes in the wings to receive the rocket plates. Ah well, the Freightdog sheet shows the plates, and it's sourced from private photographs, so hopefully those show the plates and rails. Sigh.

I guess I can do the collector rings in silver, then clear orange, then smoke, maybe?

Have a look at this beastie. Always wanted one. Imagine a thimble nose!

http://www.network54.com/Forum/149674/message/1419960721/the+latest+cad+on+kittyhawks+facebook+page%21%21%21%21%21%21%21%21+and+a+picture+of+a+f-106

Ah, the mighty flying pancake! One of the first manifestations of the postwar US military's penchant for building aircraft that looked like they probably were secretly meant to have a lot of chrome and an optional stereo on them.

Doctor Who isn't real. even less so in the case of Sylvester McCoy.

I love Sylvester McCoy's turn as the Doctor! And that would have been a hideously cruel thing to say to ten-year-old me. If you say a word against Ace, I shall come at you with my eyes screwed tightly shut and my arms windmilling.

[woody37]

Brilliant thread, can't stop laughing, you're barking mad

These Hase Beau's are somewhat mythical creatures here in the UK, loving your progress

[rich2010]

Award for most interesting thread of 2014? Just read the lot after waking up in my cold and damp country. The model plane thing is a bit of an aside.

Happy new year.

[NAVY870]

I have a Commando type comic in my collection, one of those annual affairs with many stories rolled into one.

One tells the tail of some plucky Naval types flying Mark 1 Fireflies of a "HMS Damnthejerries" or some such

and on one mission the intrepid pilot is wounded by the "other chaps" and the observer heroically dives forward

to take the controls and brings the crate home in time for tea.

Now I know my way around a Firefly and can speak with some authority on the internal layout of such and can not

in all fairness allow the above story, superb as it is, to pass without pointing out the minor but irrefutable fact that for

the observer to engage in his epic rescue of his comrade he would have had to fight his way around two rather large

HF radio's, the aircraft's batteries and main fuel tank and a quite stout aluminium bulkhead. Rivetting stuff it was though

even with that tiny obstacle.

On a more serious note, anyone who would question the existence of the good Doctor, must also be questioning the existence

of the exquisite Sarah Jane Smith and would be clearly a cad, a rotter and, dare I mention, a bounder and should be subjected to

a damn good thrashing with a garden hose.

A Happy New Year to you all.

Superb Beaufighter by the way.

[Rob G]

...the exquisite Sarah Jane Smith and would be clearly a cad, a rotter and, dare I mention, a bounder and should be subjected to

a damn good thrashing with a garden hose.

You sir, are obviously a man of exceptional taste and refined sensibilities.

[Winenut]

Righto...if I've read through all this I'm following a mid western American with a penchant for crap Indian frozen 2 minute dinners, pizza, an aversion however to things too "spicy", has shared beverages with the venerable and esteemed Navy Bird, has a beautiful red headed other half who moderately tolerates a ridiculously massive underground stash of epic proportions and on top of all that being decidedly young (well by my standards!) and American builds MASSIVE amounts of British aircraft in a single year when I manage single old school 1/72 kits from Airfix in the timely and snappy period of 3 months.

So with all that ....I guess........I'm in!!!

Chocks away grasshopper

[Tomoshenko]

I couldn't believe that was the subject that didn't appear on the latest all-singing, all-dancing Hunter decal sheet in 1/72. If I thought it would change anything, I would challenge a champion of the sheet designer's choice to single combat to seek redress (and an addendum sheet), and I would win, because my cause is just.

It would be a walkover - you have the strength of ten because your heart is pure in the quest for Hunter sharkmouth decals.

Those engines are looking well tasty (not literally). Being unfamiliar with the kit, it does look a nice close fitting build, albeit apart from the odd trifling issue here and there, and over-complexity.

[MikeW]

Think I would have enjoyed meeting Uncle Walter. An effortless superiority is a noble thing. ( As well as usually being quite amusing to be around )

Half your household is quite incorrect with their stance on birds. I must admit, being more than a little prejudiced though. As am impressionable lad, about four years old, my grandmothers macaw, quite as tall as I was at that age, savagely, and deliberately, ripped about four pounds of flesh from my inner elbow. Since then, have known so many people with parrots of one type or another, who all, to a man, insist of handing them to me hold, or perch on my shoulder, no matter my protestations about suddenly remembering a forgotten appointment, like elective surgery, and needing to dash. Polly want a finger? The hummingbirds in my garden are the latest miscreants. Those needles they wear on their faces where a beak should be would oh so easily take out an eye, that one just can't be too careful.

The above aside, it was the decline and fall thing that inspired me to answer here. First the Empire, then South Africa itself, and now the West in general, it seems that with each passing year, me and mine are less in control ( which, I'm sure is really good news to many others of course ).

I do recall though, through the many years of Latin classes ( can you say eternity? ) that some of the earlier translations we were expected to do were about the creation and rise of the empire. It was all march, march, march, conquer Gaul, work hard, do your bit, and don't mind dying in the event.

Other passages, from later years ( although not as late as the Latin that would have been forced down Procopius' throat ), was all about sunbathing along the Tiber, banquets, and vomitoriums ( vomitoria? ). I remember thinking that living during the decline and fall of a country seemed a whole lot more fun than during the creation, so, in order not to be a hypocrite, "Beula, peel me a grape!"

Cheers,

Mike

[Pete in Lincs]

This garden hose.

Will the water it contains be warm or cold?

[John Laidlaw]

We take a lot of crap from Wisconsin for this, but we outnumber them two-point-five-to-one and they know it, and come total societal collapse, no amount of football magic will save them when we come coursing across the border.

Never mess with a people whose state slogan is "Hold my beer, I'm going to try something" .

I note you're using Micro-Mark's "Same Stuff" - how do you find it works?

[Procopius]

These Hase Beau's are somewhat mythical creatures here in the UK, loving your progress

They're not terrifically common here in the USA, but I was lucky enough to get all three of mine (this TF.X, a VI, and a Mark 21) for less than twenty dollars each over the past three years, rather incredible good fortune. It's a fairly pleasant build, so I may build the others this year -- but I've given up trying to predict what I actually will get around to throwing together in any year.

Award for most interesting thread of 2014? Just read the lot after waking up in my cold and damp country. The model plane thing is a bit of an aside.

Very kind of you to suggest so! But as long as we have the rubber mat thread, there can be no question about the ultimate thread of any year. It's not damp here, but it is very cold out, 10 F or -12 C if you prefer. There's no snow, as usual; we spend much of our winter here in a barren, dull landscape caked liberally with road salt, just in case it actually does snow. As for the plane, well, yes. Unfortunately, I'm not really up to the skill level of Navy Bird or Nigel or Fritag etc etc etc (and my apologies to the many, many skilled modellers' names I've left out), so I have to offer other enticements.

It would be a walkover - you have the strength of ten because your heart is pure in the quest for Hunter sharkmouth decals.

What Samson did to an army of Philistines with the jawbone of ...I'm betting the censortron won't let me use the Biblical word here, so donkey, I knew this would come up sooner or later...what Samson did with the jawbone of a donkey, I shall do tenfold with a Tamiya scribing tool.

Those engines are looking well tasty (not literally). Being unfamiliar with the kit, it does look a nice close fitting build, albeit apart from the odd trifling issue here and there, and over-complexity.

Almost all Hase kits are overengineered to permit multiple variants, which I will freely complain about when present, and equally vociferously will I complain when it's not provided for in a tooling, as with the Airfix Lightning which can only make an F.2A or F.6. Why, oh why couldn't they have made it more complex, gentlemen? However, it is a pretty lovely kit, it actually surprised me how nice it really is. Generally Hasegawa doesn't seem to give their all on British subjects in 1/72 (their Spitfire, Tornado, and Harriers all leave something to be desired, IMO), but for this one, they did a very nice job.

Righto...if I've read through all this I'm following a mid western American with a penchant for crap Indian frozen 2 minute dinners, pizza, an aversion however to things too "spicy", has shared beverages with the venerable and esteemed Navy Bird, has a beautiful red headed other half who moderately tolerates a ridiculously massive underground stash of epic proportions and on top of all that being decidedly young (well by my standards!) and American builds MASSIVE amounts of British aircraft in a single year when I manage single old school 1/72 kits from Airfix in the timely and snappy period of 3 months.

Point of order, it's not so much a penchant as that with my wife out of town to visit her parents (who I actually like, but there is absolutely nothing to do in the remoter parts of northern Michigan in winter except idly pretend you're living out life as a supernumerary with the Hoth garrison), and so I bought mostly meals that I could prepare easily and that didn't make a huge mess. I don't know why I feel compelled to state this.

Meeting Navy Bird was indeed very cool. He has a sort of thoughtful gravitas (tempered by an excellent sense of humor, I hasten to add) to him that gives one a sense of how his builds can be so beautifully meticulous. One of life's great pleasures, I think, is having a friendly conversation with someone smarter than one's self-- a pleasure I frequently experience, possibly even when squirrels in the park click at me amicably -- and my sadly brief meeting with Bill certainly met that criteria.

Half your household is quite incorrect with their stance on birds. I must admit, being more than a little prejudiced though. As am impressionable lad, about four years old, my grandmothers macaw, quite as tall as I was at that age, savagely, and deliberately, ripped about four pounds of flesh from my inner elbow. Since then, have known so many people with parrots of one type or another, who all, to a man, insist of handing them to me hold, or perch on my shoulder, no matter my protestations about suddenly remembering a forgotten appointment, like elective surgery, and needing to dash. Polly want a finger? The hummingbirds in my garden are the latest miscreants. Those needles they wear on their faces where a beak should be would oh so easily take out an eye, that one just can't be too careful.

Melanie had a cockatiel from when she was thirteen until last year. What kind of raging psychotic buys, for a child, a pet that can live to the age of thirty-five under the right conditions and which will see the human who owns it as its mate? I was in fierce competition with that bird, and I was losing. When he died, we (and by we I mean I) had to bury him under a $500 tree after an ad hoc funeral. Then I visited my parents, and my father and I drank a celebratory glass of champagne. That bird used to sit on Melanie's shoulder, and if I came in to give her a kiss on the cheek, he would race around to the other shoulder and come straight at my face. Horrible thing.

I note you're using Micro-Mark's "Same Stuff" - how do you find it works?

It's perfectly adequate as a cement, but it suffers to some extent from having a horrible, useless brush like one of those cheap Testor's brushes that come with their paint sets, attached to the cap. You can't hardly do anything with that brush.

In any case, the model:

I've masked the cockpit using the Eduard mask set, which omits masking bits for a few pieces, some where you're supposed to use Maskol or whatever; as I paint with acrylics, that will not happen. The two very small triangular windows on the observer's bubble also lack masks, an irritating omission; you might well suggest that it's difficult to cut masks for those panes, and I agree: that's why money changed hands between me and Eduard. This is what happens when you try and spell my name without the "w": trouble. In any case, I used two triangles from a weird Gunze sheet of nothing but kabuki tape triangles (I imagine the set is called Mr. Pythagorean Tape, but cannot confirm) and trimmed them to fit. Eduard also omitted a mask for that little half-hourglass shaped pane atop the windscreen on their 1/72 Spitfire 22 mask, an incredible omission to my mind. In general, I find Britmodeller's reviews quite useful and they've informed a number of my purchases, but to review a paint mask without using it is just to tell people that you've received an interesting selection of shapes cut in tape.

I've decided to assemble and paint the collector rings and exhausts seperately from the kit, to give them the proper appearance, since masking them once on the kit looks like it would be needlessly difficult. Happily, they fit almost seamlessly onto the nacelles.

I'll add the metal hedgehog exhausts (included with the kit) later, as they're heavy enough to break off if added too soon.

[Duncan B]

Great progress and the kit looks really nice. I can see why so many people over here have such a hankering to get their sweaty hands on one.

Duncan B (basking in the afterglow of having finally finished that Lightning)

[Procopius]

Duncan B (basking in the afterglow of having finally finished that Lightning)

Lit cigarette, smoke lazily curling heavenward, but you need to stay awake, guy, it's new year's eve. Incidentally, I trust all of you will let me know how the future of 2015 looks when you arrive, so I can best prepare myself.

I tried something different for this build; normally I install the canopy, then -- if I deign to do so -- I paint the interior color over it, and then primer it. But this never works, never. So this time I covered the canopy interior, sprayed the exterior green, gave it a dip in Future, and put it on the model. This incidentally has one of the best-fitting canopies I've ever encountered.

I sprayed the collector rings Tamiya X-11 Chrome Silver, then waited a (scarcely) decent interval and sprayed clear orange over them and the hedgehog exhausts.

I'll go over this with Smoke presently.

[Navy Bird]

Some ideas and references pictures for painting the collector ring:

http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/15121-exhaust-collector-ring/

http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234950858-collector-ring-exhaust-coloring/

Cheers,

Bill

[NAVY870]

If I may present the following

The collector ring and exhaust is quite dark and there is a circular plate over the front of it that's often missed.

The copper colour has been recommended by most manufacturers and is clearly incorrect.

[Duncan B]

^^ I just love Steve's garden shed ^^ (I've only got rusty old bicycles in mine!)

Duncan B

[Procopius]

Thank you both, gentlemen! I had perused the threads linked a little earlier, but it was also much earlier in the sense that it was at 1 AM, when my deductive processes shift over to induction. Are those white(ish) things on the fronts of the collector rings painted with the heat-resistant enamel mentioned in the threads? I'm pretty sure the Hase kit at least lacks those parts.

I see now that I should have used a darker colour (maybe even a flat rust color either with or without metalizer) for the rings and exhausts, because even after the smoke, here's what I have here:

Sigh. Undone by my own press-on-regardlessness.

Almost ready for priming and painting, though:

[Navy Bird]

Since you planned to add the exhaust collector ring later, and haven't glued it on yet, you can still work on adjusting the paint to get it where you like it.

I know that I've struggled trying to get the exhaust collector ring colour just right, but it is difficult. In real life, they can be a wide variety of colours. I think my best attempt was with my Skua, but I can't remember how I did it. I do remember that I expected that might happen, so I wrote it down. But I can't remember where.

I think it involved Alclad Pale Burnt Metal, Gunze Smoke Grey, and pastels of some sort or another.

Cheers,

Bill

[Duncan B]

Good news, 2015 looks ok so far (only 45 minutes into it though). Come on in the water's lovely!

Happy New Year when it arrives from Scotland (it'll be slightly second hand by the time we've finished celebrating it though).

Duncan B

[Procopius]

Five hours to go, here. Fortunately I've discovered that my DVD player can play youtube videos, and I've found a channel of nothing but cheesy old direct-to-video films from the 1970s and 1980s, so I intend to ring in 2015 in the same manner I'll go through it: making bad choices.

I think it involved Alclad Pale Burnt Metal, Gunze Smoke Grey, and pastels of some sort or another.

You're as bad as Archimedes with the secret to Greek fire! So, having never used pastels, how would these work?

[HOUSTON]

SUPERB work Procopius..

new year entered into MY home about an hour and half ago and its quiet ...so you are welcome here for a quietude if you need it...

[MikeW]

As I've aged, we have learned how to celebrate New York style. Can watch the ball drop at 9pm our time, then after that it is open season - party without limits, or just go to bed. Have done both, on more than one occasion.

Hope you all have a great one, and more importantly, a great year ahead.

( I still can't believe there is an American out there, and a youngish one at that, who has an opinion on 6th century historians - very refreshing )

Cheers,

Mike

[Navy Bird]

You're as bad as Archimedes with the secret to Greek fire! So, having never used pastels, how would these work?

I can't remember.

Pastels can be fun...and messy. I have the solid sticks with the square cross section. Pick your colour, and use a single edge razor blade to scrape the sides of the stick. You'll get a nice little pile of pastel dust. You can apply this with a brush, or your finger, or one of those little foam things that Tamiya sells for much more than Mrs. P pays for the same thing for her makeup.

Pastel dust works best on flat paint - it really doesn't stick to glossy surfaces. I actually use my finger to work the dust until I have a colour effect that I like. Excess dust on the surface can be blown away, just be sure not to blow away the pile of pastel dust that you scraped off the stick. Now, that's a mess. Ask me how I know. If you don't like what you've done, use a damp cloth to remove it. It comes off easily at this stage.

For the collector ring, I suspect that I used blue and perhaps rust coloured pastels over the Alclad to simulate heat effects on metal. The process was probably like this: Alclad Pale Burnt Metal, Gunze Smoke Grey (to tone down the gold colour of the Alclad), flat clear, pastel dusts, semi-gloss clear. You have to do a final coat of some kind of clear to seal in the dust, otherwise handling can remove it.

I hope that makes sense. Do any of the gaming paints (Citadel, etc.) have a colour that looks like tin? That might be a good starting place.

Cheers,

Bill

[Pete in Lincs]

Those exhausts,

I'd be tempted to drybrush shades of brown.

(I don't have any pastels).

But what Bill says sounds good.

Hoth v Tatooine?

Hmmm, tough one.