Desert Hammers (Fine Molds 1/72 109F-2 and -4)

[Procopius]

i think you can get the Mr Hobby acrylics in the US, also made by Gunze. They have the same properties as the Mr Color but without the 'nasty' bits included. Gunze have started rebranding their paints so I think the Mr Hobby might be called 'Hobby Color' now.

Duncan B

In truth, it's much easier to get the lacquers here than it is the acrylics. You forgot Rule 1 of the United States, it's always easier to get something that's bad for you.

[Duncan B]

Great, I must get my sister (in GA) to bring me over a suitcase full of the 'nasty' Mr Color in the summer.

Duncan B

[CedB]

Great, I must get my sister (in GA) to bring me over a suitcase full of the 'nasty' Mr Color in the summer.

Duncan B

Well I don't think THAT will get through the checks at the airport will it?

Having seen the look on my wife's face on a visit to Boston when they confiscated two big bottles of some ladies beauty unguent I would check first to avoid disappointment.

That said the female security guards were very, very simpatico - about three of them were clucking around saying "Oh no! So sorry" etc etc.

[Duncan B]

Yeah, they were 'sympathetic' because they knew what they were taking home that night.

As long as she packed it into her check in suitcases she would have been fine, carry on luggage though, no.

Duncan B

[Procopius]

Perhaps I exaggerated slightly for comedic effect, but I do know of at least two mail-order businesses in the USA that sell the lacquers and import more, and none for the acrylics.

[CedB]

When I mentioned my Frog Spit and V1 and suggested I might do a WIP, you said:

"I hope you do, especially if you build the Spitfire XIV; it's one of those kits that "everyone knows", so we never see it being built."

You asked for this, my wish is your command.

Edit: got that the wrong way round - sorry!

[Navy Bird]

I think Navy Bird just placed an order with them. Despite our unfortunate national experience with Kamikaze delivery in the last war, I live in hope that this will prove more pleasant.

It was Banzai Hobbies, actually, and they cancelled the order a day after I placed it. They must have seen that my Brewster Buffalo would be complete by the time of their delivery, and were quivering in fear of being taken out by a barrel.

Cheers,

Bill

[Procopius]

We stand hesitantly before the precipice, gentle reader! (Other readers available.)

All of the aircraft have their cockpits closed up (complete with gunsights, which I almost invariably forget, your Sauron-like eyes have made me a more conscientious modeller) and masked. I painted the head armor for all three with Tamiya Red Brown, as the Finemolds instructions suggest using Gunze Red Brown with RLM 66 center padding or whatever it is. The profiles on the Xtradecal sheet omit the radio masts on the F-4 and E-7, and in my innocence, I almost believed them. Amazingly, I actually own some 109 references (which I only just remembered this morning), and so I consulted Squadrion's 109 in Action Part 2 for the Fs, and the Roy Cross and Gerald Scarborough Bf 109 Versions B-E, published, I note, a year after the introduction of decimal currency in the UK. Personally, I preferred the old twenty shillings to the pound system.

I'm weighing whether or not I care enough to lay down an RLM02 or 66 coat over the canopies before primering; on one hand, it will look more "authentic", but on the other, I've had a bad run of paint chipping with masks recently, and I believe this is because how many layers of paint and future I've been putting over them. Now my thinking is that in a perfect world, I would only put one coat of paint on a mask and then remove the masks as soon as possible afterwards. But I'm not interested in buying two or three masks to a plane. In any case, aside from that, I also have to add the radio masks.

I used both white glue ("Micro Krystal Clear") and Perfect Plastic Putty to blend in the canopies, which fit quite well on the Finemolds and "reasonably" well on the ICM kit. Happily, and no doubt a lethal blow to those who would claim the ICM kit is little more than a monkeyed-with copy of the Tamiya 109E, the mask made by Eduard for the Tamiya kit fits perfectly. So I think we can lay that canard to rest.

109E-7

109F-2

109F-4

You will note my masking is not the best. I'm a big believer in the TLAR method of getting through life. I also work from the principle that a yet to be discovered big flaw will likely hide innumerable smaller ones. ("The fox knows many secrets, but the hedgehog knows a single mighty one" -- Archilochus)

[Stew Dapple]

Excellent update PC, thank you.

Spray the canopies RLM66, work on the theory that nothing will go wrong if you don't do that and you will then be gutted that your kits came out perfect except the interior framing is the wrong colour... If you follow me.

The painted frames flaking when the masks are removed is an ever-present risk but you can't stop painting things on the strength of that - that's appeasement PC, and we all know where that leads.

For what it's worth I am convinced that the chances of frame flakeage are ameliorated if the mask is removed before the varnish is dry. I have no proof that this is actually the case but I cling to the idea like my life depends on it

Cheers,

Stew

[Duncan B]

Don't put the paint on too thick and the masks should come off without ripping the paint off too.

I hope you meant that you paint the headrest/pad red brown and the rest of the head armour RLM66 and not the other way round?

Duncan B

[Procopius]

The painted frames flaking when the masks are removed is an ever-present risk but you can't stop painting things on the strength of that - that's appeasement PC, and we all know where that leads.

So be it...Jedi.

I hope you meant that you paint the headrest/pad red brown and the rest of the head armour RLM66 and not the other way round?

God dammit! Well, I'm not opening them up and changing them now. Never model at 2 AM, nothing good comes of it.

[Duncan B]

oh well

[Rob G]

When I mentioned my Frog Spit and V1 and suggested I might do a WIP, you said:

"I hope you do, especially if you build the Spitfire XIV; it's one of those kits that "everyone knows", so we never see it being built."

You asked for this, my wish is your command.

Edit: got that the wrong way round - sorry!

Well I've never seen it...

[CedB]

Personally, I preferred the old twenty shillings to the pound system.

You've got me started now. As Chocky says in John Wyndham's book of the same name (one of my favourites) "It's silly to have a system on base 10 just because of the number of digits you have" or something like that. Now we have 100 pennies to the pound / dollar you can only go out for a meal with 2, 4, 5 or 10 people if you want to divide the bill without violence. With 12p to 1s and 20s to £1 you had 240 units which, of course, divides by almost everything. Progress? "Je ne quois pas" as the dastardly metric types say. And don't start me on feet (I have two of those and, to my knowledge, no metres) and inches (a thumb top).

BTW if you use your fingers and the binary system you can count to 1024, or 31 on one hand. A friend used to do add ups by using two hands and touching fingers like some bizarre abacus.

[Rob G]

You've got me started now. As Chocky says in John Wyndham's book of the same name (one of my favourites) "It's silly to have a system on base 10 just because of the number of digits you have" or something like that. Now we have 100 pennies to the pound / dollar you can only go out for a meal with 2, 4, 5 or 10 people if you want to divide the bill without violence. With 12p to 1s and 20s to £1 you had 240 units which, of course, divides by almost everything. Progress? "Je ne quois pas" as the dastardly metric types say. And don't start me on feet (I have two of those and, to my knowledge, no metres) and inches (a thumb top).

BTW if you use your fingers and the binary system you can count to 1024, or 31 on one hand. A friend used to do add ups by using two hands and touching fingers like some bizarre abacus.

All of this leads me to the thought that we're an odd bunch, us modellers.

Carry on.

[Procopius]

All of this leads me to the thought that we're an odd bunch, us modellers.

What? Don't be absurd. I'm sure everyone in this country is like me, deep down.

In any case, I've sprayed the Alclad primer:

As always, nothing quite goes exactly the way we wish it would: while a seam should exist forward of the firewall on the 109 (for the engine cover split open not unlike the gull-wing doors on a DeLorean, albeit in this case a DeLorean that only takes you to the Dark Ages), it shouldn't be present (or at least not visible) behind the firewall, and despite some puttying earlier, it definitely is on both 109Fs. So we have to fix that, and as usual, I say we, but I'm the one who has to do all the work.

Additionally, the primer on the 109E-7 didn't go on very well, coming out rather grainy and pebbly, so I'll need to sand that down as well.

Once we fix that, we can do the RLM02 wheel wells and paint the exhaust stacks, then a little masking, and the tummy colours. Though 109s are really too evil to have tummies, so maybe belly colour is more apropos.

[modelglue]

Like as in: The underbelly of the beast?

You are really hauling forward on your stash. If, like me, you obsess over deals and additions to your collection then it is one step forward, you know the rest.

...currently fighting a new mustang obsession.

[Procopius]

...currently fighting a new mustang obsession.

The best Mustang III/P-51B right now is the Academy wing on the Hasegawa fuselage. But the AZ one comes out soon.

[modelglue]

Then a joypack might be worth waiting for as the abundance of decals presently stored above my desk would come in handy. Thanks for the tip on the AZ release. I don't follow AZ models closely enough. Yet.

[Rob G]

4/0 gauge steel wool is the bomb for smoothing paint. A lot more controllable than sandpaper, I find. Just don't use it in a breeze, or where the missus can see the mess it makes, because small steel particles are not your friend.

[Procopius]

I'm remembering now why I never build Luftwaffe stuff. "It's so colourful" is secret code for "you have to do way too much masking!" Especially yellow and white, my two absolute least favorite colours to airbrush. I sprayed the gear wells, painted the exhaust stacks, sprayed the wing tips on the underside white, sprayed the white band to mask for later, and the RLM04 cowling and rudder bits. The white (Tamiya XF-2) was poorly behaved and it went on badly, but what can you do? Now I have to wait for it to cure, and then I can spray the RLM65 or 78 underbelly after I mask.

[Stew Dapple]

Naah, the white over the grey will be fine once it is unmasked, you can just say it is 'scale white' and, if you feel it appropriate, 'muahahaha'

The yellow looks... really good for yellow, actually, you obviously got the paint mix right on the sweet spot for that

Cheers,

Stew

[Duncan B]

It's all about the painting on these things, if you give the box a good shake they make themselves so it's all about the painting.

I've painted one or two 109s now and the way I go about it is (preshading over primer if your into that) yellow and fuselage bands then masked off, underside and fuselage sides in the light colour, top surface of wings camouflaged and faded then masked off, fuselage camouflage and fading then onto the mottling. It's the transition from sharp edged camo to mottle on the fuselage that is the tricky bit I find, take the sharp edge too far down and its difficult to blend in with the mottling, don't take it far enough and the demarcation between colours on the top looks washed out.

You need to have a few pots to store the various paint mixes in but that means that any touch ups required at the end aren't a problem as you already have the paint mixed. It also makes sense to batch build to minimise painting and cleaning sessions (which is one reason why you won't see anything completed by me for ages then three or four completions posted within days of each other).

Duncan B

[Winenut]

Best Yellow I've ever sprayed Testors (Model Master) RLM04 GELB.

Makes me want to use it every single time yellow is called for.

Cheers

Bruce

[modelglue]

Looking good PC, didn't you profess a love of Tamiya Yellow? Or was that veiled sarcasm? I find the Citadel range nice and usually stick with that for the bright colors. Would using Tamiya X-2 instead be a better option? It would level better and you are flat coating at the end anyways I believe.

I am going to check out the steel wool suggested at the end of page 6, seems inexpensive enough to have a go with.