Dambuster 'T Tommy' Airfix 1/72

[jrlx]

Ced,

Great progress in a few days this is a really impressive build

The tips regarding fitting CAD kits are dully noted and appreciated

Jaime

[MikeW]

A slurp of wine - I love a new verb!

[CedB]

Morning all!

Bloody hell ced, sorry I haven't stopped by in a bit! Looks like you just need to whack a bit of paint on and your done?

Very nice work ced, very nice indeed

Rob

Thanks Rob Paint duly whacked, see below!

Wine, well why not dear chap, a deserved slurp or more.

Looks like you have got a bit of work at the booth next.

Simon.

Thanks Simon; a slurp (or more) duly enjoyed

Ced,

Great progress in a few days this is a really impressive build

The tips regarding fitting CAD kits are dully noted and appreciated

Jaime

Thanks very much Jaime, very kind. I have a few more 'new tools' in the stash so I'll try to remember my own advice!

A slurp of wine - I love a new verb!

It's a growing language Mike and sometimes I find it hard to, like, keep up, whatever

Some more surgery this morning - look away if you're squeamish! Having come second in the big bottom competition I'm afraid poor Ron (as he's now called) required some major surgery to fit into the tiny from turret, but he's there now:

I shall have to treasure that picture as I'm not sure he'll ever be seen again in the tiny turret (although I will try to get some shots later). His colleague Dave is happy in the rear turret waiting for the assembly of all these black bits (plus the ones in the spray booth):

I quickly used up the remainder of one can of H33 Acrylic spray (there was probably only a bit left) and then a whole can on the rest. I'm really pleased I did the small parts first, then the fuselage, then the wings as the second (new) can ran out just as I was finishing the top of the last wing. As it's only a primer for the top camo I'm not too worried - just got lucky! I do like the H33 rattle cans - easy to use, easy wet coat and a nice matt 'bomber' finish.

Lovely day in Bath so Mrs B is keen to start our tour of 'boutique' coffee shops... I say 'boutique' to differentiate them from the chains. Of course we have Starbucks (not for me unless desperate), Costa Coffee (not bad) and our favourite, Caffè Nero, renamed 'Cafe Nerd' after we overheard an American tourist one day who'd mis-read the logo (once heard you can't un-hear that, Cafe Nerd fans). Oh no my friends, Bath has twelve, count 'em twelve independent coffee shops, some of which are so 'up themselves' a friend recently got thrown out of one for asking for a latte; they refuse to corrupt their perfect blend with milk. Perhaps we should do that one first before they drive themselves out of business.

At this stage I should probably point out that I was born in Bath (my luvver) so the 'gentrification' of the town into an obvious middle-class poseur shopping fest (we also have at least three specialty cheese shops) makes me grind my teeth. A bit. "What a senseless waste of human life". Unquote.

I shall report back

Edit: You may be able to read this article (page 26, entitled 'Deja Brew' - see what they did there?) on sixteen of the coffee houses. Obviously some have been removed from Mrs B's list

[Biggles87]

You could have the front gunners legs dangling down below the turret, that's probably what they did anyway.

I find it almost impossible also not to break parts like the one shown, when removing them from the sprue, even using a razor saw.

Enjoy your outing.

John

PS do the specialist cheese shs have bazuki players?

[CedB]

Hi John (he of the new avatar, pretty dog!)

I almost got out of my chair to retrieve the legs from the bin, but then I remembered Johnny is underneath so I stopped myself

Thanks for the good wishes on the outing "Do the specialist cheese shops have bazuki players?" Not the last time I went in but this week's trend may have changed that!

[AlexN]

Hello Ced, great build! I've been following it for a while and am most impressed with your craftsmanship and attention to detail (grovel and crawl ).

Finally breaking radio silence after reading through your builds (I'm still working my way through Nigel Heath's Dalek thread from a couple of years ago).

I remember building the old Airfix 1/72 Lancaster when I was about 13 - my main memory of it apart from the black and the thick "transparencies" was the dense population of rivets (and raised panel lines). And the bomb bay, for some reason. This new kit is chalk-and-cheese different from the old one - and so it should be!

One thing I've noticed, though, is that the recessed panel lines in both this kit and the B-17 that you completed recently, the width and depth are a bit jarring, to my jaded old eye at least. At least there aren't any rivets - profundity aargh, blasted iPad auto-corrupter, I meant proud (raised, sigh, is that better?) - or recessed! And that's a Good Thing .

I noticed the pegs on the previous page(s) of this build - you can never have too many clamps, I mean pegs. Coincidentally, our favourite clothes pegs of the moment (green and yellow, an unusual but clever design, and acquired from the local supermarket) actually come from the UK! Made there, too, apparently .

They work very well on the clothes, but I suspect that they might have too little spring tension for some of the trials and tribulations that you've faced recently. All my clamps (modelling and boat-building) are in storage until the workshop (new shed) is finished -and there's boxes and boxes of them. As I say, you can never have too many clamps (or paints, for that matter ).

I trust that the trip around Bath went well - lovely-looking place. I spent a few hours there in mid-January 1983, but it was cold, wet and dark then! I wish I'd had more time to look around there!

Cheerses,

Alex.

[Biggles87]

Me again, the bazuki player is a reference to the Monty Python cheese shop sketch, perhaps you were not a fan.

The new avatar is Flossie, the eldest of our three, being eleven years old.

Cheers

John

[CedB]

Thanks Alex for your kind comments and welcome to BM!

Your comments on panel lines are noted and the subject of much discussion here on BM. My excuse is that I just build them OOB with (usually) only minor enhancements.

I'm happy now with my clamp / peg collection, at least until another (younger) model comes along!

Looking forward to your builds when the shed's finished

Hi John! I got the reference and should have added a smiley, sorry - Python is a classic and still great for silly sketches like the cheese shop one

Flossie looks like a nice old lady... give her a scratch from me!

Coffee was good, actually, although the 5+ minutes wait was a bit unusual. Lovely day here and, as Mrs B said as we were sitting drinking our coffee with the world going by, if we could have moved the cafe to a [French] harbour it would have been perfect (cafe No 1 is next to the car park / horrible Hilton hotel).

Waiting for it to cool down a bit and then it'll be out with the glue!!

[CedB]

Such a nice day I've spent most of the afternoon in the garden reading a book... no dedication some people.

I've just tried to assemble the front turret and Ron needed some more surgery to get the canopy to fit, basically chopping bits off the bottom of his arms so he sat further down. Poor chap. Either the figures are not to scale or that turret is really cramped:

I'm off to the Avon IPMS show tomorrow so may get something done before I leave but will definitely report afterwards - keen to get some paint on this and the Hurri.

Thanks for looking guys

[Gremlin56]

Such a nice day I've spent most of the afternoon in the garden reading a book... no dedication some people.

I've just tried to assemble the front turret and Ron needed some more surgery to get the canopy to fit, basically chopping bits off the bottom of his arms so he sat further down. Poor chap. Either the figures are not to scale or that turret is really cramped:

I'm off to the Avon IPMS show tomorrow so may get something done before I leave but will definitely report afterwards - keen to get some paint on this and the Hurri.

Thanks for looking guys

Great work on your build Ced, the black paintjob is pulling things together. A bit of a conundrum fitting the crew into the turrets. They were cramped but looking at WWII photo's the crewmen were not all midgets. I think I have a book somewhere on turrets, have to see if I can find it...........................

[dogsbody]

I don't know about the size of a Lanc's front turret but I know the rear turret is a fairly tight fit. I was in the CWH Lancaster back in the early 90's.

You can just see me in the turret.

Chris

[CedB]

Thanks Chris - a great shot and very timely as I'm just painting the turrets... more later!

[dogsbody]

Here's another taken at the same time.

Chris

[CedB]

Thanks Chris - another great shot

IPMS Avon show was great and I managed to restrict my purchases to a Bristol Superfreighter and some AK Primer to try. I read on my return that Cookie has already tried it and the BM review has some, er, strong comments from Homerlovesbeer... oh well, I'll give it a try.

I've spent most of this afternoon and early evening masking Gleed's Hurricane (easy) and this beast:

I'll be glad to see the end of all that black! Fiddly job with Tamiya tape for the demarcation lines, rubbed down with a cocktail stick as usual, and then cheap masking tape for the majority. I thought this was fiddly until I started on the nacelles. The line is just above the exhausts so I had to use thin tape (not Tamiya, oh oh) and then fill in:

Then it was on with the large airbrush pot, out with the VMA DE and a little W&M flow improver and off I went:

Two lots of paint later. That's going to need another coat isn't it. What I need is another airbrush... Paul Budzik says a larger nozzle (I used 0.4) isn't enough and you need a different airbrush for large areas, but then he's got lots of airbrushes. And lots. Let's see what happens when that wet stuff dries.

Thanks for looking

[Beard]

That is, without doubt, the largest airbrush paint pot I've ever seen. It must take half a pint.

[rob85]

Love python John

And I have found your new avatar rather confusing, but I shall get used to it.

Ced nice even and clean paint work especially for such a large area! Well done that man. Also very nice work with the turrets and the chap that resides within, cracking stuff.

Cheer

Rob

[CedB]

Thanks Simon and Rob

Very educational this build, for me anyway.

Lesson 1: don't take photos of wet paint and assume it won't change. Wet areas are different to dry ones. You are an idiot Ced, official

Lesson 2: don't panic and PM Paul at Modelling Tools to ask about larger airbrushes. Paul is brilliant - despite being at a show in Thornbury all day he PM'd me back tonight and basically said everyone else uses 0.4 for larg(ish) areas so check your needles / nozzles for blockages. How many vendors you know who would bother to reply so quickly suggesting you don't buy anything? Thanks Paul, still my 'go to' supplier!!

Lesson 3: VMA DG (71.029) over H33 rattle can looks greenish:

Painted at the same time from the same paint mix in the same airbrush The Hurri is primed with Vallejo grey primer. Another coat tomorrow will, hopefully, change this whilst still being a bit darker.

Note also the bands behind the nacelles and the 'V' shape on the panels... does Airfix CAD self-weather? Now THAT would be amazing

[jrlx]

Hi Ced, the paint finish on that wing looks very good. Any reason why you chose to black prime the whole aircraft? Was it to get the black underside ready just with the primer?

Cheers

Jaime

[AlexN]

Hello Ced, Your work is looking great, as always .

Regarding Homerlovesbeer's post on the AK primer, I noticed that he apparently didn't use AK's "Acrylic Thinners". Having recently acquired said thinners (and the Mig-branded black and white acrylic primers, same bottle-type, similar paint make-up?), that may not make a difference as it has a strong smell of IPA about it, but maybe there's some other additive(s) in the AK thinners that the other thinners that he used didn't have. (And I probably wouldn't use water, either.)

It will be interesting to see what your experience of said primers is - maybe getting a (60 ml, same as primers) bottle of the AK Acrylic Thinners would be a good idea.

As a side note, I bought the (Mig) primers because it said "for brushes and airbrushes" on the label(s). I've hairy-stick-painted entirely up to the present, even though I've got a couple of airbrushes, small hobby compressor and all the attendant paraphernalia. Airbrushes scare me, which is probably why the only part of the kit that I can locate is the compressor. Hopefully the rest is in deep storage in the shipping container 50-odd km away (the airbrushes, an Aztec 470 set and an Iwata, weren't cheap).

Your results - and those of others on BM and elsewhere - are making me think that I should find the courage to take the plunge .

Cheerses,

Alex.

Edited August 10, 2015 by AlexN

[CedB]

Thanks Jaime.

I chose to 'black prime' the whole thing for a few reasons:

1. I've used H33 acrylic spray before and it covers well with a slightly 'rough' finish that I think looks good on large bombers
2. The Vallejo Model Air ('VMA') sprays really nicely but is very fragile if not primed
3. The VMA 71.029 is, to my 'Humbrol trained' eyes, a little light and I wanted a slightly darker finish and
4. I'm lazy and spraying the whole thing was easier than masking up to avoid demarcation lines later and, as you say, to get the black underside ready just with the primer.

I hope (fingers crossed) that a second coat will lighten it a bit - I'll try later.

Thanks Alex for the kind comments

I (like many others) have been looking for a good, non-smelly primer for some time. Why? Because I like airbrushing now (see below) but I spray 'in the house'. I have a cheap spray booth to catch the spray but, as it's not vented outside, any smell enters the room (of course).

Why prime? Some people always do this. I never primed in the past but do now for a couple of reasons:

1. I'm more fussy (but still not very) over joins and most fillers leave a separate finish that needs to be covered. Same with PE and resin parts of course.
2. VMA is great stuff to spray and I've invested in the big sets for WWII RAF and Luftwaffe. It doesn't stick without primer

The Vallejo acrylic-polyurethane surface primer (I have the grey one) sprays and covers well but for me it doesn't stick well, or sand at all. Others have commented that poly primers are bound to be like this, others still that adding Klear helps (I've not tried this yet).

I'm thinking of going back and trying non-primed Humbrol acrylics brush painted again. I remember being happy with these but I also remember brush marks and long periods of painting. W&N flow improver has probably removed the brush mark worry. Lack of patience has not removed the latter. I still look at Robvulcan's work with admiration and envy! He always hand brushes.

I'm probably an airbrush convert now as the finish you get after some practice is, IMHO, far superior. That said, I've only just started using Jaime's tip of sticking small parts to cocktail sticks and spraying them on one go - I used to brush paint these on the sprue. I met Fatboydim (Joe) at the Avon show and he and his IPMS friend always airbrush, everything, except small dots on instrument panels.

I'd suggest trying the airbrush again on a cheap kit you don't care about. It took me a while to get used to it and my tip would be to get some 'easy' paint someone else has used and keep practicing until you're confident. Vallejo Model Air and 15psi would be my tip with a few drops of W&N flow improver to stop clogging. Oh, and watch Paul Budzik's videos on youTube - they're great for tips and will help you understand common problems; splatters, runs, poor coverage etc etc.

Hope this helps. Now, where's my airbrush and that Dambuster...

[AlexN]

Hi Ced, Thank you for the run-down of your spraying reasons . I did in fact acquire some W&N Flow Improver, Slow Drying Medium (retarder) and Matt UV Varnish after reading threads by you, Robvulcan and/or General Melchett - not sure whose it was exactly, now. I figured that the FI might help with the brushing of large numbers of Gunze Aqueous that I have in my "collection". My memory of the old Humbrol "authentics" in the late 60s and 70s was, as other people have remarked, much easier to brush with a much more even effect.

That could be nostalgic rose-tintedness, but I don't think so: my visual memory is pretty good. Plus I have the reports from others to help confirm that. I was especially disappointed with the Mr.Color lacquer cockpit colour that I brushed onto the Accurate Miniatures P-51A cockpit - lumpy and marked, even after much stirring. I believe now that I should have thinned it with IPA and, even for the hairy-sticking.

I spent over a week gradually putting my paint collection into a spreadsheet in a format that will allow it to be a silly transferred to a RDMS (probably POSTGres). Kits and tools will follow in due course. I was quite amazed at the amount of acrylic (aqueous and lacquer) and enamel paints. I might try the Tamiya, Gunze and Xtracylixes in the ABs - once (if?) I've located them! Plus paints from the four sets (2 x 6 & 2 x 3) of AK paints that I recently acquired.

I'll check out Mr Budzik's videos soon, thank you for the reminder!

And yes, Robvulcan's brush-painting is amazing! I've read through a number of his threads, and he sets a very high standard of craftsmanship.

Sorry to hijack your thread, you can have it back now .

Cheers,

Alex.

Edited August 10, 2015 by AlexN

[CedB]

Hi Alex - don't worry about the hijack - that's what some of us are here for! And it keeps people amused while there's no modelling going on

Interested in the 'paint database'. I'm 'in computers' and have spent an inordinate amount of time trying to organise, or actually 'systemise' my paint collection. Actually my life if I'm honest. I think the auto-correct (or background censor programme) changed your post "to be a silly transferred to a RDMS". I guess you meant easily? I think I know why you're doing this and do please let us know how you get on. I did my spreadsheet so that I can remember what I've got and how one type / colour might be substituted for another.

Failing memory aside I'm finding paints a nightmare. Two main reasons I guess. Firstly they're not all they're made out to be and it's easy to convince yourself that there's a magic paint / additive that will give that perfect finish; not in my experience. Secondly, 'in my experience' points to my mediocre skills and I must stop thinking I can achieve the same results as skilled modellers and just relax. Thirdly (oh damn, amongst the reasons) is the colour numbering and matching. My newly acquired Airfix Bristol Superfreighter* has the old Airfix colours. What is a modern version of 'Oxford Blue G13'? Off to the conversion databases again (I've found one - H15 apparently).

This is a good thread / subject for a highjack as I've just sprayed another coat on Tommy. Is it Dark Earth? Why did I think it was too light on previous models? Why do I think it's too green? Who knows? Who cares?

I for one am going to try to relax and just enjoy the modelling - that's why I started again.

I'm going to enjoy BM for the advice, guidance, support and friendship.

And I'm just going to paint Tommy's DG bits and sit back before I decide whether I'm happy with it or not.

Probably.

So the brown is OK, official. I'm now going to try several new masking techniques on this and on the Hurri. The first one is Joe's removable plastic film templates. The second is the Panzer Putty I spent a lot of money on and have yet to try.

Some people never learn...

* I've had to check that spelling again and again... 'i' before 'e' except after 'c', unless it's in freighter. And lots of other words.

[Dema]

Hi Ceb, great work so far. Im making a hurricane mk1 as well, the old tooling one (from 70s) and for the camo I used a vinyl masking film i bought at the essex model show few weeks ago.

Unless you are rescribing it and getting rid of the raised details, i would not recommend to use them as it tends to "bleed" in every bit that on top of a raised detail.

Other than that, it works well, is reusable and easy to cut in specific shape...

Cheers

Dema

[AlexN]

Humph - it's been at it again. I loathe what it pleases me to call the "auto-corrupter", but sadly my typing is worse, so I have it turned on on the iPad. On the iMac, however, I can better see what I'm doing, so I knocked the little monster on the head on that machine years ago.

You were right - I did mean easily. Bothersome thing, grumble grumble. Better sharpen up my proof-reading, although that one was almost amusing.

I do hope at some point in the not-too-distant future to have a cross-referencing system with the paint, but at the moment I'm still at the data entry stage - kits are next. I keep finding really nice kits mentioned on BM that I went and sold, e.g., two Hasegawa Arado 234s - maybe I'm making a rod for my own back by making an inventory of what I haven't got. Serve me right for over-spending in the first place, I suppose.

I like your approach of doing modelling for enjoyment, rather than getting caught up in the minutiae of pigment analysis - something that, as a rather obsessive sort, I should try and cultivate (the enjoyment, not the micro-analysis) .

Cheerses,

Alex.

[CedB]

Thanks Dema I've just checked the Hurri and I see what you mean but I'm going to press on, use the 'spray straight down' technique and reserve an 'I told you so' for you later (probably in the Hurri thread which is a bit thin!)

Hey Alex. Cross referencing? Cool. Many-to-many join resolution, one of my favourite DB design traps.

As far as the inventory goes I'd suggest you take a look at scalemates.com. I was pointed there by other BMers and I keep my stash there. Create a wishlist, stash and completed models record (with after market stuff too). Great reference source and it has pictures and kit histories as well. And it's available on mobile when you're in the shops.