+++ FINISHED! +++ Airfix Tiger Moth 1/72 (RAF Flight Training School, 1940)

[John Masters]

4 hours ago, rob85 said:

How many trips to the hospital

😁  None so far...I bought all of my hemos at a flea market...boot sale...

[jrlx]

@Courageous, @John D.C. Masters, @CedB, @rob85

 

Thank you very much for your appreciation!

 

@John D.C. Masters your approach to rigging is quite impressive! Mine is a bit simpler, as I don't like to drill holes through the wings. Hence, my use of Uschi's EZline.

 

Cheers

 

Jaime

[jrlx]

Hi again,

 

This post will bring the thread up to date with the work done until now.

 

This last week I applied the decals. First, a good Aqua Gloss coat was applied to all parts, in preparation for the decal work, and was left to dry for one full day.

 

The following picture shows the set-up used for decal application:

IMAG6274

 

The decals worked beautifully, as they are printed by Cartograf. The following series of pictures show the final results:

IMAG6275

 

IMAG6277

 

IMAG6279

 

IMAG6278

 

IMAG6280

 

IMAG6281

 

Another Aqua Gloss coat was applied to seal the decals, in preparation for weathering.

 

Hopefully, this coming week I'll be able to progress further.

 

Cheers

 

Jaime

 

 

 

[CedB]

That's looking very special Jaime. Good job  

[jrlx]

13 minutes ago, CedB said:

That's looking very special Jaime. Good job  

Thank you very much, Ced! Kind as always!

 

Cheers

 

Jaime

[FalkeEins]

...stunning. The size of some of those etch parts is ridiculous. I have ‘blobs’ of glue that are much bigger, in fact I see no glue ‘traces’ at all, how do you apply it ? Worth pointing out again that your photos are about 5 times actual size!  I used EZ line to rig mine, but really as John pointed out, you wrestle with the ‘elasticity’ all the time and in this scale you really need two pairs of hands, one to apply the accelerator just where its needed...

[jrlx]

11 hours ago, FalkeEins said:

...stunning. The size of some of those etch parts is ridiculous. I have ‘blobs’ of glue that are much bigger, in fact I see no glue ‘traces’ at all, how do you apply it ? Worth pointing out again that your photos are about 5 times actual size!  I used EZ line to rig mine, but really as John pointed out, you wrestle with the ‘elasticity’ all the time and in this scale you really need two pairs of hands, one to apply the accelerator just where its needed...

Thank you very much for the very kind words, Falke!

 

I apply CA with the tip of a toothpick. Regarding EZline, it's true the elasticity can be tricky to deal with and an additional pair of hands would be helpful Anyway, I prefer to apply the rigging using EZline at the end of the build. I think it makes it easier to paint and assemble the top and bottom wings.

 

Cheers

 

Jaime

 

[jrlx]

Hi again,

 

Some more progress, work done during the week.

 

I decided to weather the aircraft very simply, just applying a dark brown "greased earth" wash by Vallejo. Here's the set-up:

IMAG6282

 

The wash was applied overall

IMAG6283

 

... and left to dry for just a few minutes, before being almost completely cleaned with water-soaked cotton-buds. The idea was not to overdo the weathering. The model was left to dry overnight and, then, an Alclad Flat coat was applied and left to dry, also, for 24 hours. The results are shown below:

 

IMAG6291

 

IMAG6292

 

IMAG6293

 

IMAG6294

 

IMAG6295

 

IMAG6297

 

IMAG6298

 

Thanks for looking.

 

Jaime

 

 

 

[CedB]

Nice subtle weathering Jaime. She's looking very smart  

[TheBaron]

Love the tones and colours in that Jaime. Beautifully modulated!

[jrlx]

4 hours ago, CedB said:

Nice subtle weathering Jaime. She's looking very smart  

 

1 hour ago, TheBaron said:

Love the tones and colours in that Jaime. Beautifully modulated!

 

Ced, Tony, thank you very much! Your incentive is much appreciated

 

Cheers

 

Jaime

 

[jrlx]

Some more progress.

 

I unmasked the cockpit and the front bulkhead. As can be seen, some repair work on the painting of the cockpit is needed:

IMAG6299

 

IMAG6300

 

The accumulations of paint along the cockpit edges were carefully removed with a nº 10 blade. The repairs were done by paintbrush, applying thin layers of paint:

IMAG6308

 

IMAG6309

 

Time to work on the nose. There's a PE grid to insert through the small opening on the front:

IMAG6301

 

Unfortunately, it doesn't fit because the front tab of the grid is too wide for the opening. I had to cut a bit on the lower part of the tab.

IMAG6302

 

Next to install is the exhaust:

IMAG6303

 

The PE grid interferes with the installation of the exhaust and had to be bent:

IMAG6304

 

IMAG6305

 

Next, I had to install the propeller. I'm not usually a fan of rotating propellers in models but this time I decided to give it a go, instead of simply glueing the propeller to the front of the nose. In order to properly fit the propeller to the screw I had to deepen the hole on the back of the propeller with a 0.9 mm drill:

IMAG6306

 

Finally:

IMAG6307

 

The completed nose was glued to the fuselage. Fit was not perfect and I had to slowly apply TET and push the nose against the fuselage until the gaps at the top were closed. However, the aluminium painted plastic of the interior oozed out:

IMAG6310

 

While this settled, I glued the rudder in place, deflected to the left, since this is the normal position when the aircraft is on the ground, according to my references and many pictures that can be found on the web:

IMAG6311

 

IMAG6312

 

There are two wind-shields to install. I took care of them previously, starting by cutting them out of the sprue:

IMAG6289

 

As they're very small and sit on top of the fuselage, in front of the cockpits, they don't need to have their transparency improved by Aqua Gloss. So, I just painted the rims silver by paintbrush:

IMAG6290

 

After drying for a few days:

IMAG6315

 

Finally, wind-shields glued in place. The front one fit perfectly but the aft one didn't, because, earlier, the section of the fuselage between cockpits didn't close perfectly and I had to fill the gap with plasticard. Therefore, this section became a bit wider. In the picture, it can be seen that the silver oozing around the nose-fuselage join had already been touched up with Dark Earth:

IMAG6316

 

More progress later.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

Jaime

[CedB]

Jaime you have the patience of a Saint! More marvellous work and I'm loving the detail, as usual  

[jrlx]

4 minutes ago, CedB said:

Jaime you have the patience of a Saint! More marvellous work and I'm loving the detail, as usual  

Thanks a lot Ced! Not really a saint but I get the idea

 

 

Cheers

 

Jaime

[AdrianMF]

It's looking splendid. I love that kit - built three so far and somehow I still have another one in the stash...

 

Regards,

Adrian

[jrlx]

1 hour ago, AdrianMF said:

It's looking splendid. I love that kit - built three so far and somehow I still have another one in the stash...

 

Regards,

Adrian

Thanks Adrian! I have another one in the stash, to build a civilian aircraft with red fuselage and silver wings and tail.

 

Cheers

 

Jaime

[Terry1954]

Splendid modelling there Jamie. I love your eye to detail and especially the realistic tones on the paintwork. Like @AdrianMF I love the kit although I only have two in the stash!

 

Terry

[jrlx]

Thank you very much, Terry! The kit is nice but seems to have no tolerances to any alignment errors whatsoever. It seems that adding the interior PE caused some fuselage fit problems which, later, originated difficulties installing the aft wind-screen and the top wing and inter-wing struts (yes, I did it yesterday but I'm a bit behind updating the WIP)

 

Cheers

 

Jaime

 

[rob85]

This looks excellent Jamie, really lovely work and details! Having built this kit I don’t know how your doing it, it’s tiny and as you have said the tolerances are ridiculously tight!

 

Rob 

[jrlx]

Thanks Rob, that's very kind!

 

Thinking again, the main cause of problems for closing the fuselage was the misalignment of the front seat.

 

Cheers

 

Jaime

 

[jrlx]

Hi again,

 

Some more updating.

 

There's a PE bit representing the fuel line from the tank on the top wing to the engine. Here's the Tiger Moth Eduard PE set instruction sheet, the top wing and said part (nº 29) next to its representation on the sheet:

IMAG6313

 

Initially, I glued the PE part as shown in the instructions, on the inner side of the struts:

IMAG6314

 

However, I found out later, looking at reference pictures, that the fuel line was fastened to the outer side of the struts. So, I repositioned the PE part:

IMAG6317

 

It was now time to install the actuators for the rudder control cables. These actuators were done using some spare control horns from the Tiger Moth Eduard PE set (the same PE parts as used for the rudder):

IMAG6318

 

The actuators were installed on the fuselage sides, in previously drilled 0.3 mm holes:

IMAG6319

 

The actuators were positioned according to the left deflection of the rudder:

IMAG6320

 

Before I could install the control cables between the actuators and the rudder, I had to install the control cables for the tail plane control surfaces.

 

Here's the first cable, made from EZ line. One end was glued with CA to the corresponding hole on the side of the fuselage:

IMAG6322

 

The CA dried in seconds and the thread was stretched and glued on the other end to the actuator on top of the control surface. The excess was cut off with a nº 11 blade. The line for the lower control cable was installed using the same procedure:

IMAG6323

 

The following pictures show the final result:

IMAG6324

 

IMAG6325

 

IMAG6326

 

IMAG6327

 

Now I could install the rudder control cables. There's a double cable on each side. So, I cut a piece of EZ line with about double the length between the actuators and rudder:

IMAG6328

 

The middle section of the line was glued with CA to the actuator:

IMAG6329

 

The thread was stretched and glued to the rudder control horn. The excess was cut off with a nº 11 blade:

IMAG6330

 

The same procedure was repeated for the port side. To finish with, I still had to install the stretchers for the cables on the actuator side. These were made using parts nº 9 of the stretchers and control horns set from Eduard. The parts had been previously painted steel:

IMAG6321

 

Here's one on the wing, near the actuator, ready to be installed:

IMAG6331

 

They were simply glued to the EZ line using CA:

IMAG6333

 

The final control cables to install were the aileron control cables, which are under the fuselage, between the wings. Again, EZ line was used, stretched between the wings, where 0.3 mm holes had been previously drilled:

IMAG6334

 

The same stretchers were also installed here, by simply glueing the PE parts to the lines:

IMAG6337

 

Next, I glued the cockpit access doors in place, which are PE parts from the T.Moth Eduard set:

IMAG6338

 

IMAG6339

 

Thanks for looking

 

Jaime

 

 

 

 

 

[CedB]

Marvellous stuff Jaime  

[jrlx]

Thank you very much Ced!

 

 

[FalkeEins]

..crazy skill, detail and photos...wow! Etch control horns ? madness..!

 

I've just finished mine...purely to give a better idea of the actual size of the model....no close-ups

 

[AdrianMF]

6 minutes ago, FalkeEins said:

purely to give a better idea of the actual size of the model

My, what big hands you’ve got...