1-48 Yellow Peril - Classic Airframes F.4 conversion

[Caerbannog]

Thanks!

So here we are - time machine set to last Friday aaaaaand go:

I decided to print new Union Jacks (along with loads of other decals to make an A4 sheet full) and to remove the small ones. My common practice to remove decals is to place tape on them - burnish it down and pull the decals off. I had to repeat this several times before I tore the sticker off - including the paint and primer... So the KitsAtWar decals don not only apply very well - they stick extremly good.

Surely this resulted in sharp steps between the now bare plastic and the primed and painted areas. So back to sanding to get an even transition before I masked and repainted that area:

While the paint set to dry I worked on the intake guards mentioned above. I used some wire which was bend around a wooden dowel to shape two rings for the frame. The screen was cut from a general Eduard sheet and everythig stuck together with super glue.

My decals were printed on clear decal paper. Means all colours but black are translucent and will need a white background to look as desired. Those who know the woodgrain decals which must be applied over a brown or beige suface to look like wood know how these translucent decals look like.

I know of two options to get a white background (apart from already white painted subjects that is of course). One is to place the tranclucent decal on solid white decal to create a composite decal (basically the same as done by some aftermarket decal companies to avoid out-of-register prints) and second - what I did - to mask the area where the translucent decal goes and paint this white.

Before I print on decal paper I make a test print on normal paper (well it is closer to ten than just one...). I used this plane paper print as a template for the tape mask which was cut from Tamiya tape and placed on the Meteor nose in place:

After the area was painted white and dried (I used Tamiya paint because it sets much more evenly and more quickly than enamel paint IMHO) the decal was put in place.

Final assembly steps were to attach the u/c and the Pitot tube. The u/c went on without bigger issues (some testfitting, cutting, sanding, drilling,...) and I copied the reinforcement from Tricky Rich (http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234990068-148-israeli-meteor-nf13-completed/page-2) though his looks a bit stronger. The pitot tube was cut from simple metal rod.

There is almost no weathering - I only applied a dark grey Valleijo wash in the wheel wells and cockpit to bring out the details and accented the lines around the moving surfaces and vents with True Earth "Dark Ageing". I got the True Earth Christmas Aircraft set from my fantastic wife and must say the Dark Ageing works nicely. I am really looking forward to a future build with more weathering.

So for anyone looking here to build the Yellow Peril be aware. There are some areas that should not be copied (those that I know of/remember are listed below):

Yesterday I unpacked my new light cube which is 80 x 80 x 80 cm. And packed it up again because I need more space for this! I will have to clean my current workbench before I can start playing around with this to take new pictures - including canopy. But the gallery pics turned out better than I first thought so these should be OK for the next days.

Thanks,

René

[kev67]

^{Very nice, I certainly would not complain to much, as it looks great}

[Caerbannog]

Thanks a lot Kev67.

Oh - I do not complain - I just try to save other from my mistakes ;-) I guess I can improve the intake guards a bit for the final pictures but over all I quite happy with this. Especially as I finished it in time once I "dived" into it. Well for my timetabel that is...

[Magua87]

Unique subject. Very well done!