Mosquito NF Mk.II - Tamiya 1/72 * Now with added PR IV *

[CedB]

Page 2 - glad I drilled those holes!

 

Thanks Peter

Morning TT! Sorry, morning TT... I hope your head gets better soon.  

Thanks Stew - good idea! I've now ordered both mask sets from Hannants. Sadly they're sold out of the bomber kit (I wonder why?) so I had to top up with an Airfix Spitfire 22. Oh, and a Typhoon. But wait, now I have to buy the bomber kit... Amazon Prime to the rescue. If it arrives tomorrow I might follow your lead and do both together - hope you don't mind (I know you won't!).

Thanks Christian - quite right that man! Last time I moulded 'the BM team' suggested a pour hole up the bottom to avoid this and I sort of remembered but then put the tubes in the wrong place (doh!) Corrected this morning:

 

Untitled by Ced Bufton, on Flickr 

[keefr22]

Every Tamiya kit I've built has needed filler somewhere. But I do fully endorse your comment about Idiots building them...! (and I don't drink Rioja!)

 

Keith

[CedB]

Thanks Keith

 

The second set of victims has been stuck in the mould (with careful blobbing of Plasticine around the edges) and both are now curing:

 

 

 

On past advice I used my defunct toothbrush to vibrate the mold and, sure enough, some bubbles surfaced. I then touched something on the bare circuit board, received a small shock accompanied by a popping noise and the toothbrush was no more. Well, that's not quite accurate; when I ripped it apart to safely dispose of the battery the lights came back on and, like a character in a 'B' horror movies, refused to go out:

 

Untitled by Ced Bufton, on Flickr

 

Spooky. 

 

Anyway, you know how mad I am about pilots so I prepared some for crew selection. I want to use the new PJ Productions ones and, while I'm painting those up, I may as well do some others:

 

 

To get them on the sticks I thought "Aha! I have that new kicker" and then realised I'd stupidly touched the brush to some CA to, er, kick it and the once nicely soft brush was hardened. Then I thought "Aha! I have that new de-bonder" so I tried that. Didn't work. I now had a kicker brush covered in de-bonder so I threw it away and stuck a bit of cocktail stick in the end:

 

 

 

I wish I'd thought of doing that before I bought the extra Touch-n-Flow bottle. I am an idiot.

 

One positive thing was that the new 'system' worked well; dob of kicker on the pilots bottom, dip cocktail stick into CA, press and hold for 5-10 seconds. Quick coat of ratskin flesh and they're drying now:

 

 

 

The good news is that the PJ pilot fits the seat in the Mossie (remember that, the Mossie?):

 

 

This morning I've also glued my first parts... but I think I'll save this post and start another.

[CedB]

Tamiya Mosquito. Right. Past delays caused by waiting for the Touch-n-Flow and building shelves have passed, time to glue some bits.

 

The Touch-N-Flow ('TNF') looks straightforward, if a bit scary, but it works really well. If you carefully follow the instructions and use the bottle to suck glue into the tube the promise of 'no leaks when horizontal' are true:

 

 

Untitled by Ced Bufton, on Flickr

 

See? That said, running the needle down a Tamiya seam (what seam?) was not as easy as it would be on other 'gappy' models and there was some excess flow:

 

 

BUT it's weld rather than bond so it flashed off quickly and I reckon this will come off with a quick swipe of the sander:

 

 

once it's dry. We shall see!

[CedB]

Perhaps sanded too soon, but happy with these:

 

Untitled by Ced Bufton, on Flickr

 

Not sure what happened with the right hand one and I need to watch out when cutting parts from the sprue - stress marks, ugh. 

[CedB]

More confident with the TnF now after practicing on my poor old mule (time I got a new one, actually):

 

Untitled by Ced Bufton, on Flickr

 

I thought the line on the Mossie nacelle might have been caused by my dragging the needle on wet glue but no - I tried this on the wing (below the outmost strip) and in the aileron line - the weld flashes off almost immediately. Trying even harder you can see where I dug my fingernail into the plastic just in front of the outmost strip. Really hard to make the 'melted plastic' dent. The weld is really good - like TET it 'sucks' the part onto the surface and gives a little bit of wiggle time without being too slippy. I like it.

 

I put some metal colour under the landing lights - an idea stolen from Stew:

 

 

and then glued the wings together and fitted the nacelles:

 

 

Oh my goodness, what a kit! i now understand why Tamiya invented extra-thin; the gaps in their kits are too small for normal glue. Perfect.

Makes me want to write 'Dear John' letters to the other kits in my stash.

[bbudde]

Hello Ced. Yes, I guess they call that "The wall", but a bit too close.  (I'm not that type of football fan either/ sports only for myself)

All I can say, that this seems to look good for the start here on my cheap seat. A bit too much creamy relief through my binocular here. Moulds ok?

Yep, the (newer standard) Tamiya's are always well engineered with no really fuss at all. You should be a bit careful with that, when you are used to old Airfix or short run ones. Cheers

Edit : to/too. Sorry

Edited March 22, 2017 by bbudde

[Beard]

42 minutes ago, CedB said:

Oh my goodness, what a kit! i now understand why Tamiya invented extra-thin; the gaps in their kits are too small for normal glue. Perfect.

Makes me want to write 'Dear John' letters to the other kits in my stash.

 

I'll have them.

[Nigel Heath]

I have the TnF thingy, used it once but didn't really get on with it. I'm not sure what advantage it is supposed to have over a fine brush?

[bbudde]

Won't go political here too much:

Sorry to here, what happened in London today. Cannot understand this people from whoever they come from and whatever they want? Killing them seems to be the only option ( if this is what they desire?)

 

Will watch that classic football game tonight on my first rate seat tonight. Hope it will be peaceful but intense, as I'm not a hardcore football fan at all.

Edited March 22, 2017 by bbudde

[CedB]

Thanks Benedikt - I'll be careful with the kit... the hammer, chisel and finger sander (you know, the big one) have been put away.

Awful events in Westminster and so sad that innocent people have lost their lives. That said the response was prompt and efficient; we sometimes forget, with all the media hype and bluster, that the UK can be proud of its security services.

 

Hi Simon - just kidding, sorry. If I only built kits like this one, where would the fun be?

 

Hi Nigel - hmmm, yet to find out really but one thing is that you don't need to keep putting the top back on the bottle and there's less risk of knocking the bottle over? I also think it will be less blobby than TET but then I'm not using a fine brush; I just use the one in the bottle. We'll see later I guess.

 

 

First deviation from the instructions - wheels UP. Cut off the hinges:

 

 

and fiddle with the doors:

 

 

Always hard to dry-fit to see what they'll look like (my excuse) so I went for 'best fit'. I think I'll need to fill and re-scribe the gap.

[The Spadgent]

Looking super good Ced. I built one of these just before I did my first build on BM, it's a lovely kit. Somehow I managed to get the Tamiya paint code wrong for the camo and the first coat was metallic blue?? I fixed it though. I'd like to do the 1/32 one day.

 

Jont

Edited March 22, 2017 by The Spadgent

[Biggles87]

Now you can see what you've been missing!

For cutting parts from the sprue I use a fine razor saw, then clean up when joined with well worn wet and dry or a Flexi file for things like tanks.

 

Finished by the weekend?

 

John

 

 

[Nigel Heath]

Quote

I think I'll need to fill and re-scribe the gap.

 

Agreed. That looks like the best solution.

 

[giemme]

Ced, remember the blue tack for the dry fit

 

Nice job so far, I bet you'll be done by the weekend!

 

Ciao

[Stew Dapple]

15 hours ago, CedB said:

Not sure what happened with the right hand one and I need to watch out when cutting parts from the sprue - stress marks, ugh. 

 

Yes I had the same thing in the same places, I think it might be partly due to the harder plastic compared to, say, an Airfix kit, but also on those intakes it is one of the few occasions when I wondered why they joined the part to the sprue there. The only other part of the kit that gave me any level of conniption was the side-window insert for the canopy, I won't know how effectively that was covered up until the masking comes off...

 

That weld looks like good stuff. I've got some Micro Plastic Weld in the 'Glue' section... I can't remember why I haven't used it for ages 

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

[CedB]

Thanks Jont - the paint codes are a nuisance, mainly because I'm not used to them. I've just written the codes for the internals on a little PostIt and 'translated' them. Ready now.

Thanks John - good idea! I got my nano-saws out last night - it's safer I guess.

Thanks Nigel!

Thanks Giorgio - doh! I forgot the BluTak tip... do please keep reminding me and, one day, it might 'sink in' to my thick skull.

Thanks Stew - weird that part isn't it? The wings came off beautifully. I'll watch out for the canopy (thanks). 

 

I'm going to persevere with the TnF for a bit longer. I've used TET for the wings and became increasingly aware of how many times I took the brush out of the bottle, put it back and screwed the top on (a bit). I also think the weld is thinner than TET and it certainly flashes off much faster, hopefully avoiding fingerprint risks. We shall see!

 

Nothing much to report. I've peeled the molds off the first half:

 

 

Untitled by Ced Bufton, on Flickr

 

I'll clean them up ready for the 'other half' later. Note that 'the four' were moulded using a single row of Lego - I won't do that again, as the rubber flexed too much when removing the Plasticine and a couple popped out. Two levels for me from now on - 'the three' were fine. They've gone back in easily so no damage (I hope).

 

I've stuck the Radar on the the i/p (big deal) and given the boys their blue troos:

 

 

 

 

The rest of the evening modelling time was spent researching uniforms. Having watched 633 Squadron (again) I thought "Hang on, they're wearing sheepskin jackets". I found an interesting post on Airfix Tribute Forum with some pictures and, usefully, Humbrol colours for various outfits. There's also a thread here on BM I now realise that I need to keep some of my 'chubbies' for Bomber crew onesies.

 

For you diorama chaps I've also discovered Gunthhaite Miniatures - nice white metal figures but not 'in the aircraft'.

I also found Tango India Mike's thread with his crew - pretty inspiring!

[CedB]

Untitled by Ced Bufton, on Flickr

 

Second half now poured. The second Mossie arrives today so I think I'll get that one to the same state as the NF.

Pilot painting... that'll keep me busy.

[CedB]

While we're waiting...

Keith very kindly sent me a collection of crew including these:

 

 

Two of these:

 

 

and four of these:

 

 

We're not sure if they're RAF but, once they're painted, who'll know. My first thought was that the sprue wasn't suitable for two part rubber so I thought I'd try Plasticine with a silicon putty top.

 

 

This proved not be be a good idea. Even after rolling the Plasticine flat(ish) as soon as the parts were pressed in, you can see it's not going to work:

 

 

 

Too soft around the edges and, if you push too far, square legs.

 

My current thought is to cut the pieces off the sprue and create a 'body parts' strip mould; parts 'along the edge' with cocktail stick pour holes, two part again. 

Will that work do we think?

 

[MickE]

good progress.

[Leonl]

Nice work.... makes me want to get another. May be 1/32 this time??

[CedB]

Thanks Mick  

Thanks Leon - I keep looking at the 1/32 and 1/24 models and thinking 'crikey, that's like ten models in one' which I guess justifies the price? Should keep you busy for a while!

 

Crew are ready:

 

Untitled by Ced Bufton, on Flickr

 

B has also arrived so time to get on with some modelling... oh wait, the molds will be ready in the morning. Soon then.

[CedB]

The NF 'internal' parts are ready for some paint so I just need to get the 'B' bits in the same state. Canopy masks are crawling from Hannants in the snail mail.

 

@Stew Dapple I hope you don't mind but, as this is a 'relaxing build' for me, I'd like to do the one-colour PR version too, if only to avoid masking! I won't get them up to your standards but at least I have a bar to aim at and shamelessly plagiarise. Thanks in advance Stew  

 

 

This morning I ripped the moulds apart. As usual I'd not applied the release agent all over (my excuse is that it's clear and hard to see) so some encouragement was needed to separate the halves with the scalpel. Next time I'll be more liberal, especially around the edges.

 

Untitled by Ced Bufton, on Flickr

 

Here's the 'three tiny' mould:

 

 

 

I needed to prise the figures out where their feet were in the rubber - not a good sign perhaps. I also need to think more about the pour holes and reservoir - perhaps a Lego block and something else for the pour holes. 

 

The four 'Defiant' figures:

 

 

 

 

Resin pouring in all the moulds later (gulp). Wish me luck!

[Stew Dapple]

1 minute ago, CedB said:

I'd like to do the one-colour PR version too, if only to avoid masking!

 

Haha that was partly/mostly my reasoning too mate

 

Be interesting to see how those resin crewmen turn out too

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

[keefr22]

14 minutes ago, CedB said:

Wish me luck!

 

Good luck Ced! Have to say your moulds are visibly improving with every new effort. I've not tried moulding anything so small with such complex shapes, so I'm picking up useful tips here! 

 

Keith