Off with the Faireys - Fighting Zvezda's Battle

[Martian]

Like it? I'm loving it!

 

Martian 👽

[Max Headroom]

Oh. My. Giddy. Aunt!

 

Trevor the unworthy 

[Terry1954]

This is becoming rather consuming. I have a Zvezda 1/144 Hurricane somewhere - it was a free gift in a magazine about 18 months ago. I need to dig it out and work out whether that can be made half decent!

 

Brilliant work happening here.

 

Terry

[Putty Animal]

Thanks gents.  I really appreciate the kind words.

 

Here's some shots with the top coat on.  I used Tamiya's RAF Dark Green XF-81 with a few drops of off-white. I paid a fair bit of attention to wingtips, rudder and wing edges too, as I find these suffer the most handling. There will still be a lot of assembly work to go after this, so I don't want them to start showing their primer again any time soon.

I sprayed with the paint well thinned and got in very close using quick on/off passes. Also taking care to spray away from the wingroot and rudder etc. wherever possible, and to direct the spray across the edges of the tape and not into them. After allowing about 15 minutes for the paint to do it's initial dry, I took the tape off...

Phew!  Nice and smooth, thank goodness.

 

 

 

I did things slightly bottom-about this time, as I ended up spraying the undersides last. This was mainly so I could get the two top colours on over the course of just 2 days. I think the black may have been applied last in the factory anyway, so perhaps it's for the best. Remasking the upper surfaces so early was a bit scary, but it seemed to go alright.

Here's a shot of the undersurfaces. It gives a good view of the new radiator which gave me so much grief. You can also just make out the newly scribed bomb doors and panel lines.  These were very lightly done to try to remain within scale.

 

 

After that it was the walkways. These were done a bit like the canopy frames; putting down a facsimile of the walkway then masking around it for ease of alignment. Scraps of the now-verboten polythene shopping bags were used as flexible masks to prevent overspray.

 

 

Which brings me to here.  Things will get toned down a lot, so don't mind the stark colours  

 

 

Thanks again for looking.  More to follow soon!

[Putty Animal]

 

More Battle bothering.

I couldn't find a source of the 63 inch Type B roundels in 1/144, so I had to look at either painting them myself or putting the thing back in its box.  A couple of hours online taught me a few things on the sizes and proportions of the markings, plus the recipe to mix the colours. I didn't have the required paints, however a chance errand at work took me past a local hobby shop and I was able to duck inside and grab what I needed.

I began making the masks. The outer circle was OK, as I could use an Olfa cutter to do it. However the red circle was only 4.44mm in diameter and way beyond its capabilities. Instead I made a rough and ready circle cutter by superglueing my sharpened scribing tool to a broken piece of scalpel blade, with a .85mm spacer in between. A couple of practice shots and this seemed to work very well.

Below is a picture of the masks. I did the outer circle first. Then located the improvised circle cutter into the same hole and spun the smaller disk.

 

 

I also cut some plain disks and I used these first to get the location of the roundels.

 

 

Then the body of the tape was placed around them to create the initial mask so the center bits could be safely removed.
 

 

 

I prepared a very thin mix of Tamiya primer and misted this over the area to create a neutral background. Then thanks to various internet oracles (mostly here on Britmodeller), I was able to mix 75%/25% Tamiya XF-8 and XF-1 to make the blue. Taking time between passes, this was sprayed over each roundel mask. As always trying not to spray into the corners so as to avoid a visible lip of paint.

All this was being done on the balcony while it was blowing a Hawker Tempest outside. Hot tip: To avoid having my plastic paint mixing pots blowing away, I blu tacked a 20c piece to the bottom of each and they remained upright and where I left them. Mrs P expressed some scepticism over my mental heath, but I pressed on regardless.

The blue was pretty quick to dry, so I then got the donut bits of the mask and covered the blue with these and sealed the outer edges with some scraps of tape. The red is 75%/25% XF-7 and XF-64.
 

 

Back inside again, I grabbed a scalpel and tweezers and nervously began to take the tape off...

 

 

 

Phew!

 

 

There's one pesky mote of dust that landed on the red, but I won't take that off until the paint has had a chance to harden.  I have to say though, that was pretty encouraging.

I also added the fuselage roundels from an MYK sheet, but ran into problems there. The removable backing sheet on the decal sticks like brown to a blanket on the acrylic paint and rips up some of the surface, actually delaminating the thickness of paint if it can't pull it off the primer. I'll have to do a little touching up later but hopefully it will be okay. This is the third time this has happened, so I'll be sure to add a protective coat of clear lacquer first before using acrylics and MYK again.

 

[Tweener]

I must say, this has been very inspiring to watch. I have wanted to do some of the 1/144 Zvezdas for some time now, and have always gotten distracted...

 

Best of luck on the final stages, Tweener

[neil5208]

Love tbe masking technique for the rondells, will use that soon

[Putty Animal]

Thanks again!  It has been a very long road to get this far.

 

Tweener, I don't recommend Zvezda 1/144 kits unless you have a special interest in the particular subject.  They are among he very worst in the scale.  I would suggest Sweet or Platz kits for a much better experience.  Or the huge F-toys range of aircraft and armour.  Those guys have done all the heavy lifting in 1/144 over the last ten years.

 

Here's some more on the Battle, which almost brings things up to speed.  The next part was the glazing.

These were first given temporary frames with strips of tape that I cut using my calipers as a straight edge, setting them at .28mm for each strip. The actual framework was laid out, then the remaining glass areas masked with squares and rectangles of tape. Again using the calipers to ensure accuracy. I think in all I probably spent three hours on it but it was time well spent. You can see a shot of the completed mask below.

 

 

 

And a shot of the temporary reverse-masked frames being removed this morning prior to painting:

 

 

Like the windscreen, I gave the glazing a light coat of RAF interior green followed by a similarly light coat of black. After that it was the top coat of Dark Earth and Dark Green. In future I might do another middle layer of silver. We'll see..

Decals for 1/144 are very hard to come by, so I had to mask and spray the fin flashes too.

 

 

After that I remasked the cockpit and glazing to give the airframe a coat of clear matt. I used Mr Color lacquer for this with two drops of off-white.  Results are below. While taking the photos I couldn't help but notice that when at rest, the Fairey Battle looks just as much at home lying on its belly as it does when sitting on its undercarriage!

 

 

 

 

 

[Max Headroom]

Wonderful!

 

Trevor

[Brandy]

Beautiful, absolutely gorgeous! I hope my Airfix one looks half as good.

 

Ian

[Martian]

I am completely in awe of your skills Sir!

 

Martian 👽

[Martian]

On ‎16‎/‎10‎/‎2018 at 15:31, limeypilot said:

Beautiful, absolutely gorgeous! I hope my Airfix one looks half as good.

 

Ian

I'm sure it will when you crack on with it! 

 

Martian 👽

 

(Sorry Ian but you did rather walk into that one!)

[Brandy]

I did, you're right. Unfortunately I just haven't had the mojo recently. I got some of the repairs done (result of the relocation) and now I'm in the middle of 17 days straight at work, so it'll probably be another week at least before I even sit at the bench.

 

Ian

Edited October 20, 2018 by limeypilot

[Tony C]

Certainly doesn’t look 1:144, brilliant modelling...

[Terry1954]

Amazing stuff @Putty Animal. The masking alone is brilliant, and the rest of the model quite awesome given the scale you are working in.

 

Very impressed.

 

Terry

[woody37]

Just amazing, I’d be proud of this in 72 or 48 scale!

 

[Putty Animal]

Thanks again everybody.  I'm so pleased that I'll finally have a Fairey Battle in my collection soon!

 

These shots should bring the story up to date and put me on the last few stages of finishing and construction. 

 

The plane has finally got its main undercarriage on. The tyres and hubs were painted separately then assembled afterwards for a neater look. The oleo legs are sterling silver wire and I went to a lot of trouble to get the length just right. Measuring the height of the ground line in relation to the propeller hub to ensure that the overall height of the aircraft was okay. The doors and mudguardey things were made from 0.1mm styrene and painted before fixing them in place with PVA one at a time (very tricky). I added the mysterious little rectangles on the wheel doors too from silver-painted decal film.

 

After that I treated the airframe to a bit of a spa treatment, massaging in various essential oil (paints). I tried not to overdo it too much though and I'll do just a little chipping and whatnot later.

I put one of the nav lights in which was a tight fit and difficult to get in place. After several attempts I got tired of dropping the damn thing. Deciding that if you can't beat them, join them; I moved my chair out of the way and worked head down on the floor instead.  Assembling the reluctant component while lying on the carpet propped up on my elbows.  I fought the Carpet Monster... and I won

 

 

The rear gunner's position also got its canopy masked. I also made the Vickers gun. Well... most of it.
The gun is displayed in the stowed position inside the rotating cone which houses it. It seemed the most likely place for it to be when the aircraft was at rest. This also had the happy side-effect of keeping the barrel out of sight, so I wouldn't have to mess about making it. The drum and rear portion of the gun are there though, just behind the little triangular shaped piece of armour plate, so I made these from strip and rod and glued them in place. The cloth handle that sits on top of the ammunition drum was made from a bit of painted cigarette paper to make sure that its nice and thin. One packet of those will keep me in 1/144 straps and belts or the next thousand years!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next up is the pilots seat and harness, fuselage codes, tailwheel and radio mast. Then its the remainder of the weathering. After that the Battle should finally be over and I can move forward, into broad sunlit uplands. 

[stevehnz]

Fantastic. This is not a term I normally use but in this case, I think I may refer to something as small & perfectly formed as Gorgeous.

Steve.

[Smithy]

Holy smokes that looks brilliant. Great work, I love it!

[Killingholme]

Wow. I couldn't achieve that in 1/72. Amazing!

[Brandy]

I love it! The weathering looks just right as is.

 

Ian

[occa]

Yikes !!

For the whole thread I thought you were skillfully improving the old Airfix 1/72 kit.

 

Now I've just read it's 1/144 ... simply unbelievable

[Brandy]

Any advances on this little beauty?

 

Ian

[Sosezi]

This is a Killer!! looks like real Fairey Battle 😍😍😍😍😍

[Grunticus]

I admire your patience and dedication, and I am in awe of what you have accomplished. Hats off!