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Heather's Workbench - the French connection, 1940 style


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15 minutes ago, Pete in Lincs said:

Bon chance pour les Avions et 2019

 

(And here endeth the foreign stuff. We mentioned that earlier!)

 

@dogsbody  -30C? Ye Gods! Now that is a bit nippy indeed!

(I could rent you our spare room for the winter? (Radiator extra))

Just wait until it gets real cold in February! It can easily get down to the minus 40's. Then there is always the windchill factor. A slight breeze can make those low temps feel 10 degrees colder. I've been out working in the minus 50's quite a few times in the 35 years of working at the plant.

 

 

Chris

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1 hour ago, dogsbody said:

 

That's warmer than my basement hobby room. It's only 10C in there right now. The furnace vent in the ceiling is only partly open, as it comes off the same line as the one for my daughter's bedroom directly above and takes away heated air to her room. As her room has two outside walls, it can be chilly in there for her.

 

Mind you, it is -30C outside right now.

 

 

Chris

Its Canada, its supposed to be cold at this time of year! ☃️ Try Mars, that's freezing all year round. Last time I popped back there the first thing I ran into was a couple of brass space monkeys looking for a welder!

 

Sympathetic of Mars 👽

 

 

 

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A final job for this evening was to join the fuselage and attach the wing assembly.

 

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As ever, with no locating pins, it pays to take your time joining things together. I carefully sanded the mating surfaces, and started with the fin, working my way along the upper and lower fuselage joint. I try to make sure the upper surface is the best fit, as more often than not the underside won't really be visible under normal circumstances. That doesn't mean I don't want a nice join there, it's just less of a priority at this stage. Underneath, things look quite tidy. There are some gaps fore and aft where the belly assembly slots into the fuselage. Nothing a little filler won't cure.

 

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From above, the wing roots are commendably tidy. 

 

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The only area that's a bit off is the fin. There's a slight mismatch at the top, which is going to need some careful attention. Otherwise, another limited run kit that actually fits together quite well. 

 

That'll do for today. Some more tomorrow, where I'll consider the tailplane and think about some detail work underneath.

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I had forgotten how much I like the Morane. If I end up acquiring one it will be in 1/48 and all your fault Heather. You really must stop going around tempting weak willed aliens!

 

Martian of the absent will power 👽

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Works were a bit curtailed today, and it wasn't until the afternoon when I got to the bench. 

 

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Obviously I didn't pay quite enough attention to the alignment of the top of the nose as I thought I did. :blush: Ho-hum.

 

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A smear or three of PPP to fill some small gaps here and there. The rear of these little planes was fabric over stringers, much like the contemporary Hurricane fuselage. Consequently, it took a little time to clean the joint up under the rear of the wings. 

 

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More filler around the tail fin and wing roots. The tail always appears undernourished on these little planes.

 

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The MS.406 would never win any prizes at a beauty competition. The front end, in particular, seems very fussy, with scoops, grilles and various protuberances. There's a chin grille that needs to be considered when tidying up the seams. The belly radiator is constructed from three parts, and is built in lowered form. Some surgery would allow the radiator to be fitted in the raised condition. 

 

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It seemed a good idea to consider the machine guns and pitot tube. The moulded kit parts were discarded out of hand: too much effort to extract from the sprues and clean up. Instead, the guns were substituted for short lengths of 0.5mm brass wire fitted into suitable holes drilled in the mounting points. The pitot was a little more involved. The real thing has a thinner section that extends from the end for about 30cm or so. I simply don't have brass tube of small enough diameter, and there is no way on earth I could drill a sensible pilot hole down 0.7mm brass wire! Thinner wire wouldn't look right. What to do? Well, the Dremel does occasional service in my "day job" as a small hand lathe for tidying small brass castings such as whistles and lubricators. I stuck the wire in the chuck, leaving sufficient poking out to represent the smaller diameter. I then used a small flat file against the brass while the drill was running. Of course, the usual disclaimers about health and safety must appear here. I didn't tell you that the Dremel "lathe" is a proper use of power tools. So don't do it, okay? :tmi:

 

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While I had the metal out, I replaced the horizontal stabiliser struts with some 0.5mm wire. To make it appear slightly less round and more like the aerodynamic things they ought to be, I used a pin vice to hold the wire and gently filed a flat, then flipped it over to flatten the other. It more or less worked, and looks a gazillion times better than the kit ones would, even assuming I could clean the latter up without breaking them. If there's one thing that really should be provided on the PE fret, it's struts like these.

 

I will attempt the same flattening trick for the main antenna, and the one under the belly. I might even be able to taper the brass wire… Plastic poles wouldn't last five seconds when it comes to masking things for painting. Next, I'm considering what to do about the undercarriage. Should I fit it all now and try to detail paint later, or leave the main gear off until the main painting is done. Hmm, decisions.

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15 hours ago, dogsbody said:

Yesterday the temperature here got briefly up to +2C

Show off! :winkgrin:

 

I fret about the mild chill because it does make difference to the painting process. Temperatures really need to be in mid-teens, both for my comfort and for the painting to be successful. Ideally, my paint shop should move downstairs - being a household authority in my own right, I can make such decisions! - but I’m still in the fretting stage about new airbrush, compressor and extraction. 

 

Meanwhile, pending a primer application, things have sort of ground to a standstill. I need to get back to some paying work, too. Still, the festive season is out of the way, so life can sort of return to the usual routines again. 

Edited by Heather Kay
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On 1/1/2019 at 4:21 AM, dogsbody said:

Mind you, it is -30C outside right now.

 

 

Chris

Ahhh, I am living in the tropics now @dogsbody (again) but I do miss -25 during the day and -30 at night (not counting wind chill), and thinking that 7°C in my classrooms was warm.

 

Nice theme and builds Heather, following this thread with interest.

 

DennisTheBear

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  • 2 weeks later...

Right, where were we? These kinds of interregnums will be much to the fore this coming year as I attempt to scale the mountain of commissioned work before me.

 

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Messrs Bloch, Dewoitine and Curtiss have been sitting on my bench, letting the first camo colour dry off. The Morane is currently in the paint shop after a cheeky blast of primer a week ago.

 

Really? That long? Yup.

 

Today, having got the chore of completing my tax return out of the way (quite why I leave it until almost the last possible minute every year defeats me, but I’m not the only one), and with ambient temperatures in the early teens Celsius, I thought I’d treat myself to some quality airbrush time. Well, quality time, if not airbrushing. First, though, I suspect I should sort out some masking on the three in this picture. The Morane is slated for an unusual black finish with sky grey undersurfaces, so that will make things a bit simpler.

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32852220768_b48713f58e_c.jpg

 

For the fussy three colour camo I’m experimenting with Maskol. I roughed out the shapes with a soft artist's pencil, then blobbed the masking fluid on with a cotton bud. The dark grey was the base coat, and I’ve masked for the burnt earth. Once that’s dried, I’ll peel it all off and do it again for the grass green. I said it was fussy.

 

 

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On 12/31/2018 at 9:33 AM, Heather Kay said:

I've opted to brush paint these planes. They’re tiny little things, hardly worth all the aggro of masking and airbrushing when three strokes of a loaded brush does the job. I’m using Colourcoats enamels, after having seen the brilliant results of others here on BM. My test mule using these paints was airbrushed, which is one of the reasons why I decided to brush paint the current models - the three colour camouflage is a real fiddle to mask, and sometimes life's too short.

That's saying something alright. One of the MS406 options in the Hasegawa twofer is a scheme with myriad small patches of colour. Masking that up would probably have you in the home for the bewildered.

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i use maskol all the time.  its quite good as it sit's in all the gaps so paint tends not to blead

Edited by SA80A2AR
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1 hour ago, JosephLalor said:

Masking that up would probably have you in the home for the bewildered.

It's too late for that. Terminal bewilderment is my normal state these days.

29 minutes ago, SA80A2AR said:

its quite good as it sit's in all the gaps so paint tends not to blead

As I've discovered. Now, if I could just get the stuff to follow my pencil guidelines I'll be a happy bunny.

 

As things stand, the masking came off after about an hour of the paint application without fuss. It's not fully dry, but dry enough for me to consider the masking for green camo colour. If that works, I'll leave things alone to dry for a week or so while I get on with "proper" work.

Edited by Heather Kay
Fumble fingers typos.
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Well, that went better than I had hoped. I’ll let things dry for the night, strip the masking first thing in the morning before I get stuck into proper work, and see what rectification might be needed. 

 

Next job will be masking the three multicoloured planes so the undersides can be painted. The little black number on the end just needs a coat of gloss.

 

I reckon that was a good afternoon's work.

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Late to the party on this thread, but very glad I found it. Lovely work so far. This all speaks to me too as a fellow 1940 aficionado. A very interesting time frame to study and build. I remember being given a bunch of very old kits when I was 13 (1982). They must have easily been from the 1960s, and one of them was the Heller Bloch 152. I had never seen one before, so the interest was duly sparked and this led me to buying more Heller kits whenever I could. Scanning eBay with all the Heller and Smer kits that can be had for little money, I think I can feel the itch developing again!

 

For some reason the Les Mureaux 117 sticks in my mind. I seem to remember being impressed with Heller's rendition of the fuselage skinning. Looking forward to your build. I'm off to eBay now to buy some Heller kits!

 

Steve

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8 minutes ago, fightersweep said:

For some reason the Les Mureaux 117 sticks in my mind.

I was going to add my one into this session, but it’s surprising as to how big the plane was. It’s not a tiny fighter, but has a massive wingspan akin to a Swordfish. I don’t have display room at present, so the 117 will remain on the shelf for a while longer.

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A quick update.

 

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The three multicoloured planes showing their colours. I resorted to brush-painting the Colourcoats enamels to touch in edges and cover over the pesky pencil marks that I couldn’t erase. I can’t account for the variations in finish - my brush marks aside. Some of the colours spray satin, some spray matt. It doesn’t really matter, as I need a gloss coat for the decals anyway. Hopefully the brush marks, which I’ve tried to keep minimal, will disappear under a matt varnish layer.

 

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Underneath is a somewhat different story. It began with the Morane, which you will recall has a simple matt black and light sky grey livery. I sprayed the grey over the primer a day or three ago. Using masking fluid, I covered the underside, and painted the black. Once dry enough, I removed the masking - along with the paint and primer. Now, I’ve had this happen before, with monotonous regularity. In fact, so regular now I’m tempted to give up painting models altogether! Anyway, after saying a few fruity words, I cleaned things up and considered my options. With nothing to lose, since I’d have to strip the entire model if it got any worse, I tried brushing a new undercoat of that throwaway Humbrol acrylic stuff they put in the gift sets. When it had dried, I tried brushing the enamel colour, and it seemed to work.

 

Buoyed by that success, I thought it worth trying to brush paint the undersides of the other planes. Guess what? The first thinned coat was okay. Of course, the second thinned coat started to lift the first coat again - this happened before in this very thread - but I’m going to persevere this time. I’ll let things gas off and harden for a few days at room temperature, and try another coat. I really, really, do not fancy attempting any masking for airbrushing, because it’s a dead cert it’ll be a nasty mess. 

 

Yes, the Dewoitine undercarriage is broken. I took the leg out after the wheel came adrift. Anyway, onwards! 

Edited by Heather Kay
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On ‎13‎/‎01‎/‎2019 at 16:08, JosephLalor said:

 Masking that up would probably have you in the home for the bewildered.

Or BM, which pretty much amounts to the same thing!

 

Martian 👽

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Lovely work so far. Enjoying the thread.

 

i use Maskol from time to time but for effects like this:-

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With Acrylics I find the lighter shades can soften and re-wet an existing particularly with the likes of Tamiya white, where a second coat almost always causes the first coat to lift, deck tan and pale grays can also be a problem. Expressly for this purpose I keep a tin of white enamel where I nede a solid white.

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7 hours ago, Heather Kay said:

I sprayed the grey over the primer a day or three ago. Using masking fluid, I covered the underside, and painted the black. Once dry enough, I removed the masking - along with the paint and primer. Now, I’ve had this happen before, with monotonous regularity.

I tend to use Vallejo and other Acrylics myself. Ive suffered similar issues before but solved them by clear or gloss-coating between colors. Otherwise it doesn't matter how long i wait. The paint will lift when im pulling the masking off. The only exception is if im doing freehand camouflage. 

 

Dennis  

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