Heather's Workbench - the French connection, 1940 style

[Heather Kay]

15 hours ago, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

I tend to use Vallejo and other Acrylics myself.

I grew up using enamels, and belatedly discovered the joys of acrylics for recent work. For my French projects, though, I found it all but impossible to find an acrylic manufacturer that could provide what I deemed the "correct" colours. Life's a bit too short to try mixing and matching near enough colours. From the various Heller boxings I have in the stash, I tried to source Humbrol colours, but oddly many are not available in acrylic, only enamel.

 

I ended up going with Colourcoats. They have a range that provides colours for French, Dutch and Italian aircraft. Going back to enamels felt like a mis-step, but apart from the probably self-inflicted issues already noted I’ve found them easy to use.

 

 

Last night I risked a further brushed coat of light grey. It only bloomin' worked! 

[Sturmovik]

Try getting your hands on Revell Aqua's acrylic range, they brush beautifully and take 10 to 30 minutes to dry to the touch. The paint doesn't lift either.

[dogsbody]

Some Tamiya mixes that may be useful.

 

 

 

 

Chris

[Heather Kay]

6 minutes ago, dogsbody said:

Some Tamiya mixes that may be useful.

Cheers Chris. I am, however, keen to limit the variety of paints and their various thinners I have to store. I think that makes me very unusual among modellers! 

 

Oh, for the good old days of just needing the right Airfix or Humbrol numbers! 

[SA80A2AR]

oh your not the only one

[Gondor44]

I used Humbrol paints for a What If model of Hawker Hurricane Mk1a of GC 1/4 Armée De L’air 1940 but if you excuse the build not being a real aircraft the finish looks something like what I think you are after

 

 

 

The camouflage was painted using Humbrol colors, Hu144, Hu98 and Hu163 for the upper surfaces with a 50%+50% mix of Hu64+Hu65 for the undersides. This was a change to what I used as a paint guide I found for a Curtiss P36/H.75 on the web which specified Hu79 rather than the Hu144 and which I think might look a bit better if Hu230 is used instead and Hu101 rather than the Hu163 that I used.

 

I got a little heavy handed with the black wash too

 

I hope this is of some help

 

Gondor

Edited January 16, 2019 by Gondor44
Forgot some information

[Martian]

7 hours ago, Heather Kay said:

Cheers Chris. I am, however, keen to limit the variety of paints and their various thinners I have to store. I think that makes me very unusual among modellers! 

Unique was the word that sprung to my mind!

 

Martian 👽

[rob Lyttle]

14 hours ago, Heather Kay said:

Last night I risked a further brushed coat of light grey. It only bloomin' worked! 

 

I KNOW...!!!

 

These daim airbrush fanatics have now got everyone scared to pick up a Brush and use it!

 

Well done....

-on the airframes

-on your brush work

-and your refusal to load your work space with a load of very costly and often dangerous chemicals and solvents.

 

Arise the brushers....!

[Heather Kay]

 

Getting there. I’ve been plodding away on the odd evening, adding some details and retouching paint here and there. Most of the detail parts are now fitted to the Bloch, Dewoitine and Curtiss. The Morane is lagging a little, as I need another coat of black to go on, after which I may fit the undercarriage. Various antennae and pitot tubes have been made from brass wire for durability. The Bloch's weaponry, however, will have to be the plastic parts, tidied as best I can, and left until the last minute before fitting. You’ll note I’ve started painting rudders in a base coat of white for the tricolour flashes.

 

The French delighted in applying data to the rudders, over the flashes. Happily, all the kits have provided the data panels as separate decals. That means I can try and paint the Curtiss flashes in order to avoid the rather bright colours they’ve been printed in. I also need to get in a set of the roundels from the link earlier in the thread.

 

Anyway, things are moving slowly. If the chilly weather hangs about too long, the gloss coat before getting the stickers on will have to wait.

[Heather Kay]

A brief update.

 

 

The Morane now has undercarriage in. I shall have a little rant-ette about this in a minute. The black paint needs remedial work. Instead of overcoating in matt, I’m using a satin, but it’s going to need a couple more coats before I’m entirely happy.

 

 

The Dewoitine is nearing completion. I’ve even painted the prop and spinner.

 

 

The Curtiss now has its lallies in place, too. Another one to rant about.

 

 

Finally, Monsieur Bloch's effort, with wheels in place. Oddly, this kit's undercarriage has been the easiest to install, which leads me to my rant.

 

Throughout this build of four different kits, I’ve been encouraged by the relative ease of assembly and overall fit of the parts. Where things have been let down is unclear diagrams in the instructions, often bearing little resemblance to what is held in the tweezers and not at all helpful when trying to fit various tiny parts in place at specific angles. Where this problem is most acute, I find, is the main undercarriage.

 

Aside from the RS Bloch and HB Dewoitine, locating main oleos and balancing wheels on tiny projections has been an orgy of cussing and tantrums. The Curtiss, for example, has that wonderfully complicated setup where the main wheels swivel as they are folded back into their wells, accompanied by numerous plates and covers doing a little dance. AZ reproduce this with a main oleo leg that doesn’t fit positively into its location hole, twin retraction struts that are much too long with no positive location, and a three-part cover system that sort of looks right unless you’ve seen the real thing. Moving to the Azur Morane, the main wheels are simple: leg, wheel, brace, fairings. There are even locating pins on the legs that match holes in the main fairing. However, these locating pins leave things fitted in the wrong places. Worse, if the prototype is considered, the mainwheels are purposely set at crazy angles to make it safer to land. The kit has the wheels set in line and neat and tidy. It’ll have to do, as correction would involve scratchbuilding. The locations for the various parts are woeful, I’m afraid, and it took me quite some time, propping the model carefully, to ensure the parts remained in alignment with the airframe and each other.

 

All of the above, of course, would be of little import if the kits could be built with the wheels up. I think only the RS kit would work; as far as I can tell, the other kits have wheel wells that won’t accomodate the wheels and gear, which is a nuisance as all four have part of the undercarriage visible when retracted.

 

Anyway, that’s my rant over. Just be aware that if you build these kits for shelf display, the undercarriage does need to be thought about carefully when you come to it. 

 

Right, back to the day job!

 

 

[SA80A2AR]

very nice

[Brandy]

Sounds like a well deserved rant!

I built my Bloch wheels up when I was a kid and distinctly remember having to sand off an enormous amount of plastic to get them to fit. Funnily enough, that's my one enduring memory of that kit!

 

Ian

[Heather Kay]

More fiddly bits.

 

 

The Morane has had another coat of satin black, and is beginning to look very smart in a Coco Chanel "little black dress" kind of way. Meanwhile, I decided to forego the moulded styrene gun barrels and antenna mast on the Curtiss, and replaced them with brass wire. The antenna turned out really nicely this time, only my chosen scheme apparently doesn’t have one fitted. I decided to fit it anyway, as who is to know otherwise.  I also added barrels to the nose-mounted guns, but the moulded pitot tube will wait until after I’ve put the stickers on. The prop is just perched there. I’m studying photos to see if the prop tips were ever painted a contrasting colour. I’ve noted various manufacturer decals, which might well be represented by careful dots of paint, if I can find colour references.

 

Well, that’s enough distractions. I really need to catch up with some railway work, as the last couple of days have found me very much out of sorts and easily distracted. I usually find this happens when I’m faced with something I’m unsure about, or not looking forward to tackling.

[Pete in Lincs]

1 hour ago, Heather Kay said:

usually find this happens when I’m faced with something I’m unsure about, or not looking forward to tackling.

I think it's generally called life.

Enjoy the railway stuff and return when you're back in the groove.

Works for me.

[Heather Kay]

3 minutes ago, Pete in Lincs said:

I think it's generally called life.

Ah, so that’s what it is, is it? I have wondered.

 

As to grooving, well, I’d much rather be messing about with little model aeroplanes right now, but I have some brass and white metal wrangling to deal with. 

[Heather Kay]

 

Feeling that I had achieved enough in the day job to do a little more on this foursome, I decided to brush paint some Humbrol enamel gloss coat on in preparation for decals. I think I’ll let this first coat dry for a while and do another coat.

 

Now, I’ve had some bad experiences mixing enamels and acrylics over the years. My mantra is acrylics first, enamels last, to avoid any issues. However, I do know that if sufficient time is allowed for an enamel paint to off-gas and dry thoroughly it should be possible to use an acrylic varnish, for example, over it without crazing and bubbling. The question, then, is how long is "long enough"?

 

This conundrum is why I’ve opted for the enamel gloss varnish at this stage. I think I might be sensible to try a few things on my paint mule so I can get a feel for what a suitable drying time for ColourCoats enamels is.

Edited January 26, 2019 by Heather Kay
Typotastic

[Martian]

On ‎19‎/‎01‎/‎2019 at 12:10, Heather Kay said:

Well, that’s enough distractions. I really need to catch up with some railway work, as the last couple of days have found me very much out of sorts and easily distracted. 

Brit Modeller distracting? Surely not! I have never heard such an outrageous proposition. I don't know what @general melchett is going to have to say about all this.

 

Shocked of Mars 👽

[jean]

Hi Heather,

I went awol and missed your threads... the story of my life!

On the other side of the Channel from where you sit, modelers swear, or more precisely used to wear by the Life Color acrylic paints, as far as the perfect colors for 2WW French Armee de l'Air camouflages are concerned!

Now, I have no idea if they are still produced. I know that they are still in stock in my Jo'burg model shop, but so are flints... If anybody wishes to have the paint references, just ask!

 

Impressive opus magnus to the glory (?) of France!

And beautiful work.

JR

[Heather Kay]

22 hours ago, jean said:

On the other side of the Channel from where you sit, modelers swear, or more precisely used to wear by the Life Color acrylic paints, as far as the perfect colors for 2WW French Armee de l'Air camouflages are concerned

Now, that’s good to know. Thank you. I’ve come across Life Color, and indeed have a set here for flesh colours. 

[Whofan]

On 1/15/2019 at 1:16 PM, Marklo said:

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.

Heather, I hope you don't mind a little thread drift.

 

Marklo, your comment about Tamiya white struck an immediate chord with me - I've just used it on a build and noticed a little lifting of the first coat as you say.

 

I didn't thin either first or second coat mind, I wonder if that was my mistake?

 

And Heather, your red primer, was a metal primer?

[Heather Kay]

15 minutes ago, Whofan said:

your red primer, was a metal primer?

I think - without the can in front of me - it’s just a standard acrylic primer you can get from most car parts stores. I actually have grey, white and red in the paint shop, as I find the primer base can give a different effect to the top coats. I also tend to use the red for railway models, as the real thing often had a red oxide primer over metal, so if someone chips or scratches their model in the future, it might show a realistic colour under the livery coat.

[Whofan]

16 minutes ago, Heather Kay said:

I think - without the can in front of me - it’s just a standard acrylic primer you can get from most car parts stores. I actually have grey, white and red in the paint shop, as I find the primer base can give a different effect to the top coats. I also tend to use the red for railway models, as the real thing often had a red oxide primer over metal, so if someone chips or scratches their model in the future, it might show a realistic colour under the livery coat.

Thanks.

 

I had this picture in my mind of you weilding a  brush into a tin of the paint used on ships' keels!

[jean]

1 hour ago, Heather Kay said:

Now, that’s good to know. Thank you. I’ve come across Life Color, and indeed have a set here for flesh colours. 

Hi again Heather,

 

just in case you want to try Life Color paints one day, here are the references for the French 2WW camouflage:

-Light blue grey: UA 141

-Dark blue grey: UA 145

-Kaki: UA 142

-Dark brown: UA 143

 

Cheers

JR

[Mr T]

Missed this thread, I do not how I missed this one. Some nice work here and I can understand what you have been up against. I have fairly recently finished an AZ Hawk and very much share your experience. I have also built the Hobbyboss MS406. 

Regarding your problems with the enamel paint. Back when I used them, when I used Xtracolour etc. I used to thin with a mix of white spirit and cellulose thinners and this helped with drying times considerably. Today I exclusive use acrylics. I dabble in model railways and your locos are superb. 

[Heather Kay]

On 26/01/2019 at 19:56, Mr T said:

I used to thin with a mix of white spirit and cellulose thinners and this helped with drying times considerably. Today I exclusive use acrylics.

Good tip. I use some specialist enamels in the railway modelling, and learned quite quickly that the manufacturer's own thinners was the best to use. I try to stick by that, Humbrol enamels aside, which seem happy with white spirit, and I’ve used the ColourCoats thinners for spraying and brush painting their enamels.

 

 

It's been ages since I last looked in. Weather, poor health and the day job have all taken their toll. Anyway, I decided to start some decal work, and chose the MS406 as the simplest at this stage.

 

The Azur decal sheet, like the kit (CMC) is made in CZ by Aviprint. With four camo and decal options, there were a couple of spares on the sheet I could test to see how long they needed to be immersed for. In this case, ten seconds was plenty, so I started with the most difficult ones - the rudder flashes.

 

As it turned out, they weren’t too painful. The white is a little translucent, but I can live with that. Printed oversize, with some gentle persuasion with various concoctions and careful cuts with a sharp blade the port side was persuaded into place. I trimmed the starboard decal slightly before applying it. I shall leave well alone for a bit before doing the data decals on the fin and rudder. I’ll need to do a little paint modification on the fuselage side, but otherwise everything is so far looking good.

 

Now, back to the day job!