Airfix 1/48 Tomahawk IIB - RAF 112 Squadron

[Bstarr3]

Just finished up a 1/32 WNW and then a Trumpeter Wildcat in yellow wing paint scheme, so I decided to scale back for the next kit.  I'm excited about this new tool Airfix kit, and I wanted to model it as a desert fighter from the RAF 112 squadron.  Fortunately, that is one of the kit decal sets.  I love tropical/desert camo schemes on all aircraft, and have a Tamiya Bf109 E4 Trop in my stash as well, and may be doing my new 1/32 Tamiya Spit VIII in middle stone/dark earth as well. 

 

Anyway, just some early work last night, right after I put the Wildcat to bed.  Got started on the cockpit sidewalls with the Eduard photo etch set.  It's actually my first time using one, and I'm not sure that I love it.  There's some pretty decent detail molded into the kit parts, and I feel like you can get a very nice looking cockpit with some good detail painting, plus or minus a little bit of scratch building.  

 

 

The only other thing I did was test fit the main fuselage and wing parts. Everything seems to come together well with no apparent problem areas.

[Nachtwulf]

Looking great so far! This is gonna be good! I  had trouble with the right wing twisting to a different angle than the other side. I ended up splittting it apart and re gluing to get it right. Could have been my methods got the the best of me, just wanted to give you a heads up.

 

 

[The Spadgent]

Looking great so far. I have been tempted by this kit so I’m looking forward to seeing it come together. I’ll tag along if I may.

 

John. 🙌

[Bstarr3]

9 hours ago, Nachtwulf said:

Looking great so far! This is gonna be good! I  had trouble with the right wing twisting to a different angle than the other side. I ended up splittting it apart and re gluing to get it right. Could have been my methods got the the best of me, just wanted to give you a heads up.

 

 

Thanks for the heads up!  I test fit the bottom wing section again after getting the fuselage halves glued together last night.  It looked a little tight and that it will need a clamp to stay put, so I'll keep an eye out for wing alignment issues. 

[Bstarr3]

9 hours ago, The Spadgent said:

Looking great so far. I have been tempted by this kit so I’m looking forward to seeing it come together. I’ll tag along if I may.

 

John. 🙌

Welcome aboard!  This kit comes together beautifully.  It's exactly what I needed after struggling with a couple of complex 1/32 kits.  I'll post more photos later today, but I've made some significant progress.

Loving following your 1/24 Hurricane - that's a big plane!

[Bstarr3]

More progress!  Wow, compared to what I've been dealing with, this kit is coming together like a dream!  It's a really good one for getting your mojo back - enough detail to be interesting, but not enough to get bogged down in, care and precision in preparing and assembling parts is rewarded with excellent fit.  

 

First two shots show the completed cockpit with Eduard set.  I hit the instrument panel with a dull coat, which takes some of the graininess out of the printed detail and makes for a more realistic look, then stuck the two layers to each other with gloss coat, which prevents my having to go back and put a drop of gloss in each individual instrument.  I'm very pleased with how it looks, but less pleased at how little of it can be seen once closed up. 

 

Fuselage all together.  Everything held together very well with TET and a little tape.  There is a seam line, especially on the nose, and I applied a little Bondo to it this morning after taking the tape off.  I'll sand it down this evening and try to treat any leftover seam with perfect plastic putty. 

 

Some of that cockpit detail is visible, but not a lot.  It looks like I lost the lid to my PE map case somewhere during contruction. . .

 

Nice little photo etch detail on the landing gear bay, complete with a little sprocket.  The PE gear bay doors look like they'll be pretty tricky to do - I'll accept advice from anybody who's done them. 

 

I'm planning to get the seams all worked out, rescribing done as necessary, and get the wings on tonight.  I'm weighing my options about whether to try painting before installing the undercarriage, or if that will just cause more difficulty. 

[The Spadgent]

Really great office you have there. Bravo sir. 🤗

 

Johnny

[Nikolay Polyakov]

What an excellent work here, @Bstarr3! This kit looks very promising with all the great surface details.

[Beazer]

I’m saving this kit for the p-40 build.  Great reviews so far.  I’ll be doing the exact same scheme I think too.

[Biggles87]

The cockpit looks very ' busy ' with the Eduard set added.

Looking good so far.

 

John

[Mikey-1980]

Really liking your build so far, I have been thinking of getting a P-40 to compliment my Pearl Harbor era Zero.

[Bstarr3]

On 6/12/2019 at 4:57 PM, The Spadgent said:

Really great office you have there. Bravo sir. 🤗

 

Johnny

Thank you.  It's nothing to your big Hurricane, though.  I'm really enjoying watching your progress on that one!

On 6/12/2019 at 5:08 PM, Nikolay Polyakov said:

What an excellent work here, @Bstarr3! This kit looks very promising with all the great surface details.

Thank you, it is a very nice kit, as I've found all new tool Airfix to be. 

On 6/12/2019 at 5:11 PM, Beazer said:

I’m saving this kit for the p-40 build.  Great reviews so far.  I’ll be doing the exact same scheme I think too.

Yes, it's a very solid kit.  Can't go wrong with a desert scheme, I think.

On 6/13/2019 at 12:43 AM, Biggles87 said:

The cockpit looks very ' busy ' with the Eduard set added.

Looking good so far.

 

John

Agreed - the Eduard set busies up the cockpit nicely, but sometimes, especially in larger scales, the flatness of the parts, no matter how nicely printed the details, I think detracts from the effect vs detail painting the kit parts.  If they weren't so expensive, I'd probably get them just to add a few pieces here and there, but I feel compelled to use all the parts after the cost. 

11 hours ago, Mikey-1980 said:

Really liking your build so far, I have been thinking of getting a P-40 to compliment my Pearl Harbor era Zero.

Thank you. This same mold is released as a USAAF Pearl Harbor plane as well.  I believe the alternate scheme in that boxing is the AVG. 

[Bstarr3]

OK, more progress! (and a little regress...)

 

I fought the seamline on this fuselage for longer than I would have liked.  Finally got it to my satisfaction with some Mr Surfacer 500.  Fortunately, there are not a lot of panel lines that cross the midline, so there was almost no rescribing to do after the extensive amount of sanding I put in. Wings went together and on very well, with not much seamline to worry about either at the wing root or the leading edge.

 

On to paint!  I use blackbasing most of the time.  I got a nice smooth coat of black Stynylrez, my go-to primer, and buffed it nice and smooth with a tshirt.  Then on with the marbling coat of Model Air azure.  I thinned this, by the way, with mission models thinner/poly mix with good results.  It's not the finest line, but I've never been able to get a very fine line out of this brand of paint anyway. 

 

 

Built up with heavily thinned layers of azure over the marbling.  I was happy with the tonal variation here.  It may look a little much, but it always becomes less evident with weathering and dullcoat.

 

And here's where the regression comes in.  I mixed up some more of the azure (1 drop) with a drop of vallejo gloss medium and about five drops of the MM thinner.  I don't know if my airbrush was dirty, or if there was some reaction with the paint, but I got this particulate mess in the final coat.  I've had good results with this technique before - adding gloss medium to the final color coat, rather than just spraying with an overall gloss before decals.  I've never used it in combination with this brand of thinner, but I mixed it in a palette and let it sit for a minute to look for any adverse effect before adding it to the paint cup.  I didn't see anything until it was too late. 

 

I left that to cure and worked on some other bits.  Drilled out the exhaust stubs and painted them with Vallejo metal colour exhaust manifold.  Will weather with pigments after. Also got the undercarriage with some PE bits added and painted that with Vallejo mc aluminum. Weathering wash to follow. 

 

After giving that paint some time to set up, I wet sanded it with 8000 and 12000 micromesh pads.  I don't love Vallejo model air, but it is a tough paint once cured, and took the sanding beautifully.  That got most of the grit out of the finish, and I went back over it with more of the thinned blue.  This, however, seemed to paint over all my tonal variation that I'd taken time to build up.  I went back and postshaded with some dark mediterranean blue, and then another light coat of the azure to blend it back in.  I'm trying to decide whether it's good enough or whether I want to strip it back to bare plastic and start from square one.  Any thoughts? 

[Nikolay Polyakov]

Wow, it’s a great work! 👍

[The Spadgent]

Looks good to me. Not quite what you had before but if you’re planning on weathering more on top I’d leave well alone. 🤗

 

Johnny

Edited June 14, 2019 by The Spadgent

[Bstarr3]

Some more progress last night. 

 

Got the middle stone on first. I've been having a problem with this build that seems to be a combination of my airbrush and my paint. This was my marbling coat, but I had an impossible time getting the Vallejo paint thinned to the consistency to achieve good results. I've been using Mission Models paints for over a year, and then more recently trying MRP. Love both of those, and they highlight how much I don't love the Vallejo. I did a full tear down clean of my brush with lacquer thinner, so I think any further issues I have must be the paint.

 

 

Freehanded the camo. The demarcation is too soft but it's not bad.

 

Cleaned it up a little bit with more of the light color.

 

Did I call Vallejo paints tough before? Peeled up in a couple spots. Masked with de-tacked tamiya tape after letting the paint cure for a day. Oh well. Masked the topside and re-sprayed those areas. 

 

Grr...

 These effects are after the wash. Again, the paint and gloss coat had cured for a day, but wiping lightly with an enamel-thinner dampened towel to remove the Tamiya panel line wash had this effect on my paint.  I dry brushed these areas with Model Master dark anodic grey, which is a nice dull metallic grey and gives a nice chipping effect. At least now it looks like bare metal instead of bare plastic...

Edited June 15, 2019 by Bstarr3

[The Spadgent]

10 hours ago, Bstarr3 said:

 These effects are after the wash. Again, the paint and gloss coat had cured for a day, but wiping lightly with an enamel-thinner dampened towel to remove the Tamiya panel line wash had this effect on my paint.  I dry brushed these areas with Model Master dark anodic grey, which is a nice dull metallic grey and gives a nice chipping effect. At least now it looks like bare metal instead of bare plastic

She looks great! As for your problem I had the same issue with my Torino build last month. I never used my pot of Tamiya wash until then but noticed that using thinner to knock it back “melted” is that the right word? Or ate through the Tamiya gloss coat and into the paint. I moved onto using white spirit or similar to wipe off excess Tamiya wash instead. This didn’t cause any damage to the protective gloss coat.

 

A little late but I hope that helps for the future. Test it out on a mule first to make sure I’m right.

 

All the best.

 

Johnny

[Bstarr3]

Cheers, Johnny.  I'll definitely try that next time.  

[Bstarr3]

And, finished!  Final bits attached, some fading and color modulation with oils, dull coat, weathering and liberal "dusting" with pigments/pastels, some light exhaust staining, and call it done!  Sadly, the great little PE bead and ring gunsight somehow fell off into the ether, even though I put it on at the very last... Still, quite pleased with the results!