Sea Vixen FAW.1x2

[hendie]

If only I had the patience

 

And the skill...

 

Wonderful lustering Tony

[Brandy]

Ditto. Biplanes are so much easier!

 

Ian

[bigbadbadge]

Great colour musings Tony.   Looking forward to seeing the Avons develope.

 

Chris

[Pete in Lincs]

Mmmm Shiny! Nice variations on the various stages of the engine.

I wonder, have you thought of a basic silver with pencil lead applied by electric toothbrush.

Sounds too simple/daft but I've used it in the past and had pleasant results. 

[Learstang]

On 07/11/2021 at 07:35, TheBaron said:

Turns out one of the later family members, Brinsley, 8th Earl of Clancarty, used to be part of that whole Flying Saucer/Ancient Astronaut/ Bermuda Triangle literature bitd: naturally I had to snap a classic 70s UFO book cover photograph of the monument in homage:

 

Tony

 

Great Bog in Heaven! That name! Brinsley Le Poer Trench, 8th Earl of Clancarty! I thought it was made up until I researched it and found out that the chap apparently actually existed (sadly departed now, perhaps he was taken home by the mothership). It looks like the sort of name I would make up, and a not very convincing one at that. I say, @general melchett, but wasn't he one of the habitue's of the Gargoyle Club in the '70's, where he would wax forth rapturously on UFO's, aliens, Stonehenge, the Great Pyramids, the jetty at Blackpool, etc. to the assembled, shall we say rather interesting audience? I believe that's where Mr. Bowie came up with his idea for the Ziggy Stardust character, if memory serves me correctly. As I recall those far-off days, I believe you were in the front row, regimental tie resplendent under the throbbing pulses of the Disco lights, face all aglow as you listened to the good Earl, clutching your half-empty bottle of Old Scrotum (1914 - definitely the best vintage, aged properly to where it was no longer instantly fatal!). Oh, by the by, Tony, still amazed by your work on the old Sea Vixen thingy. And I still need you to pass on your files to Mr. Airfix for him to have a shot at providing one in the proper, Gentlemen's scale.

 

Best Regards, etc.

 

Jason

Edited November 13, 2021 by Learstang
Minor change.

[hendie]

54 minutes ago, Pete in Lincs said:

but I've used it in the past and had pleasant results. 

 

You were modeling at the time weren't you Pete?

[Pete in Lincs]

24 minutes ago, hendie said:

You were modeling at the time weren't you Pete?

If I answer a question from America, am I covered by the fifth amendment?

[Space Ranger]

7 hours ago, Pete in Lincs said:

If I answer a question from America, am I covered by the fifth amendment?

According to the Charter of the United Worlds of the Solar System, as amended, you are, and the Space Rangers are charged with enforcing such provisions insofar as they apply. However, they apply only to legal and/or judicial proceedings, not to electronic communications such as this. So use your own discretion. Just don't make me come down there!

[general melchett]

Quote

To my knowledge nobody has ever adequately explained why so many of our non-terrestrial visitors chose to visit Warminster so regularly back then.

 

Great parking, good pub nosh, excellent public lavies and an efficient, modern Ley line system that's the envy of the western hemisphere...what more does any self-respecting pan-dimensional denizen from another star system need? 

 

Quote

As I recall those far-off days, I believe you were in the front row, regimental tie resplendent under the throbbing pulses of the Disco lights, face all aglow as you listened to the good Earl, clutching your half-empty bottle of Old Scrotum (1914 - definitely the best vintage, aged properly to where it was no longer instantly fatal!).

 

Your memory is slipping old sausage......a 'half-empty' bottle of Scrotum's finest, why even the thought of it makes me shudder! 

 

Good job on the metal work Tony, interesting ideas, looking forward to seeing where it all leads (no pressure, of course).

[Learstang]

8 hours ago, general melchett said:

Your memory is slipping old sausage......a 'half-empty' bottle of Scrotum's finest, why even the thought of it makes me shudder! 

 

Perhaps so, old Wankel rotary engine! But then that was some decades ago and the Gargoyle Club is long gone, its former site now covered by a protective containment dome, like the one that now covers the radioactive ruins of the Chernobyl plant. Still, everything I related in my post happened exactly as I remembered, except for the wrong bits.

 

Yours, etc., in Perpetuity, I Remain As Always,

 

Jason

Edited November 15, 2021 by Learstang
Additional comments added.

[giemme]

Loving the metallic experiments, Tony! Looking forward to the actual engine painting  

 

Ciao

[keefr22]

Hmmm, airbrushing artist's oil paints eh, who would have thought that could possibly work?! But you've proven it does Tony and what a nice subtle effect you've achieved. Really nice results from your experiments.

 

Keith

 

 

[TheBaron]

Overheard on local Irish radio this morning:

 

'Joe, I've had the same Christmas tree for the last 17 years, and it looks just tragic.'

 

Somewhere in his bitter heaven, Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche punches the air....

 

 

On 13/11/2021 at 15:59, hendie said:

If only I had the patience

 

And the skill...

 

Ye have both dear heart.

#KingoftheGreeblies

 

On 13/11/2021 at 16:09, Brandy said:

Ditto. Biplanes are so much easier!

Ah yes.

Double the number of wings and loads of wood effects to paint.

Easier.....

On 13/11/2021 at 18:06, bigbadbadge said:

Great colour musings Tony.   Looking forward to seeing the Avons develope.

Thanks Chris.

 

On 13/11/2021 at 19:14, Pete in Lincs said:

I wonder, have you thought of a basic silver with pencil lead applied by electric toothbrush.

Sounds too simple/daft but I've used it in the past and had pleasant results. 

My God Pete - the state your teeth must be in....

 

Actually that's just the kind of madness I'm here for: I did a quick experiment with that process on the mule but in this case, although the graphite does give a very pleasing metal-ey surface, the shading is bit too dark for the rear section of that engine.

I will be keeping that technique on file for future use however.

On 13/11/2021 at 20:06, Learstang said:

Oh, by the by, Tony, still amazed by your work on the old Sea Vixen thingy. And I still need you to pass on your files to Mr. Airfix for him to have a shot at providing one in the proper, Gentlemen's scale.

He need only ask, in the form of a huge cheque Jason. 😁

On 13/11/2021 at 20:35, Pete in Lincs said:

If I answer a question from America, am I covered by the fifth amendment?

Asking for a Royal friend?

On 14/11/2021 at 03:53, Space Ranger said:

So use your own discretion. Just don't make me come down there!

Father Christmas's rather controversial message to the children this year...

On 15/11/2021 at 08:25, giemme said:

Loving the metallic experiments, Tony! Looking forward to the actual engine painting

Hope you like how it's developing so far G.

I'm conscious that with top pigment-meisters such as yourself looking over my shoulder, standards need to be high!

On 15/11/2021 at 21:58, keefr22 said:

Hmmm, airbrushing artist's oil paints eh, who would have thought that could possibly work?! But you've proven it does Tony and what a nice subtle effect you've achieved. Really nice results from your experiments.

My thanks as always Keith for your kind comments.

Being able to dilute it so heavily in combination with the satiny/matte finish makes it a surprisingly responsive solution to tinting metal.

 

 

Work/eat/sleep/repeat remains pretty much the order of the day/week at present - frankly hard to credit that we're already ploughing through November faster than my Nan used to burn through a packet of Player's No.6.

 

A couple of brainstorm evenings ( a useful antidote to the day's concerns) have led to some further finessing of technique on the actual actual engines, as well as leaving the bench looking like Frankenstein's Nail Parlour (Est.1818):

At this stage I'm focused solely on getting the rear sorted - everything from the compressor outlet back to the turbine/exhaust tube at the rear  - so started from a base metal layer of Jacquard ink (silver) and Alclad Chrome in varying concentrations:

In terms of producing an accurate-ish visual expression of an operational Avon 208, it's nearly impossible to find any colour/patina-accurate reference images. There are a heap of really nice images showing the views of these in static display aircraft for example (but which are overlaid with decades of weathering that confuse matters), and I've a nice shot of a cleaned-up museum one, but for that sweet spot between 'factory-fresh' and 'currently-in-use' I've relied primarily upon images from the Navy Wings guys doing an engine replacement on their SV. I've probably mentioned before though that due to the mixture of various hangar lights and daylight in those shots, none of them can be considered en-tirely accurate in terms of colour.

 

I've cleaned a number of them up as best as possible by eye in Photoshop but the mixtures of lighting involved mean this example is as close as can be pulled out of them in terms of a white balanced version:

Notwithstanding such issues, these do however provide a decent amount of visual  information (about changes in shine and soil along the engine and its components) that can be cross-referenced with shots of other operational engine types to give a reasonable guesstimate of colour appearances.

 

Ignoring colour to start with though, the first step was to process the bare metal appearances to start bringing out the kinds of differences in shininess you see in the shot above, from quite clean and sharp at the front to a more Victorian London level of griminess at the rear. To achieve these disparities I started with varying degrees and angles of polishing from the starter/intake up front (letting the underlying glass base add some metal toning effects), then continuing this polishing backwards from the compressor outlet whilst rubbing some Vallejo Duraluminium in by finger in places and polishing when semi-dry:

I left that as it was on Wednesday evening and left it alone for a couple of days, just popping into the studio to briefly pick them up making umm and ahh sounds whilst turning them in the light to get a sense of what was required next. I'm now convinced that my biggest mistake previously working with metallics has been thinking that the process consisted of applying metal paint.

 

And impatience. That's the other mistake.

 

I now realize that metals have a 'living' surface in how they respond to light so that  - in modelling terms - an authentically-faked surface is only partly due to the application pigment, with the the missing factors being surface texture and polish.

 

Further experiments with W&D and polishing wheels, rubbing in a little Duraluminium and Chrome here and there and repeating a few times and I was happy enough the underlying metal-ness was as good as I was going to get it at 1/72. From this point on I could begin to look at the range of lubricant/fuel/environmental staining on those rear casings. Airbrushing heavily diluted oil paints turned out to be the 'sweet-spot' when it came to reproducing those coloured patinas without sacrificing the underlying metallic appearance, here seen in a first pass:

I just used my fingers to rub that first layer of yellow ochre back in places, being careful to keep things as subtle and random as possible.

 

A couple of repeats of this spray/remove/polish cycle and it was getting close enough to the reference photography to call a halt before beginning to lose the subtleties to exaggeration:

Turning those engines in daylight from the window and I'm quite pleased with the way the colour-appearance of those surfaces shifts with the viewing angle:

The weird thing about having to do two of them is reminding yourself that you do NOT want two identical looking engines, but need to vary the effects on each:

I need to add one or two darker regions to those rears as well, but not too much. A few spots of raw umber airbrushed on  around the peripheries in random places, plus a hint of darker staining around the lip of the rear exhaust opening may be in order as well. I'll study some more photos before overdoing the latter.

 

The keener-eyed/Avon-fetishists amongst you will have doubtless noticed that I managed to ping some  pipework off the casing of each engine as well. Although I've spare resin copies, I'm going to wait until the painting of these tubes is done in order to simply avoid breaking them straight back off again. They'll be made from fuse wire; I've already done a quick test with some 30 amp stuff on the bending rig and it works fine for building replacements, plus it should also save me €0.00003 in metallic paint.

 

Just had a coronary looking out the studio window to see that the car had been nicked from the drive.

Then remembered that herself had taken it to work.

 

Probably need to go for a lie down somewhere dark for a bit.

 

Hope you're all doing ok and more smudging to show in due course:

Tony

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Teuchter]

Great work on the engines!

Don

[hendie]

Sheer admiration for you in regards to the perseverance and attention to detail in getting such a wonderfully realistic app re a tree ancestors on those Avons Tony.

 

What the heck??? How on earth did appearance turn into that statement? (But that was so off the wall I decided to leave it).

 

May I suggest that you look into procuring some differing SWG's of stainless steel wire for your pipery? Oops, just reread and saw you're going to be using fuse wire.

Having just completed an identical operation on the Nimbus I can tell you that you are in for several hours of entertainment on an unprecedented level 

Best order some eye drops now

[Brandy]

I'm now having problems just understanding what you're trying to do. Just paint the damn thing! 

 

It looks bloody amazing either way!

 

Ian

[bigbadbadge]

Those engines look sweet, you efforts to achieve a wonderful finish to each is fantastic,  great work. 

Chris

[Pete in Lincs]

Asking for a Royal friend? Sorry, Official secrets act and all that. But, if you see black Range Rovers parked nearby, try not to worry.....

 

Very cool yet shaded Avons, Dude. Evening modelling? I never get the time.

I note that there is no heat staining (blue/yellow etc) on that real one.

That long dull coloured jobbie closest to the camera that joins the two sections. I like the shape of that. A dozen or so in at least 1/24th scale would keep me happy.

Is it a hot air bleed? Have a minion mention it to the resin chappies would you. They'd look great on a Sci Fi scratchbuild. 

I hope you've noticed and reproduced the manufacturers data and Mod state plate just above it.

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

On 10/31/2021 at 7:00 AM, Fritag said:

 

 

What a fabulous box (and two tea tin lids) of bits…..

 

The photo has made me realise what a sad psychological case I am though - made me twitchy to have the ‘port’ tin lid to the right and the ‘stbd’ to the left. P’raps it’s a head-on shot….

 

It’s great to see those engines again.  Fancy making some Adours?  They’re only little - barely noticeable (according to Lightning/Phantom jocks ) knock em up in no time   

 

 

I’d ask him for a couple of Gnomes… but something tells me they’d be more likely to have fishing rods than inlet guide vanes!

[Pete in Lincs]

Or that rude one with the lowered trousers...

[giemme]

On 20/11/2021 at 15:40, TheBaron said:

Hope you like how it's developing so far G.

Like it? I love it!      

 

(but please get rid of white backgrounds when taking in-progress photos, it detracts so much from the beauty of your work)  

 

Ciao

[Fritag]

I think I’d seen without appreciating just how yellow/green the back end casings of so many jet engines are.

 

Airbrushed oils and yellow ochre and raw umber?  Not untypically left field inventivenesses 

 

Absolutely intrigued by the possibilities from airbrushing oils.  I’ve never really thought they thinned to a nice even consistency - so must have a go.

 

Doing those lovely prints full justice in the painting Tony.

 

[perdu]

Just.

 

 

Well.

 

 

 

 

Wow!

 

 

 

 

 

MESSAGE ENDS

 

 

[general melchett]

Good show Tony, like the off-base thought process. Certainly looking the part now, you've captured the patina nicely. I did something similar on my TF-30s I made for my much delayed 1/48th F-111K, many moons ago. Using W&N oils and various Alclads (pre Xtreme Metals days) I also applied the heavily thinned oils, by airbrush then burnished the surfaces with a cotton bud to get a patina going. Still have to apply the 'burnt' yellow/blues and sepia using Pigma Brush 'archival ink' pens, my weapon of choice, for burnt metal effects and apply darkened oil washes.

 

Hope you don't mind me interjecting here with a Daguerreotype of one of the TF-30s. 

 

 

 What always surprises me is the relatively small size of the Avon, all that oomph from a device not much bigger than the memsahib's Hoover Conquest 507 cylinder vacuum cleaner , bless here...(the Hoover, not the memsahib).  

[Terry1954]

Your metalic impressionism (I think that's what I mean) is a superb example of metallic realism (I know that's what I mean). 

 

Bare or anodised metal has always been a challenge to model in a way that looks real, and I love the way you have experimented using various methods and means. Very inspiring and leading me thinking of more creative ways I can achieve this sort of finish. You've certainly got my brain cells going on the (what should be) very worn metallic finish of my current QF-86 build........... 🤔

 

And as Steve has pointed out, that green/yellow finish at the back of many engine is so obvious, yet who would have thought of actually painting it that way!

 

Very impressed.

 

Terry