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1:72 Gloster Javelin Jambalaya


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44 minutes ago, Pete in Lincs said:

BTW, the rear/under surface of the airbrakes may be anti corrosion silver too? 

Those antennae, It may be a wild guess but some sort of Comms or ILS test being carried out? 

 

I think you're right, the underside of the airbrake is also painted silver/aluminum. It sure looks that way in the few photos I have. ILS testing makes some sense, as I can't find evidence of any antennae in other photos. But they sure stand out in that one.

 

****

OK, some green. This is the first shot, freehand Gunze H73 (the grey is Gunze H75). I like these two better than H330 and H331 which have the same names.

 

IMG_5239

 

Still some cleaning up to do, then I'll let it dry for a day or so, mask off the underside and shoot some silver. I normally shoot Floquil Old Silver as my surrogate High Speed Silver, but I might try something else. The demarcation between top and bottom looks to be a hard edge in the photos, whereas that between DSG and DG is soft (even though it's a hard edge on some museum examples). I'm leaning towards no weathering, just nice and clean.

 

Cheers,

Bill

 

PS. Hmm - I think I forgot something. The camouflage pattern wrapped around the leading edge of the wing a bit didn't it? Yup, I think so.

 

6349072706_ebdc007dcf_b

 

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2 hours ago, giemme said:

Freehand? Really? :frantic:

 

I don't know any other way to hold the airbrush!   :)

 

Seriously, I always do soft-edged camo schemes freehand. I find it easier than messing around with masking putty or that Blu-Tak stuff. What you see in the photo was done with the #3 needle on the Model H. To clean up the edge, I'll go back with the #1 needle. The paint has to cooperate, of course. The final clean-up will be with highly thinned paint (around 80/20) with the airbrush opened just enough to let a small amount of paint through. I love it when I can hold the airbrush in place, very close to the surface, and slowly watch the colour appear. Modelling magic!

 

It is so important to have paint that won't clog the airbrush or dry on the needle. I have my best luck with Gunze Aqueous (thinned with Isopropyl Alcohol), Colourcoats enamels (thinned with lacquer thinner), and MRP lacquers (pre-thinned for airbrush). I don't mess around much with other brands, although I do like Testors glossy Dark Sea Blue. But it's the only Testors colour I like.

 

2 hours ago, Pete in Lincs said:

Lovely camouflage painting from the other side of the pond.

This side, it's bedtime, so that I can dive back into Donald Millers' Eight Air Force. A huge and fascinating book.

 

I'll have to look up that book, as I haven't read it. Sweet dreams! Take out a ball bearing factory or two.   :)

 

Cheers,

Bill

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Trying to decide on the T.3 marking scheme - I've narrowed it down to these three:

 

XH396, 29 Squadron, seen at Malta 1967 (I like the triple X)

 

XH396 T3

 

XH390, 60 Squadron, RAF Tengah Singapore 1966 (Malaysian crisis - maybe the closest the Javelin ever came to combat)

Scheme is similar to this FAW.9 with black & white stripes on tail:

 

XH964 FAW9

 

XH436, 151 Squadron, RAF Leuchars 1960 (St. Andrews cross adds a bit of colour)

 

XH436 T3

 

Why do you guys think? I think I like numbers 1 and 3 - note how the intake lip seems to be aluminum rather than the typical black on those two. Would that be natural metal or High Speed Silver? Since I just came back from Scotland, including a visit to St Andrews, maybe I should go for XH436.

 

I also notice that the camo scheme only seems to wrap around the leading edge on the FAW.9, not the two T.3s in the above photos. Interesting.

 

Cheers,

Bill

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8 hours ago, Navy Bird said:

I also notice that the camo scheme only seems to wrap around the leading edge on the FAW.9, not the two T.3s in the above photos. Interesting.

That's usually an indication that the underside is painted high speed silver. When Light Aircraft Grey was introduced with the new polyeurathane paints the upper surface colours were generally wrapped around underneath.

There seems to be a bit of variation between the underside colour and the light intakes, if the undersides are HSS, this could be either fresh HSS (HSS dulled/greyed out quite quickly) or bare metal, not sure which.

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Note in the photos above that there is a patch on the trailing edge of the rudder which is not painted in the camo scheme. Is this an antenna of some sort? If so, should it be painted in an off-white or some other colour?

 

Cheers,

Bill

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Hello Bill,

 

your Javelin looks lovely! All detailing and re-scribing were well worth the effort. Excellent paint work too.

 

That unpainted area at the trailing edge of the rudder is an antenna for the fighter command radio (if I remember correctly). Use "Radome Tan" for this detail as it was unpainted fiber glass. An unreliable piece of equipment; or so the big boys say... As you can see on the photos, the colour demarcation line initially run along the leading edge (too close to stagnation point) and that caused a problem: the paint started to peel off. Therefore the upper camouflage colours were later wrapped around the leading edge. I guess this had something to do with the paints themselves as the wrap around style was used on almost every airplane in the DG/DSG/HSS scheme.

 

Cheers,

Antti

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Bill, if you decide to go with 60 Squadron markings (my vote goes for this as well) check the photos carefully. The "Tiger Stripes" on the tail were black and silver as those were Squadron colours. However in some photos the stripes look black and white on squadron T.3 (Oscar). I would say they were black and silver, but...

 

Cheers,

Antti

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Hey look, silver.

 

IMG_5241

 

Just about time for some clear gloss and stickers.

 

Now, speaking of stickers - No. 151 Squadron prevailed in the polling. Plus, it was the overwhelming suggestion of my dear old wifey that I should use the Scottish theme. Hence, you'll notice that the camo scheme does not wrap around the leading edge of the wing in accordance with the previous photo.

 

Cheers,

Bill

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On 11/23/2019 at 9:10 PM, Navy Bird said:

The camouflage pattern wrapped around the leading edge of the wing a bit didn't it? Yup, I think so.

 

6349072706_ebdc007dcf_b

 

I can't keep up with what you're doing with what Javelin, but caution here as this example with the wrap under camo has light aircraft grey undersides.

I think the examples with silver undersides the camo came to mid point of the leading edges.

 

I'm sure you're checking references Bill.

Edited by 71chally
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Looking good! Fantastic paintjob, it's going to look pretty smart.

 

Your build has inspired me to buy a Mistercraft Jav off ebay right now. They call it an FAW7, but not sure if it's just a reboxed Frog FAW9. Anyone know?

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9 hours ago, Fritag said:

I’m not sure that Bill would actually be capable of c*cking anything up :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

He could if he wanted.

 

Martian 👽

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On 27/11/2019 at 17:09, Nickthebrief said:

Wow, Bill, that is one seriously smooth silver finish - lovely work as usual...

 

On 27/11/2019 at 17:38, Antti_K said:

That really is an excellent HSS finish! Great job Bill!

 

Thanks mates. I used Floquil Old Silver, which is a lacquer paint that is no longer made (thank you Testors). It sprays like a dream and has very small grain size. I have no idea what I'll do when I run out of my current supply. I tried Alclad High Speed Silver, but it looks too much like natural metal and not enough like paint.

 

On 27/11/2019 at 17:45, 71chally said:

I can't keep up with what you're doing with what Javelin, but caution here as this example with the wrap under camo has light aircraft grey undersides.

I think the examples with silver undersides the camo came to mid point of the leading edges.

 

I'm sure you're checking references Bill.

 

Yes sir, the references are being checked. I did not wrap the camo around the leading edge. The model is painted just as it's shown in the photo of XH436, No. 151 Squadron above.

 

On 28/11/2019 at 02:36, Lord Riot said:

Your build has inspired me to buy a Mistercraft Jav off ebay right now. They call it an FAW7, but not sure if it's just a reboxed Frog FAW9. Anyone know?

 

Looking at the sprues, I would say that the Mistercraft Javelins are reboxed ZTS Plastyk kits. They're not reboxed Frog/Novo kits - although the ZTS Plastyk kit may have been "inspired" by the Frog kit. 

 

On 27/11/2019 at 17:16, Fritag said:

I’m not sure that Bill would actually be capable of c*cking anything up

 

On 28/11/2019 at 03:02, Martian Hale said:

He could if he wanted.

 

Oh, I assure you it's possible. Let me step aside from the Javelin build and tell you a story. Back in the early 80s, I was some kind of an F-14 fanboy. (This was prior to Top Gun, so don't pull any Scientology jokes.) At Noreastcon 1984 in Long Island (Grumman country), there was to be a special award given for the best Tomcat. I decided to build the new (at the time) 1:32 Revell kit, and I went to town on it. The cockpit was pants, so I scratch built one, including the ejection seats. I lowered the flaps and slats, and cut open the spoilers and posed them deployed. This necessitated adding detail underneath the spoilers, which I dutifully made up since I had no references. I also opened several avionics bays, adding fictitious detail there as well. I wanted to do the Pukin' Dogs markings, but no decal sheets were available, so I had to paint the winged horse griffon onto decal film and then scrounge the others. I cut up all these little tiny pieces of decal stripes for the missiles. In other words, I was a complete nerd.

 

After the contest (the model won a silver, beaten by a killer big Tamiya Cat), I found that it wouldn't fit in my display case. So I found a nice big box, put the model inside, sealed it up, and put it in storage. Over time other, heavier, boxes came to be stored on top of my big Cat. As in, oh, 5 or 6 big heavy boxes. It wasn't until several years later that I discovered the the big Cat's box was, well, more flat than I remembered. Oops.

 

I still have what's left of the model, although it is now in a much stronger box. Here she is:

 

IMG_2858

 

I'd say I c*cked that one up.

 

Cheers,

Bill

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