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1/48 Tamiya Mosquito F.B. VI "Hairless Joe"


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Regardless of purpose, it was obvious in any case that I needed to go back and modify the detail on my tail cone. I left the protruding fairing and reshaped it a bit to make it a bit more squat and then carefully carved the concave part using a cylindrical bit in my Dremel. Unfortunately I didn't get a pic of this step but below can be seen an interim step whereby I am building up the flange with paint.
 

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I toned down the AEAF stripes by scratching them a bit and overspraying with very thin light grey shot from 6 to 8 inches away.

 

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The camo is essentially done, barring some minor touchups. The canopy is the kit part covered with tape and lightly glued in place with PVA to protect the cockpit from overspray. As you can see, I have decided to go with my speculation that the dark rudder horn balance suggests a replacement from a bomber-camo'd machine so it's been sprayed with Dark Green and Ocean Grey. Prove me wrong!
 

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Happy New Year and thanks for looking!

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Hi Andy,

 

I actually researched HR157 - couple of people I know in Canada got me maintenance information. The canopy was a replacement from an NFII and was therefore black. No-one seems to know when it was changed but it does seem quite early on in its career, judging by photographs. The fin and rudder were also replaced - the fin from a TIII which should be Ocean grey and the rudder should be all dark green. Not sure what period you're basing your model, but if it's when the squadron returned back to 2nd TAF, the spinners were re-painted black.

 

Hope this bit of info helps.

Cheers,

Neil

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Hi Neil, Very useful info indeed, thank-you.

 

The info on this aircraft that I have seen up to now is all speculative. The black frames are a near certainty based on pictures but there is little info on the fin. May I ask where your info came from that the fin is from a TIII? Also, what info is there that supports the idea that the vertical stab is Ocean Grey and the rudder Dark Green? The TIII pictures that I have seen show "standard" OG and DG patterns on the fin though the Aviaelogy decal documentation alludes to non standard schemes on some TIIIs. These are easy fixes and I will happily comply if there is good info out there that supports the changes.

 

I am modelling this aircraft as it appears in the below photo. I think it was taken in late 1944 as you can see the Wingco pennant on the open door (Bannock was promoted in October I believe). Spinners are clearly MSG and appear new. Apologies but I thought I posted the pic here earlier.

 

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Edited by Crimea River
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I've made the executive decision to depict the tail assembly as though the entire unit were replaced with one sporting the day fighter scheme typically applied to bombers and some T.IIIs. I could not gather any evidence of all green rudders. Below is the simple modification showing masking of the area and completion of the colour mods. This time, I lightened Tamiya's stock Ocean Grey with a touch of MSG as I've always found it a bit dark and a bit too blue. It arguably looks a bit too light now but I'll attribute that to a bit too much time in the sun! (Not me, the tail....)

 

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The tail was gloss coated again and I'll let it cure for a day or two before applying the fin flash. Thanks again for looking in.

 

 

 

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I've made a bit of a boo boo here and will go back and add more green to the starboard side of the fin. I went back to my reference pics and all of the green portions extend to the base of the fin. I must remember not to rely on my memory!

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As mentioned above, I learned a lesson to no longer rely on my memory to commit paint to plastic. As I looked back at my reference pictures, it became clear that the pattern that I sprayed on the starboard side of the vertical stab did not reflect reality in that every photo that I studied (after I painted of course) showed that the dark green extended to the base of the fin. As a result, I went and reworked that detail this morning, adjusting the demarcation and gloss-coating again. Compare the below pic with the one above and you'll see what I mean.

 

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Thanks all.

The cannons on 418 Squadron's Mossies were mostly seen to be doped over and I've seen no pics of the fabric coverings after being fired through, assuming that at some point they would have been. I therefore took a bit of liberty and chose to model the openings with the fabric shot through. I did this by covering the troughs with old red decals that were cut to the rough size, allowing these to set, masking and painting a very rough pattern of red dope colour around the openings, and then perforating the decals. With a bit of touch up, this should look OK.

 

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With that done and the tail gloss coat still curing, I started on the decals. The Aviaelogy decals are beautifully printed and, though they took a very long time to loosen from the backing, they eventually slid off with no problems and set very nicely with setting solution.

 

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After a couple of days, the decals were finally complete. I decided not to place all of the stencils but, even so, there are a lot of them.

 

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The "Hairless Joe" motif is made up of 3 separate decals, excluding the victory tally underneath. The original issue of this decal sheet included only one option with the character having grey hair. On this modified release, a further decal overlay has the hair in yellow. Getting the three decals to align exactly was extremely difficult. Note the slightly darker grey sprayed on the fuselage just to the right of the motif, a feature evident in some photos.

 

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The decals are superb, opaque, and perfectly registered.
 

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The upper inner wing area showing stencils and the recently painted doped fabric over the dinghy opening.
 

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While allowing the decals to set, I turned to the crew hatch and added lots of detail. Unfortunately I did not include a "before" pic but the following was done: two indentations on the bottom of the door were filled, two stowage bags were scratch built and glued in place, moulded door latch removed and new one added using stretched sprue, latch mechanism cover made deeper with styrene card, emergency release handle and cable added, emergency hand pump handle added, leather strap for the folding ladder added, and a handle was attached made of thin copper wire.

 

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After the decals set, the entire model was coated with Tamiya Flat Clear. I did the bottom first, installed the undercarriage, flipped the model onto its "legs", and then sprayed the uppers. The propellers are just pressed on now - they are those ones that Tamiya likes with the vinyl bushing that allows them to pressed in and removed again.

 

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The flat coat revealed some silvering on a few of the stencils, this one being the worst. It's always hard to see with the gloss coat on but it sure pops out with the flat coat.

 

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Some Solvaset and a pin took care of it, though it left a stain. I went over it with a fine mist of dark green to tone it down but also lost the detail. I'm not sad as it's always debatable how many of these factory applied stencils survived operations and repairs. There were outboard incidence board marks and dihedral checking points to be applied but I chose to leave those off the tail as things were looking a bit crowded.

 

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The kit gun sight is the usual clear part with the too-thick reflector glass with a seam down the middle. It's my usual modus operandi to lop off the reflector and replace it with a piece of clear packaging cut to size so that's what I did. I also added two small support struts, just to be cute. To the right of the sight is the unmodified kit part representing a small switch box for the radiator flap servos and the air filter and, beside that, the rudder trim crank. The latter should have a flex cable running from it along the edge of the cockpit coaming that I will add, if motivated, before the canopy goes on.

 

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That catches us up to today. More to come as I complete the many finishing touches. Thanks again for pulling up a chair and peeking over my shoulder. 

 

 

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Thank-you Woody and to all who have looked in and reacted.

 

The bit of progress since my last post involved adding the final details to the cockpit before gluing on the canopy. One of my best references was this excellent close-up picture from the Vintage Wings of Canada website. There are a few things of interest to me here. First off, you can see the top of the Gee receiver at the extreme lower right. To the immediate left of that, bolted to the vertical canopy frame, you can see the back of the mount for the IFF control unit. To the left of that and just next to the observer's face, you can see a light coloured thingy attached to the upper frame of the canopy and extending down behind the pilot's seat. This features in many Mosquito pics and I knew from a drawing that I have that it was a bungee chord. I never knew what it was for until I dug a bit deeper recently and discovered that it acted as a tensioner to assist with raising the seat! Finally, just in front of the windshield and on the top of the fuselage, you can just make out the tube for the de-icer spray system. Though this is not my subject aircraft, the black canopy framing is also of interest as it represents another example of a possible replacement canopy from a black-camouflaged night fighter.

 

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To replicate the bungee chord, I painted a length of solder and CA-glued the lower end to the back of the pilot's seat with the upper end pointing roughly toward the target canopy frame.

 

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The IFF control unit was scratch built from styrene card, lead wire, and rod, then painted and CA glued to the canopy frame. The wiring was cut long enough to disappear out of sight behind the Gee indicator in the cockpit.

 

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I then dry fit the canopy, snipping off small bits of the bungee with a finger nail trimmer until the canopy sat down properly with the bungee touching the frame.

 

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This poor picture shows, barely, the flex cable attached to the rudder trim unit on the coaming.

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With that done, the canopy has been glued in place and the next batch of pics will deal with that. Thanks again for watching.

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Thanks everyone. Clear parts are my biggest opportunity for improvement and I did my best here but there are some rather ugly (to me) interfaces. However, here's a shot of the finished canopy complete with scratch built wiper and de-ice tube. Don't look too close......

 

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Thanks all. Since last posting here, I've been mulling over how to finish off the bomb bay. Specifically, I've decided to dispense with the idea of placing bombs in the bomb bay because 1) they'll obscure some of the detail that I painstakingly added and 2) their presence is inconsistent with the post-mission appearance of the fired guns. I may have mentioned earlier that I didn't like Tamiya's UBCs very much and so decided to break a couple of the Revell ones out of my finished B. IV. For detail, these are better but they do appear to be very clunky, especially the cranks for adjusting the stabilizer arms. Here's a comparison shot:

 

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Having asked elswhere for details on the UBCs, I ended up deciding to go with a heavily modified version of the Tamiya kit parts since the Revell ones are much too bulky. Modifications started with cutting away the one fusing terminal box, shaping the stabilizers, adding a flange plate to the undersides, adding the stabilizer adjustment cranks, the bomb shackle, new fuse terminals, and wiring to the terminals. The cranks were, by far, the trickiest part and arguably one of the craziest scratch building jobs that I've done to date but I think they turned out well and look the part. Below are images of the modified rack along side the unmodified kit part and a few solo pics.

 

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As for other things, the ID lamps are now finished. These were simply moulded into the grey plastic so I had drilled them out much earlier before I started painting. At this point I filled the holes with Testors Clear Parts Cement, painted the lenses, and continued to add clear cement until the discs were flush with the surrounding surfaces.

 

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Next up were the bomb bay doors. Here I added detail to the kit hinges at the ends of the door and added the center hinge that was missing. The use of the basic kit hinge parts is a bit of a compromise as they are a bit on the beefy side but are a benefit for strength.

 

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I ran into a bit of a problem with the alignment of the forward jacks (below). Those of you who have been following closely may recall that there was something odd with the location of the kit part that represents the cross member with the attached jacks. At that time, the jacks almost touched the cannon butts. Well, though I solved that issue, I ran into the issue again because the jacks didn't line up with the hinges. I quadruple checked the location of this part against the instructions and I swear it's installed correctly and the door hinges were not moved. Nonetheless, the jacks did not align with the hinges and the whole part needed to be moved back by about 1mm. The back ones line up fine. I managed to carve off the locating notch between the fuel tanks, twisted the part off, moved it back, and reglued it. I broke off one of the hydraulic lines in the process but was able to quickly replace it.

 

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Here are the rear rods in place:

 

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Over at the wheel wells, the wires for the undercarriage doors were added but are not yet painted:

 

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Brass pitot tube installed:

 

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And finally, the brake lines were added on all 4 sides. A bit of a bear to photograph but I know they are there!

 

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Thanks once again for watching. On the home stretch now.

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Thanks all.

 

Finally finished the bomb carriers and tuck them in. Also added sway braces and am glad this stuff is done!

 

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The last bit on my punch list - the cables from the front of the undercarriage to the doors - isn't going to get done as it seems that either the undercarriage sticks down too far or the doors don't hang down far enough. To connect the needed parts, the cables would be on a very weird angle. The red below shows how these cables would have to go:

 

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And here's the real thing:
 

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The top of the tire relative to the bottom of the doors is proportionately different between the model and the actual bird so I'm not sure where the issue lies. In any event, fixing this now would involve major work so I'm going to ignore this. Don't tell anybody!

 

Today, the final bit of weathering was done. Prop blade edges, backs, and other metal parts got some Prismacolor Silver pencil treatment, MSG areas were given small nicks and scratches using a plain lead pencil, DG areas got nicks and scratches using a Prismacolor Jade Green pencil and edges of cowls and general engine areas received some black pastel splotches and streaks. The backs of the flame dampers were made to look like bare metal with a plain lead pencil. Many pics can be found showing these areas void of paint due to heat. Ice guards on the carb intakes are Eduard PE.

 

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I better stop soon or it will get overdone.

 

Thanks for following along. I'll post some RFI pics probably tomorrow.

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14 hours ago, Crimea River said:

I'm not sure where the issue lies.

Your hinge point for the undercarriage is far too low, the top of the rubber shock struts is outside the nacelle, whereas it should sit snuggly inside the cutouts either side of the carb intake. I had problems locating the top of the legs in their locating holes (which will result in this problem) when trying to insert the legs inside the completed nacelles on my 1/72 builds a few years ago, took a bit of juggling and swearing but got them in eventually!

 

14 hours ago, Crimea River said:

In any event, fixing this now would involve major work so I'm going to ignore this.

Probably best plan

 

14 hours ago, Crimea River said:

Don't tell anybody!

I won't, promise!

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1 hour ago, Dave Swindell said:

Your hinge point for the undercarriage is far too low, the top of the rubber shock struts is outside the nacelle, whereas it should sit snuggly inside the cutouts either side of the carb intake. I had problems locating the top of the legs in their locating holes (which will result in this problem) when trying to insert the legs inside the completed nacelles on my 1/72 builds a few years ago, took a bit of juggling and swearing but got them in eventually!

Thanks Dave and to all who've reacted.

 

I thought that may be the case but it's odd that the struts on BOTH sides were inserted and stopped at the same point. That said, it's a blind joint as the attachment points are hidden by the oil tanks so I suppose it's possible the struts are sitting on the edge of the locating hole rather than inside it. Taking a quick glance at the model from the side, the stance looks correct, at least to me and I'm not sure that it would look right with the gear 2 to 3mm higher in the well. I'm curious now and will look at some other Tamiya builds to see if this issue is prevalent or if I truly screwed up. Thanks for the observation.

 

Andy 

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3 hours ago, Crimea River said:

Thanks Dave and to all who've reacted.

 

I thought that may be the case but it's odd that the struts on BOTH sides were inserted and stopped at the same point. That said, it's a blind joint as the attachment points are hidden by the oil tanks so I suppose it's possible the struts are sitting on the edge of the locating hole rather than inside it. Taking a quick glance at the model from the side, the stance looks correct, at least to me and I'm not sure that it would look right with the gear 2 to 3mm higher in the well. I'm curious now and will look at some other Tamiya builds to see if this issue is prevalent or if I truly screwed up. Thanks for the observation.

 

Andy 

Hi Andy, first up, brilliant work mate!  My favorite build on BM by far!

Second, 1/48 isn't really my scale (32nd is) and to be honest I hadn't noticed that when I built the 1/48 Tamiya kit last year either.  I just looked at photo's on line and it seems you didn't mess up, it's the kits design.  Airfix look like they got it correct in 48th scale (I always liked the 'look and feel' of that old kit for some reason).  But they screwed it up on their big 24th scale one...just like the Tamiya 48th one.  I have corrected this on my 24th scale build which was a fairly easy fix.

 

Tamiya got it correct on their 32nd scale one though.  They took nothing from their previous kits and started afresh when they did the 32nd scale one.

 

Honestly, I wouldn't loose sleep over it, it looks fantastic and I wouldn't have noticed if you hadn't said anything.

 

Cheers Anthony

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Kind words Anthony - thank you. I only noticed this because of my crazy plan to add the door retraction cables. When it became apparent that they would not have lined up per my picture of KA114 I realized something was amiss. This only became evident at the end of the build when the doors were added. Oh well.....

Edited by Crimea River
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