Supermarine S.6B - Pavla Models - No. 72060 - 1:72 - Finished!!!

[Johnson]

2 hours ago, Courageous said:

0.2 aluminium tubing and flatten it

Hi Stuart,

Good idea but no idea where I'd get 0.2mm aluminium tubing. I do have some 0.3mm strip styrene which I think will do.

 

2 hours ago, Courageous said:

AFTER painting, glue them in. I personally would paint it first, then spar and rig it

Looking at the model and thinking about the paint and masking etc I'm inclined to agree with you!

 

Cheers,

[busnproplinerfan]

I used plastic strips for the flying wires, spars, whatever. I was going to mask it but I built the whole plane first then painted it. I didn't mask it because of the corrugation under the fuselage. I'd be touching up spots anyway. I to had to make pins for the float struts. I don't think you can sanely build a float plane with out them.

[Johnson]

1 hour ago, busnproplinerfan said:

I to had to make pins for the float struts. I don't think you can sanely build a float plane with out them.

I don't think I could have got this far without pins, for the float struts, wings and tail planes. Essential to align the parts and strengthen the joint.

[DMC]

Hi Charlie 

 

Interesting comments about colours, floats and struts. I have a copy of Motorbooks Interernational: Schneider Trophy Racers (published in 1992) and this is a photo from the book. Much darker than in the book, however.   The blue appears to be light to medium and the entire airplane has a more satin finish than gloss.  Waterline about midway up on the port float, a little higher on the starboard.  Descernible by comparing the bows.  Posting this now as my wi fi keeps dropping out and I’ve already lost it once.  More later.

 

Stuart mentioned one float being longer than the other.  Indeed, it seems, on the S.6, the starboard float was about 1’ longer. Not carried over to the S.6B, which were both 24’ , only 1’ shorter than the fuselage.  

 

Agree that pins, or pegs, are a necessarily for attaching struts firmly to floats.  On my M.39 build I experimented with different ways to make the struts.  Scroll to #101 for a photo and explanation of what I eventually used..

 

Apologies for the highjack, hope you’ll find something useful. 

 

 

Dennis

 

[Johnson]

Some progress, though it's painfully slow, sorry. Life keeps getting in the way.

 

Anyway, back to reality! A coat of primer to see how it all looks, and I'm pleased with the results, no major flaws, well not that I can see - do pipe up if you see anything before I get some real paint on!

 

But she feels incredibly fragile, the slightest mishandling is going to break off a float.

 

 

Next, some paint. I've been doing some experiments with the 'silver dope' paint; Humbrol 11 Silver Fox (wasn't called that when I was a nipper), Humbrol 56 Aluminium (very dark) and Xtracolor X38 High Speed Silver which is probably the best of the bunch, having a very fine 'grain'. But not entirely happy with any of the results so I'll try some Alclad II Lacquer Aluminium tomorrow.

 

 

 

And what to paint first? Blue or Silver? I fancy the Blue as the masking will be easier - I think. I'm a bit more confident that the blue will remain in place when I remove the masking tape, I've had disasters with NMF coming off before.

 

Edited December 8, 2019 by Johnson

[Courageous]

Looking very, very nice.

I don't think those floats are going anywhere with those float struts.

For the silver, I personally would lean towards Tamiya's AS-12 if you're worried about masking, I've never had a problem with lifting after de-masking.

 

Stuart

[AdrianMF]

I’ve no advice on silvers I’m afraid - I hate ‘em all!

 

It looks great with the primer on.

 

Regards,

Adrian

[jrlx]

16 hours ago, Johnson said:

I'll try some Alclad II Lacquer Aluminium tomorrow.

 

16 hours ago, Johnson said:

And what to paint first? Blue or Silver? I fancy the Blue as the masking will be easier - I think. I'm a bit more confident that the blue will remain in place when I remove the masking tape, I've had disasters with NMF coming off before.

If you're using Alclad Aluminium (ALC-101) you shouldn't have problems with masking over it. It seems that only Alclad high-shine colours are problematic with masking tape (e.g.: airframe aluminium, chrome).

 

Cheers

 

Jaime

 

[Johnson]

55 minutes ago, AdrianMF said:

It looks great with the primer on.

Thanks Adrian. I think it looks OK, but I guess it would be a cop-out to leave it like that. Mind you, I often think a kit looks best in the box... its all downhill from there. 

 

53 minutes ago, jrlx said:

using Alclad Aluminium (ALC-101) you shouldn't have problems with masking over it.

Cheers Jaime. I have some ALC-101 and I'm going to do some experiments, but I'll have to wait until the coast is clear (i.e. the house is empty). Smell? What smell? 

[Johnson]

Hi Folks,

 

Managed to get some paint on. I used Humbrol 14 gloss enamel which went on very well and seems a close approximation to the light blue paint under the later dark blue coat on the real thing, and matches the S6 in the Solant Sky museum pretty well. Having done that I managed to read the sign in the Science Museum in one of the walkaround pics. It reckons the S6.B wore the later dark blue for the final Schneider Trophy race. That doesn't necessarily make my model wrong, the plane was certainly originally painted in the light 'Royal Blue', but it may not have been wearing the '1' on the side at that time. Seeing as there are no photos (that I know of), we'll never know.

 

Anyway, once the blue was thoroughly dry, it was on with the most tricky masking I've ever done while Mrs J watched the Strictly Final on TV in the background (it was quite good - the TV - not the masking which went on and on and on... )

 

And this morning I sprayed on the Alclad II Aluminium 101. It's great stuff, drys very quickly and gives an excellent fine grain aluminium finish. A couple of spots to touch up but I'm happy with the result. Here's a few pics of the stages;

 

 

Next up - rigging!

 

Thanks for looking.

[AdrianMF]

Looks very shiny! Glad the masking worked.

 

Regards,

Adrian

[DMC]

Looking very sharp.

 

Dennis

[Robert Stuart]

I'm a bit late to the party, but this is a lovely build of a kit I tried (and failed) to build some years ago.

 

Looking very good!

[Johnson]

On 12/15/2019 at 7:40 PM, AdrianMF said:

Looks very shiny! Glad the masking worked.

Thanks Adrian. The masking mostly worked, but some of the Alclad did peel off the blue in a few places, necessitating some touch up. It adheres well to the grey primer but not so well to the gloss blue, which is to be expected I suppose.

 

23 hours ago, DMC said:

Looking very sharp.

Thank you Dennis, it's a lovely looking plane - but so small! Tiny compared to my usual fare of WW2 fighters.

 

5 hours ago, Robert Stuart said:

I'm a bit late to the party, but this is a lovely build of a kit I tried (and failed) to build some years ago.

 

Looking very good!

Cheers Robert. It certainly hasn't been the easy build I expected! I think it's because I've been doing it as part of a group build that has given me the motivation to continue with this kit.

 

I'm currently applying the transfers. I decided that it was safer to get them on before the rigging which will make handling the plane very tricky, so best left till last. This has certainly been a learning curve which I suppose is good thing.

[Johnson]

Rigging done! Hooray!

 

 

Styrene rod, 0.24mm which equates to 0.7" full size, so possibly very slightly undersize but I reckon it will look OK when painted.

[AdrianMF]

Nice! It looks dead straight too, something I never get with stretched sprue without waving something hot next to it. Is that the super-thin Slaters 10 thou rod?

 

Regards,

Adrian

[Courageous]

Looking great Charlie, will look even better when the rigging is painted.

 

Stuart

[Johnson]

15 hours ago, AdrianMF said:

Nice! It looks dead straight too

Well, mostly - don't look too hard! . Bit of a nightmare to fit, as you probably know, all part of the fun!

 

15 hours ago, AdrianMF said:

Is that the super-thin Slaters 10 thou rod?

It is. I bought a pack of their assorted plastic rod, though I wasn't that impressed as they all tend to be oval in cross section. Not really noticeable on the thinnest.

 

[jrlx]

Great progress and looking very elegant in blue and aluminium! Very well done

 

Cheers

 

Jaime

 

 

[Johnson]

Hi Folks,

 

Finished! Possibly one of the smallest floatplanes in the GB?

 

Completed the beaching trolly and supports this morning. Having finished the supports I then discovered they were far too high, fancy assuming they might fit! . Had to chop about 2mm off the bottom and re-fit the bar, a minor annoyance at the last minute.

 

But overall I'm pleased with result, a great looking plane. Not the easiest kit to build and I could have improved a few things, but glad to complete it for the GB deadline.

 

Many thanks to all who looked in, gave support, praise and encouragement and to our GB hosts for such a fun event. And to all the other builders and their magnificent creations!

 

Here's the end result, more pics are in the gallery.

 

 

Happy Christmas everyone!

 

[nimrod54]

Stunning job Charlie, well done mate.

[Robert Stuart]

That looks great Charlie, a really impressive build.

 

[DMC]

Pretty thing. Well done.

 

Dennis

 

[AdrianMF]

Just saw this in the gallery and had to make a comment: awesome!

 

Regards,

Adrian

[Courageous]

Very nice, well done.

 

Stuart