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Royal Aircraft Factory Be2c - Airfix - 1/72


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Hi all,

With a few days off i was looking for something relaxing to build that wouldn't put up to much of a fight. So i dug the fairly recent Airfix R.A.F be2c out of my stash. Having just sorted out the old printer to produce some custom Christmas cards, i made some Belgian markings for it, based on profiles and pictures. Most Belgian machines where re engined and the pilot and gunner swapped position however they initially served in the configuration that is present in the kit so i wasn't going to look for trouble, although i might pick up another box sometime to try some converting when i feel more adventurous. The markings where designed in Inkscape, a free vector image programme that's quite usefull for this sort of thing and printed with an inkjet printer on clear decal film.

 

While painting wood textures can be great fun, i figured the grains around the cockpit area where going to be very fine in this scale so when looking on line for references it hit me i could just print the wood texture along with the markings as a decal so that's what i did. i'm tempted to try it even on the struts and the prop but we'll see how things go.

 

To get everything the right size i scanned the kit decals so i could use the roundels as a reference. Also the chequered decals (that where very temping) allowed me to get the shape for the wood sections right.

i have yet to overcoat the decals with a liquid decal film of sorts but i've seem to have misplaced my bottle of microscale liquid decal film somehow... it worked great in the past but i've never dared to run it trough an airbrush... i might have to look for something in a spray can.

 

the one thing i don't like about Airfix is their instance on using black and white decals for their instrument panels. on one hand they have come a long way in representing very fine surface detail in their kits so i don't see why they wouldn't be capable of representing a simple instrument panel. However a decal can look very convincing in this scale so it would be nice to see a bit more detail and finesse if that's the route they choose.
anyway, not looking to make things complicated i googled some pictures of the real thing and added it to the sheet.... we'll see how it turns out on the model.

 

And of course, a festive end of the year and best wishes for 2020!

 

IMG_20191227_145229

 

IMG_20191227_145316

 

 

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Hi

Happy new year to you too.  I will watch with interest as I have this kit in the stash.  Great work so far your printed decals look lovely.

I quite fancy the chequered Option in the box but not sure about the black and white colours ? I have seen profiles which just show the white squares which IMHO looks better. So will look at this when I get round to this kit.

Good luck with your build.

All the best

Chris

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Thanks Chris! from what i've experienced so far i can recommend this kit.

The Chequered version would look rather eye catching indeed. unfirtunately i haven't seen any fancy belgian pain schemes on his plane so it'll be tan all over for this one.

 

I've separated and cleaned up all major components. from what i can tell so far, the kit should go together without any problems. fit is rather good the cockpit area looks ok and the little engine is also looks rather convincing.

the ailerons are moulded slightly drooped as per the real thing i suppose which is a nice touch, but the elevators are moulded straight as usual, so i chose to separate them so i can give them the typical drooped look as well. I managed to skip with the saw however and gouge the soft Airfix plastic, so out with the Tamiya putty.

 

IMG_20191228_090414 IMG_20191228_094123

 

IMG_20191228_094235

 

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I wanted to push along, so since i had created a bit of spare texture i went ahead and sprayed it with flat varnish from Ammo by mig, straight from the bottle and gave it a few coats. I didn't expect it to work, but lo and behold, dipping it in water didn't result in any color bleed and the decal slid off nicely. It was fairly thick, but than i did spray on quite a lot of varnish, but that meant, it could be handeled nicely off the backing sheet, almost like a real sticker. it didn't stick all that well but i think with some micro set it will stay put once dry

 

i guess the result is rather promising.

 

IMG_20191228_150609

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by lunarhighway
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Hi all,

 

After slapping on the decal i looked into what the real aircraft looked like and realised only the top portion was wood and the lower fabric with the typical bracing wires so i cut back the decal. but looking at the sidewall detail on the real thing gave me a new idea, so a rubbed a piece of paper over the fuselage sides to get an imprint of the shape and scanned it, so produce this

 

IMG_20191229_204331

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for a decal these home made ones are extremely strong but also tough, extra thin seems to work as a setting solution though

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Very nice!

 

And impressive work on the home brew decals, yet another thing I'll have to look in to

 

This kit now on my 'onedayI'llbuildthat' list....*

 

Cheers!

 

Geoff

 

*The day is soon approaching, I hope....

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16 minutes ago, Courageous said:

Simple but effective.

Thanks Stuart, i guess that sums up the intention for this model :) unless you where talking about the modeller, in which you'd be correct as well 😛

 

A new bottle of liquid decal film showed up in the mail today, so after successfully using clear varnish as an alternative (and sadly spilling most of the remainder of the bottle in the process) i now, for the first time, risked running it trough the airbrush... it's fairly thick stuff so i had to up the pressure a bit but otherwise it went on nicely as far as i can tell.  Clean-up was a little more difficult, as i don't know what would dissolve this stuff. Water and alcohol left a stringy residue, but some careful cleaning got rid of it ... i wouldn't recommend running this trough as airbrush that's hard to clean. This cheap airbrush is ideal however, the fixed paintcup has a wide opening to the paint chamber which makes cleanup much easier. Other than the rubber o rings failing i had no problem with this... replacement sets exist, but i in stead used some plumbers teflon in stead, bullet proof now.

 

IMG_20191231_115018

 

now on to some real progress....

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17 minutes ago, Courageous said:

I want to see how opaque your  decals are as mine were not very good at all.

It's clear film, so for the colours to be true, a white undercoat is needed. I applied them over a tan surface and this worked with the overall wood finish. For the roundles I will either need a white decal underlay or spray white. It has limitations but it's easier than masking and painting everything. I'm thinking of ordering some white decal film to see what can be done with it. 

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1 hour ago, lunarhighway said:

It's clear film, so for the colours to be true, a white undercoat

This is exactly what I did but their must have been something not quite right with my prints. Any way, crack on and let's hope all goes well for your own.

 

Stuart

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Another tiny update,

 

gave the interior a little more paint and added seatbelts. which in keeping with the apparent theme of this build i first designed in inkscape and than printed on regular paper.

 

IMG_20200104_153545

 

IMG_20200104_164643

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Here is another small and long overdue update:

IMG_20200112_160205

I finally buttoned up the fuselage after installing my instrument panel, which is a simple sheet of styrene with a home-made decal. in the excitement i totally forgot the forward bulkhead that also contains the rear central struts, so i had to remove hump it has on the back and part the top of the freshly glued fuselage halves again to put it in place. in blown up photographs it looks like the decals are a bit grainy, but in real life they look painted on, so i'm quite happy with that.

 

the bulkhead was coloured with decals to, again as a bit of an experiment, these where the ones coated with ammo matt varnish and they don't respond to setting solutions, but can be melted with extra thing glue

 

IMG_20200112_161321

 

IMG_20200112_161904

 

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front bulkhead with forward struts...i could have easily painted these, but...experimentation:)

 

 

 

things didn't go so well for the tail flash

 

IMG_20200112_112408

i tretched the decal when removing it to soon from the paper and the setting solution (these decals where coated with liquid decal film) ate into the damage.

 

i have some spares so i removed them and will try again later, although i might also just print a "3" and paint the rest, we'll see.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Sill more decal action.

 

I painted most of the major components with some Hataka light tan, and started on the external decals.

 

wood panels:

 

IMG_20200128_181349

 

 

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It needs a little fixing here and there but i think the overall effect is a win

 

now i'm actually considering doing the rib shadows on the semi transparent wings as decals to....

 

 

to be continued

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  • 1 month later...

Hello All

 

It took me a while, but the lovely BE2 is finally starting to look like an aeroplane. I've attached the lower wings and tail surfaces and applied the decal markings, these went on with no drama except one deformed due to using micro sol. i must remember only to use set in the future on these home-made decals.

 

IMG_20200216_191337

 

I first painted the lovely engine and propeller

 

 

 

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i added the decals, and yes that is a little revell SPAD i'm also working on. The top wing still sits loose on the center struts.

 

IMG_20200228_072008

 

 

the lower wing bumpers, to the best of my knowledge that's what they are at least, are very delicately moulded by Airfix, but unfortunately have a sprue attachment right in the middle of them and in cleaning this up one of them snapped. i had somewhat anticipated this so i used the remaining item as a pattern to bend some metal wire. i perhaps should have done that right away as this will prove to be much stronger in the later life of this model as well

 

IMG_20200301_181528

 

And that's about all for now, next i'll have to look at the struts and the rigging... the dreaded rigging...still haven't got the hang of that... i'm thinking ez-line and CA glue, but i have still to mater applying it

 

 

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as there was a wobble in the left wing roundel due to it distorting from micro sol, i tried overpainting it, but the rings still didn't look concentric and to make matters worse it seems to have shrunk after painting leaving white edges, so... i wasn't going to let it pass, and broke out the sander, fully expecting the decal to yield, but alas... it's quite a tough one.

IMG_20200303_183059

 

almost looks like it could be weathering no?...

Yet there's one sure way to bring down the toughest... Alcohol!

 

IMG_20200303_190343

 

 

 

and resprayed and awaiting a new decal, witch i thankfully printed extra for exactly such an event

 

 

IMG_20200303_192015

 

And there that little chapter one forgets about when the model is finally done...

 

 

Happy modelling!

 

 

 

 

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