1:72 CMR Martin AM-1 Mauler

[CedB]

Nice to see this one (and you) back Bill  

 

Shiny it is!

[Navy Bird]

2 hours ago, giemme said:

How did you go for it? I mean, multiple light passes of heavily thinned clear? Or very wet coats? TIA

 

Thanks Giorgio. It's two coats of Gunze GX112 thinned about 50/50 with Mr. Color Leveling Thinner.

 

49 minutes ago, CedB said:

Nice to see this one (and you) back Bill  

 

Shiny it is!

 

Thanks Ced. We'll see how long I stay back as soon as I get the biopsy results back. The whole tonsillectomy thing was just a couple of days ago and let me tell you I'm really tired of a liquid diet. Wait a minute! Doom Bar is a liquid, right? What a dolt! I could have been drinking heavily instead of sucking on Jell-O. That would have fixed my sore throat! Or at least make me not notice it...

 

Arghh.   

 

Tally-ho,

Bill

[Navy Bird]

Bean counter man: "We need more parts in order to justify the price."

Resin kit design engineer: "Split the tiny practice bombs in two."

Marketing dude (with certificate!): "Raise the difficulty level! Raise the price!"

 

 

I mean, really, why would you do such a thing?

 

Cheers,

Bill

[Hamden]

9 hours ago, Navy Bird said:

I mean, really, why would you do such a thing?

As  you said above to raise the price by adding to the parts count, don't fancy cleaning the seam up at ALL!

Mauler looks very nice in shinney blue

 

Nice to see you back and sincerely hope the results are negitive.

 

                             Roger

[Cookenbacher]

So glad to see you back at this one Bill - looking forward to the orange stripe.

[Martian]

On 30/08/2020 at 23:21, Navy Bird said:

Bean counter man: "We need more parts in order to justify the price."

Resin kit design engineer: "Split the tiny practice bombs in two."

Marketing dude (with certificate!): "Raise the difficulty level! Raise the price!"

 

 

I mean, really, why would you do such a thing?

 

Cheers,

Bill

Time to shoot all the bean counters into space, along with the marketing executives, telephone sanitisers methinks!

 

Martian 👽

 

Edit: On second thoughts, lets drop the "into space" bit and just shoot them: much cheaper, which, of course should please the bean counters!

[Navy Bird]

Before we add the cowling, the exhausts need to be installed. When you see how this was engineered you should have some appreciation for why I left the cowling off until the Sea Blue was on. In a nutshell, it would have been difficult to either mask the exhausts that had been pre-painted, or to paint the exhausts after the blue was applied. The exhausts for both starboard and port sides are attached to a resin "bulkhead" that fits inside the cowling. It's pretty much a press fit, and although it was nice of CMR to tell me which way is up, it's impossible to install it any other way.

 

 

The exposed face of the "bulkhead" contacts the front of the fuselage when the cowling is attached. The ends of the exhausts are recessed in a couple of millimetres from the aft edge of the cooling gills. Once the cowling is attached, the only way to see the exhausts is to look from behind, and then you can only see the ends of the exhausts. I think you can see what I mean here:

 

 

The Mauler had an interesting design feature to help counteract the torque of the ginormous P&W R-4360 engine - the centreline of the engine nacelle was angled to starboard by two degrees. This is really obvious in the photo at the bottom of page 15 in the Ginter volume. It's hard to tell in that photo, but the front of the vertical tail may also be offset (in the opposite direction) - but I can't say for sure. In any event, the CMR model does not have an offset tail. The cowling on the model, however, does appear to have the canted axis.

 

 

Either that, or I really screwed something up removing the parts from the casting blocks! Although, to "accidentally" screw up the parts and have the result look mighty close to the actual two degree offset (and in the right direction) is statistically improbable. Especially when the thumbs sanding the parts are mine!   

 

OK, time to stop goofing off and mask that stripe. The references say International Orange, which of course I ain't got any of. I've got some fluorescent orange, but that ain't the same stuff. I'll figure something out.

 

Cheers,

Bill

 

PS. I wonder how many times I'll have to explain that I didn't glue the cowling on crooked, it's supposed to be that way. And I wonder how many people will believe me...

[giemme]

I believe you, Bill - great job!

 

 

Ciao 

[72modeler]

@Navy Bird

She's looking very, very good so far, Bill! I might have missed it, but what kind of ordnance load are you going to hang from the beast?  beast being the operative word; having been up close and personal to the one in Pensacola three times, it is one BIG mutha! You need to hang around for much longer, as I think I see an AF-2 Guardian in your future, seeing as how you like gigantic naval single-engined aircraft!

Mike

 

BTW, IIRC, Gunze, Modelmaster, and Colourcoats all make international orange, but it's actually pretty easy to mix, if you have an FS12197 color chip.

[Navy Bird]

4 hours ago, 72modeler said:

She's looking very, very good so far, Bill! I might have missed it, but what kind of ordnance load are you going to hang from the beast?  beast being the operative word; having been up close and personal to the one in Pensacola three times, it is one BIG mutha! You need to hang around for much longer, as I think I see an AF-2 Guardian in your future, seeing as how you like gigantic naval single-engined aircraft!

Mike

 

BTW, IIRC, Gunze, Modelmaster, and Colourcoats all make international orange, but it's actually pretty easy to mix, if you have an FS12197 color chip.

 

It's looking like three aerial torpedoes and twelve practice bombs. At least I think that's what the small bombs are. Ginter's book shows a Mauler with twelve 250 lb bombs, but those have a different fin design than what is included with the kit (see earlier photo). I'd use the rockets, but the ones that came with the kit are unusable and I don't have any others.

 

I don't recall Gunze making an International Orange, at least not in the Aqueous range. On-line chips seem to show an orange with quite a bit of red in it, very much like the photo on the back cover of the Ginter book. I'm thinking Gunze's Shine Red with some orange added to it might work. Somewhere around here I have a fan deck - now all I have to do is find it!

 

A Guardian guppy might look interesting next to my Gannet...

 

Cheers,

Bill

[72modeler]

9 hours ago, Navy Bird said:

I don't recall Gunze making an International Orange,

Bill,

 

See if any f these help- I found them on a model paint conversion chart; I have no idea as to their accuracy, though. I have the Modelmaster, a custom mix, and  a tin of Xtracolor, and they are all very close to the chip in my FS595 fan deck.

 

Tamiya X6

Humbrol 18

Gunze H14

Revell 36130

Modelmaster 2022

Testors 4682 (acrylic)

Xtracolor X104

 

Mike

 

If you need decent 5" HVAR's, the Hasegawa P-38, Tamiya F-51D, and the old Monogram F8F all have pretty nice ones- maybe one of your modeling buddies have leftovers you could snag? The Eduard Brassin ones are the best, would be expensive for as many as a Mauler could carry! (If you decide you want to out some under your model and can't find any, PM me.)

[Navy Bird]

On 03/09/2020 at 20:43, 72modeler said:

See if any f these help

 

Thanks Mike. I'll have a look through my paint stash. Somewhere I have a box of Pactra Authentic International Colors - maybe there's one in there. They were my "used to be" go to paints. Of course, that was in the 70s...

 

 

Good News Department: My biopsy came back benign. What they found was follicular hyperplasia which mimics follicular lymphoma, but is not malignant. It's an infection of some kind. We discuss treatment this week. Woo hoo!

 

Good News Department Redux: My youngest daughter is expecting. Her first, but it will be grandchild number five for me and that long-haired person I live with.

 

Cheers,

Bill

[72modeler]

3 hours ago, Navy Bird said:

Good News Department:

That is great news, Bill- on both counts! Tell me about the old Pactra Authentic colors- I l have many unused bottles that are stored like fine wine. I still have my copy of the Pactra mixing guide that was developed by IPMS Tidewater that Pactra distributed to hobby shops. I still use many of those formulas. Their flat aluminum sprayed beautifully, of which  I still have three bottles!

Keep on keepin' on! 👍

Mike

[giemme]

Great, great news Uncle.... well, Grandpa Bill!!

 

Ciao

[Terry1954]

Great news on both counts Bill. I'm really pleased for you. Grand children are great fun. I have six thus far, and Karen has four ( we are second timers) so a good combined score at present!

 

Pactra paints. There's a name I'd forgotten. They were hard to obtain in the UK, but I'm sure I had some a long time ago.

 

Looking forward to seeing the Mauler with that colourful stripe.

 

Terry

 

 

 

 

[Shorty84]

Hi Bill,

 

first of all I'm glad for the good news.

 

If you don't need to stick to the Aqueous range, Gunze makes Fluorescent red (C171) and Fluorescent orange (C173) in their Mr.Colour range. I'm not sure if any of them is a direct match for FS12197, maybe you need to mix the two.

 

Cheers

Markus

[stevehnz]

13 hours ago, Navy Bird said:

 

Good News Department: My biopsy came back benign. What they found was follicular hyperplasia which mimics follicular lymphoma, but is not malignant. It's an infection of some kind. We discuss treatment this week. Woo hoo!

 

Good News Department Redux: My youngest daughter is expecting. Her first, but it will be grandchild number five for me and that long-haired person I live with.

 

Cheers,

Bill

Great news all around Bill,  I'm chuffed for you on both counts.

Steve.

[Navy Bird]

18 hours ago, 72modeler said:

Tell me about the old Pactra Authentic colors- I l have many unused bottles that are stored like fine wine. I still have my copy of the Pactra mixing guide that was developed by IPMS Tidewater that Pactra distributed to hobby shops. I still use many of those formulas. Their flat aluminum sprayed beautifully, of which  I still have three bottles!

 

Yup, those old Pactra enamels sprayed like a dream. Colourcoats spray the same and have better colour fidelity plus a larger range so it's not a complete loss that Testors killed Pactra (and Floquil and Polly-Scale, and most of ModelMaster). But hey, you can still get Testors Spray Chalk.

 

Like you, I have my old bottles of Pactra Authentics (many still unopened) lovingly preserved. But I won't use them, just like I won't open that bottle of wine I dredged up from the Titanic. And now I know who's been hoarding the Pactra Flat Aluminium! (You left out an "i" there buddy...)

 

Of the oranges you listed, I have plenty of Gunze H14 but that is far too orange - more like a pumpkin. I loaded up the Sprue Brothers site and ordered the MRP version of FS12197. We'll see what that looks like.

 

Do you remember that Pactra had a colour called "Weather?" The heck with all that MIG stuff, Pactra had it all in one bottle!!

 

13 hours ago, Terry1954 said:

Pactra paints. There's a name I'd forgotten. They were hard to obtain in the UK, but I'm sure I had some a long time ago.

 

Yeah, would have been in the 70s and 80s I suspect. I "think" that Pactra was gobbled up into Plastikote and then RPM/Testors in the late 80s or early 90s, but my memory might be wrong. I'm sure the Authentic International Colors never made the move. Come to think of it, Pactra might have replaced them with their acrylics paints prior to being sold. Testors only sold the Pactra acrylics (but just for a while) and the Lexan R/C paints.

 

9 hours ago, Shorty84 said:

first of all I'm glad for the good news.

 

If you don't need to stick to the Aqueous range, Gunze makes Fluorescent red (C171) and Fluorescent orange (C173) in their Mr.Colour range. I'm not sure if any of them is a direct match for FS12197, maybe you need to mix the two.

 

Thanks Markus. I thought about that, but International Orange is not a fluorescent colour, so I don't think it would look right. By the way, Gunze have fluorescent orange in the aqueous range, it's H98. No fluorescent red though. H99 is fluorescent pink...

 

8 hours ago, stevehnz said:

Great news all around Bill,  I'm chuffed for you on both counts.

Steve.

 

Thanks. I'm rather chuffed myself!   

 

Cheers,

Bill

 

PS. Just finished up the seams on all those little bomblets. I'm afraid there will only be 10 on the model, not 12, as two did not survive my rough handling.   

[Beggsy]

2 hours ago, Navy Bird said:

PS. Just finished up the seams on all those little bomblets. I'm afraid there will only be 10 on the model, not 12, as two did not survive my rough handling.  

Sounds like Bean Counter Man missed an opportunity to add spare parts!

[Shorty84]

10 out of 12 are still too many survivors. They should have split the bombs lengthwise to make sure you'll have some misaligned ones and an horrible seam to fill, making the cross-section oval instead of round

[Cookenbacher]

So glad to hear both pieces of good news Bill!

[Marklo]

I think I have some tinlets of dayglo somewhere could be holy or compucolor I’ll root them out. If they’re still viable your welcome to them as I’m really never going to use them.

Edited September 8, 2020 by Marklo

[Marklo]

Actually it’s precision paints and it still works, I think you’re supposed to paint the area with the appropriate orange/red then give it a few coats of the dayglo to go eh dayglo. It does work.

[Navy Bird]

7 hours ago, Shorty84 said:

10 out of 12 are still too many survivors.

 

You may be right! I'm not really liking what they look like. Plus, the tiny pylon is cast as part of the ordnance, and being a resin kit and all, there are no alignment pegs. Which means all these little buggers are going to be butt joints. The pylon is too thin to drill for a pin...arghh.   

 

1 hour ago, Cookenbacher said:

So glad to hear both pieces of good news Bill!

 

Thanks Cookie. Are we still planning on getting @CedB over here for Oshkosh and Dayton? Assuming the pandemic becomes anemic at some time.

 

57 minutes ago, Marklo said:

I think I have some tinkers if dayglo somewhere could be holy or compucolor I’ll root them out.

 

Remember I'm a Yank. For me a tinker is a tinsmith, and holy has something to do with the guy upstairs. Please translate!       

 

I have some International Orange on order, and it should be here in a few days. I should be OK. Thanks for the offer.

 

*****

 

The more I look at the photos that show the torpedo/bomb load, the more I realise that the photo shows what looks like typical 250 pounders from WWII.

 

 

 

These are not what comes with the kit. My brain is starting to tell me that I need to source some better ordnance for this beastie. Maybe the rockets instead? I think the torpedoes will be OK, but I suspect that Eduard is going to extract yet more coinage from my purse for the rest.

 

Note the difference in the box structure that surrounds the propeller on the center torpedo compared to the others. I wonder if this was done for a particular reason, like flap or door clearance.

 

Cheers,

Bill

(Currently annoying my grandson with Richard Harris "A Tramp Shining.")

[Marklo]

Just now, Navy Bird said:

tinker is a tinsmith, and holy has something to do with the guy upstairs. Please translate!  

It’s the damn autocorrect kicking I I did of course mean to say tinlets.