Mark's Greif - FINISHED

[Enzo the Magnificent]

27 minutes ago, MarkSH said:

now that the transparent parts are.... well transparent I'll have to do something to the interior.

No good deed goes unpunished!    

[Troy Smith]

On 17/04/2020 at 21:27, MarkSH said:

I am not sure exactly when I built it, but I would imagine that it was between 1974 and 1976.

same here.  I would think late 1975.  Brick red rudder, M1.   I have the remains in the shed, think it's missing a wing?   want a pic? 

  it was painted as specified by Airfix. In Airfix paint.  I didn't  like Humbrol, I think because their Dark Green 30, then as now, had a blue tint, Airfix M3 was an olive green.

I started typing before reading all the comments...

On 21/04/2020 at 23:20, John said:

Airfix paints with their trademark sandpaper matt finish. M3 and M17 greens and M25 light blue, if I remember correctly. 

yep.  Back then of course ALL non desert German Aircraft were two greens on top in a splinter pattern.    

 

I have said this before,  since the Airfix paint range was heavily biased for British subject, their RAF colours were actually decent scale matches,  M3 Olive Green and M5  looked a lot better on a model then Humbrol 30 and 29.   

I pulled out the remains of Blenheim that was done in Humbrol 30 it's as blue as it was in 1975, and i though it looked wrong then....

 

I'm going to have to do some gentle wiping and do some documentation of the wreck collection,  as I while I did just slap them together, I also followed the instructions and paint call outs.....

 

Look forward to how the progresses @MarkSH

[John]

1 hour ago, Troy Smith said:

yep.  Back then of course ALL non desert German Aircraft were two greens on top in a splinter pattern.    

...except Stukas, until about 1979 *everybody* knew Stukas had a single shade of green on top. I can remember being shocked when it was suggested that this might not be true. 

Right enough about the Airfix paint range, it scored heavily over Humbrol by having at least 3 matt greens. 

John 

 

[Troy Smith]

Just now, John said:

..except Stukas, until about 1979 *everybody* knew Stukas had a single shade of green on top. I can remember being shocked when it was suggested that this might not be true. 

great minds John.... I almost added an edit to say the 1/24th Stuka was uppers on overall dark green, M17.    I'm having vague memory that 50 era  72nd Stuka had two colour uppers?   I think I have the remains of that..

The two green upper surface was from the work of Karl Ries, who did a series on Luftwaffe camouflage and markings in the 60's that were at the 'definitive'....

6 minutes ago, John said:

Right enough about the Airfix paint range, it scored heavily over Humbrol by having at least 3 matt greens. 

M3 olive green - RAF Dark Green, RLM 71 and British tanks...

M17 dark green - US Olive Drab and RLM 70

M18 - can't remember the name,  I know I used it as jungle green for Australian Infantry and for the uniform of the 95th Rifleman,  

M20 grey green... British interiors, and also specfied for the 1/24th Ju-87 interior

M26 grass green... used inside US types

 

the above is from memory, and the specified uses for some of them.... ....I know there are lists out there...which I may check later

 

I still have a can of Airfix M7 Flesh, which was also a better colour then Humbrol 61, which looked like cooked salmon....

 

Apologies for the thread drift @MarkSH  but hopefully not too off topic and of minor amusement.....   now if you had said to ourselves 45 years ago that in the 21st century we would not be wearing silver suits and have flying cars, but would be discussing the quirks of Airfix... on interconnected computers no less,  

...actually, I think my nine year old self would probably feel quite justified... "see, it is a good hobby! "

[MarkSH]

Evening all,

 

So a start has been made;

I started by giving the exterior surfaces a light sanding just to take the edge off the raised panel lines and those rivets. I have also glued in place the main crew compartment and bomb bay and that is about the sum of the detail. What is pleasing however is the general fit of parts once the interior structure was fitted the two fuselage halves almost click together. I have also trial fitted the bomb door components and again the fit is very good

As I have said previously the clear parts are not particularly good, very thick and not a lot will be discernible once it is all buttoned up.

But I have to make some attempt to get some better looking shapes of detail inside:

The seats are just generic seat shapes so I'll try and make them look a little bit more like the specific crew seats starting with the pilot's. The 'skirt' of the seat was removed leaving the fixing spigot.

And some further detail including the prominent wraparound armour backing added.

 

Also I had a go at improving the one of the MG131 barrels (seven in all) that are distributed around the aircraft; one in the nose glazing, two at front and rear of the cockpit gondola, three (2+1) in the dorsal gun positions and one in the tail, the kit efforts are minimal to say the least so I used some slide fit brass tubing and tried to peen out the barrel end without splitting the brass :

Doesn't look too bad or over scale......six more to do.

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

[modelling minion]

On 4/26/2020 at 6:48 PM, MarkSH said:

Doesn't look too bad

Looks very good to me Mark!

Nice to see you making some improvements to the old bird along the way mate.

[Dansk]

The gun barrels are superb Mark, and they pass the ultra macro photography test with flying colours 👌

[SafetyDad]

Very impressive! Well done Mark so far!

 

Can I please join the Airfix Nostalgia Club as well? I never built this in the 70s, but can identify so much with other posters about brand loyalty, Airfix paint and how important the number of guns was!

 

Oh, and that Roy Cross artwork - just wonderful. Why doesn't Airfix go back to that?

 

SD

[MarkSH]

Evening all,

 

As I said in the P-61 thread I'm going to try and match progress with each of the builds I have going in the GB. There is a good deal of commonality between the projects; multi-crew cockpits, twin engine nacelles, lots of heavy riveting detail and really poorly molded crew members, I'll spare you the sight of the B movie horror: 'The incredible melting aircrew', anyway I digress.

Similar tasks this evening;

Sorting out the wings the kit construction is a little clunky at the trailing edge so a lot of filler has been applied to fill the gap:

 

Not a problem I'm not too concerned about losing some of the raised detail.

 

Same process with the Heinkel's engine cowlings as per the P-61:

However this time the thick rear edge is the attachment point to the nacelle so after thinning the cooling flaps down I had to pack out with plastic card and form a rough circular plug to use as a surface to glue to the front of the nacelle.

...and both thinned and plugged, the individual flaps more clearly defined and the whole rescribed.

 

Starting to build up some detail on the cockpit, I've added the side panels and a bulkhead for the wireless operator radio equipment.

 

I've just used simple blocks for the radio equipment, really just some shapes to catch the light and suggest detail and similarly some punched discs for dials on the side wall.

 

This is pretty much the only angle any of this will be seen and then it'll have to be through a dodgy bit of clear plastic.

 

The machine gun barrels however will be clearly visible and I'm quite pleased with the results.

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

 

 

[stevej60]

Great start Mark,I love the blue plastic airfix used back then.

[modelling minion]

More excellent detailing and scratchbuilding Mark.

Your cockpit is much improved on the original Airfix offering and your efforts on the engine nacelles have worked just as nicely as the ones on your P-61.

[Dansk]

Looks brilliant Mark.

Can I ask, punching the circular dials: What is the tool to do this? I’ve never tried this before but it looks really effective.

Edited May 1, 2020 by Dansk

[MarkSH]

5 hours ago, Dansk said:

Looks brilliant Mark.

Can I ask, punching the circular dials: What is the tool to do this? I’ve never tried this before but it looks really effective.

Paul, I have a Waldron Precision Punch and Die set (.039 - .160 in) I had to hang about on eBay for ages to find one at a reasonable price, but there are other types out there, such as RP Toolz which are more readily available they are all quite expensive though.

Mark.

[TonyW]

Your detailing is first class. The interior looks as you would expect it to look. That's plenty correct for me.

[Hewy]

Your off to another great start there mark, big improvements, your two are going very well👍

[SafetyDad]

That's very well done - as you say sufficient for the scale and clarity of the transparencies, but I'm taking nothing away from the thoughtfulness and skill of your work. Looks really good.

 

SD 

[MarkSH]

Evening all,

 

Progress with the Greif and I have managed to get the main assembly together. Getting the geometry of the aircraft right was a bit of a struggle, these old kits are mostly good fun but the downside is the old hat locating tab and two "flat" surface to bond together for some rather large wings. The use of various supports , rubber bands and props made from whatever came to hand got the job done in the end and overall its not too far out of true:

 

pretty good and the join lines at the wing root are minimal and already filled and rubbed back.

 

 

All in all the fit of parts is very good inevitably some reinstating of the surface detail will be necessary but I wanted to tone it down a bit anyway

Cheers,

Mark.

[John]

It's a deceptively big beast, and they wanted to make a dive bomber out of it...😱

I remember the nicely boxed in wheel wells being a feature of this kit and feeling very modern at the time. 

John 

[MarkSH]

5 minutes ago, John said:

It's a deceptively big beast, and they wanted to make a dive bomber out of it...😱

I remember the nicely boxed in wheel wells being a feature of this kit and feeling very modern at the time. 

John 

You're right John, out of interest, I just compared it to my current Lancaster build and it is pretty much the same size!

[modelling minion]

I think you have done very well Mark and got her built up and aligned very nicely.

[SoftScience]

Goodness, that's amazing what you've done. This is the kind of upgrading I can look at all day. 

 

Classic modeling at its best.

[MarkSH]

Hi all,

 

Similar progress as with the P-61 did all the masking yesterday and applied the primer this evening:

 

Also a lot of filling and tidying up to do. The scheme I have chosen to do has an all black underside and a mottled top side with very muted national markings with the added bonus of a little bit of red on the spinners, I have no decals for the scheme, so I'm going to try and mask the whole lot...gulp! there aren't that many but its a bit of a departure for me but good practice as I intend to do similar for my BoB 80th GB 1/24 Hurricane.

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

[Dansk]

Awesome plan with the paint mark, wow. Excited to see that develop

right now in black primer it suggests its the lovechild of a u2 and a b-29 😁

[modelling minion]

Sounds like a great scheme for your Grief Mark.

Your plan for the markings really does sound interesting, and scary!

[MarkSH]

Evening chaps,

 

A little progress with the Heinkel, I have sprayed my own version mix of a RLM76, Tamiya XF-23 was too blue so I toned it down with some XF-83 medium sea grey purely by eye so RLM aficionados look away now:

I then set about having a play with the airbrush and working out how best to achieve the mottling of RLM75 (another homebrew colour...sorry). Surprisingly I found that with a 0.2 nozzle and very thin paint a higher pressure was optimum otherwise it splattered a lot (I'm still learning my way with the airbrush). Overall, I think I have been a bit too subtle but for the purposes of this build I'm happy enough with it.

I masked off for the underside 'black', I went for NATO black. Flat Black feels too dark for me at this scale, and besides It'll all be given the usual Oil Paint weathering treatment when sealed with Klear, which in its self will darken the 'black' slightly.

 

 

The leading edge of the tail was masked with blu-tac to get a soft edge.

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.