RAN Wessex HAS.31b

[Hewy]

Great looking primer coat

[Andwil]

After a short hiatus brought about by 1:1 house painting, I have sprayed the white on the upper fuselage, 3 light coats.  I’m not sure if Ive taken the white far enough down the rear, I’ll know better once the blue is on.

 

 

 

Thanks for looking.

 

AW

[Andwil]

I wasn’t happy with the finish of white so I resprayed  it today and took the opportunity to take it a bit lower down the sides at the rear.  Next job will be to mask the white, getting the demarcation nice and straight and then spray the blue.

 

AW

[Andwil]

Well something of a set back today.  I airbrushed the fuselage with a Vallejo Model Colour Oxford Blue, at least that’s what it said on the bottle:

 

 

Aaaargh!

 

 

 

It’s purple! 

 

The light blue background in the photo has reduced the full horror, but in life it looks like something out of a Prince video.  I persevered hoping it might dry blue, but no joy.  It’s either a mislabelled bottle or a very bad batch of paint.

 

I will respray with Gloss Sea Blue, May not be the right shade of blue but is going to be closer than purple!

Edited August 2, 2020 by Andwil
Typos

[TonyOD]

Oh dear... yes that is very purple indeed! 

[Valkyrie]

Oh my! I would be raging. On the bright side that might turn out to be a terrific undercoat for the real blue?

[Andwil]

Right.  Back on page 1.  The purple has gone 

 

On 8/2/2020 at 5:52 PM, Valkyrie said:

On the bright side that might turn out to be a terrific undercoat for the real blue?

It took two coats of glossy sea blue to cover it up.

 

Generally happy with the demarcation, especially the curve around the nose, which I was worried about getting right.  Unfortunately there has been quite a bit of bleed of the blue.  This is mainly where I had used a Tamiya Tape for Curves, obviously I hadn’t burnished it down enough, it doesn’t behave like normal masking tape, being rather stiff and “plasticky”.  Also got some paint lift around the tail on the starboard side, so some touching up of the white is called for.

 

 

 

AW

[Hockeyboy76]

Great work, it’s a shame the paint is fighting you. 

[DaveWilko]

Excellent work Sir on an aircraft type one remembers well from one's youth.

 

My wife acquired the "Falklands Anniversary" Italeri Wessex/Sea Harrier(£5 from a local charity shop) combination kit

some months ago and a gentleman on these pages furnished one with pictures and instructions on how to correct the short

fuselage length aft of the cabin rather than use the rarer(and more costly) resin correction plug.

This is in addition to correcting the steps and tail rotor.

It makes one wonder how a manufacturer can make such mistakes when there are a good number of these machines

in museums around the UK for perusal.

 

Mine will eventually be done(one thinks the family are garnering one for a retirement hobby !!!)as an 846 Sqn Ships Flt

machine.

 

One will look forward to seeing your example resplendent in it's Aussi markings and colours.

Edited August 4, 2020 by DaveWilko

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

Sorry to hear the paint is fighting but shes looking good. 

[Andwil]

On 8/4/2020 at 8:45 PM, Hockeyboy76 said:

Great work, it’s a shame the paint is fighting you. 

 

On 8/5/2020 at 3:19 AM, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

Sorry to hear the paint is fighting but shes looking good. 

Sorry to say that today was the kind of day that makes me want to give the hobby away. I mean it’s meant to be fun isn’t it, not a stress inducing battle.  I masked off the blue to touch up the white where the blue had bled.  Airbrush refused to cooperate, clogging repeatedly no matter how much I thinned the paint.  Stripped it down, gave it a thorough clean, sprayed airbrush cleaner ok.  Sprayed distilled water no problem.  Put in thinned paint, clogged.  Repeat. Same result.  I don’t know what Im doing wrong but just cannot get it to work properly.  I’ve read that Vallejo paint should not be thinned other than with distilled water and should have a drop or to of their flow enhancer added, Ive seen youtube videos of Vallejo being successfully sprayed and followed the method religiously, to no avail.  When I finally got the white to spray it was extremely thin and, guess what, it bled onto the blue 

 

So that’s it, I am going to finish this model by brush.

 

AW

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

By chance was it newly opened bottle of Vallejo or had it been open for any length of time. I have found Vallejo has a definite shelf life of about 12-15 months before it will no longer spray. The pigment coagulates and needs to be crushed before spraying, i had the same issue last year while spraying a Japanese F4 Phantom. I dug out rocks of pigment from inside of my A/B. 

[Andwil]

1 hour ago, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

By chance was it newly opened bottle of Vallejo or had it been open for any length of time. I have found Vallejo has a definite shelf life of about 12-15 months before it will no longer spray. The pigment coagulates and needs to be crushed before spraying, i had the same issue last year while spraying a Japanese F4 Phantom. I dug out rocks of pigment from inside of my A/B. 

I think this may well be the case Dennis.  On calm reflection, it is the Vallejo white that has been giving grief, white and black paint is often, I find, much thicker than other colours.  This bottle I bought earlier this year and used without any problems on my Sea Harrier build for the In The Navy GB, but of course I don’t know how long it had been on the shelf in the shop.

 

 

AW

[Andwil]

Painting problems rectified, gloss coat added and ready for the windows to be unmasked and decals:

 

 

 

Some other bits and bobs, rotor blades, wheels, antennae etc:

 

 

Thanks for looking.

 

AW

[TonyOD]

Hoping I’m not teaching anyone’s grandma to suck eggs, but did you seal the edge of the masking tape with the first colour before applying the second? I find it helps avoid bleed.

 

Looking great. The mere sight of those antenna pylons brought me out in a cold sweat though.

[nimrod54]

Looking really good AW, sorry to read about the paint woes, but it looks as though you have got them sorted.

[Andwil]

Started on the decals today, got one side done.  Decals are a combination of CtA, Italeri (by cartograph I believe) from the kit and the Ronin Graphics RAN decals that were also included with the kit.  I used the walk markings on the spine from the kit as the CtA ones are supplied in two parts, black to fit over white, and I dislike multi layer decals.  Actually all the multi colour markings on the CtA sheet are multi layer, the roundels come in three parts, a white disc, a blue ring to go over it and the red kangaroo to go in the centre.  I was going to use the Ronin roundels to avoid having to do this, but they are printed slightly out of register.  
 

The CtA decals are very thin and settle nicely over bumps and down into panel lines, but they must be handled very carefully and have a tendency to fold over on themselves.  I ruined the 13 on the nose as it folded over and could not be separated without breaking up.  Luckily the Ronin set are for number 31, so it was easy to cut this in half and make up a new number 13.

 

There are a great number of stencils in white or yellow, I won’t be using all of them as I can hardly see them they are so small.  Actually the biggest problem I am having with the CtA decals is finding some of the smaller ones on the sheet, there are literally hundreds of them all packed in close together and not in any kind of order that I can discern.

 

Starboard side mostly done, the white disc is the base for the roundel, a blue ring has to be placed over this leaving a narrow white outline.   A job for another day!

 

 

 

First 16 of the 24 individual decals on the rotor blades:

 

Thanks for looking.

 

AW

[Andwil]

I should add that as I had fitted the steps at the beginning of the build I could not fit the decal for the black oval marking that surrounds them.  I had to cut the decals in half vertically, cut out the centre of each half before applying the pieces around the steps.  The centre will be painted in later.  I have edited an earlier post to draw attention to this issue for any future builders.

 

AW

[Andwil]

More decals done today, port side, first two layers of the unit badge and the rest of the roundels.  Only a few more to go now.

 

 

 

Thanks for looking.

 

AW

[Lex77]

Well done, looking very good.

[Andwil]

Got my decalling mojo back today and after another marathon session with tiny stencils (first time I’ve resorted to the optivisor for applying decals) I have the decals finished.  To show how good and legible the CtA stencil decals are, here are some extreme close ups of some of them (also show every whisker, chip and rough patch on the paint):

 

 

 

unit badge made up from three decals!

 

I found some suitable looking decals in my stash for the fuel tank:

 

 

Finish line in sight now.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

AW

[TonyOD]

That's a classy looking paint job!

[Hewy]

Very nice indeed ,really good 👍

[Andwil]

Wheels, exhausts and winch on, along with 4 of the 6 aerial posts, the large shark fin antenna under the fuselage (scratched from plastic card) and the remaining struts for the weapons carrier from thin rod.

 

 

 

Thanks for looking.

 

AW

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

She is really looking good, this is probably my Favorite Wessex Scheme. Maybe the Junglie camouflaged ones take second place.