Meanwhile up north...

[Heather Kay]

33 minutes ago, Dandie Dinmont said:

It may just be my growing befuddlement

Nope, it’s not just you. I get it every time I paint Luftwaffe splinter camo. 

[Dandie Dinmont]

6 hours ago, Heather Kay said:

Nope, it’s not just you. I get it every time I paint Luftwaffe splinter camo. 

 

Thanks Heather, that's a relief. I'd swear never to do another Luftwaffe splinter scheme but I've bought all this paint...

 

Two updates in one day! How long can our hero keep up this breakneck pace? (spoiler, not very long)

 

The masking is off and the result?

 

 

 

Undeniably rough in places but it will do with a little sorting. And look! the greens were different colours!

 

Craig.

[Stew Dapple]

Looking good mate

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

[Dandie Dinmont]

Well if you have perused the group build gallery, you will have seen that this effort just managed to stagger over the line, smoke pouring from both engines and the paintwork in a pitiable state. Given that, I thought I should write one last entry here.

 

With only Friday and Saturday left until the end of the group build, there was still lots to do so I took the Friday off work and struck the sort of Faustian pact with my wife that will see me walking the dogs, doing the washing up and cleaning the house for the rest of my natural lifespan. This gave me two clear days to do what could be done.

 

First task was to remove the masks and assess the magnitude of the task facing me. As things turned out, they had worked pretty well, with not too much tidying up required. 

 

 

The Montex mask set certainly made things much easier and I would use them again. Being a true Aberdonian, I tried to save the various masks for reuse in the extremely unlikely event that I ever build another of these but they get so scrunched up when they're removed, I doubt they would be of much use.

 

Next up, I thought I had better start applying the markings. I was rather nervous about this having read of other builds where ICM decals had practically exploded when brought in contact with water. I had been rather impressed by bits of the marking masks which came with the Montex set I had used (i.e. the '1' and 'H' on the fuselage sides) , and I might have been tempted to give the rest of them a go had time permitted. It didn't though and so the decals it had to be. As it turned out, they worked absolutely fine, even the underwing crosses which seemed to be the size of a small tablecloth. 

 

 

 

Because of the constraints of time (are you seeing a recurring theme here?) I didn't feel I had time to give the model a gloss coat so instead I used the bedding decals in clear technique as detailed in this topic

 

 

This worked surprisingly well, and I will use it again though it did leave some alarming stains around the decals. Fortunately a final hand brushed flat coat took care of this.

 

One issue that had been exercising me somewhat was that of the III.KG.26 badge that should appear on both sides of the cockpit. The kit decal sheet did include markings for a KG.26 machine but from the 1st gruppe meaning it was white rather than the yellow I needed. I'd been hoping that a forthcoming decal sheet from Owl would provide a solution but it had been coming "within a week" for the last month or so and failed to materialise. Luckily I had an inspiration and the application of Tamiya clear yellow over the white badge provided an acceptable solution.

 

 

The decal sheet came with an impressive array of stencils and the like, nearly all of which I didn't bother with. I'm not sure it makes much of a difference.

 

The last remaining major task was to fit the main undercarriage and the gear doors. This was a demonstration in miniature of everything I liked and disliked about the ICM kit. The instructions gave only the vaguest indication of where the various parts should go but after extracting them from the runners (a nail-biting moment considering the fineness of some of the pieces) and removing the mould marks, a little experimentation showed the manner in which they would all lock together in a highly satisfying manner.

 

 

Apart from one wheel strut which broke in two for no apparent reason, another hallmark, I have found of an ICM kit. This phenomenon is also responsible for the one part of the kit that remains unfinished at time of writing. I attached the mounting for the dorsal gun unwisely early in the build and it inevitably broke. So far, I've been unable to come up with a scheme to provide a workable replacement. One day maybe.

 

 

So here's a couple of snaps of the final article, finished with a whole 7 hours to spare. What was I worried about?

 

 

 

I'll do a RFI post in due course when I work out how to improve my photography.

 

How do I feel about my first group build? By and large I enjoyed it. I certainly enjoyed the camaraderie though I am not convinced that I am suited to the lightning fast pace of a group build (and believe me, a mere 4 months definitely counts as lightning fast as far as I am concerned). Mind you, given the various misfortunes that befell me during the build, had it not been for the looming deadline coupled with my desire not to fail to finish in my first group build, the Heinkel might well have finished up on the shelf of doom with little chance of being finished by the 85th anniversary of the Battle. Am I happy with the finished product? Good grief no! It's riddled with the kind of errors I had hoped had ceased to be part of my modelling repertoire. I tell myself that given a little extra time (18 months or so maybe) it would have turned out better. Will I build another ICM kit? The answer to that better be yes because I already have their Cessna 0-2 and the Revell repop of their Ju-88 in the stash.

 

My thanks to the organisers of the group build and especially to @Stew Dapple for his constant encouragement, particularly when things were going pear-shaped. Thanks also to @Greg Law and @Retired Bob for blazing a trail with the same kit and alerting me to its pitfalls (not that this stopped me falling into some of them). Finally thanks to all of you for reading along. I'm not sure what I'm going to do next but I do have a spitfire to finish.

 

 

Craig.

[Stew Dapple]

I'm glad you made it Craig, and I'm glad you enjoyed the Group Build, for all its tribulations  

 

Building a 1/48 twin in a group build is always going to be a challenging experience, even one such as the BoB Group Build which runs slightly longer than the norm, the start and end dates being set by the parameters of the actual battle rather than the usual set time frame for group builds. Still, you pulled it off in style  

 

I think we all make errors during our builds that are the more infuriating since often they are the same errors we always make; I know I did and I expect I will continue to do so, but I have reached a conclusion that I like building models and it's more useful and ultimately satisfying for me to do that than it would be to sit on my hands worrying that if I do build something it will not end up being as good as I could have made it if only I had thought about it longer, or got that aftermarket set, or waited in the hope that the reference book I wanted was re-printed or whatever. If by building models rather than just thinking about building models I get better at it, well and good, if not, at least I'm building models.

 

Anyway it was good to have you along, and all the others who took part, good work chaps  

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

[Greg Law]

Well done Craig.  

I used brass wire for the rear gun's support bracket.  It won't survive 5 minutes otherwise. It worked well. 

Good to see another Kg26 plane. 

[Dandie Dinmont]

10 hours ago, Stew Dapple said:

I'm glad you made it Craig, and I'm glad you enjoyed the Group Build, for all its tribulations  

 

Thanks Stew, I really did enjoy it despite some moments of stress!

 

10 hours ago, Stew Dapple said:

Building a 1/48 twin in a group build is always going to be a challenging experience, even one such as the BoB Group Build which runs slightly longer than the norm, 

 

Yes, I think this must be one of the largest kits I've tackled in my modelling career. It's certainly the largest I've finished. Mind you, it could have been worse. Half way through August, I felt things were going so well that I bought a Tamiya 1/48 Spitfire to do a second build! Fortunately, sanity prevailed before I could really embarrass myself and the spit was stashed away for the 85th Anniversary BoB group build.

 

10 hours ago, Stew Dapple said:

 

I think we all make errors during our builds that are the more infuriating since often they are the same errors we always make; I know I did and I expect I will continue to do so, but I have reached a conclusion that I like building models and it's more useful and ultimately satisfying for me to do that than it would be to sit on my hands worrying that if I do build something it will not end up being as good as I could have made it if only I had thought about it longer, or got that aftermarket set, or waited in the hope that the reference book I wanted was re-printed or whatever. If by building models rather than just thinking about building models I get better at it, well and good, if not, at least I'm building models.

 

I couldn't agree more. I have reluctantly come to the realisation that any build of mine will have at least one gluey fingerprint that will need fixing. It's a sort of signature I suppose.

 

10 hours ago, Stew Dapple said:

 

Anyway it was good to have you along, and all the others who took part, good work chaps  

 

And once again many thanks for your hard work organising and running the build.

 

Craig.

[Stew Dapple]

On 11/9/2020 at 4:08 PM, Dandie Dinmont said:

And once again many thanks for your hard work organising and running the build.

 

It was @Enzo Matrix who did all the heavy lifting, if it had been hard work for me I doubt I would have been anywhere to be seen  All Procopius, Cookenbacher and I had to do was gad about and keep an eye on things which was no great trial as there were so many interesting builds going on... but thank you  

 

Cheers,

 

Stew