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An Airfix Mosquito PR.XVI in 1/48 Scale - MM312 of No.140 Squadron RAF, June 1944. ***Finished***


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Hello all;

 

I can’t resist the PR lure again and this one offers the opportunity to combine that with my favourite aircraft, the simply beautiful Mosquito.

 

This will likely be an out-of-box build of this interesting kit, though I’m quite sure I’ll end up down some rabbit hole or other as I go, it’s the nature of my builds...  

 

So, to the kit, it’s this one...

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...it is an interesting one with new and old parts, raised and engraved surface details.  Its reputation isn’t great - challenge accepted.

 

The start...

 

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...the cockpit is on its way but not yet finished.  
 

Those that have followed other builds of mine know cockpits are not my favourite part of the process but I try and make a reasonably decent job of it.  On this one I tried something new on the instrument panel; there’s no decal so I painted it black and then scribed some instrument details with a pin, and then a drop of clear gloss to simulate glass.  I quite like how it turned out, though there’s still some colour detailing to add on that, and other details too.

 

Thanks for reading, cheers!

 

Mark..

Edited by mark.au
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After a couple of days away visiting my daughter in Canberra, back at the bench tonight to finish off the cockpit.  As usual, I went for a representation rather than a replication, especially as not much will be seen through the closed and extensively framed canopy.  Here's some macro pics, which are never kind, but nonetheless as good as it gets for this one.

 

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I've also made progress on what airframe I'm going to represent, and the story to tell with it.  

 

I didn't know that PR Squadrons - some at least - used "flash bombs" to take night photos; what a fascinating idea!  So this is going to be a 140 Squadron PR.XVI which was involved in that rather interesting activity, specifically MM312 which was damaged and brought down by its own prematurely exploding flash bomb in September 1944.

 

.

Edited by mark.au
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  • mark.au changed the title to An Airfix Mosquito PR.XVI in 1/48 Scale - MM312 of No.140 Squadron RAF, September 1944.

Lovely work Mark - one would certainly never know you didn't like cockpits! Look forward to seeing this one progress,

 

Cheers,

 

Roger

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13 minutes ago, Dunny said:

Lovely work Mark - one would certainly never know you didn't like cockpits! Look forward to seeing this one progress,

 

Cheers,

 

Roger

 

Thanks Roger.  I think I do kind of like them, once I start, it's just that it at the time it seems like a chore to be completed before getting really stuck into the project (if that makes sense?).

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In contrast to how well the Airfix Lancaster went together, this one is fighting me all the way.  I believe the term is fettling; I have been required to be a very well practiced fettler to get the wings and engine nacelles together in particular.  As you can see in the pic below, I needed to install a spreader bar to get something approaching a nice fit on the port engine nacelle.  The starboard wing wasn't so bad.

 

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Below the work on the top sides of the port wing was no less extensive; the extended engine nacelle did not match the curvature of the nacelle itself which required building the profile up with a few layers of Tamiya putty.  The wing to fuselage join required the addition of some spacers at the radiators.  The fuselage required some filler too, along most of the join but as I absolutely suck at joining fuselage halves without a step, I'll take responsibility for that.

 

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As I write this, I'm done for the day.  There's a little more work to do on the starboard wing and it'll be finished too.  At that point, I can begin major assembly.  My hope was that I could leave that until after painting/weathering (and I still might) but the fit is so iffy that there will be a lot of work to do to clean up the joins after assembly, I'm not sure I'll be any further ahead for having left the assembly to the end.  My one advantage in that respect is that this is a monochromatic paint scheme of PRU Blue which would make the touch ups easier to accomplish.  Game day decision...

 

Installing the undercarriage is going to be a bit of a chore; the kit is designed for it to be installed as the nacelles are joined together but there was so much work to do to clean seams that didn't install.  Time will tell on whether that was a good decision or not... 

 

I'm going to work on the glass next session and get that installed.  Then I'll decide on assembly before or after paint.

 

Cheers;

Mark.

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Crikey it is putting up a bit of a fight there.  I recall TonyOT's build where he had some problems with the glazing attaching.   Might be worth checking his build out,  it turned out lovely.   

I have this kit too along with the Airfix MkVI and so am watching with interest as to the pitfalls so appreciate your efforts here too.  Gotta go back to tgat cockpit and again say how awesome it looks.

Great job and keep up the good fight

Chris

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Preparation work has continued and I've finally gotten the Mossie ready for paint.  I spent a bit of time masking the inside of the canopy to paint the interior framework first.  I'm quite sure that Airfix have missed a few frames for the internal framing but I went with what was there.  The rest of the masking was a chore, but oddly satisfying - a nice but of mindfulness actually.  I've also applied a bit of pre-shading ahead of the PRU blue as an initial step in texturing the monochrome finish.

 

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When I was prepping the wings I noticed the nav lights didn't fit that well.  Normally I leave them off until the finish but that creates a risk to the paintwork if the fit is less than perfect, so I decided to attach them now.  To achieve a nice fit I first built out the recess with some thin plastic card.  After it set, I sanded it back to the wing and then glued in the clear pieces.  This left the clear parts a little proud to the wing so it was a simple task to gently sand them back to a nice match to the wingtip profile.  I also drilled out some lights and dropped a little paint in to simulate the bulbs as a quick check of references showed that the bulb was coloured, not the glass.  With that all complete, I masked them up in readiness for painting.

 

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The focus of the article in which this model will feature has shifted a little.  I want to paint this one with full D-Day stripes and make it about something a little more than the flash bombing, so the focus will be on the 15 sorties No. 140 Squadron flew during the 24hrs of 6th June, 1944.  The squadron's motto is "Foresight" which seems both apt in terms of their mission, and a good title for the article.  For example, below is an image of Châteaudun in France on 5 June by a 140 Squadron Mosquito MM305; based on Squadron records 140Sq seems to have been tasked with rear area photography rather than front line, in particular communications and transport targets.

 

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(Image used with permission in accordance with licence conditions.)

 

Thanks for reading.  Cheers;

Mark

 

Edited for typos.

 

 

 

Edited by mark.au
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  • mark.au changed the title to An Airfix Mosquito PR.XVI in 1/48 Scale - MM312 of No.140 Squadron RAF, June 1944.

I have begun painting.  If I’d remembered to take some photos I could even show you the progression 😂

 

I painted the D-Day stripes in the usual way, white first, then mask and black.  Was was unusual for me at least, I’d doing them first.  I did it this was though because my subject is a D-Day aircraft so the stripes would be pristine while the airframe would have some weathering.  So the stripes will stay under wraps now for a while.  Anyway, here’s the pic I did remember to take...

 

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Next I’ll cover the black and then begin the PRU Blue, including weathering it.

 

 

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Thanks gents.  The blue goes on tomorrow and then my next decision point is the drop tanks.  The classic PR.XVI pics at the AWM (and everywhere else) show the drop tank as black... but this shot is clearly a staged photo and I'm modelling MM312 as it was on D-Day.

 

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The tanks themselves were delivered in PRU Blue as can be seen on this PR.XVI built in the same batch as MM312.  

 

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But... even though the tanks do somewhat line up with the outer black stripe so there's logic to painting them that way...

 

But... I have this nagging thought in the back of my mind; the order to paint the stripes was issued on 4th June.  After the order was issued MM312 flew on the evening of the 5th and again on the evening of the 6th.  The stripes had to have been painted during the evening of the 4th and/or day of the 5th and would the ground crew, with all the other prep work that must have been going on - including 10 or so Mosquitos to paint - have taken the time to paint the detachable drop tanks?  I'm not sure about that...  I think it's quite possible, likely even, that the tanks were left PRU Blue, at least in the early days of June.

 

Such a minor thing to be pondering on....

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Beautiful aircraft, just pondering my newly acquired HKM Mk.IX/Mk.XVI and would love to do a PR version.

 

Lovely work so far, and cracking through it like a pro! Re the slipper tanks, I think it's one of those details where you can't really be 'wrong' (either case is documented) so it's a matter of preference. 

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Good looking progress so far!

 

I like how you integrated the wingtip lights before painting. I'm amazed how many people stick these things on at the very end, like an afterthought.

 

Not sure how you feel about this, but what i do at the very end of the build is, i remove the masking over the nav lights, and then i mask off around the perimeter of the light, leaving just a slight amount of the surrounding painted area exposed, and then i polish the lenses with a cotton t shirt and toothpaste. The slight offset of the tape and the polishing doesn't affect the surrounding paint very much.

 

Just a thought.

 

-d-

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11 hours ago, Alan P said:

Re the slipper tanks, I think it's one of those details where you can't really be 'wrong' (either case is documented) so it's a matter of preference. 

 

I think so, after sleeping on it I'm going to go with PRU Blue because it looks more interesting.

 

6 hours ago, David H said:

Not sure how you feel about this, but what i do at the very end of the build is, i remove the masking over the nav lights, and then i mask off around the perimeter of the light, leaving just a slight amount of the surrounding painted area exposed, and then i polish the lenses with a cotton t shirt and toothpaste. The slight offset of the tape and the polishing doesn't affect the surrounding paint very much.

 

Good idea.  I was going to simply brush on a bit of Future/ Shine as I've already polished the clear part with a polishing cloth but if that doesn't work as well as hoped I'll have a bash at this.

 

2 hours ago, Ran said:

How did you go about doing the internal farming of the canopy?

 

Old fashioned masking and then paint.  I've begun to use 2mm Tamiya Tape for the masking and found it helps a great deal (I know I could cut wider tape into strips but I can never seem to get it dead straight, and I can afford the 2mm tape :-)).   Not a lot of fun, quite tedious in fact but it's a defining feature of the Mossie's canopy so it had to be done.

 

Thanks for following along, I have a quick Teams meeting in a few minutes and then paint the PRU Blu some focus time in my Monday morning calendar.

 

.

Edited by mark.au
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Well, that was a painting task...  The Hataka PRU Blue sprays beautifully but is very translucent and it took multiple coats to achieve the density of colour I was looking for.  I even had to go over the pre-shading with a medium grey to knock down the contrast as the blue was having a lot of trouble covering it.  The progression can be seen in the pic below;

 

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Each one of the frames above was about three coats, misted on.  Sheesh.  The same was true of the fuselage but eventually I completed the base colour with just a hint remaining of the translucency that will be useful in the remaining process.  I think that's quite visible in the pics below but under that stark lighting a little more apparent that it is in actuality.

 

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I painted the slipper tank with Vallejo's Faded PRU Blue to create a little contrast and besides the tanks were interchangeable and so quite possibly older than the aircraft they were mounted on.

 

I'm not going to have this as a particularly beaten up airframe, not least because it wasn't very old on D-Day, six weeks at the most.  It will have some wear and tear commensurate with a machine at work, but not overly faded paint, excessive chipping or scuffing or damage; just a machine at work, and based still in the UK at Northolt with its concrete taxiways and hard stands.

 

Next session will be to finish off the main paintwork and remove the masking for a gloss coat.

 

.

Edited by mark.au
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Nice looking Paint, crikey that nearly took as many coats of blue that I have used on the yellow Ventura.

Looking fantastic Mark great job fella, this is where it all comes together with your excellent approach to finish and weathering. 

Chris

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I built this kit and found the wing join awful very little area for the glue to grip ! if I was to build another probably use brass tubes through the fuselage to hold the wings  for strength .

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21 hours ago, Alan P said:

Very good and thoughtful plan for the appearance, 'weathering' for weathering's sake isn't everything! 


Absolutely.  I see a lot of beautifully made and finished models, of a standard I couldn’t replicate but totally unrealistically weathered without regard to the actual condition of the real thing, nor even logic.  I saw a model of “Lou IV” recently that represented that airplane as if it had been left in the sun for five years and sand blasted while was there.  The real “Lou IV” was actually in service for about two months and its yellow nose was painted only two weeks before it was destroyed.  Now, to be clear, this is not meant to put anyone down, we all enjoy the hobby in our own way - mine is making things realistic even if I’m not always skilled enough to replicate what I see.

 

16 hours ago, T-21 said:

I built this kit and found the wing join awful very little area for the glue to grip ! if I was to build another probably use brass tubes through the fuselage to hold the wings  for strength .

 

Yeah, in my dry fitting I ended up hacking carving fettling the slots enough to give plenty of attachment surface area.

 

Et, voila.

 

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To weather the base coat I made a thin mix of PRU Blue with some mid-grey at a 6:1 ratio and randomised it’s application over the wooden portions of the upper surfaces to simulate the beginnings of the notorious PRU Blue fade.  It’s quite subtle but it’s there, and will show a little more under the flat coat later.  
 

The only other airframe weathering I’m planning is some foot-traffic scuffing on the wings around the D-Day stripes; those erks would have left their mark when they painted the stripes.

 

Next comes the clear gloss coat in prep for the decals and a wash to emphasise the control surfaces and other key panels.  

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35 minutes ago, mark.au said:

Absolutely.  I see a lot of beautifully made and finished models, of a standard I couldn’t replicate but totally unrealistically weathered without regard to the actual condition of the real thing, nor even logic.  I saw a model of “Lou IV” recently that represented that airplane as if it had been left in the sun for five years and sand blasted while was there.  The real “Lou IV” was actually in service for about two months and its yellow nose was painted only two weeks before it was destroyed.  Now, to be clear, this is not meant to put anyone down, we all enjoy the hobby in our own way - mine is making things realistic even if I’m not always skilled enough to replicate what I see.

Couldn't agree more. I don't criticise those who finish in the fashionable style, but when you look at the difference between the beautiful job @Dansk did on his Starfighter recently, and the trendy tramline/patchwork quilt look, it's impossible for me to prefer the latter!

 

Looking forward to the continuing project, it's certainly giving lots of inspiration 👍

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