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Aeroclub Felixstowe F.2a 1/72 ++ FINISHED ++


Ray S

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1 hour ago, Ray S said:

The first thing I did was decide on the colour for the Clear Doped Linen for the underside of the wings. Roden suggested Humbrol 74 (Linen), while Wingnut Wings said Humbrol 28 (Camouflage Grey)

 

I have used variety of paints to represent clear doped linen including your choices and Tamiya Deck tan and a few others.  Lately I have been using Liquitex soft body acrylics. These brush nicely and can be reduced using Liquitex airbrush medium to thin them out for brushing or airbrushing. A 59ml bottle goes a long way.  The colour of choice I have been trying is called Parchment and to my eye is pretty close. Of course a wee bit of white or brown or grey and adjust to liking. 

 

https://www.liquitex.com/us/products/professional/colors/soft-body-acrylic/

 

cheers, Graham 

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Hi Ray,

 

Always a contentious colour and I am sure there were plenty of variations in real life, just like P.C 10. I have used the old White Ensign Colourcoats version on my SM 81 over in the Africa build and it varies a lot depending on the lighting. My ancient Precision Paints version may have been slightly browner and my almost as ancient tin of Xtracolour "natural fabric" looks a bit yellower. Basically take you pick and go what you are happy with. Even the paint manufacturers seem unsure what to call it - to name but a few "Natural Fabric" Xtracolour as mentioned earlier, "Doped Linen" (Colourcoats), "Doped Natural Fabric" (Precision), "Clear Doped Linen" Humbrol HB 18, and "Unbleached Linen" Humbrol MC 25, all of which I seem to have lurking in my paint stash!

 

Pete

Edited by PeterB
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Peter and Graham, thanks for those comments, I eventually ended up using Humbrol 30 for the green, and 28 for the clear doped linen, and they look okay to my eyes.

 

I have varnished the green on the wing and upper horizontal tail surfaces with a satin finish, painted the underside of the stabilizers with 28, and given the planing surface a third coat of Humbrol 110, It needs just one more coat, I think.

 

DSCN7265

 

DSCN7266

 

I have also been cleaning up some of the white metal parts. They have been moulded quite well, but there are some small blemishes which I will need to deal with.

 

DSCN7262

 

The fun will come when I start to put this lot together. I need to slide the lower engine block through the diamond-shaped mounts (leaving everything loose), fit the mounts into the location holes on the lower wing (leaving everything loose), add the top wing, align and ensure it is all square and true, add two outboard struts (loose!) and then add the glue to the engine and lower location points, then remove the top wing and outboard struts and then build the rest of the engines! I think I could do with at least two extra arms, and a better ocular system!

 

While going through the metal parts, I found these:

 

DSCN7263

 

There are virtually no illustrations in the Aeroclub instructions, so I am mighty glad I had access to Roden's and Wingnut Wings' guides. It looks like these parts are to fit at the front and back of the cylinders for the engines, but I only need four of them. There were also these two things:

 

DSCN7264

 

There is nothing in the guides about these, but there are a couple of wind-driven pumps which fit just forward of the mid-upper gun position, so, unless further information comes to light, that is where they will go (Roden and WNW show them as four-bladed).

 

All the time I have been involved with this model, I have considered the aircraft as being pretty big. Then I put the Twin Otter I am also building next to it, now it looks tiny!

 

DSCN7258

 

There is a slight optical illusion going on here, the wingspan of the two are pretty much identical. I know the top wing of the Felixstowe is larger, but even so, I was surprised at the comparison.

 

Anyway, that is it for now, thanks for looking, and for the comments and likes, they are always very much appreciated.

 

Ray

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I had a major stride forward today, but it has not quite gone according to plan. Anyway, here is the result:

 

DSCN7268

 

The first batch of transfers are on! Now, about those transfers/decals/markings. They are wonderful, they are very nice and thin, the red does not bleed through, and they settled over the raised detail very well with Micro Set/Sol, so all good! However, a lot of them are basically spirals - the carrier film follows the white, so when I remove them from the backing paper, the spiral undoes! And then it was the devil's own job getting them back into shape! I finally cracked the timing with the last one I did (the one right aft of the wing) and was really delighted with the result. I then dabbed it down to settle over the detail, and it stuck to the damp cotton bud and pulled up! Doh! Ten minutes later I had corrected the mishap, and called it a day. There must be some dimensional differences between this Aeroclub kit and the Roden that AIMS designed this for, so I am not blaming AIMS if any of these are slightly out - like that one at the nose (the white should go up to the coaming around the gunner's position), or those along the planing surface edge. The ones under the tail had to be cut to get them to align with the ones on the rudder. Anyway, it all looks quite impressive, and I am happy with them, but I think it is going to be a three session job.

 

Thanks for looking, Ray

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Thanks @JOCKNEY, it is an excellent sheet, but I have my reservations, as will be seen. These reservations have nothing to do with the AIMS sheet, it is fabulous in all respects, but I think I am suffering from using it on a kit it was not intended for, and I strongly suspect it would be brilliant on the Roden kit. I have got all the markings onto one side of the aircraft, except for one underneath which would not fit:

 

DSCN7269

 

It all looks reasonable, however, this is how the instruction guide show how the swirls should be positioned:

 

db_72D004-decals--2-1 (2)

 

 and this is an almost side-on view of the model:

 

DSCN7271 (2)

 

There are discrepancies with the positioning. Some of it may have come from there not being shown the wing position in the guide, but some of the swirls are too close together, and some are overlapping. The ones just aft of the brown planing surface appear too small. Trying to work out where the brown was was tricky too, the illustrations did not seem to match up, but the underside view is pretty much 1/72 scale so I used that!

 

Now, I know I have been having issues recently where I cannot envisage something, and get muddled with orientation of things, but I think I have gone wrong somewhere along the line. The question in my mind is - do I keep with this scheme, and try to mirror the effect on the other side, or do I scrub back to plastic and do a different scheme? That is rhetorical, by the way! I have two busy days ahead of me now, so will not be able to get any modelling done Thursday or Friday, so that will give me time to think. Can I live with spectacular but wrong, or not?

 

If I do scrub back, there is a varnished ply option, or one which had the fuselage overall Dark Green, which is probably easier to paint. I found out today that the transfers do still come back off easily, as the swirls on the planing bottom were originally put on the third step, but today that proved to be wrong! If I do stick with these, I will seal them in with varnish before I do the other side.

 

As an aside, I have just looked at the Roden painting guide, and it had a different swirl pattern!

 

Choices, choices!

 

Thanks for looking, and if you have any suggestions, please do so!

 

Ray

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  • Ray S changed the title to Aeroclub Felixstowe F.2a 1/72 +Possible scheme rethink ahead+

This has made much progress since I last dropped by and I am completely blown away by what you are doing. I think that the colours are certainly within the range that would have appeared on different contemporary aircraft: personally I think that a colour range is a more appropriate way of thinking of these than a specific shade.

 

With reference to the swirls, how accurate do you want to be. Who is the audience? You as modeller, or other viewers? Even with good photographs it is difficult to be completely accurate ona model, not least given that there will be small inaccuracies in the model. If that were mine i would be happy with what you have achieved as the scheme is very eye-catching and I doubt whether anyone (other than you the modeller), would notice the small inconsistencies between your model and the original. What is more they are unlikely to notice unless you put a photo next to the model.

 

P

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My understanding of the dazzle patterns is that the crews had a lot of input to the designs. I don't think there is any official patterns. I would put any discrepancies down to ground crew touch ups of peeled off sections. Got to admit though that my Roden will get a plain PC10 or 12 finish.

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Looking good! The underside view shows up how surprisingly wide the fuselage is when it gets to the water.

 

I appreciate your misgivings about the swirl patterns but my 2p worth would be to do the same on the other side and damn the torpedoes! I think it looks terrific.

 

Regards,

Adrian

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I’d stick with the swirls and maybe carefully brush paint in any major discrepancies. TBH unless you display the model alongside photos or drawings of the real thing no one will ever know.

Edited by Marklo
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@pheonix, @stevehed, @AdrianMF and @Marklo, thank you for your thoughts, and @Moggy I know what you mean about the 60's vibe, these were way ahead of their time (or certain substances were about earlier than I thought!).

 

Having taken onboard these comments, and having had three days to REALLY think about my plan, I have gone ahead with the red and white scheme. Today I added the starboard side swirls and tried to mirror the port side ones, and anyone who disagrees can redo them for me! I know none of you will disagree, as you are my friends! Oddly enough, the transfers behaved themselves a lot better than the other day, they came off the backing much easier as I kept the water much hotter than last time, and rather than using my finger to tease them from the backing, I used a wet brush instead (the first time I have done that ever since I started modelling in 1964). I had no unravelling spirals, and none doubled over onto themselves.

 

I think that I was too self-critical the other day, so I am glad to be on the straight and narrow again.

 

DSCN7272

 

DSCN7273

 

I am not going to re-touch with white paint the areas which may need it, white will probably not cover red well with brush painting, so I will quit while I am ahead.

 

Thanks for looking, and also for the input too.

 

Ray

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  • Ray S changed the title to Aeroclub Felixstowe F.2a 1/72 + Back on track +
1 minute ago, Paul Thompson said:

I think I read at the time that the swirly bits didn't fit all that well even when used on the kit they were meant for.

 

Paul.

 

That would be a relief!

 

Ray

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I spent this afternoon looking at the white metal parts, cleaning them up and playing with them to see if I can build quite a bit of the engines before attempting to fit them to the support struts and the wings. The whole build now hinges on me getting these straight and true, I may have difficulties, and may be some time...

 

DSCN7278

 

The structure has a tendency to kink, but adding the CA later will help. I have been filing the location pips on the struts to get them to fit the pre-drilled holes. The engine sit looks to be nose-down, so I am wondering if I got the angle of incidence right with the wing fitting - I had to cut down 2mm at the front, 1mm at the back as per the instructions and I did measure two or three times before I did cut. It is a shame there were no additional drawings for the arrangement of the engines, but I can understand why. Thank goodness for the Roden and Wingnut Wings ones I have.

 

Hopefully more soon, Ray

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I have still been messing around trying to figure out how to best fit the engines and their mounts, and I think I am getting there now. First though, I thought it would be a good idea to part build and paint the engines, and also get the mounts painted too, so they had their blast of primer today:

 

DSCN7291 (2)

 

I will leave that to set overnight, then start adding paint.

 

No matter what I tried, I still have the engines in a 'nose down' attitude when I try and dry fit them, so I am more than convinced that the angle of incidence is out on my attempt at fitting the lower wing. I have had a good look online to see if there are any alignment issues I have not seen, but the engines all appear level on the other builds. The lack of good side views when I put this together probably did not help. However, I will still progress and finish this, even if the engines are not aligned properly.

 

When the time comes, I will show how I managed (or not!) to get the wings aligned and level and true.

 

Thanks for looking, hopefully there will be some significant progress within a few days.

 

Ray

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I have been concentrating on the engines and mounts today. Some of the white metal parts needed some filling where there were pits in the surface. I used Perfect Plastic Putty for this.

 

DSCN7292

 

The two big holes on the right of the radiator back are mounting points, but I missed the big hole on the left! I have also started to build up the engine. I have used CA to glue the white metal together, but I found out the problem with that yesterday, when I was trying to dry fit the engines again. The engine and mounts fell off into the container I was using to balance everything, and just that small drop (about 2 - 3"), one block of cylinders was knocked off. I have used the Wingnut Wings guide for colours, but it is a loose representation as not all details on the WNW kit are here on the smaller Aeroclub one.

 

DSCN7293

 

DSCN7296

 

Sorry about the quality of the last photo, the camera's battery was running down and the flash did not work. I am not sure if those bits fore and aft between the exhaust collectors(?) are in the right place, there was no suggestion in the kit instructions, but things looking similar fitted in a similar place on the Roden and WNW guides. They have now been painted, and tomorrow I am going to try and fit them to the wing. Please wish me luck!

 

Thanks for looking, Ray

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Don't forget, when you get to them, the propellors are handed............................ Can't see mention earlier, but have you seen this? http://modelingmadness.com/review/w1/gb/attardf2a.htm .

 

Carmel Attard always does nice work - I wouldn't recommend his propellor finish though, he always does them that way and it spoils the look to my eye at least. But the rest is really nice.It does, however, point out how the props are oriented.

 

Paul.

 

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3 hours ago, Paul Thompson said:

Don't forget, when you get to them, the propellors are handed............................ Can't see mention earlier, but have you seen this? http://modelingmadness.com/review/w1/gb/attardf2a.htm .

 

Carmel Attard always does nice work - I wouldn't recommend his propellor finish though, he always does them that way and it spoils the look to my eye at least. But the rest is really nice.It does, however, point out how the props are oriented.

 

Paul.

 

 

Cheers for that information Paul. That in fact was the only review I found for a write up for the Aeroclub Felixstowe. I have sorted the props and am going by Aeroclub's drawings. I will not be doing anything fancy with them either, just painting them as best I can.

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Looks like you have got your hands full with those engines. I am afraid that I cannot offer any advice other than to look at other models and try to see how they are oriented. I am simply content to admire your courage at attempting a vacuform as complex as this - just looking at yours scares me witless!

 

Best of luck fitting those engines.

 

P

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@pheonix, thank you for your kind words! The engines are going to be fitted, they will decide their orientation. I must admit I did feel daunted by this when I started, and I certainly knew there were going to be 'challenges'!

 

Anyway, to the engines. I mentioned I had a plan. Now, one problem I always have to work around (and it is possibly true for many of us) is that I have a tremor. Usually it is controllable, especially be leaning on something. The issue here was that I had to slide the engine into the two mounts with no glue, attach the two mounts to the lower wing (again no glue), attach the top wings (which meant turning the model over, woops, the engine fell out, try again, turn the model over holding the engine too this time, getting the top wing and attaching it to the top of the engine mounts, turning the lot over again, woops it all fell apart, try again, and then slide in a wooden block to get things stable. Then glue to the lower wing.

 

I lost count of the number of times I tried that lot, but eventually hit on an idea. I got my trusty washing tab box out, glued some 40thou card along the lip to align the aircraft with it's angle of flight, and then taped Felix to that:

 

DSCN7298

 

Then I attached the port engine and added the top wing - with the model being stable now, I was able to look up underneath it and find the holes (after a fashion!):

 

DSCN7299

 

Now it did not matter about keeping the wing or engine in situ. I next added some balsa I had pre-cut, and also dropped some .8mm brass rod through a couple of the strut location holes to show me how the alignment was getting on:

 

DSCN7300

 

I now had issues getting the masking tape to stick to keep the back strut in it's hole - three or four times I tried to get it to stick but it would rather stick to me than the underside of the wing, then I hit on the sneaky idea of attaching it to the underside first then I could press it down to the top of the wing.  At this stage, I also had to make sure I did not poke my eye out with those brass rods...

 

DSCN7301

 

The diagonal struts needed a little bending to get them into the location holes (nearly).

 

DSCN7302

 

Not looking too bad. I did remember to clean out the rigging point holes before I started this section. I then started to apply the CA when I had aligned everything as best I could. There is possibly a slight 'skew' but I could not get it any better. I gave the CA  a while to go off, then with a little trepidation:

 

DSCN7303

 

Off came the upper wing, and I had access to add more CA to the top of the wing, and also to add more into the strut location holes underneath (they were covered by patches on the real-life Felixstowes, so I will not have to worry about filling them).

 

I need to do a few re-touches with the paint on the engines and mount, along with adding the exhausts. I will also be able to rig the engines before I add more bits. Now I just need to prime, build and paint the other engine, but I feel a lot happier about that now.

 

I hope I have not waffled too much with this, but at least my cunning plan worked! Yippee!

 

Ray

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On 5/15/2021 at 4:35 PM, Ray S said:

 

 

 

DSCN7293

 

DSCN7296

 

Sorry about the quality of the last photo, the camera's battery was running down and the flash did not work. I am not sure if those bits fore and aft between the exhaust collectors(?) are in the right place, there was no suggestion in the kit instructions, but things looking similar fitted in a similar place on the Roden and WNW guides. They have now been painted, and tomorrow I am going to try and fit them to the wing. Please wish me luck!

 

Thanks for looking, Ray

You haven’t added the exhaust so I think you mean the intake pipes, i.e. the pipes on the inner side, and then the fore and aft bits would be the carburettors (there’s two, both on the centreline, one in front of the cylinders and one just behind/between). They seem to be in the right place - if you still have room to add the radiator and magneto (if they have supplied it) they are good.

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9 hours ago, Torbjorn said:

You haven’t added the exhaust so I think you mean the intake pipes, i.e. the pipes on the inner side, and then the fore and aft bits would be the carburettors (there’s two, both on the centreline, one in front of the cylinders and one just behind/between). They seem to be in the right place - if you still have room to add the radiator and magneto (if they have supplied it) they are good.

 

Thanks for that,, I was unsure what those bits were!

 

Felix  now has a complete engine on one side. The exhausts are on, one of them needed bending a little to get the angles right, but that is one of the great things about white metal, it can bend! The radiator is also on, and thankfully it did not need a hard shove to get it to fit - I was worried that the engine assembly would collapse when I added it.

 

DSCN7317

 

The other engine has been painted and prepped. At the moment one prop is a different colour to the other - I was going to do them in the lighter colour, but thankfully I found that my references suggested that they should be a dark colour (WNW suggested Humbrol 98 Chocolate). This is now just a base colour, as only the sections of the props near the hubs were that colour, the outside sections are Battleship Grey, with a brass section at the extreme ends. That means some considerable masking is in my future!

 

DSCN7320

 

I am hoping that I can get this onto the wing tomorrow, and with luck it will all align.

 

More soon, and thanks for the comments  and encouragement.

 

Ray

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