1:48 Eduard Hellcat Mk.II

[shortCummins]

16 hours ago, Cookenbacher said:

I love not re-scribing.

 

Looks like you've shown those seams who's boss.

thanks Cookenbacher

 

it took me several attempts to get the hang of using sprue-goo but now I find it works every time, the only down side is that the sprue-goo takes a while to fully cure, the "thicker" its applied the longer it takes to fully cure. The really good thing about sprue-goo is that it doesn't shrink and can be sanded and scribed without breaking up or falling out of the gap.

 

rgds

John(shortCummins)

[shortCummins]

 

Just a short update as I’ve not had any bench time for the last week, I’ve had a “summer cold" that was more like flu than anything I’ve had in a long time, so my concentration was virtually non-existent, plus re-scribing is a job that I really don’t enjoy.

 

So back to work, the panel lines were re-scribed first with a razor-saw and then depend with a scriber.

 

Whilst I was in a re-scribing mode I decided to drill the lightening holes in the rear landing gear that @Thom216 pointed out this improvement in his build log.

 

 

 

 

Next I’ll be adding some rivets.

 

until next time

as always, any suggestions, criticisms or comments will be gratefully received.

rgds

John(shortCummins)

[Thom216]

Nice on the rescribe! I'm hoping to have to do as little of that as possible! 😅

[shortCummins]

17 hours ago, Thom216 said:

Nice on the rescribe! I'm hoping to have to do as little of that as possible! 😅

thanks Thom216

 

re-scribing is probably the only thing building a model that I really don't like, probably because I never get them to look "just right"?

 

rgds

John(shortCummins)

[Pete in Lincs]

Well the scribing looks good to me. Glad you feel better and are back at the bench.

[shortCummins]

Update16 by John Cummins, on Flickr

Build LOG - 16 rivets

 

Like @Cookenbacher, I was first inspired by @Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies to attempt to add some stressed skin, which I will try shortly, however before setting about the stressed skin I wanted to add some extra rivets.

To achieve this I visited my favourite “blueprints” website airwar.ru/other/draw to see if I could find out the placement of the rivets, and I was lucky enough to find this…

…that I could use as a reference.

 

I loaded the image into photoshop and resized it to match the fuselage to 124% and copied the start and end points onto some masking tape and then transferred these onto the airframe.

 

…and extended where necessary

 

Normally I wouldn’t pre-mark the rivet lines however as I want to add an “oil-can” effect later it makes sense to use them as guides at this point.

 

Then I used my “Rosie the Riveter” tool to add the rivets.

 

I used the sharpie lines as a rough guide only and free-handed the rivet lines (too lazy to use guide tape) however I did use some Dymo type tape as masking where rivets ran up to non-riveted panels.

 

Difficult to photograph and something that takes a while however I think it makes a difference even if only subtly.

 

 

 

 

Next I’ll be looking at the oilcan/stressed skin effects.

 

until next time

as always, any suggestions, criticisms or comments will be gratefully received.

rgds

John(shortCummins)

[81-er]

That reference website is really useful, thanks for sharing it John

 

James

[Thom216]

Careful of the sharpie! I used that once to judge how much sanding I needed on another project, and actually had it bleed through the paint during the paint process.😱

[shortCummins]

15 hours ago, Thom216 said:

Careful of the sharpie! I used that once to judge how much sanding I needed on another project, and actually had it bleed through the paint during the paint process.😱

thanks for the tip 👍

[shortCummins]

 

Earlier this year?, might have been last year I built Das Werk’s excellent 1:32 Ju-EF-126, I can’t recommend this kit highly enough. Anyhow Das Werk moulded in “oil canning” effects to the airframe which I’d not seen before and I really liked the look.

 

A little later I found Jamie's Hellcat build…

 

…where he detailed how to make a stressed skin effect, I’m unashamedly going to attempt Jamie’s method for the “bulges” along the upper wing and forward of the cockpit.

 

I’m going to try a different method for the fuselage rear of the cockpit in as much as I want the “skin” to be concave rather than convex. To achieve this I’m going to use a No15 scalpel blade to scrape away the smooth skin to give a slightly concave appearance.

 

Before attacking my model I had a practice on a spare Thunderbolt wing.

 

Here’s a couple of concave panels, before and after primer.

 

I masked some panels for Jamie’s effect.

 

I then brush painted* a couple of coats of Mr Surfacer 1000, removed the masks and then lightly sanded to get this effect.

 

*I’ll spray the “real” airframe.

 

Mask removed and gently sanded…

 

… before both effects sprayed with aluminium (nearest paint to hand)

 

 

So I’ve learned a couple of things from this exercise.

These "test" panels are far larger than anything on the aircraft, I really should have tried to make them more or less the same as the "final" panels.

The panels need more than a light sanding to achieve the bevelled effect and the concave areas need smoothing more otherwise they don’t look quite right.

It’s going to take a long time to mask the panels.

 

Aluminium probably isn’t the best colour to use as a test?

 

 

 

Next I’ll be refining these effects before applying them to the model.

 

until next time

as always, any suggestions, criticisms or comments will be gratefully received.

rgds

John(shortCummins)

[Cookenbacher]

Fantastic experiments John - I'm really looking forward to your results!

 

I did a little bit of 'negative' oil canning on the wings of a Helldiver a couple years ago with a round file and progressive sanding.

 

[shortCummins]

16 hours ago, Cookenbacher said:

Fantastic experiments John - I'm really looking forward to your results!

 

I did a little bit of 'negative' oil canning on the wings of a Helldiver a couple years ago with a round file and progressive sanding.

 

excellent result there Cookie and at 1:72 consider my hat well and truly doffed.

 

rgds

John(shortCummins)

[shortCummins]

 

So following my first experiment on concave and convex skin distortions I cleaned the “mule” wing and tried again.

However this time I made the panels nearer the size of the airframe panels and I painted them in the way I intend to paint the “real” thing.

          1) scrape concave panels

          2) sand

          3) stynylrez black primer

          4) mask for concave panels

          5) spray extra primer (at least two coats)

          6) sand bevels

          7) top coat

 

This is the result.

 

That’s more like what I was after, this test the concave areas are a little too deep and I’ll need to spend more time “blending” the convex panels but I’m getting there.

 

Following @Thom216’s tip about bleed-through I removed the sharpie line.

 

I then scraped and sanded the convex panels and gave them a black Stynylrez primer coat.

 

 

 

Next I’ll be masking for the convex panels.

 

until next time

as always, any suggestions, criticisms or comments will be gratefully received.

rgds

John(shortCummins)

[Roberto]

A really interesting work, good progress.

[shortCummins]

43 minutes ago, Roberto said:

A really interesting work, good progress.

thanks Roberto

 

I hope that showing my mistakes will give others some idea of how to achieve better results, or at least what not to waste your time on 😄

 

rgds

John(shortCummins)

[shortCummins]

 

Before I add the “base” primer to the wings, following @Thom216’s tip about bleed through, I used some skin cleaning swabs to remove the sharpie lines, and some/most of the original primer.

cleaning the paint off really shows the rivets.

 

Then back to my favourite primer is Stynylrez, in preference their black primer although I do have grey, white and dark brown which I use depending on the final colour, in this instance I’ll be using my preferred black.

 

First the task of masking for the convex areas.

 

You’ll notice that I’ve brush painted Mr Surfacer onto some of the concave areas, I was a bit too enthusiastic with scraping these areas and hopefully the additional primer will help both fill and smooth them more to my liking.

Also you may notice that I've broken the two longer machine-gun barrels, good job I bought some resin replacements!

 

Next a couple of coats of Mr Surfacer 1000.

 

Any overspray should be taken care of with the sanding, fingers crossed.

 

 

I’ll leave this to cure overnight before sanding the bevels.

 

until next time

as always, any suggestions, criticisms or comments will be gratefully received.

rgds

John(shortCummins)

[Cookenbacher]

Fantastic work John - I like that you're including the 'dimpling' in both directions; raised and dented.

[81-er]

I'm really looking forward to seeing the finished results

 

James

[shortCummins]

19 hours ago, Cookenbacher said:

Fantastic work John - I like that you're including the 'dimpling' in both directions; raised and dented.

thanks Cookie

 

I'm interested to see how they look under paint, like every technique practice make prefect, or in my case not so much of a dogs dinner 😄

4 hours ago, 81-er said:

I'm really looking forward to seeing the finished results

 

James

thanks James

 

so am I, unfortunately these effects are taking longer that I imagined, mainly due to having to wait for primer to fully cure before applying masking tape and then sanding as if the paint isn't fully cured it makes an awful mess, ask me how I know

 

rgds

John(shortCummins)

[81-er]

Hopefully not so big a mess that you incurred the wrath of SWMBO?

 

James

[shortCummins]

4 minutes ago, 81-er said:

Hopefully not so big a mess that you incurred the wrath of SWMBO?

 

James

ha ha, she just adds it to the ever growing loooong list of misdemeanours

 

rgds

John(shortCummins) 

[shortCummins]

 

From my previous experiments I’d found that the sanding of the bevelled edges is quite tricky and requires far more sanding than I thought it would to get a realistic “bump”. Also letting the primer fully cure, at least 24 hours, is a must, in this case due to “life” getting in the way I left the primer coat for 48 hours, better safe than sorry?

Getting the “right” abrasion for sanding was also a challenge, my current sanding sticks, mainly UMP, were either too course or not course enough, not their problem as they were designed around sanding and polishing plastic, which they do very well, and not for sanding paint. I also have a Micro-mesh set, these are excellent for sanding paint and allow you to create a progressively smoother surface going through the “grits”. However I decided to try using some good old fashioned B&Q “wet and dry” 600 grit cut into strips and glued to a wooden coffee stirrer with a 3M double sided adhesive sponge.

 

My reasoning is that I want a thin(ish) sanding stick, to enable careful sanding of the edges of each panel and as I had sandpaper, double sided sponge tape and sticks I could make my own and if this worked it would save me having to cut up my Micro-mesh sanding set which I’d prefer not to do.

 

Here’s the initial result…

 

I need to clean the dust and I think I’ll get them a coat of MRP black to unify the effect, I’m using MRP as the paint is very thin and shouldn’t hide the work done so far that another coat of primer might?

 

Well the MRP worked however, I’m going to give them another coat of Stynylrez to help smooth the surface a little better.

 

 

 

Whilst I'm happy with the convex panels, they show up better "in the flesh" than in the photos, I’m still not happy with the convex panels, their still too deep and not smooth enough, so I’ll be repeating adding more primer to them and then I’ll be attaching the wings.

 

until next time

as always, any suggestions, criticisms or comments will be gratefully received.

rgds

John(shortCummins)

[Cookenbacher]

Your experiments continue to impress John!

[shortCummins]

 

So it took a couple of goes to fill the convex panels but once I’d got them in more or less the finish I was after I set about fixing the wings and rudder to the fuselage.

 

On his build @Grey Beema posed the cowl flaps open, never being one to shy away from someone else’s good idea I decided to copy the effect.

First I sanded the flaps a little thinner…

…and then used a scriber and razor saw to separate and bend the flaps open.

 

 

 

Next I’ll be painting the inside of the towel and fitting the cowl parts together.

 

until next time

as always, any suggestions, criticisms or comments will be gratefully received.

rgds

John(shortCummins)

[Cookenbacher]

Looking excellent John.

Beema's Hellcats look really cool with the open cowl flaps, so I wholeheartedly endorse that bit of borrowing.