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Smeller 1/72 Morane Saulnier MS.230 Aeronáutica Militar Portuguesa


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2 hours ago, Dandie Dinmont said:

Looks good to me Mark and I’m sure some paint will enhance things further. This is clearly going to turn out to be a beauty!

 

Craig. 

Thanks, Craig, that's incredibly kind of you :) I've just had a look at it in the cold light of day, and I think it'll pass muster. I need to remind myself that the fuselage section is 2-3/4" long to the rudder post, so the pics are a bit of an enlargement! When I get twenty minutes today, I'll fight the missing wire into place and hopefully get a coat of linen colour on the innards. Some photos show the red doping primer bleeding through, so I might try to represent that somehow, possibly with a wash.

 

Cheers,

Mark 

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I've managed a sneaky twenty minutes at the bench, fixed the errant bracing wire and found a couple of the others also needed treatment. Then I mixed up a sort of lineney colour and gave it a light squirt through the airbrush. Et voilà!

http://IMG-3895.jpg

Pas trop mal je pense!

 

The tops of the frames will be masked by what I can only describe as a sort of inner cockpit rim. All will be revealed in due course, but until then thanks for looking in!

 

À votre santé!

Mark

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1 hour ago, JOCKNEY said:

Don't forget to turn the interior lights off in it Mark before you put it away or you'll flattened the battery ! :wink:

Looks terrific mate

Thanks, Pat, that's very kind of you :) I'm afraid I left the lights on.....

 

I've tried tinting the inside of the "fabric" and picking out the frames and stringers, but I think it needs a bit more tinkering with before the next photo! Plus I need to make the bulkheads and other frames, and think about a few controls..... Talk about making a rod for your own back :D 

 

Cheers,

Mark

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@2996 Victor Blimey Mark you go the extra mile on your interiors don't you? You completely outclassed me on the Airfix P-40 and I've realised that you're currently the building the same Tamia Zero as me, I'm counting on more of the same! 😂

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8 minutes ago, TonyOD said:

@2996 Victor Blimey Mark you go the extra mile on your interiors don't you? You completely outclassed me on the Airfix P-40 and I've realised that you're currently the building the same Tamia Zero as me, I'm counting on more of the same! 😂

Thanks, Tony, that's really too kind! I'm really not sure the "outclassed" bit is in any way true, but thank you :) The Tamiya Zero is sat gathering dust, I'm afraid, but the interior is sooooo good OOB that just a bit of careful painting is all it needs. As for this little confection (bonbon?), its really only a bit of an experiment to see if a) I can do it, and b) is it worth the bother :D So far, the jury is out :D although to be fair its quite fun. Its also a bit of practice for my LeO 451.....

 

For seats, I've got a couple of spare Airfix P-40 items that might be a better bet than the Heller originals, but I haven't decided yet. For the IPs, which are different front and rear, of course, I think some spare IP decals might be okay chopped up and rearranged. I'm hoping to get a bit more done today.

 

Cheers,

Mark

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4 minutes ago, 2996 Victor said:

the interior is sooooo good OOB that just a bit of careful painting is all it needs

 

It really is... going straight from the Heller Potez to that... well, you can imagine!!

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1 hour ago, TonyOD said:

 

It really is... going straight from the Heller Potez to that... well, you can imagine!!

And the amazing part is that they get all the detail in and it all fits together! If Tamiya can do it, why can't other big names? Which reminds me, I must get myself a Tamiya F4U Corsair..... You'll enjoy the Zero, Tony! BTW, don't forget to check if your subject is Mitsubishi-built or Nakajima-built - they finished different parts of the airframe differently. For instance, the wheel wells could be either Aotake or under surface colour depending on who built it.

 

Cheers,

Mark

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1 hour ago, 2996 Victor said:

BTW, don't forget to check if your subject is Mitsubishi-built or Nakajima-built - they finished different parts of the airframe differently. For instance, the wheel wells could be either Aotake or under surface colour depending on who built it.


Yeah, see my WIP thread… that can of worms has already been opened 😂

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48 minutes ago, TonyOD said:


Yeah, see my WIP thread… that can of worms has already been opened 😂

Hi Tony,

 

just been reading through your WIP thread - looks like you've got a handle on it already :) Its a cracking kit and you'll enjoy it.

 

Cheers,

Mark

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10 minutes ago, Marcel said:

Hi Mark, great job and I am sure your Morane will be much better than mine!

Hi Marcel, many thanks for your kind words - I have to say that, having seen some of your previous builds, I'm certain your Morane will be by far the better!

 

Cheers,

Mark

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Minuscule progress as I've been spending most of the day decorating :facepalm:

 

The aluminium panels ahead of the cockpit sides have had a coat of Vallejo Metallics Dull Aluminium, and I've started trying to fabricate a bulkhead frame for the forward cockpit out of laminations of 40thou square styrene strip.

 

Lastly, the fuselage has been buttoned up using thin CA.

 

Unfortunately, things will rest there as I'm driving down to Somerset and back tomorrow, and next weekend Jane and I are having our first holiday in exactly two years. Looking forward to that!!!

 

Thanks for stopping by!

 

Cheers,

Mark

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  • 2 weeks later...

More wing-walking has occurred, with the upper surface having a light sanding to try and remove the vestigial wing ribs and the lower surface a more thorough sanding, including the rivet detail I had been trying to preserve (it'll be easier to reinstate it with some Archer's Rivet Decals).

 

A further dose of Mr Surfacer 500 on both surfaces and a wet sand has left me with this:

http://IMG-3910.jpg

http://IMG-3911.jpg

 

I really need to get this moving as time is running out.....

 

Thanks for looking in!

 

Cheers,

Mark

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7 hours ago, opus999 said:

Hey!  Another French plane I didn't know about, and another Heller kit!  I think that Portuguese scheme is going to look smart.

 

I love what you did with the interior.  That looks terrific from where I'm sitting.

Thanks, Opus, that's incredibly kind of you - high praise indeed! I've got a few Portuguese types planned, so this should sit nicely with them.

 

Cheers,

Mark

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39 minutes ago, Dandie Dinmont said:

Hi Mark,

 

I’m sure that, invigorated by your holiday (it was a good one I trust?), you’ll soon have this over the line. Don’t get too hung up on the lost detail, it would probably be invisible from more than a couple of feet anyway. 
 

Craig. 

Hi Craig,

 

thank you, yes, it was a fabulous break - the first one Jane and I have managed in exactly two years (same place, but the weather was dire last time!). You're right about that bit of detail - its under the centre section so would be really difficult to spot without picking up the model and turning it over. I'll see how I'm feeling when I've reinstated the wing ribs.....

 

Cheers,

Mark

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  • 2 weeks later...

While Jane and I were on holiday in North Devon I was reading through a brilliant build thread here on BM by @Putty Animal in which he scratchbuilds (yes!) a 1/144th scale FE2b. You can find the build here and I'd thoroughly recommend a read through. It is an absolute masterpiece!

 

Anyway, although I was fairly happy with the fuselage interior, that tiny little Fee made me think, "I can do a bit better!" So I bought a Smer re-pop of the kit and began the fuselage again! I started by scraping down the cockpit walls again, although there was no logo to remove this time :) I also made a new floor again:

http://IMG-3918.jpg

 

This time round, I thought I'd start with the fabric effect on the interior, so I concocted a sort of salmony-pink shade and dusted that over some Tamiya rattle can IJN Grey-Green I used as a primer:

http://IMG-3919.jpg

and then used a very dry brush to randomly splodge some linen colour over the pink, the intention being to reproduce the effect of red dope bleeding through the linen covering on the fuselage. Following that, I used successive coats of Citadel Seraphim Sepia to tint the floor panel into a sort of wood effect.

 

I got some Plastruct 15thou diameter rod and 30th square strip for the stringers and frames:

http://IMG-3927.jpg

The stringers and frames were sprayed with the Tamiya IJN Grey-Green, and held in place with tiny amounts of PlasticWeld solvent - even though the joint formed is paint to paint, its strong enough to hold the stringers and frames in place, although it wouldn't stand much abuse! The frames were also treated to the Citadel Seraphim Sepia.

 

Next job was to make a bulkhead for the forward cockpit from a piece of 30th styrene sheet, profiled first to fit the interior of the fuselage sides and then opened out using the time-honoured "drill a chain of holes and connect them up" method, followed by careful sanding to shape referring carefully to period photographs. This was painted in the usual Tamiya IJN Grey-Green, then the very edges were masked and the majority of it sprayed with Tamiya Bare Metal Silver. I made it over tall so I'd have a handle while I was beating it into shape:

http://IMG-3924.jpg

http://IMG-3928.jpg

Once in place, I trimmed it down and filed it to height.

 

This was my first effort:

http://IMG-3929.jpg

 

And this is my second effort for comparison:

http://IMG-3969.jpg

http://IMG-3974.jpg

Much happier with that! :) 

 

The interior bracing wires are yet to added, which will be made from wire intended for those e-cigarettie vapey thingies as per Putty Animal's Fee rigging wires.

 

Thanks for looking in - apologies for the longish post, hopefully I'll have a bit more to add before too long!

 

Cheers,

Mark

 

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  • 2996 Victor changed the title to Smeller 1/72 Morane Saulnier MS.230

Excellent progress so far Mark - you're doing a cracking job. I really love the technique you used for the red doped linen - looks so much like the real thing - definitely a technique I'll be stealing from you :whistle: Would have loved to have tried this on the interior of my Wellington build.

Keep up the good work and will be following with interest :thumbsup:

Kris 

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19 minutes ago, planecrazee said:

Excellent progress so far Mark - you're doing a cracking job. I really love the technique you used for the red doped linen - looks so much like the real thing - definitely a technique I'll be stealing from you :whistle: Would have loved to have tried this on the interior of my Wellington build.

Keep up the good work and will be following with interest :thumbsup:

Kris 

Thanks, Kris, that's extremely kind of you :) I've tried to match the colour and patchiness to colour pics of an original MS230 I lifted from t'interweb, I'm pretty pleased with the result.

 

I've got a Wimpey in my stash, too, but embarrassingly I'd forgotten about the fabric! I think for larger areas, I'd spray an overall linen shade, then the salmon colour, keeping it patchy, and finish with the dry brush random splodge effect.

 

I'm not sure whether I'll get this build across the line by the GB closing date as I'm doing more detailing than I have before, and it's a bit trial and error!

 

Cheers,

Mark

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16 minutes ago, JOCKNEY said:

Excellent Mark

So does that mean you will be building 2 x MS 230's now ? :wicked:

Cheers Pat 

Thanks, Pat :) I'm afraid, at the speed I work, I'll be lucky to complete one :D 

 

Cheers,

Mark

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