1/72 Revell Arado Ar(E)555 - Finished!!

[Col.]

Good progress going on there James

[81-er]

Thanks Col!

 

One further thing to be considering with the paint are the engines. My original design had a triangle of RLM 75 at the front of the engines (with all colour boarders lining up as a continuation of the main airframe camo), but I’ve evidently not made the RLM 75 area as deep as I originally thought as can be seen here:

 

 

The demarcation of the RLM 76 does line up with the main airframe, it’s just a limitation of the camera on my phone that makes it look like it’s a bit out.

 

The change from the downward slope to horizontal sits almost exactly inline with the front edge of the fairing between the two central engines:

 

 

When you take into account the engine fronts are RLM 24, that actually only leaves me with a tiny triangle of RLM 75 on the lower of the central engines on the shot below, and a thin band on the upper one:

 

 

So, should I still go for it even though it’ll be a massive pain to mask, or run with making the engine pack just RLM 74 & RLM 76? Although I guess there’s nothing stopping me having a random patch of RLM 75 somewhere in the middle…

 

Aaaarrrgh! 🤪

 

Hmm, looking at the photos, maybe a diagonal patch of RLM 75 sloping down from starboard to port might work…

 

Until the next time.

 

James

 

[81-er]

The first task for today was masking up ready for the RLM 74. After that, I increased the density of the marble coat with some matt white and some buff:

 

 

Then I laid down the RLM 74, and unmasked to reveal:

 

 

Rather pleased with that. I couldn’t resist dropping the engines on:

 

 

 

A couple of different angles there to show how the demarcations align between the engines and the fuselage. After seeing it all together, I don’t think it needs any RLM 75 on the engines.

 

Given how good it was looking, I unmasked the engine intakes to reveal the RLM 24:

 

 

A few touch ups here and there, but nothing major. I’m letting it harden up a bit while I eat, then I’m hoping to get the RLM 24 on the rudders tonight. I’ll deal with the touch ups after that, just in case the masking lifts any paint.

 

Until the next time.

 

James

 

[81-er]

I’m just going to let the pictures do the talking:

 

 

 

 

 

Paint touch-ups tomorrow, and hopefully a coat of Aqua Gloss and a start on the decals.

 

James

[shortCummins]

look very good, the curves came out really well

 

rgds

John(shortCummins)

[81-er]

Thanks John. They came out far better than I expected, but I did have a tiny bit of paint seepage under the masking for the transitions between the curves. Two minutes with a paintbrush solved that.

 

I managed to get all the paint touch-ups done and get the gloss coat on over the bank holiday, but not the start on the decals that I'd hoped. Too many social events (not that that was a bad thing). Doing the touch-ups by hairy stick has left a couple of them quite prominent compared to the airbrushed paintwork, but I'm running with it and will claim they're field repairs to battle damage  🤣

 

Current shots:

 

 

 

James

[JOCKNEY]

Looks awesome,  just as well I'm not building this as I would have been so pleased with the marbling effect I wouldn't have gone on to do the rest 

Cheers Pat 

[81-er]

Thanks Pat. I have to confess I very nearly did stick with it at the marbled stage, but I'm glad I chose to press on now

 

James

[81-er]

I managed to make a small start on the decals last night. One thing that didn’t occur to me when I chose to paint the lower surface black is that a large proportion of the stencils are printed in black. I’m currently trialling font options to replace them, which is worth the effort as I plan on doing one of the other three in the stash with a black underside as well (just with a different top surface camo).

 

I got anything that wasn’t black on the underside:

 

 

For anyone considering building this kit in the future, be aware that the small panels representing inspection hatches on the airframe don’t entirely align with those showon on the painting/decal placement images. The Balkenkreuzes proved particularly fun to algin! They look massively on the slant in the photo, but it’s just lens distortion. They aren’t square, but they’re in the best compromise locations. I think it’s actually impossible to get them square and looking “right” due to so many non-parallel lines in that area. They’ve had a dose of Micro Sol, but I think they’ll need another and possibly a bit of persuasion from a blade to fully conform to the panel lines.

 

The front end isn’t so bad, though a couple of them are slightly silvered:

 

 

As this is my first try of applying decals over a gloss coat I’m not sure if I just didn’t have a glossy enough surface, if the silvering will disappear under the matt coat, or if it’s just a quirk of the carrier film on these particular decals. I’m not massively experienced in the art of decals, pretty much anything I built as a kid was lucky if it saw paint and even luckier still if it got the decals as well, and this is the first build since I came back to the hobby that’s made it as far as any decals outside of the cockpit (so far, I really will get the others finished soon).

 

With all of the decals that I could place added to the underside, I left that to dry and started on the engines. Generally these all behaved nicely, and I just have the red rings to add to the forward sides of the intakes left:

 

 

I’m off to see Top Gun: Maverick tonight, and off to see my parents on Wednesday, so it’s unlikely I’ll make any more progress until Thursday now.

 

James

[81-er]

As promised, some more decaling progress last night. With the addition of the red rings, the engines are now done as far as the decals go:

 

 

The upper surfaces got a fair few decals as well:

 

 

Not overly clear in this shot, but the “15” decals aren’t called up anywhere in the instructions, so I placed them on the round covers by the yellow triangles on each wing:

 

 

I had my first go with my home-made decals for the aircraft’s code, which are actually really nice to use. Much more willing to conform to the panel lines than the kit decals, and the carrier film is less obvious at the moment as well:

 

 

 

It’s mainly just the walkway lines and arrows to go on the upper surface now, so edging ever closer to completion.

 

I’m nearly done with my replica decals as well. Having contacted Revell, I’ve confirmed that they no longer have any decals in stock for this kit, which means as well as a new set of stencils for this build, I’ve had to replicate all decals likely to be needed on the build for the kit with the missing decals. I’ve found a very close match to the font used on the kit decals and I’ve imported a high-res scan of the sheets from my remaining kits as a guide. With that, my magnifiers, and Google translate, I’ve managed to get the wording & spelling correct for anything with visible lettering, right down to the very small decals for the engine pack. I think it’s just the warning triangles to replicate and then I’m good to go.

 

Lastly, I got the J’s on the nose gear doors. When I’d printed these and the main codes, I actually printed a whole sheet with several different shades of blue used so I could get a good match for the paint used on the rudders and engines. What I didn’t think through is how dark they’d be on the black doors! Suffice to say, the ones matching the shade used on the fins completely disappeared, so after some experimentation I settled on the lightest & brightest shade:

 

 

They don’t show up that well in the photo, but they’re fairly well visible in reality and a good match in tone for the rest now. I probably should have bought some white decal paper so I could trim them out with a slight boarder, but they’ll do. The odd matt marks are residue from the Micro Sol/Set.

 

I’m hoping I’ll get enough time between decorating to get the decals finished over the weekend.

 

James

[81-er]

After some further refining, I got the “new” decals printed off on the laser printer at work yesterday lunchtime:

 

 

There’s enough for 3 aircraft there, plus several spares of the smaller ones in each set, just in case. They’ll be handy in the spares box anyway.

 

I’m quite happy with how well they came out, this lettering is only 0.7mm high:

 

 

Last night saw a concerted push which resulted in all of the decals that needed to be applied making on to the model:

 

 

The walkways took some careful aligning, but worth it. With the engines (not glued yet):

 

 

 

 

Some of the kit decals are resisting my attempts to get them to settle into the panel lines, so I’ve ordered some stronger decal solution. By contrast, my home-brew decals and the Xtradecal swastikas all seem to be settling in nicely with the Micro Sol and Micro Set.

 

On the underside, I’ve got more issues with silvering. I think that’s mainly my fault as I got less of a glossy finish on the black than the rest of the airframe:

 

 

I’ve just spotted the decal behind the bomb bay is peeling in that photo, so I’ll swap that.

 

The new stencils aren’t massively prominent (probably because they don’t have a white backing), but they are at least visible, unlike the black originals:

 

 

Until the decal softener gets here, I think I’m out of things to do on this build, so I’ll turn my attention to the Do 217 I’m doing for the Do 17 family STGB.

 

James

[Col.]

Nice work on those decals James.

[81-er]

Thank you, Col. Hopefully won't be too much longer until this is done.

 

James

[JOCKNEY]

Great stuff James

It really looks the business, just need to find a suitable GB to build mine now !

I had some really bad silvering a while back and followed someone's advice to use a brand new blade and score through the decal in bad areas of silvering and brush over some decal fix. This worked for me as you could see it going under the decal and the silvering disappearing.

If its annoying you it's worth a go.

Cheers Pat 

[81-er]

Thanks Pat. And if a few more sign up for it, my Luft '46 proposal might make it through and give you the chance you need to build yours

 

Thanks for the tip on the silvered decals as well. I may be a bit late to try that as I've given it all a clear coat now (which did solve a fair number of them), but there's a couple that could be candidates for that method.

 

I haven't abaondoned this either, I'm trying out some weathering techniques on some paint mules before I commit to using them on this. I wouldn't want to stuff it up so close to the end.

 

James

[John Masters]

On 6/11/2022 at 3:52 PM, 81-er said:

Last night saw a concerted push which resulted in all of the decals that needed to be applied making on to the model:

 

That's a satisfying feeling...

Amazing masking work.  It inspires me.

[81-er]

Thanks John. It's actually back on the bench at the moment, with the intention of getting a push on to do the final jobs to finish it. Currently using the engine pack as a guinea pig for the panel line washes

 

James

 

[81-er]

It’s been some time since I updated this! Truth be told, up until the last couple of weeks, not a lot’s been happening on this build either. I did get the decals to settle down reasonably well and gave the whole model a good coat of Aqua Gloss. Then I used some Flory Dark Dirt to bring out the panel lines on the top:

 

 

And started dirtying up the bays and doors with some Citadel Agrax Earthshade:

 

 

 

Strut & landing leg oleos got a coat of Molotow chrome, decanted and applied by brush. The legs also got some Agrax Earthshade:

 

 

 

Wheels got a drybrushing of Tamiya buff, followed by one of their greys (I just can’t remember which one) to tone down the muddy look. Pictured with the wheels from my Sabre and Vampire builds:

 

 

I had a play around with oil dot filters on the engines (and learnt that I’d used too many dots!):

 

 

But it’s effective, as this photo shows with the main airframe yet to receive the dot filter:

 

 

The rest of the airframe got the same treatment, followed by more Flory as the dot filters left the panel lines rather chalky looking:

 

 

The effect is subtle, but I like it:

 

 

 

More Agrax Earthshade was used to add a couple of fuel spills by the circular hatches with the warning triangles next to them:

 

 

 

Then it was time to flip her over ready to start on the final assembly:

 

 

Bombs in, I installed a pair of 0.2mm black-enamelled copper wires to each main gear bay to simulate brake lines, and ran them up the legs when installed:

 

 

 

Next was the wheels, after which I got her on her feet for the first time:

 

 

Next it was back on her back to get the landing lights (still masked), nose bay and bomb bay doors on:

 

 

That was as far as I got on Thursday evening (other than unmasking the canopy), as I wanted to take her in to show some of my work colleagues before the really fragile bits like the turrets and pitot went on (they were impressed).

 

Last night commenced with installing the engines:

 

 

Then it was time to flip her over again and start on the main gear doors:

 

 

Everything was going well and looking like I’d finish her last night, when I had a super glue spill as I went to install the starboard gear doors. In my panic to clear it up, I splashed a liberal dose of super glue debonder on, only for it to take the paint off:

 

 

That’s been left for over 24hrs now for everything to settle down, so I’ll be carefully sanding back the damaged paint and then attempting to repaint it without further damage or overspray, after which I’ll have to carefully repeat the oil filter and panel line process in the hopes of making it nearly invisible.

 

Still, she’s not actually all that far off completion now, even with the minor setback. For now, have a couple of photos that hopefully show off some of the paint variations a bit more clearly:

 

 

 

 

 

James

[Col.]

Good to see this one progressing James. Even with a slight set-back you're marching on and it's looking great.

[81-er]

Thanks Col. I'm on a bit of a mission to clear up some of the stalled builds at the moment. Hopefully it shouldn't be too much longer before it's actually finished

 

James

[arfa1983]

While this kind of plane is not my cup of tea it is for sure beautifully executed and the paint job is second-to-none. 

 

Just a wee bit behind schedule but with a finished product like that it hardly matters.

 

Oh... and thanks for keeping the updates going. 

Edited September 18, 2022 by arfa1983

[81-er]

Thanks Arthur. Repair job is underway, the black is on and I've given it a coat of matt varnish. I'll check on it shortly when it's dry, and see what further works are required to blend it in

 

James

[81-er]

The repair to the damaged paint has gone well. Not perfectly invisible, but good enough as it's mostly hidden by the landing gear door in most viewing angles.

 

 

Not much left to stick on it now, so an RFI may not be far off

 

James

[81-er]

And the RFI is posted!

 

James

 

 

[JOCKNEY]

Congratulations James

It looks amazing  and has completely rewarded all your efforts 

Cheers Pat