On Heather's Workbench - kicking up a storm, the Airfix Bristol Beaufort

[Graham Boak]

I find I have problems removing primer from cat, too.  They just won't stay still!

[Brandy]

I finally got my Silhouette set up today. When I tried to register it the latest year I was offered as "year of purchase" was 2020. Has it really been sitting on my dinner table that long?

 

Ian

[Heather Kay]

It still is 2020, isn’t it?

[Rabbit Leader]

It’s most certainly 2023 down here Heather, so Happy New Year Heather!!

Must say, those silhouette markings look fantastic and must open up all sorts of exciting potential modelling opportunities. 

Cheers and all the best.. Dave 

[stevehnz]

2 hours ago, Heather Kay said:

However you celebrate, or not, NYE, have a safe and good one. I'll see you in 2023 for more silliness with small aeroplanes.

Thanks Heather, all the best to you & yours for 2023 & beyond.

Yours too @Rabbit Leader Dave, I owe you a PM sometime soon.

Steve.

[Rabbit Leader]

1 hour ago, stevehnz said:

I owe you a PM sometime soon.

… all good Steve, it’s been a while but no doubt other priorities have taken the time away. 
Cheers.. Dave 

[Heather Kay]

Right, where was I?

 

 

The first job was to apply the roundel masks to protect them from further ravages of airbrush. Then a couple of thin coats of Dark Earth all over. Not ColourCoats, I'm ashamed to say, because it's been out of stock a while. This came from Precision Paints. It still thins nicely with the ColourCoats thinners.

 

 

While the DE was drying, I spent a fair while trying to ascertain which variation of the camouflage pattern this aircraft might have had. Initially, I assumed B scheme, but checking references intimated that A and B schemes were intended to be alternated on airframes on the production line. Since I had a clear photo of one airframe where I could see the serial number and the scheme used (A, since you ask), I inferred up the production line to settle on the B scheme for L4465.

 

Still with me at the back? Good.

 

Who knows if I'm right or wrong, as I haven't a photo to confirm one way or the other. Anyway, all my profile references seem to be the A scheme, with a handy four-view profile of a Blenheim. As Beauforts were kin to the Blenheim, and the patterns were standardised for twin-engined light bombers, I then spent a brain-aching session transposing the A scheme to the B scheme on the Beaufort using Maskol. My usual Copydex latex glue had gone off in the pot, so that's something to add to my next shopping list. After a few false starts where I either got the pattern the wrong way round or transposed the brown for green, I ended up with what you can see in the photo. More than a hint of the desert scheme, don't you think?

 

 

It's alright, it's ColourCoats for the Dark Green. This will sit for a spell, then I shall check I'm happy with coverage. If I am, the Maskol will -hopefully - come off and I'll think about the aluminium for underneath.

 

With a fair wind, this model might be done before I need to get back to paying work again. 

[Heather Kay]

 

The latex masking reminded me why I like to brush paint camo like this. having removed the mask, the edges were a bit rough. Retouching with the hairy stick to smooth things inevitably leads to differences in the surface finish. I’ll let it all dry hard overnight, and see if some gentle fine sanding will help tone things down.

 

The undersides will be brush painted, as already outlined. I’ll get a thin strip of masking tape along the demarcation to keep things neat.

[Rabbit Leader]

Looks great Heather and although I’ll never claim that mine is 100% accurate, I modelled L4461 in the ‘B’ scheme as well. As you’re doing L4465 (another four down the line) that would also suggest that the ‘B’ scheme pattern is more than likely on ‘65 too! Your comments about a ‘Brain aching’ session made me laugh and reminded me of the fun I had doing just the same exercise. I think I might have transposed an image around on the trusty iPad, not sure the memory is dimming a bit, but I do remember how frustrating it was that most common images only show the ‘A’ scheme. 

 

Cheers.. Dave 

[jackroadkill]

She's looking great, Heather.  A Beaufort in the real colours is a thing of beauty, and your painting on this one is sublime.

[Keeff]

Looking good Heather .... nice work! 👌

 

Keith

 

 

 

 

[Fritag]

Lovely work, Heather.

 

These cutter things really are jolly useful.  And tempting.  Even if not tempting enough for Ian to open the box for a few years…

[HAMP man]

Bought a Cricut for the SWMBO's, birthday 6 months ago, she's not used it yet, but I knew she would/might find it useful so I might have to set it up for her.

 

The IPMS mag has just dropped through the door, nice german models, giving me inspiration to start some He's and Ju's

 

This one's bobbing along nicely too

 

Box On

 

Strickers

[Jay Gee]

On 31/12/2022 at 00:11, Heather Kay said:

Serials (yes, I believe my Silhouette Cameo 4 will cut stencils that small)

1. Lay down black paint
2. Apply stencils
3. Paint camo

Great work Heather, I've got one of these on my to do list (when Airfix release a MK VIII 🤞). Just have a few questions about your Silhouette cutter as I got one for Christmas and realised the endless colour schemes that await.

 

I'm guessing Beaforts had serial numbers that were 8" in height?

What sort of masking did you use?

How does the glue of the masking go with the paint job? 

 

I have cut some stencils for a BPF Hellcat on an A4 sheet of Tamiya tape, but the 8" serial numbers were too small for the machine/masking tape combo and just ended up in a mess of ripped up tape. 

 

[KevinK]

On 12/20/2022 at 10:27 AM, AdrianMF said:

Also, the photo here of a 39 Sqn Beaufort in its revetment in Malta shows a brown air tail. This is also reproduced (albeit highly saturated) on the back of the Warpaint booklet. Only noticed this one today when I was looking for the "smoking gun" picture.

 

I've not seen a B&W version of either photo (although you can get to B&W from colour quite easily!), but they could still be colourised. I took it as good enough for me.

That photo, or another from the same sequence, was on the cover of an Airfix Magazine circa 1970 or so, in colour. Sorry, I can't recall the exact issue at 50 years' distance, but since colourisation wasn't really going back then, I'm pretty sure it's genuine! It looks like Kodachrome.

 

Kevin

[Heather Kay]

11 hours ago, jackroadkill said:

She's looking great, Heather.  A Beaufort in the real colours is a thing of beauty, and your painting on this one is sublime.

Ta, chuck. Close-up, the painting isn’t quite so sublime. It’s a skill I still have to work on.

 

11 hours ago, Keeff said:

Looking good Heather .... nice work! 👌

Thank ‘ee.

 

10 hours ago, Fritag said:

These cutter things really are jolly useful.  And tempting.  Even if not tempting enough for Ian to open the box for a few years…

Ah, but Ian's been distracted by the dark arts of 3D printing. That’s a fair excuse.

 

10 hours ago, HAMP man said:

Bought a Cricut for the SWMBO's, birthday 6 months ago, she's not used it yet, but I knew she would/might find it useful so I might have to set it up for her.

That's a very generous thought, Strickers. I’m sure Mrs S will find all kinds of uses for the machine.

 

7 hours ago, Jay Gee said:

Just have a few questions about your Silhouette cutter as I got one for Christmas and realised the endless colour schemes that await.

 

I'm guessing Beaforts had serial numbers that were 8" in height?

What sort of masking did you use?

How does the glue of the masking go with the paint job? 

 

I have cut some stencils for a BPF Hellcat on an A4 sheet of Tamiya tape, but the 8" serial numbers were too small for the machine/masking tape combo and just ended up in a mess of ripped up tape. 

 

Serials, well, I followed the size on the transfers that came in the box. I think they scale at 8in.

 

I use Oramask vinyl. I saw the work Tony @TheBaron did on a couple of his masterpieces where he used the stuff to create markings. I bought a roll, because the Silhouette I have has a roll feed system, but I’m sure it comes in sheet form as well. The vinyl is what old school airbrush artists and photo retouchers would call "frisket". It’s a low tack adhesive, which has enough grab to hold, but can be fairly easily repositioned a couple of times. It is flexible, so confirms to various bumps and dips with a little effort, but the flexibility also means it can be stretched and distorted easily. The adhesive doesn’t seem to affect anything it lays on, as far as I can tell, even when burnished down to seal edges. I like the fact it’s a translucent material so you see features underneath it as you position a mask.

 

I wish I could offer guidance on setting for cutting. I now have a setting that works for the software/hardware/material I have, but it’s been arrived at by trial and error. Even on this model, I "wasted" two sets of masks because the smallest parts would come away from the surrounding film cleanly and had to make a third cut. I have been there, when the cut was too deep and ended up tearing the vinyl, with tiny bits stuck all round the blade. Not fun.

 

I hope that helpful. Today, I plan to complete the build, though the larger diorama plans may have to wait a bit.

[Heather Kay]

A blue sky greets me this second morning of 2023. I’m at the bench early, because I want to complete this build today if I can. It’s so close to completion, and I dislike having nearly finished models lurking about distracting me from important things like paying work.

 

I had a look at the brushed smoothing. It was still shiny, so I tried some very fine micromesh to rub it down. It made little difference. I shall leave alone, and hope the varnish coat will merge things together. It generally seems to, in my experience.

 

Time to see how the masks worked out, then.

 

 

 

The squadron letters look reasonable. One letter has some ridges where I seem to have been a bit overzealous with the paint. I can deal with that, I think. The serial numbers, though, not so good. I think the underlying black paint hadn’t quite dried enough when applying the vinyl. I think I shall rub down and repaint the camouflage colours. Then, either resort to making up the numbers with transfers, or repaint using the mask the other way about as a stencil. I’ll think about that for a bit.

 

One of the fuselage roundels has a white shadow, which will need a bit of careful brushwork to deal with. Perhaps my experiment of painting the markings first, isn’t the ideal method. Base camo on, then markings may be better. Still, it was worth the experiment. You don’t learn anything if you don’t make mistakes.

 

Upper wings, and again a little halo of unpainted primer. The speckle nature of the blue may be down to my paint:thinners ratio. Fingers crossed the varnish will mostly flatten that down.

 

Underneath, looking mostly okay. The brush-painted Revell Aqua Aluminium has a reasonably scabby, slightly "in service a few weeks in winter 1940" look to it I’m okay with. A couple of places may need another coat.

 

So, I’ll give that a 7 out of 10. I’ll set about making good the various missteps, then it’ll be time for a cup of coffee and a biscuit.

[Fritag]

25 minutes ago, Heather Kay said:

Still, it was worth the experiment. You don’t learn anything if you don’t make mistakes.

 

And the experiment is of service to the rest of the BM hive n’all, Heather - quite apart from making a quality thread and even more interesting read.

 

30 minutes ago, Heather Kay said:

I’ll set about making good the various missteps, then it’ll be time for a cup of coffee and a biscuit.

 

Ain’t that the story of much of our modelling lives  And why not a coffee and biscuit both before and after? 

[Brandy]

12 hours ago, Fritag said:

These cutter things really are jolly useful.  And tempting.  Even if not tempting enough for Ian to open the box for a few years…

 

1 hour ago, Heather Kay said:

Ah, but Ian's been distracted by the dark arts of 3D printing. That’s a fair excuse.

Thanks Heather, I'll go with that! Actually the box was opened and all contents removed, but I had nowhere to set it up.

Until now, as I bought myself a wine rack with a shelf top so now I can not only use my Curio but drink wine at the same time!😁

 

The camo appears to have gone on nicely, shame about the slight misalignment.

 

Ian

[Heather Kay]

16 minutes ago, Brandy said:

The camo appears to have gone on nicely, shame about the slight misalignment.

Nothing a bit of careful brush work won’t cure, thankfully. Aligning masks is sometimes harder than it looks. Your comment previously about masking and painting after the camo helps to eliminate such problems.

 

A tip on the Cameo side: don’t try and get by with the free software they ship. I find it clumsy and non-intuitive, but you have to use it to drive the cutter hardware. I prefer to draw stuff up in Affinity Designer (other illustration packages are available) but the free cutter software doesn’t support importing drawings. To do that, you need to upgrade to the full Design Studio software. It’s not that expensive, but let’s you import SVG files exported from your preferred drawing package.

[TheBaron]

3 hours ago, Heather Kay said:

wish I could offer guidance on setting for cutting

Me too Heather! 😀 I just use the 'Washi' setting for both Oramask and err...Washi sheets, the only change being to dial the speed down for smaller features like tail numbers at 1/72. Speaking of which:

2 hours ago, Heather Kay said:

The serial numbers, though,

- always make me work for the result too Heather, if it's any consolation.

1 hour ago, Heather Kay said:

don’t try and get by with the free software they ship

Agreed. It's worth the upgrade in order to be able to import .SVG s from a proper design program, as their one isn't...

 

Love what you've done there with this aircraft and worth all the extra effort going in to it with the cutter. Bravo!

 

[Brandy]

By the way, for the Fairey Battle, scheme A was for even serial numbers, and B for odd. However, according to Ian Huntley in his book, they were painted 2 at a time, often out of number sequence. So it could be that it went the same way with other manufacturers and, as usual, photos are the key!

In other words, without a photo you could do whichever you want!

 

Ian

[Heather Kay]

1 hour ago, Brandy said:

In other words, without a photo you could do whichever you want!

You are right, of course. Most of my builds are of a known aircraft, or one with good references to hand. I think the Bombay was the only one so far where I had to think through what the markings and colours actually would have been at the time, compared to what the kit maker thought they were. Future builds certainly have an identified aircraft in mind - at least as far as the RAF stuff is concerned.

 

Well, I don’t think I’m getting the Beaufort finished today. I don’t want to rush the finish, while I’ve been held up sorting out the various minor paint issues. Happily, the paint ridges around the code letters were easily dealt with by scraping gently with a sharp curved No10 scalpel blade. The misalignments on roundels were dealt with by a fine sable brush and a steady hand. I tried to use the spare vinyl serials as stencils, but failed to get the numbers to release cleanly. There’s a lesson in there somewhere, but I resorted to printing the numbers on clear transfer paper. Hopefully, the edges will disappear under varnish.

 

 

These were laid on Humbrol Clear Gloss, and I think what you’re seeing is reflection rather than silvering. The inkjet print transfers were sealed with a gloss lacquer. 
 

Now, brush Galeria Matt, or spray it. Hmm, decisions.

[dogsbody]

Though I'm quite the novice when it comes to airbrushing, what I tried on my Airfix Hurricane, to remove some of the ridges between colours, was to take a wooden toothpick and cut one end off on an angle. I then used that end to carefully rub over the ridges. It worked fairly well.

 

 

 

The end result:

 

 

 

 

Chris

[Heather Kay]

I gave myself the excuse to complete things today, as it was one of our "bitsa" days. In and out, doing this and that, so no point trying to do "proper" work.

 

 

So, I managed to touch in a bit of the varnish, mend some paint damage, fit the turret, paint the wheels and props. Oh, and remove the masking on the clear parts. My word, that nose is clear. You can actually see inside. It was worth detailing stuff after all.

 

This is where things are. All the sticky out bits have been attached and painted, the undercarriage is fitted, and the propellers are on. They won’t spin, sadly, so I’ve used canopy PVA to attach them. All that remains is to fit the antenna wire. I think I’ll do that with less tired eyes. I need to work out much (or little) weathering I want to do on what I think of as a fairly new airframe.

 

Then, on to portrait shots.