Painting (Hurricanes, P-47, Lightning)

Another weekend painting session, mostly designed to catch up a series of small jobs that are standing in the way of finishing a series of models.

First is some detail work on the German Hurricane. This consisted of painting the outer gear doors RLM76. Somehow, I managed to forget them when I painted the lower surfaces. I suppose I could have just brush painted them, but I really can’t stand the look of brush painting when an airbrush is available. I can get away with it on interior bits, but would prefer not to do it on the exterior. I also needed to paint the prop and spinner RLM80. When all that is cured and final assembly complete, it will be ready for decals. I do need to mask and paint the wheels as well.

Next came the stripes and cowl on a P-47, painted in a dark blue. Since I was already planning to use Oxford Blue for the Hawk demo gear doors I just used that.

I put a coat of Azure Blue on the underside of what will be a Yugoslavian Hurricane. And this time I remembered to paint the landing gear doors as well.

Finally came the nose cone of the Lightning, painted RAF Dark Green.

Another short but successful session on what turned out to be a nice Great Northwest afternoon (a bit cloudy, but you can say that about Washington for 10 months out of the year). About the only thing that burned up some time is the cleaning between colors. 

Mostly masking (Hurricanes, P-47, Eurofighter)

Since I spent the last painting session painting landing gear, it was time to start attaching them to their respective airframes. The captured Hurricane has already had its camo painted, and the civil Hawker demo Hurricane will be painted overall Silver, so it was fine to put their gear on. Same with the overall Silver P-47 (which is not pictured below because it has already moved to the paint booth). The Yugoslavian Hurricane still needs to have its lower surfaces painted in Azure Blue, so I will hold off adding gear for now.

After having painted the spine Blue and the anti-glare panel Black on the Lightning F2A, I masked off the entire spine. Also, I added the landing gear on this one as well. There is still one more bit of paint needed on this one before we get to the overall NMF, and that is the Dark Green nose cone. Lesson learned for the next Lightning: don’t glue the nosecone on during construction. Wait until both the cone and the overall color are painted before attaching said cone.

I completed the port side masking for the big stripe on the what-if Red Arrows Eurofighter. Once again I should note that the yellow masking is only for the portions between the two white Tamiya curve-masking tape. Only the lower surface masking remains.

I have a few canopies that need to be masked as well. I’ve decided to hold off on the Airfix Hurricane work until an Eduard mask set I’ve ordered from Hannants shows up. This order was all decals and masking sets, so hopefully it will arrive quicker than a shipment containing kits. The Hobbyboss Hurricane doesn’t have a masking set as far as I’m aware, so that one will be done by hand at my next bench session. 

34 and counting

I just wanted to add a brief note to commemorate my wife and my 34th wedding anniversary. These are not common milestones in this day and age. We've survived disasters and some wonderful experiences. I just can't figure out where all that time has gone! Anyway, congratulations to Sue for having put up with my nonsense for that length of time. BTW, she can't complain about the model stash, because knitters are just as bad at hoarding as we are. That alone has probably saved a lot of arguing over the decades!

Hasegawa Eurofighter

This is the final catch-up completion for 2016.

It is another anniversary Eurofighter, a sub-project that I have been thoroughly enjoying, since the RAF has seen fit to paint up a number of special schemes in the last few years. This is the red-tailed beauty of 29^th Squadron for their 100^th anniversary.

Just to be different, I used the Hasegawa kit for this attempt. I’ve been rather disappointed with the deterioration in the later pressings of the Revell version (prior to the new-tool release that escaped recently) so I wanted to get back to something with nicer engineering. And the Hasegawa kit did not disappoint. Everything fitted like it was supposed to, detail is nice, and since I generally produce models without a weapons loadout, the lack of extra bits in that category didn’t bother me at all. The only stiff problem is the price. Hasegawa Eurofighters run about $39 from Sprue Bros, while even the new tool Revell comes in at $14.50. As I may have said before, if you are only going to produce one Eurofighter in your collection, choose the Hasegawa. If you’ve got a lineup planned, consider the Revell. I’ll be starting the new-tool version in a short time, and we’ll see how the engineering on that kit is at that time.

Decals came from Xtradecal sheet 72-230. According to the instructions, it was flown by Flight Lieutenant Jonny Dowen of 29^th Squadron, based out of RAF Coningsby in 2015. Definitely an attractive set of markings. No problems in application. 

I still have the 11^th and 45^th Squadron specials in queue from the RAF. Then I might do something out of pattern and try a couple of Luftwaffe specials. The kit markings for the new Revell Eurofighter are really nice, and I’ve picked up two aftermarket decal sets as well. I guess it is a good thing I enjoy making Eurofighters.

This is completed aircraft #467 (28 aircraft, 6 ordnance, 0 vehicle for the year 2016), finished in July of 2016.

Painting (landing gear, Lightning, Yak-130)

While we were getting ready for a day at Gig Harbor, a nice little bay town across the former Galloping Gertie bridge, I decided to use a small window of time to get caught up on painting.

Most of what was required was natural metal, for which I used Alclad’s White Aluminum. Now that I’ve segregated most of the paints which I bought during some of their paint formulation issues a number of years back, Alclad paint is a joy to airbrush. Covers well, doesn’t require any thinning, and can be masked when it fully cures. This covered landing gear on three Hurricanes and a P-47. I also had two sets of five-spoke early Hurricane wheels in resin, and included those as well.

Next came a quick job: painting the Black anti-glare panel on the Lightning F2A. The paint tried to be a bit contrary by being too thin, but I got that sorted out without too much difficulty.

The final color was White, being used to patch up some overspray on the prototype Yak-130. Once that cures, I’ll be able to start the masking job for the Blue portions of the aircraft.

This is an example to myself that airbrush sessions don’t have to be marathon events. Sometimes all it requires is about a half hour of realtime, including cleanup. 

Construction (Hurricanes, P-47)

Much of today’s workbench time was spent on preparing for the next painting session. I had some overspray when I painted the Red tail of the Yak-130 demo, so I needed to mask the new tail off so I can get rid of that prior to masking for the Blue on wings and fuselage. I think I’ve decided on which blue to use, based on AModel’s own recommendation. According to the instruction sheet, they suggest Humbrol Intermediate Blue. I don’t have any Humbrol of that color, but do have a tin of the Xtracolour version. It looks like it will do fine.

Next, since Aluminum is on the list of colors for the next session, I tried to gather up bits from projects that required this color. It is always efficient to group items that need to painted the same. Mostly this is landing gear for the three Hurricanes and the P-47, along with the forward portion of the Eurofighter’s exhaust (not the burner cans).

I’ve also masked the Black anti-glare panel on the Bae Lightning. Finally, I got the canopy masked and installed on the P-47. I still have two more canopy jobs for the Hurricanes and I am out of Eduard precut sets, so these will have to be self-cut. Not that hard on a bubble canopy, but more of a challenge on the Hurricane’s framing.

It wasn’t all masking this time, however, I got the major construction completed on the Airfix Hurricane and will be concentrating on seam cleanup next. Finally, I had to add some exterior bits onto the Hobbyboss Hurricane, which means, once the canopy is masked and attached, it will be ready for the first paint as well.

Minicraft Boeing Fortress

Given that it was the 50^th anniversary of the B-17’s first flight celebration at Boeing Field in 1985 that got me interested in starting to model again, it is surprising that I haven’t built that many B-17s. I think I have a couple in the display cases somewhere, one of which is an early variant. So I decided it was time to correct that oversight, and I was aided by what at the time was a new decal sheet.

This is the Minicraft B-17. Although there are newer kits out there, I still have a few copies of this kit, and I don’t really see the new ones as enough of a quantum leap to chuck these out. If Airfix eventually issues a variant that Minicraft doesn’t do, I may have to reconsider that.

The decal sheet is the Kits World 72125, a selection of RAF Fortresses. For some reason I was drawn to the Black, Dark Green, and Dark Earth version from 214 Squadron RAF Coastal Command. It is one of the RAF B-17s that carry nose art, always a draw for me. This is for “Take It Easy” as it was at Downham Market in January of 1944. Kits World specializes in nose art, and in fact all three of the Coastal Command Fortresses on this sheet have it.

Construction, though a bit drawn out, proceeded without incident. Most of the drama came while trying to take the masking off the cockpit. This was another Cutting Edge set, in the black vinyl they were famous far. I have had nightmares dealing with the stuff. It’s probably self-inflicted, since I doubt there would be an issue if I had gotten the masks on and off in a timely manner. But this model spent some time on the Shelf of Shame, and once those masks are attached for a while, they grasp on like the model owes them money. Scratches, remaining adhesive gunk, and much foul language ensues. Some can be repaired by judicious use of WD40, but not all. However, at this point, I just found a space in the back of a display cabinet, declared victory, and headed for higher ground. Still, I think this is my last voluntary involvement with black vinyl masking medium.

This is completed aircraft #466 (#33 for the year of 2016), finished in July of 2016.