Birthday Bits

Well another year older and closer to death (as somebody once sang), but a few goodies for the painting bureau received as part of the birthday package (even if I did have to write them down for the boss, and even buy the kits for my boys to give me). 



Birthday goodies

So we have a couple of Airfix 25pdr and Quad kits for my North Africa ambitions.  Which, with hindsight (such a wonderful thing), I might have been better going for the Italeri kit having now read some of the write ups and made a start on these kits.
Along with the kits there is a set of 3 UniPin pens 0.1mm fine line pens (red, blue and black) and a W&N Series 7 Miniature size 000.

In Other News

The Dak is slowly but surely coming on with the huge filling job completed and sanded off.  I know that when the undercoat is applied there will be areas which look a little rough, but this is going to be a wargaming piece primarily and not a exact miniature presentation fit to grace the pages of a magazine so I'm not going to go back and refill all the little bits and bobs, then sand again and prime again.  Life really is too short.  If it's good from a couple of feet then that'll do.  Now to mask it all up ready for a spray.

All sanded down and the engraving redone, hopefully it wont look to bad once sprayed up.

No progress getting the Tomahawk or Spit on the field at the moment, I need to get to a descent hobby/model shop to get some spray mattcoat which will hopefully take the sheen of them both.  For now they gather dust.

At least the gathering dust gives a matt finish

I've already made a start on the first of the Morris Quad tractors and it seems a far more tricky kit than I was perhaps expecting, mainly due to the actual body of the thing coming in several spate pieces which need some fairly precise gluing.

I think that's the easy bit done!!!

Mind The Gap

As those of you in the UK will be aware this past week and a half has been our summer (that's probably it for the rest of the year) and as a result the Boss (she who must be obeyed) found me a different kind of painting job - namely the garden furniture.  To be honest it was in a bit of a state after last summers wash out and living outside through one of the wettest winters on record.  So it's all been stripped down and repainted or oiled as appropriate.  But that has left precious little time for the wee planes.  Well that and just getting out and enjoying the sunshine for a change, including a lovely walk up in the Lake District (a must for any of you visiting the UK).

Just missing me and a cold beer

Half way up with a moaning teenage son

       

View from the top!  Aren't the cameras on phones clever these days.

So I've finally come back in doors armed with some Milliput and set about the sizeable gaps on the Dakota.

Now I'm not the greatest a filling and I think my Millliput is a bit old and had gone a bit hard so I've made a total mess.  Hopefully it'll clean up OK and once   filed nobody will be any the wiser, hopefully.

So any tips anybody has on filling the gaps in model kits would be gratefully received.  What tools to use (rather than smearing it in with your fingers like me), best way to mix it, how to keep it moist and usable - that sort of thing.

Not sure if just how much filler is in the nose comes across here

Perhaps a little clearer

The huge hole between the wings and the fuselage.
This might need a second fill.

You can hardly tell,  Still too shiny though!

On a side note you may recall I managed to pull half a decal off whilst I was varnishing the Tomahawk the other week.  Well I'm pleased to report that my Uni Posca white marker did the trick.






Took the plunge and spent some money (not very much) on some primer as recommended by those good fellows over at TMP.  It remains to be seen just how much of a hash I make of priming the Dak now.  The bluetak (well cheap Sellotape version) is for masking things, a tip I have picked up from the Britmodeller site, I'll mainly use it to cover the engines and perhaps the windows, though I may invest in some proper model masking tape for those.  The guy on Brtimodeller actually used it to mask out his camo scheme, which might also be an option.

Some Progress At Last

Well it seems ages since I made any progress but I've finally found 5 minutes to pick up my brush, not that I actually did much by way of painting.  A second coat of matt to try and kill the shine, don't think I had mixed it enough the first time, hopefully.

Nearly done

A word of warning and a lesson learned, make sure you don't get varnish on your fingers and then handle another model with your finger on the decals. Where there used to be an 'F' there is now a couple of blobs of white!  Oh well I suppose it's a chance to use my white Uni Posca marker for the first time.

Ooops!

 

I even managed to spend a bit of time sticking some wings on to the dakota. Had to do some hacking to get them to fit even acceptably, never mind well. 

The tail looks a bit wonky from this angle, probably is then

Yeh, it's definitely skewiff

 

 There's going to have to be some serious filling going on before this is ready to be primed.

On the subject of priming I have to offer thanks to the folks over at TMP for their help choosing a descent primer spray at a sensible price.

Getting Down and Dirty

So I thought I'd give a go at weathering up my two desert birds with some exhaust soot and general grime.  First time I've really done this so not that sure of the results, especially after taking so much care on the other bits to then muck them up - seems a bit of a shame in a way.

Not sure if I've gone a bit OTT to be honest, especially on the underside, the watered down paint seemed to dry far faster than I would have expected.  So I took a few snaps before hitting them both with a coat of Klear as a protective layer, then they'll get a flat coat.

Too much exhaust smoke?

Perhaps look better from a distance.

There was some serious scrubbing to clean off the worst of the
black wash from the underside, the Tomahawk looks particularly grimy.

I managed to use the good colour printer at work to print out an A3 desert scene as a back drop for my final finished project photos.  So I had a few minutes to spare so thought I would try a couple of test shots to see how they came out.

Definitely need better lighting to eliminate the shadows falling where they do, and perhaps to get the background a little more level would help.  I know the sandpaper isn't the same as the background but it was just a quick test.

Chipping Away

So I managed to snatch a short time to start the weathering process on my Tomahawk and Spitfire.  Still short of some pastels or weathering powders I decided I could add those little wear marks you get, the little areas of chipped off paint and the like.
Very old Citadel Mithril Silver was the best I could muster for the purpose and my old drybrushing brush (which is now officially dead).  I targeted the leading edge of the wings and the tail fins, the panel lines of the ammo lockers and the engine cowling, along with along the join between the wing and the fuselage where the pilot would walk to gain access to the cockpit.  But I probably spent the most time on the props having read that it was not unusual for the rear side to be virtually scrubbed clean of paint whilst the front looked in good condition with just a little damage along the leading edge.  I hope these came across OK and I haven't gone to OTT.  I guess it will all look a little different again when the exhaust soot and general grime goes on.

Tomahawk looking chipped up

I'm hoping I haven't gone over the top with the chipping on the engine cover

the rear of the props looking quite scrubbed.

Spitfire sporting the same treatment.

Nearly There ...

Managed to get myself motivated again (well sufficient time to myself) and started to get the birds finished with their decals.  It's more years than I care to remember since I last used these things, they seemed to come off the paper backing fairly easily but getting them stuck on in just the right place was going to be a challenge I could tell.

I started with the Tomahawk for no other reason than it was the first sheet out of the box.  Getting everything properly spaced took a few attempts but I was fairly happy with the result, then came the shark mouth which was a bit more of a challenge and took some manoeuvring and tweaking to get just right (and then a little touch up to fill the small gap between  the two sides.  You'll notice that I've left the canopy off for now as I don't want to muck it up with any weathering bits and bobs or varnish, in fact you'll see it in the back ground of some of the photos.

Tomahawk done

So I thought that the Tomahawk was going to be the hardest of the two, but I may have just underestimated the Spit.  The decals were older and really didn't want to leave the backing paper and needed quite a soak.  But then I didn't know where everything should go as the box and instructions for this kit had long been discarded to the great recycling bin in the sky.  So google-fu in full effect and everything is at your fingertips.  That said I thought the side lettering looked to be quite far forward but the instructions looked to have them there so who am I to argue.

So that's them basically done if I wanted, but I don't!  I really want to get some weathering done on them.  Read a descent article here which I'll try and implement but this months budget doesn't allow any more modelling purchases, so these will have to go in to storage for a bit.  But once I've weathered them I'll bring out the proper camera (rather than my phone) and take some descent photos with a background and everything.

A final question for any more experienced modellers out there (so that's pretty much all of you), do you hit your kits with a flat coat once done?

a little bit of wobbly wheel action, but lessons learned in that department

Still think those Spitfire markings look too far forward

To Base or Not To Base...?

With my first two war birds nearing completion and the next project decided on the question of whether I should base things or not popped in to my head!  Now I know lots of people base their vehicles and I can see why as they are handled way more than a static plane target would do. but I'm just not sure and I can see pros and cons for my desert air force fleet.

The more I look about on t'internet for examples of based model planes the more I come to the conclusion that people simply do not base them unless they are part of a specific diorama.  Most of the pictures seem to be on white backgrounds or desks/tables.

Opinions gladly received.

A few examples of model aircraft 'basing'

examples of based wargaming vehicles

All Touched Up, All Klear & The Future

Sat watching the World T20 final with the West Indies chasing a very low 155 target set by another poor batting performance from England, apart from Root and Buttler.  On with the blog...

All Touched Up

So I've finally finished all those little touching up bits that needed doing and stuck that wheel back on the Tomahawk, so all ready for the decals :-)

Tomahawk, now with both wheels and touched up props

Mk1 Spit all touched up with its grey pilot

Side by side ready for the North African sun, well nearly

For some reason my head on picture keeps coming out upside down despite editing and resaving, oh well you'll get the idea.

Perhaps they could be RNZAF or RAAF

All Klear

So I have a bottle of the much loved Johnson Klear floor wax, had it for years and I believe that you can get a really good proce on eBay for the original stuff like this rather than the new formula.  Great for washes and shading I'd also heard that applied to canopies it gives a great effect as well.  So might as well give it a go, what's to loose!

All set, fingers crossed

So once I'd found a suitable receptacle I poured out enough to cover the main canopy.  I'd purposefully left a bit of sprue on the canopy so that I had something to hold on to with my tweezers.

A thorough dunking in the Klear and then a good shake off and hung up to dry.  There was a bit of pooling which I wicked off with a brush.

A quick dunk

Surprisingly good results

The result...  Well actually I'm pretty pleased with how that turned out to be honest, there is a certain  extra clearness to it which might not come across in the photos.  Just need to paint the frame and get it stuck on the bird.

The Future

So with these two starting to come to their final stages I had a rummage in the draws of Andy's Painting Bureau to see what we could move on to next.  

I stumbled across a Mk.V Spitfire which I'd sort of forgotten I had even though I only transferred everything to the bureau a few months ago.  Not too sure why this was never started (probably the same reason the various others haven't been started or finished, namely the lack of a permanent place to leave things out and part complete until the next chance I had to work on them.  That and the fact Revell didn't supply pilots and I didn't like that at that time, now I don't bother with putting them in - go figure).

Then there is the Montgomery Dakota I picked up and started a number of years ago.

A forgot Spitfire or a part complete Dak?

I think the Montgomery Dak is not the easiest model to come by these days, but it was fairly cheap on eBay when I got it and I don't have any allegiance to making it as per the picture.  It's actually going to be another desert air force scheme, seems to be my favourite.  I'd made quite a start on it upon reflection, the interior is complete and painted and the fuselage is stuck together, filled and sanded and the wings constructed ready to be put together.

Even managed to get a bit of paint in the wheel wells, trying to replicate the factory base coat which wouldn't have been over sprayed with which ever scheme the plane was going to end up in.

I don't think there is any real choice, it has to be the Dakota , it really needs finishing.  That and squirrelled away somewhere I have another one off eBay which had been completed and damaged (don't tell the wife - but it was really cheap in my defence).  this was bought as I wanted to paint it up as a crashed version for a 'Capture/Rescue the General' type of scenario, either desert or jungle based.

                  

....... Oh and the cricket.  Well England really put on a good show with some cracking early wickets, but 4 6's in a row from Brathwaite in the final over was just sublime to win it for the WIndies.  All credit to them and thank you both sides for such an entertaining match.

The Little Details

So over the Easter weekend I managed to grab a couple of short sessions where I could work on some of the more detaily bits of the start of my desert air force.  I wanted to get the nose cones done in red, which is not what Airfix recommend on their box but it's what the majority of images I've seen have and that's good enough for me.

Decided on gunmetal for the exhausts and guns rather than boring black, a bit more metallic than I was perhaps expecting but it should/might dull down with the weathering.

Not perfect I know and I have to make a few touch ups where I've strayed a little, still remembering the best order to paint things I guess.  Another coat of yellow on the prop ends as well.

I know that there probably weren't any mk1 spits in North Africa, especially not with red noses, but as I've said before I don't mind. 






So just touch ups and decals to go.  Oh and that missing wheel and strut from the Tomahawk.