Hi everyone, sorry for the very late reply as I’ve lost the mojo on this way back and totally forgot about the tread, but some of you might have guessed that then.
Anyway with the end of the month and this GB looming, I carefully reactivated this build last week and hoped to finish it in time (good motivation to finish at all).
Si, Ian, Richard, John, Al and
Jim, thanks for the interest and sorry to keep you waiting…
A lot to show now, but I was a bit keen on getting this one finished on time, sorry…
Dug up some old progress pics before things went less than enjoyable, here’s the office and seat with all the Eduard etch:
Then started at modifying the office top for some etch add-ons:
After here it came to a grinding halt, the lower wing-fuselage join had a gap at two places that need to be filled and I made a choice of fitting an open cowling only later wanted the closed version on.
Those things made me putting this one back in the box as I didn’t like all the work involved at the time, other GB’s took the mojo too at that time…
Fast forward three months, mojo is back and the mentioned obstacles were tackled, not perfect at all but still acceptable for a painting exercise.
Struck with a new flow, readied the office for masking and the barrels were replaced with brass micro-tube:
Thought something was missing on the main landing gear legs, so added a copper wire on each for the brake line:
Have a Kagaroo book on the ‘’A’’ variants, the legs look a lot like the A’s.
Problem was I only had good pics on the A-0 variants legs, and on others the lines seemed to be there but I can’t be sure.
So don’t shoot me if I’m wrong, I just like the look now.
Then it was the best part of the build, airbrushing the colours on after all was masked of course.
First VJ Grey primer, followed by VJ 71.057 Black for the pre-shade and VJ 71.257 Light Blue RLM 76 for the undersides:
After a day’s worth of drying and a white tack mask, VJ 71.011 Dark Green RLM 83 was sprayed on followed by more masking and VJ 71.259 Grey Violet RLM 75.
Removed the masking and carefully mottled the sides with the RLM 75 & 83 to get this result:
A bit odd looking but with the subsequent layers of varnish and weathering the colours will look better.
Next up were the
decals, being older
Tamiya decals the swastikas were still on the sheet but already not show on the instructions or the box art.
Nowadays all officially imported
Tamiya kits in Holland go through Germany, and the swastika
decals get painted over…
Although these were from 1995 there was little yellowing and they went on fine, only requiring at bit longer in the water and a tad more MicroSol to settle in:
The fuselage band turned out to be the only bad fit of the lot, so it was sprayed on using VJ 71.001 White as a basecoat, then VJ 71.002 Medium Yellow followed by the VJ 71.003 Red RLM 23.
Almost finished with the weathering and the final coats of varnish are on so the completed pics are not far now.
Thanks for looking in.
Fernando