Peter s

Post #2. Most of you have seen this plane built so I'll keep it short and sweet: /media/tinymce_upload/bc22b7504eb5827990770df3f2cc596e.jpg/media/tinymce_upload/70d23936523a71e68cd42327d9316f31.jpg I've loads of rather useless Tamiya rattle cans best part used so used a Luftwaffe dark green as a base coat then lightly oversprayed Vallejo model colour gunship green which is a good match for Aussie foliage green. Decals came from Australia and cost a small fortune. Panel lines were picked out with black pencil and additional weathering at this stage using mig pigments.

Apparently one form of madness is to endlessly attempt to freehand perfect circles. My variation on this is to endlessly do MkX beaufighters. Its a favourite plane and its such a brilliant kit that I always feel I could have done better. My friend Shaun in brisbane has got me interested in RAAF aircraft from WW2 so that gave me the idea to try something different. I've had a stab at converting the standard airfix to the similar Aussie built Mk 21. The most obvious difference is that its got a weird nose bump. Also only 2 wing lights. Like a total muppet I drilled wing guns in line with the ejector ports then found out that the Mk21 carried 4x .50 cal in the wings not 6x .303. Doh.... everything else worked out nicely. The nose "BUMP" whatever it actually is was scratched nicely from the nose cone of a harpoon missile plus some filler. Pics to follow in subsequent posts

That looks amazing! I'm old enought to have seen a real one at the Leauchars airshow carrying the sidewinders. The crew gave me a sticker which said "the worlds largest fighter".

To answer a question with a question: do you really care if the prop spins or not? I dont. Just paint it and stick it on at the end. For the majority of Airfix kits even if you do wish it to spin it's a simple paint job for the prop and spinner so just brush paint at the end after fitting. The only exception that springs to mind is the blue and white spinner on the current 1/72 typhoon. I've done P51s with a red-yellow-red spinner that did need airbrushing as a separate sub assembly. Also a bf109 with a black and white spinner. As with canopies if you fit them during the build rather than at the end you can pre paint them and protect with carefully fitted low tack masking tape.

European kit manufacturer starting I and R do excellent (approx) 50 figures in a pack for approx £15 on a certain auction site. Not much for the RAF but in 1/72 there's not much difference between a German and British pilot..... In fact in real life there isn't either.

There's a "thing" called scale colour effect which is hard to explain but basically a 1/72 model viewed from 2 feet away is like seeing the real thing at 144 feet away. The further away you are the lighter the real thing seems. Until I realised this my early war panzers painted the "correct" dark grey looked far too dark. Not everyone accepts this idea but if you paint your 1/72 typhoon a shade lighter than the 1/24 I think you'll be happy with both

Hi Paul Brown. "Water based" is the magic word there . Tamiya is acrylic but basically alcohol based. Vallejo model colour can be thinned nicely with alcohol too and sprays well. My final coat is normally Vallejo model air (which as with several other brands curdles in alcohol)...(some of their premixed colours are badly off but that's another issue....) Those are dodgy as hell on bare plastic but no problem on primed. One reason I use Tamiya xf1 flat black as a primer is that the model air is very reluctant to enter panel lines. With the black base a carefully applied overspray of model air actively avoids the panel lines and you get a better effect than post painting washes. Model air can be cleaned from an airbrush with warm water and a drop of fairy liquid too which is nice.

Apart from the lack of total surprises in 1/72 (like the Mig 17 from last year) Airfix released what I'd been suggesting they did for years so I was pretty happy without much actual excitement. The Vulcan was a no brainer and the Beaufort the natural next project after Blenheim and Beaufighter. For a few years Airfix have badly neglected spitfires (which is crazy for a company specialising in British subjects) so the Vc was much appreciated. As the pics show a tropical one it could pair nicely with a Malta Beaufort? I've either been spending a fortune on Tamiya Vs or grafting volkes filters from the hurricane II kit (you get 2 per kit) onto the old 1970s spit V (which TBH gives you a decent cheap and cheerful tropical spit)

I THINK I redeemed the last lot about the time the club ceased. I'll check if I have a passport. The Airfix Beaufighter is my favourite twin prop. The Blenheim is equally good but given that you get all the parts for both fighter and bomber versions in the box I've always thought it would make more commercial sense to recognise that in the instructions, provide decals for both versions and not have separate fighter and bomber releases. I've wanted a Beaufort for years so that was ordered as soon as I saw it. If you've seen my posts on the top gun A4 I'm a big fan of the A4b as a quick cheap jet which (canopy apart) builds really well. i find it a fun build it you don't worry about accuracy. I think it's a good copy of the one displayed in the intrepid air museum but it seems that's a very none standard aircraft. I read that a lot of museum A4s are a bit weird. The kit armaments are very limited so I've ended up playing with a lot of aftermarket bits. I did one with a nuke on the centreline.

Elkhart is right: a can of spray aluminium will bind better to the plastic and give you a nice smooth coat. I use Tamiya XF1 flat black as a first coat on all my models. Most spray primers are good but you can get plastic damage from none model brands. The little tubs of acrylic you get with the starter kits are about the lowest grade modelling paint I've used. I gift them to a rather mad relative of my wife's who brush paints pictures in acrylic. Btw bare metal done well is one of the hardest schemes. There's some really good metal effect paints available (generally to airbrush) but a few react badly with acrylics and others are damaged by acrylic varnish so be aware and maybe keep some old sprues handy to test the combos

Scalemates don't get everything right. I reckon they're guessing. Why would Airfix use an old mould when they replaced the tooling not so long back? I can't fault that logic.... the other 3 in the series won't be new tool kits though. I guess we'll have to wait and see. Certainly the Top Gun one I had was badly worn out. BTW I found an almost identical Testors Top Gun A4 on Ebay (found, I didn't buy). Thats got the E model hump which the real film ones don't...... it was worryingly cheap too. The Testors kit is a rebox of the Italeri A-4E. Not bad, but the slats are molded with the wing in the retracted position. That's worth knowing for E based projects. I may finally do John McCains. Italeri also have top gun tie in kits available. I'll post pics of what I've done with some Airfix A4s when I finish my Mig 17s. I'm not going to try and adjust the shape of the tanks or correct minor details, rather just have some fun with Airfix's only other new tool Vietnam jet.

Hi jeff, another tiny beauty . Well done. I've a modelling e mail friend (shaun) in Brisbane and he's keeping me up to date with the fires. Hard to imagine but you guys are doing a great job fighting them.

Thanks for that tip! How do you redeem? I keep going back to certain kits to try and do "the perfect...." Apparently a form of insanity is attempting to free hand a perfect circle. I do Beaufighter and A4/b instead ☺

I remember your Shackleton well. Funnily enough it's one of my favourite planes... I grew up under the flight path to Glasgow airport (btw I noted a few "wees" in your new Wellington build thread) and I used to see them come in regularly.... You heard them ten mins before you saw them. I haven't done one yet. In part it's because when I do one I want to do it really well and the plain grey scheme will need a lot of tricks to make it interesting. I've a coffee mug full of flying hours so if/when that resumes im getting one. In the meantime I'm still trying to do the perfect coastal command Beaufighter (also plain grey). I've done a few but never quite done them well enough.

Looks like 3 on the CENTRE line was plausible in US service too. I can't see any outer pylons though /media/tinymce_upload/9e6ed13d450e652c02be0b66491ff89d.jpgI found a pic of the current Airfix one too /media/tinymce_upload/d6fd1f0067bbe26030dbc3e40c5b96c5.jpg

The Argentine airforce could be creative but these could get off the ground. /media/tinymce_upload/b717bd6242f8dacac3c7676355f6044d.jpg/media/tinymce_upload/889fc588b300138ec6aa238759bd1947.jpg this on is Aussie i think although clearly no a B/P /media/tinymce_upload/9c0c42331ebf07ae61d238cd76f5bb5d.gif

On the contrary. That is a rare model indeed! I'd be amazed if even 1 in 10,000 would pull that off. I wondered about expanded metal mesh to replace the frame? I used to have similar stuff for making bedstead armour on T34s. if you remember chemistry class the stuff in the Bunsen tripods are similar

That was what I was worried about.... I've a million zuni pods so I think I can get away with 2 pods on a ter where the wing tanks go and keep the centreline tank. If the outer pylons are nonsense for a B then in US service the Airfix kit effectively has no weapons! I've got the collection of zunis buying hasegawa weapons backs for the centreline ters and the napalm pods.

Btw can any of you clarify the meaning of "3 weapons pylons" on the B model which increased to 5 on later versions. The word "weapons" as opposed to just "pylons" is ambiguous. My take is the Airfix one isn't so wrong that the 2x 500lb bombs outboard of the tanks are nonsense and that this phrase means the tank pylons on the wings are for tanks only and that "3 weapons pylons" means centre line and outer wings for weapons, inner pylons for tanks. the Argentine air force mounted all sorts on all 5 pylons on their Ps which maybe confuses things. The reason I ask is that I'm pondering doing a B in C colours (no worse than a B in F colours) but don't want to do anything too daft. I'm curious how many zuni pods the C that shot down a Mig 17 with zunis would have carried and where..... Hope that makes sense

Scalemates don't get everything right. I reckon they're guessing. Why would Airfix use an old mould when they replaced the tooling not so long back? I can't fault that logic.... the other 3 in the series won't be new tool kits though. I guess we'll have to wait and see. Certainly the Top Gun one I had was badly worn out. BTW I found an almost identical Testors Top Gun A4 on Ebay (found, I didn't buy). Thats got the E model hump which the real film ones don't...... it was worryingly cheap too.

FINALLY! I used to make VERY large models (1/16 >) semi-professionally and I've some big backdrops left over. Jessops the high street photo shop used to be very good at printing photos onto A3. I've kept a few and they came in handy for this project. My other backdrops are from ebay. Pricey but you pay for quality. The ladder is part of the kit & the figure is a slight adaption of the running BoB pilot from airfix's old RAF crew set. I put a pilot in the cockpit (not included) plus 2 old matchbox crew in the turrets. These 2 are almost impossible to see which may be why Airfix didn't bother with crew. The pilot adds to the kit though. Enjoy and let me know what you think /media/tinymce_upload/69c2f50ba36d43fd69ebca6d9b9bef50.jpg/media/tinymce_upload/c48025ac694560e958ad886c4914b002.jpg/media/tinymce_upload/0e874651d23856a35ae2e2aeff463ae3.jpg /media/tinymce_upload/c3c01ba5777a3c410596e2d853344e63.jpg/media/tinymce_upload/5ccc6d6acebe51f7c0e0ebb6d26f2b5c.jpg/media/tinymce_upload/167906545a7551f2514f23551f6f8bd4.jpg /media/tinymce_upload/c46cf3afa49b9792a7b3699f76dda1e4.jpg/media/tinymce_upload/b25d3a39c1f5b19dfd42e13a2562b687.jpg I do like those engine rings! (Should have mentioned earlier that the wing chipping was done using a small sponge. The exhausts with Mig dark rust pigment..... another relic from my big tank days)

Post 3: Firstly here's the real ones: /media/tinymce_upload/456e9cc0e26398660b88ebe92c93b7d3.jpg/media/tinymce_upload/23375a00de40aa4cab5a81f422d46886.jpg/media/tinymce_upload/9bf1c50300a1d83e61203187db849e73.jpg The final one especially has had a hard life. Heavy chipping on the aluminium leading edge of the wings and some filthy marks on the canvas. This is what I'm aiming for without going OTT and wrecking it. AML also sell a mask for about a fiver designed for this kit. Its not hard to cut your own but at that price and to do a top end job I'd recommend them. First I sprayed vallejo dark earth (model air) /media/tinymce_upload/38301f9c33e15b7709f5850d98ba088b.jpg Then applied the masks and sprayed my own green. This is 50/50 Vallejo BS dark green and US dark olive drab. I find their British BS green too green and the olive improves it a lot. /media/tinymce_upload/defabe661808676fd1f48fd3f67947dd.jpg The vertical stabiliser is a separate part and can be left off until the end. This makes painting it black easy. Many wellingtons have the cammo finish in front of the tail but my decal sheet showed it extending all the way back (like a Lancaster) so I went with that instruction. Apologies for some missing pics but this photo shows a few extra touches. I used those little coloured stickers (approx 6mm round) intended for wall planners to make a wavy line between the upper green/earth and the lower black. I oversprayed the Tamiya black with the Vallejo model air equivalent as it has a similar shine to the uppers. I blobbed some slightly darker green onto the wings to replicate rapid repairs on base. After I applied a few coats of varnish these practically vanished. I also mixed up a pea sized blob of burnt umber oil paint in approx 5mls odourless turps and using a 1" flat ended soft brush applied this front to back over the kit. This both acts as a wash, a filter and creates some mild streaking. Coat of varnish applied then decals. PRAISE BE! very few tiny stencils 😀 /media/tinymce_upload/84715e6313f15f5dcf79a297cd8b36a6.jpg Note the engine rings.... airfix show them as gunmetal and the Brooklands one has shiny silver. The real pic I'm copying also shows steel. These are actually stainless steel but the effects of heat can turn them all sorts of colours. This is why traditionally modellers paint a steel part bronze. I masked the rings and sprayed will Vallejo duraluminium then applied a tiny amount of AK interactive true metal copper. Not too far off the other two pics I think. There's a clear panel in the rear of the bomb bay so I held off finished the bay until the final coat of varnish was applied. My sole complaint with this kit is a poor bomb load. Just 6x 250lb when it could carry 18 easily. No problem though... a swordfish donated another 6x 250lb which I fitted in a double stack in the middle cell. These bombs are painted model colour yellow ochre. /media/tinymce_upload/6360164bb84a1ee4aa3d1c95ce0ecf41.jpg/media/tinymce_upload/3aaac770857cfe182c661e1073ea29bb.jpg Small bit of styrene used to hold the bombs apart. These were hand painted black and become invisible. Kit is almost finished now so it joined its bigger cousin on the shelf while I fitted glass and breakable bits. The decal sheet showed it fully glazed however the kit has hard panels to cover the glass if not appropriate for your build /media/tinymce_upload/8b4c420afab4f9d185521ca43a2b8838.jpg I used 0.2mm brass wire for the aerials.... this is a long run and they sagged (I quite like that though) more than on smaller aircraft. My wife's hair has been used on occaisson and has a few advantages!

Post 2 : the build. Dead easy. As with many airfix new tools there's an insane amount of internal detail that you'll never see from the outside. However one modeller in 10,000 with the skill to cut away panels could actually replicate the Wellington on display at Brooklands. The structure of the geodetic frame on this kit is incredible. Airfix mark in green the internal parts you don't need to fit. I actually fitted all of them apart from the floats and flares. I'd recommend anyone else do the same as the extra bulkheads add rigidity to the whole kit..... plus you've paid for them! Unusually and very kindly because they'd be fiddly as hell to fit the kit comes with the outer bomb bay doors already fitted. These would be 6 doors a side otherwise not all in perfect alignment so be careful handling the fuselage. For bomb bay shut just trim them off and fit the solid one part close bay doors bit. Undercart doors are the same. Oddly the engines are installed THROUGH the lower wing and tolerances are tight so again be careful not to snap them off. Also very kindly all the clear parts fit in from the outside. As I'm not a modeller in 10,000 I left all clear parts off until the end. I didn't bother painting any internal either knowing full well the initial spray of black would cover all exposed internal grey parts. /media/tinymce_upload/93b24ad221f20b5245c99e2f40060bfb.jpg/media/tinymce_upload/f8586a1a4b2d11fbfb44aa2441088567.jpg/media/tinymce_upload/1518332a70c97ba039bc7894de19c003.jpg Took me about 4 hours doing nothing else to get to this stage. Earlier this year I discovered a number of advantaged to priming in black tamiya (XF1) and for an aircraft that will be black underneath its a no brainer. /media/tinymce_upload/e9958a08b728c70a8e505a52d8b7b3ba.jpg Black can be an unforgiving colour so can show you defects that you need to tidy before going further. I was unusually neat so no nasty glue marks anywhere.

Hi All, Every Xmas I get a kit from my wife... usually a pre-order and inevitably its late 😀 I actually rather appreciate a random present in Feb but after the S.79 appeared and disappeared from the listing there was much female ranting about Airfix so I asked her to get me a Wellington 1A/C as it was in stock and would definately arrive on time...... Even in childhood I've never done a wellington however I've seen some other builds here and been really impressed by the quality of the new tool multi-engines so I was looking forward to it. The kit instructions are for the two most obvious choices so I searched eBay and found some very inexpensive AML decals for Polish aircraft in RAF service. The early in this set was a veteran from 301 squadron with some cool nose art and 20 bomb mission symbols. I like to weather so step 1 was find some good real images to see how far I could take it.... (I've actually finished so I'll post the rest of the images in one go this afternoon... apologies for skipping a few steps. some phone pics were too blurred to use). More to follow when the mods approve the pics;

Sky blue not Sky-S?