Rutek63

The vertical and the horizontal stabilizers. The elevator and the ruder. That is all I've made since my last visit here. It is a painfully slow build. I can't blame the model for it though. The problem is not having enough time. And not only for the model build but for the hobby in general - reading, research, forum etc. Let's see the progress. All the individual skins of the tail parts, but the bottom part of the ruder, I glued together with O - glue in to the form of the empty inside shell. Once I was satisfied with the shape I gave it formers. I reinforced the formers with pieces of cardboard to create solid base under the skin for my later work with sheet connections. All the printed lines in the places when they do not belong I sanded down heretofore covering the area with Super Glue. And later on off course I painted these places to match the print color. You can see the whole process on the example of the horizontal stabilizer. Regards! Peter

I'm sorry. Please remove one.

Now I am :lol: thanks! Twenty one parts later and I have basic form of the fuselage. I'm not entirely happy with it though. If I ever build an airplane model again, I'll use the under the skin layer support which is basically the same as the joining strips, but as wide as the skin panels themselves. Admittedly, I don't have any former's edges visible like a starving cow's ribs, but I got couple of minor dents which could have been eliminated by applying this under body support thing. Well, first airplane model, go figure. The next step will be to equip the fuselage with its details. Including some panel frames which are in the overlay to these basic fuselage skin panels.

Seeing all this tape and the preparation to paint you guys do is making me kinda happy. I'm glad that I don't have to do that ;). Good job though. Finally I was able to close the cockpit and apply first two pieces of the of the fuselage skin. Unfortunately, not without an accident. A little bit of the fresh black paint from my mixing palette got on my palm and by the accident I transfered it onto the fuselage skin in the front of the cockpit. I didn't have any other choice but to tear that part of the fuselage off the formers and apply the new one. I decided to switch from the standard kit formers to the laser cut ones. It saves me time that I can spend to build some scratch-build details. For example machine gun's shrouds. I hope that the pictures below explains the shroud's building process. I used very thin paper, 0.7 mm drill bit to give it the right shape, and O' glue for glueing and to keep the shape. I painted the flat part black before wrapping it around the drill. And in the end I used silver color pencil to break down that intensive black color. It took me some time to align the machine guns, barrel's compartments and blast tubs in one line. To do it right I had to removed the machine guns off the cockpit, shave their bases and then put new guns in place. As you can see in the picture below I decided to leave gun maintenance access hatch open and also on the port side I left openings for scratch build pilots step and the flare launch port. Regards! Peter

Unfortunately,building that engine cup I made a mistake sealing and painting over the seams that represent the panel connection lines between the front and the rear of the cup. Fixing it by cutting it open in the spot sealed with CA glue didn't work. I had to build it all over again. Here is the step by step: -Cutting the parts precisely on the line. -Sanding off the unwanted outlines of the parts. -Accurate as possible gluing the rings of the cup together. -Applying the ND into the seams to seal them the same way as the rest of the card is -Applying the layer of the gloss acrylic finish to the whole surface of the part. -Applying the layer of the matte acrylic finish to the whole surface of the part. -Painting the seams with a thin layer of the match color to expose imperfections of glued seams. -Filling up the gaps with mid density CA glue. -Alignment of the surface with second layer of the CA glue, only applied widely this time. -Scrapping the excess of the CA glue with the hobby knife. -Applying another layer of the matte acrylic finish. -Applying the second layer of the paint over the seams only wider to equalize the painted lines with the print. -Diversifying the painted spots with other colors to match the model art design. -Redrawing the lines of the panels over the paint. -Applying the final layer of the Matte finish. Regards! Peter

Remarkable work GIL! It is amazing haw fast you guys can build a plastic model. I'm in the other hand, still on the beginning. According to the model instruction the next two parts that I should be making are the machine gun barrels and the cockpit skin assemble. Yet, I have decided to make a little leap into the front of the fuselage and pick up on the center part of the engine assemble and the "cup" that covers it. ( I'm not sure how you call that part of the engine in English). What you see in the pictures below is only the dry fitting assembly. The center part of the engine was very simple thing to do: As you can se in the first picture below, the cup that covers the center engine part is designed as a set of fore conical rings. However that part of the original airplane is put together with a number of the panels not rings, fastened to the frame around the engine. To get the proper external appearance of that cup I have decided to seal the gaps between the rings with the mid-density SG and paint the joints with matched olive color. I have also opened printed cooling vents:

Chris, Not on this model, but yes, definitely. I like this kind of thing. The perfect example of how I would like to do this in the future is the work of my friend Andrzej Ziober. http://www.craftsmanshipmuseum.com/Ziober.htm The members of IPMS/USA may remember his 1: 72 Lancaster from last IPMS Convention in Ohio. He opens hatches, access panels etc.. to show what is inside of the airplane. In my P 11 I'm considering opening only one machine gun access panel. The cockpit will be partially visible since there is no full canopy over it.

Thank you Chris! In Haliński's models, especially new ones he has some parts printed on thin 20lb paper. This paper is usually reserved for the parts intended to be rolled. good luck with practicing on Turkish Fokker. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Come back soon.

It's good to hear from you guys. Ed, Thank you for mentioning the Super Glue. Saturating paper or cardstock with super glue prior to sending is natural to me, I forgot to mention that. I always keep super glue in three densities on my desk. I also use it for gluing, gap filling, and some part reinforcement. GIL, Soon that cockpit will be hidden in the fuselage and not much will be visible. So it is kind of like art for art's sake.

Wow, Gil has all of his airplane painted in camouflage, and I'm still sitting in the cockpit. It's time to hurry up. Here is the P11's instrument panel and the compass: To build a more appealing instrument panel I have used two flat panels. In addition, I have used stretch sprue to make dial rings and I have used Micro-Glaze to make a glass imitation. Here are the links that helped me do this: http://www.ratomodeling.com/articles/plastic_rings/ http://www.micromark.com/MICRO-GLAZE-15-OZ,7585.html Now, about the compass. Instruction suggests rolling up a tight cylinder out of a rectangular piece of paper and then file one end of it into the shape of a hemisphere. You can make this easier by cutting the piece of paper the way I have shown in the picture below, and then roll it up. You'll end up with a hemisphere shape almost without filing. Regards! Peter

Let me show you pictures of the cockpit equipped with some devices. I have decided to build this model using only the kit parts, yet I couldn't help it but build push rod for the Viet's starter from scratch (first small picture). Regards! Peter

Thank you Ed and Chris! Ed, As I stated in my first post, I covered the pages of my kit with a thin layer of a Nitrate Dope. So, the surface of the card is not longer bare paper. ND protects the paper before the water-based paint perfectly. Edge coloring doesn't matter because there you use your paint only in small amounts. if you have to paint bare paper for some reason, use only a moderate amount of the paint and nearly no water for dilution. You can almost compare this method to a dry-brushing technique. If you're still afraid of deformation, don't paint all your surface at ones. Apply the paint to a small area, wait until it dries and go ahead again. The first layer will appear uneven but the second will be OK. And of course I'm talking about the old fashion brushing, not airbrushing. Also remember, I'm building this model in the standard manner where the paint is only allowed to color the edges and hide the model construction seams that are not present on the original airplane. So it's relay minimum painting we're talking about. Regards! Peter

The headrest - For convenient glueing I have removed half of the card thickness here as well, but only from the bottom of the part with the leaf-like sections (first picture). After assembling I touched up the complete part with paint, gave it a layer of mid density SG, polished it and sprayed a layer of the clear matt acrylic. Finally, I have put everything in the cockpit and covered the cage with its top part. Regards! Peter

While Chris is practicing his 45 degree cuts, ;) let me show you my P.11c pilot's seat. First basic, the kit version of that seat: Thanks to my friends from Poland I have learned that the P.11c' seat was adapted to the back assembly parachute. So I have decided to make the upholstery based on what I have seen in the P.11c in the Krakow's museum. I have carved it from two pieces of cardboard glued together. The buttons are made of styrene rod inserted into the holes. The seat belts - I have made them more visually appealing by removing half of the card thickness from the strip and leaving the fasteners and the brackets in the original card thickness.

I assume you're talking about painting the edges. Well, there is the other alternative way. Don't paint them at all. Take a look at my picture with the coin in it. You can see the box as simple as your radio. Outside edges are cut at 45 degree angle. This method is kind of a shortcut ;) When you'll put the box together, the white edges will simply disappear. If you're using water-based glue, use minimum amount to eliminate deformation problem. Chris, to have any small part look good in macro, you have to work in macro :D. Here's the solution to that problem: http://www.micromark.com/OPTIVISOR-BINOCUL...IFIER,6711.html Anyway, It's good to see you in action. Peter