Ron Bell

I thought I had posted these as part of my walk down memory lane, but can't find them anywhere. Monogram did a series of models based on the Mk IV chassis in the 70's. They were state of the art kits when they came out and the later ones, like the Brumbar and Ostwind, were very nice. All painting is per instructions, so that scheme on the Mk IV is right OOTB, so don't blame me.

Here's a direct link. http://www.ipmscolum...izcon-galleries\ What's scary about this is I'm a computer dolt and Graham is a computer guru type and I got the direct link put up.

When I first open a jar of paint, I coat the threads of the jar with a thin layer of Vaseline. It keeps the paint from drying on the threads making it easy to open later and provides a better seal. Another hint to keep paints longer is to only use the manufacturer's suggested thinner. It that's water, fine. If they stipulate distilled water, don't use tap water, it's not distilled. If they say mineral spirits, don't use the new "Green" mineral spirits as they are not the same chemically. If they say use their thinner, it's best to use just that. And finally, if you haven't made yourself a paint stirrer for your Dremel, make one. So much of "saving" old paint is in just stirring it throughly and you may not be able to do that manually.

In '45 the main hull was Admiralty MIddle Sea Grey. Upper decks were Admiralty Dark Sea Grey. There was also a band/patch over the armor belt amidships on the hull of Admiralty Dark Sea Grey. I did a KG V recently and found some decent, although not great, pictures via a Google Image Search. I also had access to a couple other pretty good reference books and a resident Brit ship guy in my local club. Actually, for what she was designed for, the KG V was a decent ship. Short ranged, but then she was only suppose to operate in the North Sea. No A/C, but she was not intended for the tropics. Her guns were the match of anything out there and her protection was good. However, as you said, those quad turrets had problems in the beginning. Most were worked out in the Howe and Anson, but they were never free of glitches. The quad turrets saved the ship one whole turret, the weight of which along with all its incumbent machinery and added armor allowed her to meet the Washington Treaty limits.

Those Heller kits were pretty nice for the day and especially for the price. Much above Airfix or Matchbox. Their only rivals were the old Revell 1/72 fighter kits. Nice job, by the way, especially on the canopy framing.

Matchbox did a late model Beau with the radar nose and it's a typical Matchbox kit. Airfix did an earlier one that is actually not that bad of a kit considering it's age. I think Frog did one, but that was pretty toy-like. None of these have anything approaching an interior. This is the Airfix one.

When I get burned out, I go in the opposite direction than you are going. You've got a big, ambitious project taking lots of work, intensity and time. If I were you, and of course I'm not and you've got to do it your own way, I'd go out and get something simple. Maybe even completely different like a car or tank. Then, just using basic modeling techniques and minimal worry about research and accuracy, I'd do it up as best as I could right out of the box. The benefit of choosing something other than your normal "specialty' is that if it doesn't turn out so great, you won't fuss over it nearly so much or you may not even know it! In other words, I'd just have fun. Works for me, anyway.

NIce choice. No rigging required!

And before you apply them, give them a coat of some sort of "decal saver". After the bleaching, there's a chance you've also "dissolved" the carrier film and/or dried out the decal itself. In either case, it could shatter when put in water or applied to the model. There are some commercially produced products to prevent that, but I find a generous coat of gloss or dull coat works just as well.

Gil, That looks like it was one heck of a show! Great turn out and the quality is outstanding. Ya dun gud!

You read correctly. This will be the 40th consecutive year that Columbus, Ohio has hosted BlizzardCon, the traditional kick off of the contest season in Region 4. It's always a great show with good venders. Go to the Eddie Rickenbacker web site at http://www.ipmscolumbus.com/blizconn for details and entry forms. Hope to see you there.

I'd say out of plastic. The less between the decal and the UV rays, the better. Just make sure they stay dry. I did this one time and had them taped to a window. With a weather change the window "sweated" a bit and the decals snuggled down nicely to the window! Timing is hard to tell. Depends on the level of UV, the thickness of any glass between the decal and the sun, etc. etc. Also, if you have replacement windows, they may have UV dampeners in them, so it might not work at all. Just check them every day or so to see how they're doing. I've heard of people putting them under plant grow lights, which are UV sources, and I suppose you could even put them in a tanning bed!

OK, I had a break as I waited for paint to dry on the current main project, so I did a little more on the SE5A. The interplane and cabane struts are molded flat on one side. But, it was an easy fix as I just rounded off the edges and a little work with a flex-i-file and they looked acceptable. Both sets are molded in a "U" shape with a large flat part on one end to hold them at the correct angle to make mounting the top wing easier. I wanted to fill in the slot in the wings where these fit in, but I also wanted to maintain the correct angle. So I put the interplane struts in their slots and taped them in place with a narrow piece of tape at one end. Then I set the top wing in place and while holding it in one hand in the correct alingment, I applied Tenax to the untaped end of the part on the wing. I held it for the required 10 count and then set it down and braced if with whatever was handy to let it really set up. When set, I removed the top wing, took off the tape and then applied glue to that end. I then repeated the process for the cabane struts. Finally, putty was applied over the locator areas. I'll sand it smooth when it dries and texture it like the rest of the wing so it should look like just two struts sticking out of the wing. At least that's the plan.

First coat of mud? If so, no clear coat needed. Just slather on more if you need it. Don't be afraid to let it clump up. It will take longer to dry, but it will dry and look liked, well, clumped mud.

Jamesons, Gil, Jamesons. i know Bill Stout cured you of bourbon.

The safest way I know to apply "mud" is to use, well, mud. Go outside and collect about a cup of regular dirt. Try not to get a lot of organic matter, just the dirt. Either spread it out on a paper towel and let it completely dry out a few days or put it on a baking sheet and pop it in a low oven for a while. Check back every 15-20 minutes to see how it's doing. When its dry, put it in a metal or ceramic bowl and using a blunt ended instrument, grind it like in a mortar and pestle. When you've got it pretty fine, run it through a tea strainer to get out the pebbles and larger chunks. Now run what's remaining through a piece of fine mesh. How fine depends on your scale. What you wind up with is dust. I suppose, if you've got a supply of dust outside, start with that and skip right to the screening. I then mix it with a little water and some white glue to help it adhere. If you're nervous about that, leave out the white glue. That way if you don't like it when it dries, you can just wash it off. Add water until you get a watery paste mixture then glob it on where you want it. Note that even what looks like water when you're applying it, will dry like a thin coating of mud. Now, if you want 'wet' mud, you can tint the mixture with a dark brown water based paint and also add Future to the mix. The dark brown is obviously for color and the Future is for the glossy wet look. I'd advise trying the dry look before doing this just to see how it all works. I know there are lots of ways to do this, but I find this looks pretty real and the base material is free.

I'm doing this in between other projects, so progress will by by fits and starts. I replaced the kits cockpit coaming as it lacked definition. I used rod stock bent to shape. I added the elevators. There was a sink hole on the base on the fuselage part that needed filling, but the joint between the parts was pretty good and after texturing, it disappeared. I then added the lower wing. A little acrylic filler at the base on the top blended it in well. In adidtion, this is what the texturing looks like now. We'll see what it looks like after paint. However, on the bottom, the center section stuck up in the front by at least 1-2 mm and there were large gaps front and rear. I filled the gaps with shims and filler, However, I had to mill down the front with my Dremel to get it to blend in. And this is where I am at the moment.

At last year's nationals, I got inspired by Gil Hodges job on the old Aurora Sopwith Triplane. I don't do a lot of aircraft and certainly not in 1/48 scale, but I got a bagged Monogram SE5A to give it a shot. I always liked that aircraft, so why not. I'll do a bunch of photos as I move along so you can all watch this project unfold, for better or worse. I started by texturing all the fabric surfaces using the liquid glue stippling method. I know that in reality those surfaces were almost the same as the wood ones, but I just like the look of it being different. With primer and all the other coats of paint and clears, it should look ok. After coming down from the high of all the glue fumes, I cleaned up the inside of the fuselage. It was actually pretty good with only one release pin mark to fill. The kit has no interior to speak of, so I was off to the races on that. These photos show me building up the framework and basics of the interior. After a search on the internet that yielded very conflicting pictures of what the seat looked like, I found that the kit seat, when cleaned up and thinned down, looked like one of the versions I found. Then I did a basic instrument panel for the pilot to stare at. Now all this was ready for paint. With that done, I glued the fuselage halves together and attended to that seam. More to come as I move along.

That was probably tedious to mask, but the result looks very nice indeed.

Very clean finish. Nicely done.

Welcome back and I'm glad it was an Airfix kit that did it. I have a real soft spot in my heart (head??) for Airfix kits.

A good job on a nice kit of a beautiful aircraft.

Interesting that 8% of our visitors are from outside the US. I'm sure some of that is from service people overseas, but some of it must be from non-US types as well.

Thanks, Dave. It's fine now.

Dave, I must be getting old, but that type is so small I cannot make it out. Without the pictures, it would have been a blur of tiny pixels.