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It's Mosquito Season!


snelson

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Here's my latest project; Tamiya's 1/72 Mosquito B.IV. I built her for our club's bi-annual "challenge build"..this month's theme was "09," and the kit actually had decals for 109 Sq RAF. I had her more or less finished in time for last week's meeting, but decided to go back and tweak a few things I wasn't happy with (as usual, the result of trying to take some shortcuts to beat a deadline.)

 

The biggest issue was the wingtip lights. The kit parts didn't fit well, and had sink marks to boot, so I popped them out and redid the lights using my tried-and-true method (which I should have done in the first place..would have save myself a lot of time and headaches!) I cut some clear stock to fit the openings, drilled a hole in the edge and painted it to simulated the "coloured" light bulb, then painted the inner edges silver. Here are the "raw" parts grafted into place..

 

05-07-09002.jpg

 

..and here is the final result, after sanding to shape and polishing, and repainting the wingtips.

 

05-10-0904.jpg

 

And here's the finished product in its entirety. This is definately the last predominently black scheme I'll do for awhile. It's as unforgiving as natural metal! Hopefully my various boo-boos and touch-ups won't be as glaringly obvious to the judges as they are to me.

 

Cheers!

 

Steve Nelson

IPMS#30925

 

05-10-0901.jpg

 

05-10-0902.jpg

 

05-10-0903.jpg

 

 

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Nice work - thanks for sharing!

How did you get the 'clear' back to the lights after you filed/sanded them down?

I seem to always struggle with getting those kit parts to line up correctly.

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I got them down to the general shape with a course sanding stick, then finished them with 400 and then 600 grit sanpaper, and finally poished them with Blue Magic polishing compound (I've been using the same tube for some 15 years, and it's still almost full.) Then after everything was finished, I carefully brushed them with Future.

 

SN

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Thanks for the info.

I have some of the Novus products here that work well on clear parts. I will have to check out the Blue Magic.

 

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I've heard good things about the Novus as well..a lot of fellow club members swear by it. I just use the Blue Magic because it's what I have and it works well.

 

SN

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Excellent Mossie and in "The One True Scale" to boot.

 

When you use the Blue Magic as it has a silica base do you clean the area with anything after using it prior to painting.

 

Wayne :smiley23:

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I'll usually wipe down the area with alcohol to remove any residue from the polishing compound. In this case, I think I used a cotton swab dipped in mineral spirits, since the wings had already been painted with acrylics. Usually, I'm smart enough to do the wingtip lights before I paint the model (and some days, I can even tie my own shoes!)

 

SN

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