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Post by dewobz on Nov 22, 2012 15:19:43 GMT 12
Today I received a copy of "A Long Patrol" an illustrated history of No.1 Squadron RNZAF by James Sanders. On page 50 is a lovely half-page B&W photo of a PV-1 cockpit showing the instrument panel and pedestal which confirms the starboard pedals and stick are not present. The pedestal appears to be all black with lots more instruments than the kitset's supposedly interior green one. You can't actually see the jump seat but I guess it is there.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Nov 22, 2012 15:53:16 GMT 12
Regarding that book Wally, enjoy the excellent photos, ignore a great deal of the text, it is largely wrong for the prewar and WWII era.
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Post by Calum on Dec 18, 2012 21:55:42 GMT 12
Some more progress One of the issues with this kit is the scratches in the cockpit and lower glazings. It seems to have been ignored by many reviewers but it's a real disappointment IMHO. I spent a hour or so polishing it out with various Tamiya Compounds and micro mesh. Then I dipped the clear parts in Future and set them aside for a week to dry. I decided to add some sun screen curtains to the overhead. These were made from paper towel and wire. I shamelessly stole this from this build Fit of the cockpit glazing was So so. I found the glazing about 1-1.5mm to narrow. I positioned the glazing in the middle and then sanded the edges of the kit to try and flare it into the width of the glazing. The glazing was also a bit tall, but that was probably due to be sanding a little to much material off the top when eliminating the seams. I took a little of the bottom of the glazing by sanding on on my glass work surface and built the top a little with magi sculp (white putty on the image above) The Fit on the lower gunners position was perfect though Once I was happy I glued the clear parts, including the nose in with Gator Glue. Prior fitting the guns I drilled the barrels out. The fit of the insert for the mid upper turret is also excellent. And the way the turret goes together is quite neat. But I still rather have the insert fitted, but not the turret parts prior to painting. I still mulling over how to achieve this I've weathered up the bomb bay a bit. The detail is quite nice as it is I just added a few random stencils. I had also rubbed down a bit of the raised panel on the underside. I decided to remove it completely and replace it with a bit of 0.005 thou card
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Post by baz62 on Dec 19, 2012 11:37:42 GMT 12
wow nice Calum! Maybe I should mail you my TBF kit and you can do it for me and then I dont have to listen to Anthony go on about me not making it!! Look forward to next post of progress mate!
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Post by Dave Homewood on Dec 20, 2012 0:30:31 GMT 12
Great progress Calum.
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Post by agalbraith on Dec 20, 2012 6:54:29 GMT 12
Awesome work and attention to detail Calum...once again a masterpiece in the making! Really been enjoying following this as Baz seems like he will never do his Avenger...... Thanks for the inspiration Cheers Anthony
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Post by Calum on Jan 30, 2013 20:37:52 GMT 12
Update time. All of this work was finished last year and I did intend to update whilist I was on holiday.. but I got side tracked with something else. As I was working on fitting the LSM open cowl flaps I decided I wasn't entirely happy with them. The resin wasn't quite as nice as I hoped, but as I couldn't "fix" it, I decided to press on . I was also unhappy with the exhausts as they didn't look quite right, they looked way to big nothing like the kit parts. I checked out some references for the RNZAF aircraft and realised that their exhausts are oval, not round as the LSM ones are. I had also noticed that the RNZAF used the closed wheel hubs , as opposed to the open ones I'd bought from LSM. This is yet another example of me not doing another research before opening the wallet. Anyway, there was enough unhappiness that I headed off to Ultracast for some new wheels and exhausts Here you can see the difference in exhausts Whilst perusing Ultracast I stumbled across the very nice Vector corrected cowl set. It was quite reasonably priced so into the bin it went, after all I was doing a large order for some club mates so post was free When this arrived I was unsure how to remove the large plugs from the front of the cowls. Coincidently there was post on Hyperscale that day that shed some light on the method. You just scribe/cut on the inside of the cowls, as this area is cast very thinly. Once it's off you just clean up with some sand paper wrapped in a roll. It was quite simple in the end. The Vector set has some awesome detail in the open cowls.. Most of it will be hidden though. The set also has replacement parts for the area aft of the open cowls. As I'd assembled the nacelles these had to come off. The rasor saw made quick work of this. The fit of these wasn't to bad. although a bit of sanding was needed to smooth things out. Whilst waiting for the resin to arrive I decided to "wire the engine using 0.020" safety wire Not entirely accurate but it looks effective IMHO. Before wiring I painted the engine with Alclad . Detail paint was done with a brush and Vallejo acrylics and a Tamiya black enamel wash was applied. There was quite of bit of finagling needed to get the cowls flaps and cowls fitted ensuring they were square and correctly aligned. A few applications of Alcald primer and Mr Surfacer were used to fill some imperfections and scratches on the cowl. As I'd lost of bit of the raised panel on the tail I sanded it entirely flush and replaced it with some 0.005 thou card Once this was done I sprayed the whole thing in Mr Surfacer and set it aside to dry
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Post by baz62 on Jan 30, 2013 20:44:59 GMT 12
Very nice work Calum Question: In the last photo, what is the small tank in each (forward of the?) undercarriage bay? Fuel tank? Oil tank?
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Post by Calum on Jan 30, 2013 20:57:52 GMT 12
Cheers Baz
No idea, but I'd guess an oil tank.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Feb 2, 2013 22:06:07 GMT 12
This is looking great Calum.
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Post by Calum on Feb 3, 2013 8:43:04 GMT 12
Into the paint shop. I've decided that NZ4540 is the aircraft I'm going to depict. There are several reasons for this, firstly it is one of the aircraft that retained its fuselage art when on operations, secondly it has a couple of distinct patches and splotches on the rear fuselage and tail which IMHO add interest, and finally it was operated by No 2 Sqn, which I serviced in when I was in the RNZAF. There are a 3 photos of NZ4540 being broken up in the Ventura Publications "Pacific Twins" book, which allowed me to confirm the patches and that it was quite weathered when it was broken up in March 1944. The aircraft is in the 3 tone USN Scheme of Non-Specular Sea Blue (upper fuselages and wing leading edges), Semi gloss sea blue (upper wings and upper tail plane), Intermediate blue fuselage sides and tail surfaces and non spectacular white lower surfaces. My problem with USN schemes is that in 1/48 Sea Blue straight out of the bottle is almost black. The photos of NZ4540 show the sea blue darker than the intermediate blue, but the contrast is nowhere as dark as using Sea Blue direct from the bottle would appear on my model. So as usual I went with my eye and chose colours I could live with. I like the Mr Color Lacquer paints for spraying, although the lighter colours can be a bit tricky to apply. I also like the Tamiya AS spray cans. These spray beautifully and it's a cheap way to buy paint. Although the upper wings and fuselage are supposed to be the same colour but with different gloss levels, in all the images I viewed, they looked the same. I decided to try and do the same. The base colour for the upper surfaces was Tamiya AS8 "Navy Blue" decanted and mixed with a touch of Mr Color #311 FS36222 to lighten it. This was applied first. Using various blues and blacks I applied random marks and shading to this area. The leading edges are supposed to be the same as the upper fuselage. But again in the images I viewed the leading edges looked considerably lightly than the wings and upper fuselage. I used Mr Color H72 intermediate blue to simulate this. Next was Mr Color 366 Intermediate blue which was applied freehand with my Sparmax airbrush to the fuselage. This intermediate blue comes from Mr Colors USN Navy color set, and is quite different hue to H72, which is also intermediate blue. Again, using blues and greys, I applied some shading, mottling, and marks. Next were the lower surfaces. Rather than white I used a grey, Mr Color #311 FS36222. In my opinion white of this much would look to stark This is one the colours that is hard to apply and I was having trouble. So I switched to the Mr Hobby (Aqueous) version of this colour. I used some thinned darker greys to show weathering. Finally I applied the patches to the tail. The decal sheet and Pacific Twins show this a light grey and from the photos it impossible to tell so I went with their recommendation. I used Mr Color # 315 FS16440, again applied freehand
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Post by Dave Homewood on Feb 3, 2013 9:17:57 GMT 12
Great stuff!
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Post by dewobz on Feb 4, 2013 13:14:21 GMT 12
Yep, awesome! Looking forward to seeing more.
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Post by agalbraith on Feb 4, 2013 21:25:30 GMT 12
Awesome work so far Calum! Love the paint.
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Post by Mustang51 on Feb 6, 2013 16:25:24 GMT 12
Callum, from my recollection of the gill cowls on our PV-1 and also the spares we had from PV-2 before our Trans-Pacific flight the insides of the gill cowls were green chromate colour. I have also seen them plain metal and - after use, with lots of oil.......
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Post by Calum on Feb 6, 2013 22:20:42 GMT 12
Thanks Gents.
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Post by Calum on Feb 6, 2013 22:23:14 GMT 12
Onto the gloss coat. As usual it was 2 coats, a day apart of Tamiya X22 Clear thinned with Lacquer thinners. The lacquer thinners I'm using at the moment makes the X22 go cloudy but this doesn't affect the finish. I usually give the first coat 8-12 hours to dry before giving it a light wet sand with mirromesh 1200. After that I give it a wipe with a damp rag to clean of the dust and once dry shoot another coat of X22. After letting this dry and harden for 5 days it was onto the decals.... I wasn't happy with Zotz's depiction of the upper roundel for NZ4540. The Ventura Publications "Pacific Twins" book as an image of the upper wing of NZ4540. To me, the roundel in the image is quite faded, but not as light as Zotz depict. I also think the Zotz roundel is to large compared to the on in the book. Of course I could be completely wrong. I have all 3 decal sheets (as far as I know) that feature 1/48 RNZAF Venturas but as I discovered, each have slightly different sizes for the upper decals, plus there are actually different "versions" of the roundels. None of which I deemed suitable (again I could be completely off base here). I did consider a Avenger rounder for the old Aeromaster sheet but it has the blue strip around the white. Although I could cut it off I decided to save that for the Avenger. So I decided that I'd give making a mask and painting the roundel. I had a set of dividers , some wad punches and a circle cutter. First I cut the circle the size of the roundel, I actually went through several different sizes until I was happy. To try and get it in the right spot I actually placed the cut circle on the wing first, then I placed the mask around it and removed the circle. Once happy I painted the circle using Mr Color #72 Intermediate Blue. Whilst waiting for the blue to dry I used the circle cutter to cut the outer edge of the white ring. The roundel mask with the big hole was applied to the wing. Using a wad punch I punched out a mask for the inner blue ring and then put this into the appropriate position (sorry no photos so I hope this makes sense). I then airbrushed the white ring using Tamiya flat white. To apply the white stripes I worked out what size I wanted and cut a rectangle out of Tamiya tape. This was applied across the entire roundel and then I masked around it. This helped to ensure I got the proportions the same on both wings. Once masked I removed the rectangular strip and airbrushed the white. All the masks, except the big circle was removed. This was left to touch up some of the edges with the dark blue of the wing. Once masks were removed I wasn't entirely happy with the outer edge of the white. The diameter of this was as small as the circle cutter could cut and I didn't get as good an edge as I'd hoped. I gave the roundel a light sand with a 4000 micromesh pad to remove the ridges. Luckily I had a wad cutter slightly smaller in diameter than the ring (3/8 IIRC), so I cut 2 masks, stuck them over the centre of the roundel. A quick burst with the airbrush and I was happy. The next challenge will be simulating the faded numbers on the tail....
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Post by mstokes on Feb 6, 2013 22:39:11 GMT 12
Great work Calum! Gee those markings look great and the finish without decal film, silvering and other issues means this will have a lovely finish. Hope to see it in a local show here some time.
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Post by flyjoe180 on Feb 8, 2013 9:30:55 GMT 12
Fantastic work Calum.
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Post by dewobz on Feb 13, 2013 16:02:40 GMT 12
Yep, great work mate, as always. This painting of national insignia is an excellent idea if you can manage it, giving scope for exact size and colour choice. Just a note for those without the skills or equipment, the upper wing roundel and bar for WW2 RNZAF Avengers is a very close match - it might be ever so slightly too large - and does not have blue bordered bars. I used Ventura decals Avenger upper wing roundel-bars on my NZ4540(43) along with their PV-1 Ventura roundels elsewhere and the Zotz artwork. Looking forward to seeing more of your great build. Cheers, Wally.
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