Landlubber Mike

Thanks Joe! After painting, I used Vallejo's acrylic washes which I don't think need to go down on a gloss coat as they aren't enamel or oil based. I dry brushed a few highlights, but didn't seal with a flat coat. I ended up gluing in the cockpit last night so might just skip that step. Good to know that I should do that in the future though. If the cockpit (or other part of the model) is painted a metallic color, would you still spray a flat coat? These planes were painted aluminum, so to seal the exterior after painting, I was thinking of spraying with a final semi-gloss or satin clear coat. Matt might dull the aluminum too much, and on the other hand, I'm thinking that gloss would be too shiny. Semi-gloss/satin might be just right.

Thanks guys, really appreciate the nice words and advice. In terms of the cockpit interior itself (seat, panels, etc.), do you guys add a clear coat to it? It's not going to be handled, and large decals won't be applied. Just wasn't sure if all parts of a model that are exposed should be clear-coated in some way.

Here's a question - do you guys put a clear coat on your cockpits? Since it won't be handled, and I don't need to change from a flat to a gloss or vice versa, I'm not sure how necessary it is. But, thought I'd ask what you guys do.

Little update here. Finally finished the cockpit and am pretty happy with the way things came out. The one thing I'm not as happy with is how the cockpit instrument panel came out. The Eduard aftermarket had you add a film (like a translucent sheet printed with the dials and gauges) to the piece, and then add a brass face on top that had holes for the dials and gauges to theoretically let the printed film show through. I ended up painting the plastic part silver to help let the dials show up on the film, but it's all pretty dark. The brass face for the instrument panel doesn't really have raised details for the gauges, so I didn't try dry brushing it. The dials do look a little glossy relative to the rest of the panel, so you can tell there are gauges there - you just can't see the details. It would probably be impossible to see much anyway when the cockpit is dropped into the fuselage, so I'm not too bothered. I might drop some white or silverpoint into the dials, we'll see. I used Vallejo's Metal Color line for the cockpit, and really like it. I first put down Vallejo gloss black primer per the instructions, and then shot the metal color after about 24 hours to ensure that the primer had dried and cured. The Metal Color is almost like water and has great coverage and metal effect - and it cleans very quickly from running water through the airbrush at the end. For the cockpit, I used Duralinum which is a touch darker than Aluminum. I figured I would use different shades in different sections of the models. I also started on the engines, which i painted using Vallejo's Metal Color White Aluminum. The engines came out absolutely fantastic I think. The kit parts have a lot of very fine detail, and the paint went on perfectly. First picture below is after white aluminum was used, and the second is after using Vallejo black wash to help bring out the details. The engine on the left is the F3F-1 engine - the one on the right is the F3F-2 engine. Big change in design and size/power. The F3F-1 used a Pratt & Whitney Twin Wasp Jr. 14-cylinder 650HP engine, while the F3F-2 used a Wright Cyclone 9-cylinder 950HP engine.

Looks amazing - fantastic work! Looking forward to your upcoming project too

That’s looking really nice. Great job!

Nice job Popeye - coming along great! Wishing you the best on the recovery. Get well soon my friend.

I love where you're going with this OC - very nice job! I'm very fond of dioramas as I think they really bring to life the modeled subject.

Last year I contacted Jotika as I bought a Victory kit off eBay that had been barely started, so I needed some of the bulkhead and other sheets to complete the kit. I corresponded with John Wright directly at his johnwright@jotika-ltd.com and had no problems. I don't know how things are over there, but maybe they are still in lockdown over corona? Did you try calling him?

I bought a knock off on eBay. Haven't used it yet, but it seemed pretty good for about 1/4 of the price.

I was worried about that too. I've been using Tamiya rattle cans for paint and they tend to spit which annoys the hell out of me. I have to wait for it to dry, sand, and then cross my fingers and try again. On the F4B-4 and P-6E builds (linked in my signature) I was wondering if I would have a similar issue but everything worked perfect. Now maybe it spit blobs but you can't notice them because it's a clear coat, but again, I was super impressed by the finish and bought a can of semi and gloss that just arrived today.

Agree about Paul - he helped me replace some cracked items on a couple of Pocher kits I own, and charged me very fair prices. His DVDs also have a kit inventory section that clearly show in pictures what a complete kit should contain. Helps a lot when looking at items up for auction.

Nice work! Love the art work and color schemes on these planes.

I used this (the matte version) on some recent 1/72 plane models I completed and was really impressed by it. They come in gloss, semi-gloss, and matte. Goes on really thin and does a nice job.

What do you think of the kit so far? I just got an email that they are taking pre-orders on Pocher's latest Ducati.

Thanks Carl, this is very helpful! Really appreciate it - things to think about

My pics were off the internet. The Smithsonian opened a new Air and Space Museum out near Dulles airport - it's a huge facility with tons of planes including one of the Space Shuttles. Well worth it if you are out here. Now that I'm modeling planes, I'll have to go back and take detail pictures to help with builds. For example, I have the Zoukei-Mura Dornier Do-335 kit in the stash. I believe that ZM came to the Smithsonian to study the plane to create their kit.

Ha, I have been! I'm just very much a novice (and a slow builder at that) so have been a little reluctant to post my work. 🙈 I live not too far from the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum - will need to head back out there and take more detailed pictures of the planes they have there. The one out near Dulles Airport is fantastic.

Bob, keep an eye on eBay. Prices right now are pretty outrageous for these kits. Only a few months ago, however, there were tons popping up for auction that went for about a third of some of the prices you are seeing now. On the lower end, I've seen prices for the Fiat around $300, Alfa Romeos (except for the rare ones like the Coupe Elegant and Muletto which go closer to $1,000) go in the high $300s to mid $400s depending on kit, and the Mercedes a little more than the Alfas. You're looking at low $500s for the Rolls Sedanca, a few hundred more for the Torpedo Cabriolet, and the Ambassador seems to run closer to $1,000. I haven't been as interested in the Bugatti so haven't been following them closely, but they are up there in the Rolls category in terms of pricing. The Paul Koos DVDs are well worth the cost, whatever kit you get. Very well done with hundreds, if not thousands, of pictures, along with build tips, options for improvements, etc.

Wow, that's very well done. I bet 3D printing will revolutionize the model industry. The detail you can get is fantastic, and my guess is that you don't have to worry about molds and the like.

Amazing work Grant! Those dials look fantastic. Love the real wood effect. I've got the Fiat and one of the Rolls Royce kits on the shelf alongside this one, and I've been considering using real wood in place of the kit "wood" parts. Nothing beats real wood! The Vallejo metal paints look very rich. I'm using them for the first time on my F3F builds. If I get half the effect that you are getting I will be a happy camper.

You just said what I have been trying to say much clearer and in fewer words It's the monochromatic effect that I'm trying to avoid. On silver cars, I saw one guy use a black marker in the door and panel lines to good effect. I just wonder if that will be too much against the dark yellow I'm using now. The other interesting thing is that many car modelers don't seem to try to add depth and highlights to the interior. Things like seats have lots of crevices, but they just shoot it with a color and that's that. Looks very toylike to me, but at this scale, I'm wondering what can be done. I'll just play around with things and see what happens. I have to remind myself that this was an inexpensive kit to give me experience. It's not like I'm starting out the gate with a Pocher kit or anything.

You've gotten some really great advice on here. A couple of other things I would add that just came to mind: 1. The one thing I liked about the Sherline is that their mills are very nice and the great thing is that the accessories are generally interchangeable between the lathe and mill (which leads to some cost savings). If you think you might be in the market for a mill, it might make sense to get the same manufacturer so that you can share accessories. For example, if you want a digital readout box, you can share the same box between the mill and the lathe which will save you some money. 2. I think someone may have mentioned this, but think about whether you want to work in metric or imperial. At least with Sherline, you can't share a DRO box between two different standards. I made the mistake years ago of buying a used imperial mill and metric lathe off eBay. When I went to buy a DRO package a year later, I had to convert at least one of them to the other standard which would require an expensive threadscrew and wheel upgrade that was like half the cost of a new machine. Since I wanted to switch to metric, I just went ahead and sold the mill and bought a new one (slightly bigger, with wider table, taller column, and hi-speed wheels) and added the DRO package. Then I got into pen turning, and realized the 8" lathe wasn't going to allow me to turn longer pieces because the chucks were taking up too much room. So, I sold that one and upgraded to the longer bed lathe. Later on I decided to start turning larger diameter wood projects, but was limited by the height of the lathe so ended up getting the riser block set. I say all this so you can learn from my mistakes Also to show you that the Sherline are very versatile with all the accessories. It might be hard to forecast exactly what you will need for the next decade plus when deciding on packages as your interests may change (mine certainly have), but buying a package of accessories will certainly save you money. If I remember correctly, the "A" package pretty much should be considered at a minimum as it includes a chuck which is fairly expensive if you buy separately. 3. Glad Roger mentioned the lathe with milling column option. Depending on how often you will be using a mill or lathe, that might be a very good option to go with. I've barely used my mill thus far, but have used the lathe a lot on turning projects (non-ship model projects). If I had to start all over again, I'd strongly consider that option to save on cost and bench space. Start with the lathe, and then if you want to get into milling operations, consider whether you can live with the milling column attachment (which from what I've read is a pretty quick adjustment to the lathe) -- or if switching between milling and lathe work will be a pain, get a stand-alone mill. My problem was I started with the mill, then upgraded the mill for the DRO. 4. Safety is definitely a must for the lathe. Not only eye protection, but be very careful of clothes, hair, etc. getting caught. My first lathe was the Proxxon DB250 mini lathe. I was turning a mast for my first ship, and finishing it with steel wool. Well, I got the steel wool too close to the spinning headstock and it pulled the wool into it. Thankfully, I immediately let go but it taught me a good lesson. My hair is short, but I always wear short sleeves and avoid using cloth or anything similar around the lathe. When I cover the lathe bed, I use paper towels instead. I also make sure that my family knows not to disturb me when I have my power tools running as a small lapse in concentration can be disastrous. Also, make sure that chucks are installed tightly. For some reason I had a chuck come off the spindle spinning at 2000+ RPM. Thankfully it didn't fly off, but just sort of spun off the headstock and dropped onto the bench. When it hit the floor, it was still spinning like a top. Was a good learning experience for me to continually check that things like jaw chucks - which are screwed onto the head or tail stock and are not secured by a drawbolt - remain tightly screwed on during the turning process. Learning by watching videos online is fine, but I have to say, you see people on YouTube doing really stupid, unsafe things. Whenever I watch those videos, I already try to read the comments as people will point out if the person was doing something not in a safe manner.

Thanks Carl! Not sure if I'm going to weather it per se (e.g., add rust and grime). I'm more thinking about how to accent the deeper areas with shading and highlights - for example, the door edges typically look "black" when you look at a car, but solid black might be too stark on a model. I've seen some people use a black pen or marker, or panel wash, to add depth to areas like the door. Others I've seen deepen the recessed areas by scribing them, which adds more natural depth and do not use paint, etc. Part of that seems to depend on how in scale the panel lines are. This is kind of the problem I have with paint on model ships. Areas are typically painted without shading and highlighting for a more "plastic" look, yet the same model has natural wood which is oiled or finished which has natural "shading and highlighting." So juxtaposing the two together seems a bit schizophrenic. Sorry to go back and forth on this. I'll just play around with it and figure things out as I go along. I'm just not very artistic

I am coming to the same conclusion after building a much less complicated cockpit on my F3F models. But, was fun trying to prove to myself that I could do it.