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ccoyle
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Everything posted by ccoyle
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I used to only build in 1/72 scale when I was a kid, but between my aging eyes, being accustomed to working in 1/33 scale for nearly two decades now, and seeing your hand in the picture for scale, my first thought was, "Dang, that's little!" -
Normally I only do edge coloring. The quality of the graphic artwork varies widely among kits, from no weathering at all to photo-realistic artwork. Some designers color their own models, while other employ the talents of graphic artists. The team of Andrzej Halinski (designer) and Marcin Dworzecki (artist) is one well-known example. Some of the best artwork I have seen is done by Luis P. Igualada, whose models are available as downloads from ecardmodels.com. I have learned a few interesting tidbits about the 109 during the course of this project. If you zoom in on my last photo in post #28, you can see that each of the two parts of the stabilizer fairing has three small, red tic marks. Those marks are tail plane incidence indicators. The 109 had a variable incidence tail plane, which obviated the need for elevator trim tabs. Those Golden Age aeronautical engineers were extremely clever fellows!
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Congratulations on finishing a stunning model!
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Welcome aboard, Nick, from the author of the post you referenced! As I wrote in that post, it is not unheard of for a newcomer to our hobby to finish a project on the order of Indy, but it is rare. Nevertheless, you sound like you are well aware of the challenge ahead, and you will find as much help as you need here at MSW. Good luck on your project! P.S. You'll see in their signatures that many of our members also dabble in modeling subjects other than ships!
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A small bit of progress. The vertical stabilizer is now skinned and glued to the last fuselage segment. I will complete the entire empennage before permanently attaching this assembly to the rest of the fuselage.
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Yeah, this happens with a lot of my projects, too!
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- Maine Peapod
- Midwest Products
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Greg does great research.
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The H had a redesigned fuselage, giving it a chunky look compared to the refined lines of the D. If you see a 'D', and it just doesn't look quite 'right', it's probably an H.
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As I stated in post #1, one of the things I hoped to accomplish with this model was to avoid some of the mistakes I made during my E-4 build. One of those mistakes was not getting the vertical stabilizer perfectly vertical, as the name suggests it should be. To correct that, I went about constructing the aft fuselage slightly differently this time around. First, here's the last fuselage piece and the stabilizer framing. Let's zoom in a little closer. The part I've circled is where the difference is. As you can see, there's two bulkheads glued together there. The left-hand one is the aft bulkhead of the fuselage section. On the E-4, I glued that bulkhead into the fuselage and afterwards attached the stabilizer, essentially creating a dreaded butt joint (shudder!). This time, I glued that bulkhead to the stabilizer before it gets glued into the fuselage. This allowed me to perfectly align the two bulkheads; there are tic marks on the fuselage bulkhead that will make plugging it correctly within the fuselage a fairly straightforward process. That should produce a nicely vertical stabilizer. That's all for now!
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I agree, in this instance, given the popularity of the subject and the fact that fans of Surprise have been waiting for over two decades for this announcement. I suspect such a thread will attract a lot of attention. I'd be happy to split the relevant posts off into a new topic for you, @chris watton.
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I'm quite sure that this announcement will spark waves of rapture throughout the period ship modeling world!
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Chris Watton designed both kits. The Caldercraft version is one of his earliest efforts -- the Vanguard kit is light years ahead of it in terms of design. That said, the Caldercraft kit is very buildable and can easily be super-detailed. I built it as my second POB kit. It's worth a crack.
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If you have enough deck planking to replace those pieces, I'd do that, but wait until after you are sufficiently far along in the build to remove the bulwark extensions first.
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The nose is all skinned. Here's the top with the machine gun channels added. And the bottom, with the various lumpy, bumpy fairings. I have one more lumpy, bumpy 109 in my stash, a T-2. The others are F and G variants, which had a redesigned forward fuselage that streamlined the aircraft by eliminating the various lumpy bits. Construction will now transition to the rear fuselage!
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I'm thankful that my college major only required one semester of calculus. Graphing calculators had just come on the market, but our instructor was a monk and an old-school math guy who insisted on doing all of his calculations by hand (but, fortunately, he didn't require us to do likewise). For me, calc was one of those skills that I never had to make use of after college 😬. Mind you, I'm thankful for all the folks who do need it and know how to use it!
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I know I said this build would probably slow down a bit, but darn it, it just goes together so well that I can't drag myself away from it! Here's the finished oil cooler scoop and the next skin section. The oil cooler inlet is a real booger to shape properly, and this was true on the E-4 as well. The best I can say about this effort is that it doesn't look worse than the E-4's. I do think the yellow on the E-4 did a better job of hiding the workmanship than the light blue RLM 76 on this kit. I do like that this camouflage pattern is great at obscuring tiny seam imperfections. The new paint pens have helped in this regard, too. You can see there's a seam right down the middle of the JG 27 unit badge. Here's how it looks with the next skin section added. The pens were very helpful in patching up that particular item.
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Some nose progress. We start by adding the interior of the oil cooler air intake. The fuselage skin that surrounds the intake is then added. And then the skin between that piece and the cockpit section is added.
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This model is a film prop, but from which film?
ccoyle replied to MadisonU6's topic in New member Introductions
Hi, Madison, and welcome to MSW. I'm no expert on old models, movie props or otherwise, but your post raises a few questions: How do you know this is a movie prop? From whom did you acquire the model? Did they know it was a movie prop? If so, how did they know? Without some hints about the model's provenance, I doubt there's anyone in our ranks who can fill in the missing details. Kind regards, -
Yeah, that's the first I've ever heard of a manufacturer doing that for a customer. Can't beat that for customer service! I wonder if Chris'd do the same thing for anyone building HMS Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis? 🤔
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- vanguard models
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Model Expo has sales coming and going all the time. Never pay MSRP for one of their kits -- it'll go on sale sooner or later. This being October, they'll probably be offering "spook-tacular savings" before long.
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