Lt. Biggles

So does any one know how to get the landing gear clipped into place? I went for a dry fit but it’s too tight. And everything is so delicate it’s tough to get a good amount of force. I used my tweezers and gripped it but I could feel the wings flexing and creaking and I think I’d rip the wings off before the it clips into place. It’s an important join as it’s important it’s really strong but I’m abit stuck and crushing my undercarriage legs would be a real shame with how much work I’ve put into building them. Any tips would be really appreciated

Added the steel part around the exhaust. And chipped up the black lines abit so they aren’t perfectly new. I’ll let it sit for a few days and cure well and on Monday will add on the yellow nose and tail. Also the olive drab anti glare bit and see how it looks.

Thanks for the reminder, when I got the super fine silver and duralumin I also got some super iron just for that part. I’ve heard the colour can be hard to tell apart easily so I’ll paint it black underneath and so a very thin coat until it looks right. I'm still wondering if the silver paint had too much white and needs toning down back to be abit more silvery. At some angles it’s great at other angles it’s quite a late contrast! But I’m not sure. added the black stripes. Under the main wing strips I’ve got some chipping fluid. So I’ll roughen those up shortly

He has some great stuff! Amazing info! To me the D model is the prettiest! But those super prop planes are pretty much as fast as you can go with a prop and they weren’t that far after flying was invented really!!

First time trying mr, Color standard lacquer paints. Only thing (apart from the smell) is how thick they are! Normally drop paint from a tooth pick to get ratios. 4 drops of this with one drop of that so I get the same colour each time. No way with these paints! Just had to scoop paint out and good luck to me to try match it again! painted the wings with silver and a good dashing of white. If I could have controlled the colours more maybe I’d have added less white. But it’s ok. Ailerons aren’t painted so still black. They need to be aluminium but I forgot about them when doing the fuselage! It’s amazing how hard it is to photograph! A small change in angle is a whole new look! And again outside in the sun. I’m afraid you will never really know what this plane looks like in real life! Ailerons and flaps to paint and the yellow once the paint has had a good while to dry. Yellow is hard so will probably be done over a good few hours to build it up to the right thickness

That was a really interesting watch! Amazing how different altitudes affect the two aircraft!

Some great aero discussions going on! I do enjoy them! I’d love to have had a fly in an F-4! Unfortunately just civilian planes except I once flew a Harvard but I don't class them as a warbird but still fun doing buzz and breaks! One of our aircraft had leading edge vortex generators and according to the flight manual if more than 3 were missing the stall speed was a good bit higher. I've always enjoyed the theory and how quickly things get complex! While digesting it all I filled in the panel lines on the wings. And also bit the bullet and gave the fuselage its coat of aluminium. I was a bit nervous and was starting to delay for no reason apart from being scared of ruining the whole thing. It’s really hard to take a good pic of it. But I think it does the job. once dry I’ll paint the wings with silver mixed with a touch of gloss white to make the difference more noticeable and also nose and tail yellow. Then the next step starts… how to weather… I’m assuming you can’t do oil washes over a nmf! Another part to learn! I don’t want to weather it much, just make it dulled down in an oxidised way.

Is it!? 😬 what gave it away as being a H model? To me it looks identical to a D model… but that’s only because I can only tell mustangs apart because the earlier ones didn’t have a bubble canopy! After that I’m clueless haha! I had a good look after reading your reply and all I could see was the battery behind the pilot looks slightly different?

Thanks for the in-depth reply! I didn’t know they feed compressed air over the leading edge of the wing to reenergise the airflow and delay separation. That’s pretty complex for a 1940s plane! I just thought a laminar flow aerofoil was as smooth as possible to keep the flow laminar for as long as possible. Have you got any links to how they piped the compressed air and released it? It would be really interesting to learn about! That they were able to delay the separation point until 40% chord is pretty impressive. Here are the plans I had seen with regards to the laminar section being puttied and smoothed out. And below that is a pic of my model with the wings having their panel lines which the real plane just didnt have and all the pictures I’ve seen shows a very smooth wing surface. I was just on the fence if I should fill in the panel lines and also make my wing laminar too. As this shows my wings covered in panel lines

I’ve a plan after my final tests. I’ll paint it gloss black, polish it and from there apply the super metallic 2 paints. It is all primed and filled and given the first few coats of gloss black. I’ll give it some time and then do another coat before sanding it smooth and then polishing with Tamiya finishing polish. In my tests I can’t get it fully mirror like, but then I think it would need a wax or something to get that. I can get it pretty smooth though where the reflection is not bad and colours are pretty clear. I just found in my tests it didn’t really change the colour so much, but it did give it abit more depth of shine than from polished grey primer. Keeping the coats really thin to try limit the amount of polishing needed at the end! And because the wings are painted a silver and not nmf they won’t get a full black coat it will just be this polished. Also black is a really hard colour for me to air brush, always has been! It always speckles! But nato black… no issues! Im still debating if I fill in the wings with filler like the real one. I’ve a drawing of what panels to fill but not sure yet!

Thanks mate! You are right, there are many opinions out there. ill do one last round of tests using gloss black polished vs Matt grey polished and choose from there I think. I know for sure a super smooth surface is a real must. Thanks again for the good advice

I’m looking forward to how your nmf comes out! Any things you learn be sure to let us know! I’m just waiting on some fine polishing compound to try get mine as smooth as possible! Do you think your black base will change the final effect much? good luck with the painting!

Stage 2 of my NMF tests have been done. I wet sanded the mules primer smooth with my 3000 grit sponge paper and on one part did a heavy wet coat which seemed to get a touch of orange peel. And on the other side I did a few light coats. Which seemed to work well. Here is the panel with light coats. (The panel is about 2cm long or just under an inch) I think instead of a 1:1 paint to thinner ratio next I’ll do 1:2 ratio or at least 1.5 thinner to 1 part paint. Thin coats are the way to go. Also the other day I noticed my airbrush needle was bent on the tip! So that might or might not affect my already $20 airbrush I’ve been using! I straightened it as best I could. so I think I’m getting a grasp of the painting techniques and so now have to decide if a gloss underneath is needed. And if so why can’t I just use Tamiya x22 gloss clear over the polished primer? Even if I polish the gloss coat too? And does polishing it up make the paints not grip well? Or do the polishing marks have enough tiny groves for the paint to stick well? Im running low on space on the mule. But can try my Tamiya gloss black underneath and polish that up! The joys of reading 1200 different NMF tutorials! Anyway back to my actual build, I’ve made the prop able to spin and it spins really well and very smooth. It’s also ready for its weathering. I painted it all and just had to cut masking tape nice and accurately with many coats of yellow over a white base.

I just made my own green shade of olive drab with yellow and black oil paints and just made sure it was a good few shades lighter than the plane. I should have painted with a more faded paint in the first place and darkened it but doing it the other way around still did the trick.

Thanks all! Was nice having you along for the build! I am pleased with how it came out and learned a few more tricks.

Two fuselage halves have been sewn together! A few PE details to add but it has come together well! Will have to think how best to deal with the seam along the nose so I don’t loose too much detail there. The canopy will be in the open position so for painting I’ll attach one of the spare ones in the closed position and paint then remove it and attach the actual canopy at the end. And regarding the prop, I’ve begun making an attachment so that it can spin!

Did a good amount on the cockpit. seems like there is nothing to do after doing the insides of a b17! But there is something rewarding about detailing a cockpit. Almost ready to close up. The fit is really good! So good Infact that if you put something slightly in the wrong place then nothing goes together! Had to take one part off behind the seat and lower it by half a mil to get it to go together! But once in the right place it’s such a nice fit! I’ll get the plane together pretty fast I think and spend some good time on the sanding and prep for painting stage! I have a 3000grit sanding sponge now. So will prime and then use that to get super smooth. For anyone that has done this kit… is there a way to make the prop spin or do I have to glue it? The usual piece at the back to lock it in place but free to spin isn’t a thing on the instructions! I’ll make one anyway as I was a spinning prop! Just really surprised me!

Thanks everyone for all the tips and links! I’ve been going through them and will answer in the coming days. Things with my new job have been fast tracked so instead of waiting till next year I’ll be starting in just over a month! But I should finishing this project before then! A little update. been working on the cockpit and wheel wells and they are both coming along well. Quite a fun part of the kit and is an effect that looks really nice too I think. A lot of debate about what was painted and when and what colours but this seemed to be a scheme that came up a lot and as far as I could tell fit in with the time period I’m building. Dirtied up a little and I won’t add any more details or piping even though the extra details really look nice, they are just hard to justify for how little it will be picked up and looked at. Now it’s just the cockpit to complete before the internals are done.

All finished. Thanks all for the company through this project. Had a good day to get some pictures. I’m pleased with how it turned out and I learnt a lot during this build. Thanks.

The cockpit has begun on the real model now. I’ve ordered some 3000 grit sanding sponges and will be part of my next experiment with the paint mule. Made my own mix of interior green with tamiya green and yellow mix while making the Fortress and seems to do the job well. I wanted to make the colour in a bottle so I can do touch ups and all the rest of the parts without having to mix it each time! Put down some buff colour then brown oil paint streaked on top to give a wood grain effect. Once dry I’ll seal it in with a clear coat then try out my chipping fluid and paint with rubber black and scuff up the floor alittle. Letting the oil dry might take a good few days though. So begun on the bits behind the seat. One part has to be a battery and the other maybe a radio but kinda looks like a battery also! Anyway good fun parts to detail that I don’t think will be visible once finished.

The NMF experiments have begun on my 1/72 scale test mule. This is what I’ve learned so far. Smooth smooth smooth! I think that’s all there is to it really. so I just need to find away to make the smoothest surface with the thinnest amount of paint to keep all the surface details. I also learned that the gloss base isn’t just because it shines through and makes the paint more shiny and metallic it’s that gloss has a smoother surface. Here the far left has the gloss black under it and the rest is the Matt surface primer. And the changes are just applying more coats… which makes it smoother and so a better finish. Here the wing on the right from our perspective is straight on the Matt primer. On the left I gave the primer a quick sand with 1200 grit sand paper and it’s noticeably better except you can see the scratches in it, so I’ll need to find super fine sand paper. My next lot of tests will be to sand down the primer as smooth as I can and see if that is ok. Or if I need to spray something on the primer that I can make smooth. Any ideas are more than welcome! These paints are really nice to work with though!!

Welcome along!

I’ve also been keeping an eye on your build to see how you will do yours and any tips and tricks or dos and donts! Here is to us managing to get lucky and land a result we are both happy with on our first attempt 🍻

As always glad to have you along! You always have good tips and tricks up your sleeve! I’d love to go for the oxidised aluminum. Well that’s the goal at least! I will try giving different grey undercoats a go! Thanks for these tips! does it need to be a gloss coat? I will try gloss and Matt undercoats and see if it’s different. And also gloss and Matt clear coats over top! About the thickness. I’m abit worried about loosing all the details if I do a primer, a few coats of thick gloss paint and polish then wet coats of my aluminum. In my tests I’m trying to get the gloss black thick enough to get the smooth surface otherwise I get the almost patterned finish. If I try sand it back smooth then I sand back to plastic and so the paint needs to be thick enough to sand! I’m secretly hoping I can paint the super metallics over the Matt primer if my prep is good enough. I’ve not sprayed any of the super metallics yet as I need to go get a respirator and set up a place in the outside garage due to the smell! I’ll not get away with spraying lacquers on the dining room table 😬

Time to begin my next project while the B-17 gets its finishing touches. This one also I’ll not be keeping myself, but unlike the fortress, this time I have an actual plane to replicate. This makes it easier mainly and perhaps occasionally more difficult. For this kit I have Eduards, Profi Pack edition, so will be an out of the box build. As it contains cockpit masks and Photo Etch I’ll not get any aftermarket parts. The subject for this build will be, Lt. Donald F. Vulgamore’s P-51D, E9-V “Jaspers Joker II” who flew as part of the 361st Fighter Group in Europe. The reason for this subject is the paint scheme! It has a yellow nose, NMF (natural metal finish) and doesn’t have the full D-Day invasion stripes. So it ticked all the boxes. To top it off I managed to find decals for this very build. If I can find spray stencils I may give them a go otherwise I’ve got the decals and I’ve heard good things about Aero Master decals printed in Italy by Cartograf. They weren’t easy to find as they aren’t made anymore and bought mine from a collector it seems! I think this will be a faster build than the B-17 and I’m looking forward to trying my first ever natural metal finish. Each build I try to do something new and push my abilities. This time the NMF will be that part! So any tips at all about how to get a weathered war weary aluminium look I’m all ears! I’ve got some Mr. Color Super Metallic 2 lacquer paints, Super Fine Silver 2, Super Duralumin and Super Iron 2 which will be new for me to try. Ive been doing a lot of research over the last month and have a 1/72 mustang prepped as my test mule. Currently the undersides of the wings are an assortment of different base colours to see how much of an effect they have, as it’s one thing to be told something and another to see for yourself. Im expecting the build to be pretty straight forward and once at the prep for painting stage I’ll be in new territory.