king derelict

Thank you very much OC. The decal work is taking a while but only three more to go now I hope the laptop keyboard issue is getting sorted Alan

Thanks Mike I need to get better at metal finishes. The extensive decals help cover up some of the blemishes. Hopefully I can make the stand work to pull it together. Roden seem a bit hit and miss. I have made some great kits but this is not one of them😄 Alan

Great progress Yves. The gaps between the strips makes the build much harder but you have it very exact and neat. Alan

Mike, the scratch built gear looks spectacular. It definitely repays your efforts. wing looks nice too. alan

The Argosy kit is now showing its true colours and its turning into a bit of a fight. I have been working on the booms and its taken nearly two full days to get them completed. The gear is made up of several pieces shown below and the instructions need a lot of puzzling over to work out how they go together. Parts 25 and 26 make up the exhaust and have to be installed such that they will protrude through the relevant hole in the other side of the boom. Naturally the hole is too small and needs enlarging. There is a tiny actuator (part 74) that I couldn't make sense of and spent an hour or so on the internet to finally work out where it goes - its a bit of a wasted effort though - its going to be completely invisible. The detail is quite impressive for the scale but it was a long tussle to get to the point where the booms could be completed. I made up the outer engine nacelles and then started dry fitting everything to the wing. Nothing fits even closely. I had teh full range of material removing gear in play at some point or other. Th DSPIAE sanding pads bought on impulse are seeing a lot of action on this build. The wing / fuselage interface needed a disturbing amount of material to be removed and the booms were not much better. On the plus side the booms locate well into the wing and should line up and even allow the tail plane to fit properly (I think) The assemblies all fit now and the amount of material removed can be seen. I probably should not have primed anything until it was fully built. So maybe tomorrow I will have some bits assembled. I think nacelles and booms and then the wing onto the fuselage. Hopefully that should be the last of the seriously rough stuff. Thanks for looking in and the likes and comments. Alan

Well, this is turning out to be a humbling experience. Hopefully a learning experience too. My first encounter with metallic paints. I'm using the Vallejo acrylic aluminium paint. For some reason lacquer paints frighten me. The Vallejo paint went on well in thin coats although I think it was drying too fast in the heat of my garage. Maybe I should experiment with some retarding fluid. Its not as good as Alclad but it does have a reasonable shine. It may have benefited from one more coat too but I was a bit concerned with the paint pooling or drying rough. Its okay for a first attempt. I have learnt that you can't hide anything under a metal finish. I thought I had the primer down nicely but I can see all sorts of minor imperfections.. So now I am adding the black decals on the wings and along the fuselage sides. The fuselage one broke in three pieces but I managed to piece it together and my masking sems to have been accurate - the decal covers the masked area with no gaps (so far). I am doing a few decals at a time because I don't want to risk moving ones as I handle it. The acrylic rod shows up tomorrow, the props need adding and the base needs to be completed Thanks for looking in and for the likes and comments Alan

Some of those photos look entirely real. Wonderful work Yves. alan

Beautiful work Craig. Immaculate paint finish and great photos alan

Well spotted. Thank you. The camera picks up that stuff better than I do Alan

I've sprayed the figure with Mig One Shot black primer and then sprayed the directional coat of white to enhance the final tones of the colours I started laying on the first coats of white on the flag. I think this bit needs doing before starting the rest of the figure. Might as well get most of the frustration out of the way at the start 😄 Thanks for looking in and the likes and comments Alan

Thanks for the input I think the pencil guide and then paint the blue parts is how it was done on the photos that illustrate the figure. I may try that; its the simplest but requires the most skill. I may have to forego the morning coffee for this Alan

Jan You are right, it devastated large areas of Europe. It seems like large parts of the continent fielded armies as the conflict expanded. Alan

Thanks Jack; thats a great photo. Painting the flag should be trivial compared to that expanse. Alan

Just a brief update to announce that I think I have finally broken the fill / sand / prime cycle. It has however improved my ability with One Shot primer as a benefit. Now some masking before starting on the main colours. Thanks for looking in Alan

Moving along; this is an interesting kit and has the advantage that you can work on several elements, fuselage, wing, booms etc so I'm not brought to a halt to wait for paint to dry. I've primed most parts and sprayed the interior of the fuselage with light grey. I gave the cockpit a light coat of grey over the primer to bring out the details. There is not much point in getting wild with the painting here; its going to be invisible once the fuselage is closed up The porthole glazing was then installed. Each window is a separate tiny clear part and they are all too big to fit the hole in the fuselage so each opening had to be reworked. Several escaped from the tweezers but thankfully all were recovered. The flight deck was installed along with the cargo floor which was painted light grey and scuffed up to show wear. This will be the last look at the flight deck. I made up the doors and they look quite nice although the fit might be a bit nasty. I plan to have the doors open which may also stop the nose lifting. I don't see much space to stow some weights up front. Maybe some lead weight under the floor - or possibly a 1/144 vehicle or pile of freight. So far this is a lot of fun with some interesting challenges ahead, mating the wing, booms, tail - and then the paint scheme. Thanks for looking in and the likes Alan

Thanks Jeff indeed he could. That will be a great back up option. His arm stripes might go the same way alan

Thanks Harvey. The flag is mounded partly draped around his arm. I think it would need some heavy surgery so I’ll try some other ideas first alan

Hi OC, unfortunately the flag is completely plain so no guidelines or anything. It is a great figure though alan

Thanks guys. I’d hate to attract lots of booing and hissing alan

They still look good up there. There is never enough display space! I love the large models but I have nowhere to put them. The 1/48 Flower class corvette is hogging most of it all on its own. Alan

Oh yes. I don’t think I am capable of free handing it. I’m wondering if I can paint the white and then mask with small diamonds of tape and then paint the blue. Or is that cheating in the figure painting world? Still not going to be easy Alan

It was always the consolation for supporting testing out at the GE test site at Peebles OH. At weekends I would head over to Dayton and spend the day at the museum. Its an amazing place. Alan

I hope I am not provoking chaos here, usually I am quite content with one model at a time but the FW200 and the Bavarian cavalryman seem to be prone to short bursts of activity followed by a 24 hour drying time. So its time for another Eastern European adventure back to my youth. The Argosy was the last aircraft built by Armstrong Whitworth and were a major improvement on the Hastings. It still amazes me how many British aircraft companies there were in the 1960s and the wide range of aircraft produced. The box is well stuffed with bits, even a small fret of PE and decals and paint schemes for several aircraft. The twin boom layout is possibly going to be challenging to build. I dived in and built the wing. No location pins but the trailing edge is moulded on both sides on the upper half so makes a solid locating feature. The wings joined up nicely with a few clamps holding it while the glue set. There is some structural detail in what I think are going to turn out to be the wheel wells. I moved onto the crew quarters and unlike the Condor there is a lot of bits devoted to it. The control console (with tiny pilots yokes even), seats and even the navigators table. I don't see how any of this will be seen, the windshield is far too small and there are no other ways to view it. I do plan to pose it with teh rear doors open but bulkheads prevent a view of teh cockpit. I've built up the cargo doors which have gone together nicely. Some real challenges ahead, not least the paint scheme but so far its another nice Mikro Mir kit Thanks for looking in Alan

A 1/48 C-130 must be a huge model too

Thanks Mark That would make sense - I don't think i got round to the outside displays. There was just so much stuff inside. Great museum. Alan