Egilman

Final update before waxing.... Finished the priming, it's pretty smooth for the most part..... This is what she looked like after the final grey coat..... Not much different than the first prime coat..... Masking off the wings.... This was done with frisket tape in straight lines following the curve of the wing top and bottom, then a full length paper mask using shipping paper and standard masking tape looped over and under the fuselage and closed off on the ends leaving nothing but the wings exposed..... Tops of the wings in Tamiya fine white.... Bottoms of the wings in the same... Now I know that for most of the Zippers life in the USAF, they had White wing tops and AC Grey bottoms... but there was this one little period, from late '62 thru early '65 where the wings were white both top and bottom, Blue Jay Four was filmed during this period... so hence they are white top and bottom... And finally.... Now I still need to do a bit of cleanup at the wing roots, the masking left a raised edge that need to be taken care of. (minor issue) She's ready to go after a bit of time to fully cure... The procedure now is to finish the wings off first, they need to be clear coated and fully cured. Then mask them as they will appear on the final aircraft then do the wax finish on the fuselage.... Hopefully after that, I will be on the home stretch, as long as all my decals arrive ontime...... Finally making some progress, I felt barricaded for a while there..... {chuckle} EG

Thanks Dennis, I had a great day, quiet and relaxing.... (stayed away from the bench for a while) Micro mask was a godsend back in the day and is the old school standard now..... But those pesky AM designers do come up with myriad ways to part us from our money don't they... Sometimes old school is better..... It's pretty impossible to be late for your own funeral my friend, and if you actually manage to do that, you can blame others cause you were incapable of doing anything about it being incapacitated and all... {chuckle} Anyway, second attempt is coming up soon, I just finished the final priming, grey fuselage and white wings... Pics in a bit....

Almost there my friend, a final primer spray, spray off the wings in white primer then a light gloss coat.... Keeping my fingers crossed....

Another small update.... Canopy is glued on with canopy glue again, and wiped down and cleaned for spraying primer, now this isn't going to get everything but the loose stuff should be gone... On the spray bench.... And back on the work table for buffing/smoothing the paint.... There are of course some issues that need to be dealt with, tiny fills and edges that need to be buffed down before it gets a final coat of primer... and yeah it's had enough paint to hide some of the very fine details..... It will look good in the end, but will not be my best work..... I'll probably do another in the future..... But the experience in learning how is invaluable.... Onward... EG

Nice Job Patrick, and the regiment get a little bit bigger... Excellent work....

Yeah, and now, you get to make majik.....

Yeah I get it now, I figured it might be something like that... Cold forming after softening the brass... The mill vise and tool steel setup hinted at it also.... Ingenius old school foundry practice in miniature..... It's been so long since I've been in a machine shop I forget sometimes..... It reminds me that all we are doing is practicing our trades in miniature..... the skills and knowledge remain the same..... Thank you for the looking in at your wonderful work....

That's an awful lot of very fine timbering... A true manor house.... Have you decided what you going to use for the slightly off white mastic between the timbers yet? It's going to be spectacular truly fitting for the Lord/Baron/wealthiest man in town..... Impressive...

Thank Mike... Yes I always dip in Future when the canopy is finished, that takes care of all the tiny scratches that clear canopies seem to pick up and provides it a protectant layer of very tough, super clear, and super shiny acrylic... Plastic polish I don't use unless there is no other way to save the canopy.. (masking knife slippages on antique kit canopies come to mind) Usually with care and patience there is no need to polish the canopies, just dip them and be done with it...

Thanks Ken, This is such a minor thing I actually thought about not posting it but figured that there might be some that would benefit from the older ways of doing things...... Fairly straightforward and easy once you get the hang of it...

Short update... I cut the masks and pulled the masking tape..... Notice they now have a blue tint to the clear? those are the masks, a very thin film over the parts you want to remain clear.... you can see over the windscreen forward edge where they are still clear. Here's a close up.... That's it! Masking the canopy is done.... the clear parts now have a very thin removable film over them.... it is impervious to enamel paints... Ready to re-mount them and go to work on cleaning up the Fuselage.... Onwards... EG

Michael, looking at the strap bolts, I take it you pressed the strap end? cause the eight bolts lined up against the vise jaw don't look like the strap end is big enough to cut it... Nice work btw, I wish I could machine that small...

Another update.... Masking, the (now) old fashioned way.... Most everyone who has built model airplanes is familiar with painting canopies The original way was to directly paint them. But that was hit or miss as some manufacturers would cut canopy molds with generous ribbing which allowed you to flow thinned paint in between the ribs that outlined the glass, wasn't accurate but got the job done.... And some manufacturers molded little lumps for canopy ribs that would have been better if they left them plain..... Along comes Micro Scale to solve the canopy painting problem by borrowing from the artists world.. Masking fluid designed for the modeler... Micro Mask was a revolution in it's day some 40 years ago... just paint it on the surface of your canopy, it dries in minutes and cut away the parts you wanted to paint with a sharp exacto or razor blade... worked extremely well for those canopies with decent ribbing detail. One problem remained, you could easily slip with the sharp blade and ruin your canopy.... (I know this cause I have done it more times than I care to remember) I came up with a solution to this problem..... Masking Tape..... My method of masking a canopy using Micro Mask..... Materials.. One three piece canopy, a roll of 1/2" frisket tape and Micro Mask..... The first step is to mask off the canopy using the masking tape...... (say what? I thought we were using masking fluid?) You only mask off the portion that YOU WANT TO PAINT...... leaving the rest of the glass portion clear.... There are reasons, #1, the masking tape hanging over the ends and sides gives you natural handles to hold the canopy while working on it.... And #2, the masking tape acts as an edge to run your knife blade against so you don't go skittering across the clear portion or cut through the masking scoring the part you want painted..... The Micro Mask is painted on with a cheap soft brush, don't go using your good detail brushes for this.... Paint it generously lapping over the tape on the sides and ends... That overhanging tape makes a pretty good handle.... As you can see I used the Frisket tape for the two canopy pieces the windscreen I used regular masking tape the reason for this is frisket tape is stiff and low tack and with the windscreen the two middle ribs curve so I cut thin strips of regular masking tape that can be bent following the curve of the rib... Remember we are only using them as guide edges so if a little bit manages somehow to get under the tape we deal with that later... Painted and waiting to dry, (it doesn't take long 10 to 15 minutes) I usually give it an hour just to make sure. I prefer a wide handled knife for detail work, I feel I get more control with it than a thin handled knife... In today's aftermarket world, a kit is released and very soon afterwards a company comes out with canopy masks made out of frisket tape, I've used them and they are very nice. With this bird I was lucky to get one set of masks made for it, (the Italieri masks don't fit this bird) they are out of production and you are lucky to find them for the Hasegawa kits... so it is both cheaper to brush off the old canopy masking skills and see if I still have it.... Besides, there might be some younger modelers out there that didn't know how to deal with masking canopies without mask sets and AM manufacturers only produce for the most recent kits so this is still a necessary skill to have in your tool box. And I believe my innovation makes this a much easier proposition for less experienced modelers.... (we might have a few around) Next up cutting the masks and removing the tape... EG

Thanks Ken, I'm hoping it comes out at least as well on the fuselage after all the abuse it's taken...

Thank you OC, Not sure yet "Nailed it" is the term, but I'm close...

Thanks Jack... I figured that since I was out of everything I might as well restock..... And I think I'm a convert on Rub n Buff.... {chuckle} It's amazingly easy to do a very good BMF with it...

Well I sorta kinda did when I said I was going to get some outside light on the subject.... {chuckle} They have a full range of finishing products, (mostly surrounding decals and their installation) most of them are well known..... I just wish they would expand their decal lines....

I hear ya brother.... I generally don't have a shelf of doom, (where models that don't come out right get put, usually before being finished) Mine usually get a long fight to the finish and when I finally say enough is enough it gets binned... I then think of another way and try again... I'm kinda stubborn that way I like to take it to the bitter end.... (and I usually win) This one was going to be one of those, I saw it done, and decided that I was going to do it.... Hopefully I still can but yeah my emotions on this one are now quite a bit lighter.... Thanks my friend for the understanding....

Just caught up with this one brother, my condolences on losing your life friend/helper buddy....

So your doing just a piece of the battle, cool, Infantry supported by heavy Calvary... Will still look spectacular..... 👍 Maybe you could give a few step by step tips on how you do your figures so those of us not figure friendly can learn how....

My care package arrived.... Decaling solutions.... And a few other niceties to aid in my endeavours in scale..... And early as well for a change.... Didn't really need the liquitape of foil adhesive but I"m sure I'll find a use for them.... was cheaper buying the full pack rather than the individual bottles... Also, this is the international pack, in which they substitute two bottles of adhesives they cannot ship overseas for a bottle each of Microsol and Microset.... PERFECT for what I need.... (I gots a pair of huge two part decals coming up in the future, I'm now well supplied) Anyway I also took the opportunity to shoot the metalized parts out in the full sun.... I'll let them speak for themselves... Needless to say, I'm very happy with the look.... at the right angles it catches flashes that can blind you but at normal angles very seeable... Perfect! EG

Another wax product that does the same thing.... I think wax is the ticket as a carrier of the metal pigment, it stays liquid enough to spread thinly and allow the metal to lay down like it needs to, then dries hard, very hard to seal it in.... Great stuff...

Anything less than 1/72 is an exercise in assembly and paint.... very fine work.... Takes a real artist.. I'm in....

So your talking what, 200 to 300 figures.... lets see the Germans, British, French, there were some Austrian and Flemish troops as well I believe... Relying on memory here cause I'm too lazy to look it up... One heck of a task my friend, will look spectacular when done though...

Thanks Mike, yeah I'm in some serious anticipation states also, but I have to slow myself down and not get in a hurry.... I know enough now to know it's my go to for BMF's on aircraft..... Like everything else I'll get better results with practice/experience using it..... This is only my first one....