Danstream

What I see is that you are putting all the strakes so far perfectly parallel and with no tapering. I think you should have started to taper from the second one. There are good tutorials on this site showing that (see the first pinned post by @Chuck). Good luck, Dan.

Dear all, I am back at the workbench with my Hawker Seafury. In the last post, I finished applying the primer to the model. In preparation of the Navy livery, I wanted to give some pre-shadow texture to the surfaces that will be painted with Sky color. At the same time, having selected a display airplane, the effect should be rather subtile. I decided to go with a red brown which has a value lower than black and, being kind of complementary to the greenish Sky color, should result in a shadowy effect, in theory. Let's see what it will be in practice. After the pre-shadowing, I added also some white random mottling. After that, I wet sadanded everything getting an extremely smooth surface and some additional variation of the colors. I ended with applying the Tamiya panel line along the panel junctions. The engine cowling and the spinner got instead a layer of yellow and they were also wet sanded in preparation for the orange. This is how the sides of the fuselage look now; The portions on the side that are covered by tape are the areas of the steel shrouds in the vicinity of the exhausts. The model is now ready to receive the Sky paint on its undersurfaces and on the sides. Mind that, being the subject airplane supposedly well maintained, most of the texture should almost disappear. I am curious to see the final result. That is all for now, Best regards, Dan.

I like the work you are doing on this Mossie. Waiting to see more, Dan.

That looks impressive. About your question about panel lines, I think that for a covering made of soft wood, pencil or ink drafted lines are the most realistic option. Anyway, she is impressive. Best regards, Dan.

Thank you guys, actually it is not me who climbs on the roof, but I called a company to do that. Fortunately, we are now blessed with a very nice weather that in few days has melted the snow making it possible to work outside. I will have to refurbish the inner side of the rooms which have been marred by the leaks. Actually, it is thanks to my wife who was the first one to realise the problem while I was at work and moved away models and materials form the area were the water was dripping. And thanks for your messages of sympathy anyway 🙂 👍. Cheers, Dan.

Hi, I am going slowly on this, I work in the rooms under the roof of my house where I found several leaks after the snow that we had over here. Hence, no big progress to show. Nevertheless, this is what I have done so far. I sprayed the entire model with Mr Surfacer 1000 as a primer. Usually, I do not use primers, but, in this case, I used it for muting a bit the prominents surface details. With its levelling thinner, the primer provided a nice and smooth surface, but probably it did not fill much the panel lines. In a normal application, this is a very good thing for a primer. I also sprayed a primer on the engine cowling and spinner. This time, being the cowling to be painted with an orange color, I used a white primer which provides a good backround color for the orange. I used the white Tamiya primer in a spray can which also provided a very nice smooth finish. Afterwords, I used the brown Tamiya accent liner to highlight the junctions of the panels. I had to stop for now, I will show more as soon as I have finished with the repair of the roof. Best regards, Dan.

I have completed the windows framing and planking: I removed the small wales along the hull because they were not fully symmetric on the two sides and with the windows frames finished, this was too evident. I am learning through my mistakes, but it is ok. Now, I would like to join that wales with an horizontal element placed just below the windows. Best regards, Dan.

Welcome Robin, wish you good luck with your projects! Dan.

In the past days, I tried few methods for making the glazing of the windows on the transom. I picked some transparent styrene sheets 0.5 mm thick from my plastic assortment. With my trusty old drawing tools (some pieces date back more than 35 years), I traced some grids until I found the right size that looked good in the small scale of the model and was at the same time reasonably doable. Once found the good size, I taped the transparent sheet over the grid and scribed the lines on it with the Trumpeter tool in the picture. Once done, I tried few methods to accent the lines, but eventually I found that the scribed grooves alone looked good enough for me in this scale. Now I have to complete the planking and see how to frame the windows. I was happy that at the end the making of the glazing was not that difficult. That's all for now, kind regards, Dan.

Nice and clean build, Denis. Very carefully done. 🤩 Definetively I like the blue finish. Kind regards, Dan.

Dear all, assemblying of the main parts continues. These are the horizontal stabilizer surfaces where the riveting details are a bit heavy handed, recalling Airfix design from an older era. I sanded down these exagerated details. The upper half wing panes are glued omitting any glue along the joint where the wing folds. This is made possible by the the nice way Airfix engineered the wing parts. In fact, the wing panes can be glued to an internal support part: As it can be seen, the surface details are nice, but a bit overdone. I will try to tone them down when I will paint the model. For now, I restored and rescribed some of the details that were obliterated during the sanding and finishing of the joints: Stabilizers needed filling of gaps with sprue wires and some Mr. Surfacer 500: I started also with the cowling and the engine. The mighty 2500 hp Bristol Centaurus did not get any additional detailing because very little will be seen from the gap left by the carefully faired cowling and the large spinner. It just got painted with Vellejo matt aluminium followed by Tamiya panel liner to pick up the details of the finned cylinders. Once inside its fairing, not much will be seen: The main airframe is now completed showing the compact shape of the plane. The fuselage is almost etirely behind the envelope of the engine with the exception of the cockpit bubble which sits on top of a small 'hump'. The quasi-elliptical wing planform can also be noted now. The wing design was derived from the previous Hawker Tempest and was kept to make the plane more appealing to the RAF evaluators, who allegedly 'would not have bought anything that did not have an elliptical planform'. Finally, I have addressed the fairing of the leading edge with its various openings, added the nav lights and thinned as much as possible the trailing edge which otherwise looks quite too thick (although, I see now from the picture that I still need to do some finishing on it). Next steps will be the preparation for priming and painting. Best regards, Dan.

@Snug Harbor Johnny thank you for your input! Your suggestion looks quite labour intensive, but I will give it a consideration. The method illustrated by @Backer seems slightly more practical. I will do some tests and let you know. Thanks and best regards, Dan.

Outstanding workmanship! I will be following your build. Best regards, Dan.

Hi all, I went up with the bulwark and removed the portion of the strakes that was not glued to reveal the opening between the strakes of the bulwark: Then, I lined the inner wall with walnut strips: I think the result is not too bad. At this point, before starting with the second planking, I need to finish the transom, because I want that the planking of the hull covers the thickness of the planking strips of the tramsom. I gave the final shaping of the dead wood of the hull and traced the lines for the planking: I chosed to lay down the planking with an angle of 30 deg which is easily found with my drawing triangles and resembles what seen on my reference books for the ships of that period. After gluing the stern post, I started gluing the strips: Here with the lids of stern chaser cannons provisionally in place: I need now to complete the glazing of the windows, which is something that I delayed until now, because I need to find out a good method to replicate the lead framing. That's all for now, any comment or suggestion is welcome. Best regards, Dan.

If you search: "mayflower ship model shipways manual", you should find the pdf.

Hi all, thanks for the likes! Few answers to some of you. Thanks Chris for the confidence, I hope to to fall now in a state of performance anxiety 😀 @popeye the sailor: cutting these small tubes is very easy. On a cutting mat I press gently the a #2 blade (the larger one) of a X-acto knive and keeping it perpendicular to the tube I let the tube roll under the blade moving the blade back and forth. Typically, within 4-5 strokes, the tube gets cleanly severed. You might need to press the tip of a steel needle inside the hole to clean up the remaing possible burrs. Kind regards, Dan.

Indeed Larry, I am going on without following the A.L. instructions improvising what I am doing at each step. This is also one of the reason why I am proceeding so slowly. Fortunately, I found and downloaded the instruction manual written by Chuck Passaro for the prototype of the Model Shipways Mayflower which is based on the existing replica and which I am using broadly as a reference guide. Best regards, Dan.

Hi all, some little progress on my build of the Sea Fury. The wheel bay got gloss clear coated, black panel liner applied and finally the satin finish was restored. This is the result with the bay piece glued inside the lower half wing: I also added two blisters (fairings of the fuel tank sumps) that Airfix forgot to add. I had removed the two oleos for the actuation of the central doors because they were all the time in the way. I will add them back later, after painting the belly and the doors. Before gluing the lower wing, I modified the parts holding the muzzles of the cannons to accept replacements made of portions of 1 mm dia. brass tube: However, I am not gluing the muzzles now. Instead, I will put them definitively in place only after having finished the leading edge of the wing and sanded the holes to get a nice round shape. This is a fit check to show how they will eventually appear (excuse the out of focus picture): The lower half wing could now be glued to the fuselage. This is the way indicated in the instruction, and it is also the way I normally follow in my builds to obtain a good joint between the wing root and the fillet avoiding the use of filler. After removing the centering pins, I can obtain a clean butt joint by matching the upper half wing edge with the edge of the fillet. However, in this case, it must be also said that the fit was anyway generally good. I am liking a lot this kit which is an accurate replica of the original, with nice surface details and, at the same time, it has a very good fit. In addition, I love the light blue color of the Airfix plastic 🙂. In my view, the few omissions of the kit (gunsight and compass in the cockpit and the blisters under the wing) do not detract much from the appearance of the model even if they are left out. That is all for now, Greetings, Dan.

Lovely model, wonderful finish. I would like to take a ride on that car. Best regards, Dan.

I am deeply moved by the story behind your build. I am also a father of a daughter and I cannot think of what you went and still going through. I wish you all the best for this build that I will be following surely. Warm greetings, Dan.

Good save on this model, Jack. Gloss colors are not easy, especially if applied by brush. Best regards, Dan.

The wing root filling looks fine. No surface details seem to be lost. Regards, Dan.

Hi all, going slowly on with my build. The cockpit posed with the left fuselage: As said, unfortunately little will be seen from the cockpit opening: I also added few details in the wheel bay which otherwise quite empty. The pictures of the real plane show a lot of components and an intricacy of pipelines. Clearly, it was not my intention to realistically replicate it, I just wanted to make the bay look busier and I used the tubing to hide some extractor marks that were not sanded satisfactorily: Once inside the wing, what remains visible seems OK to me: Finally, the wheel bay was primed and painted: That's all for now, until next time, Dan.

Nice and clean model. Well done! Regards, Dan.

Dear @Egilman, you are correct, however, the static balance of the surfaces was not introduced because of compressibility effects, but to avoid dynamic effects (dynamic couplings). You can see, f.i., balancing masses when mounted externally to the wing in aircraft as early as the Ju-87 or the Bf 109. It is true that I do not know the exact date for their introduction and I will see if I can find a more precise information. Greetings, Dan.