chadwijm6

Finished! She takes her place next to my Lancaster.

This was a really fun build. I'm happy with the results and learned a lot along the way.

Thank you for you views, comments and advice.

32 minutes ago, ibozev said:

Hi James, I'm happy to hear that you've got your new keel. Indeed Occre have one of the best return and warranty polices!

Unfortunately I think you made a mistake with the deck planking. You didn't have to cut the extra deck planks, which are above the holes for the ribs. The idea is to hide the ribs with the deck.

🙄 ... You're right. I'll have to go with it now but I'll see if I can repair it when the deck is attached to the false keel.

Thanks for spotting that Ilia

3 hours ago, CDW said:

Using Pledge, applied with a soft, wide brush to protect the Alclad chrome finish. Keeping brush strokes gentle and minimal to avoid marring the bright finish of the Alclad. Being careful not to allow droplets to appear along edges from over applying the Pledge. Less is more. The self-leveling qualities of the clear acrylic will take care of itself, so don't "over-brush" it.

I'll lay down two coats before it's finished then allow a couple of days for it to cure before masking or decals.

Morning, I hope you don't mind but another question CDW.

Why use pledge, could you also use an airbrush to apply a gloss acrylic varnish?

Thanks

James 

Looks great CDW. Which Alcad colour is that? 

I've been doing a bit of research about the material used to manufacture Spitfire IXc propellers so that the weathering could be represented realistically. and found this interesting thread...
https://archive.aeroscale.net/forums/88691/index.htm
It would seem that more than one manufacturing process could have been used

Spitfire MK IXc
Propeller: Rotol 4 blade constant speed, variable pitch type R3/4F5/2 (Dural) or R3/4F5/3 (Dural) or R5/4F5/4 (Jablo or Hydrulignum) or Type R12/4F5/4 (Jablo or hydrulignum) all 10ft 9ins dia..

I think the following is correct (I think!)
Dural is an aluminium alloyed with copper, Jablo was a manufacturer and also maybe the name for a process that used wood and Hydrulignunlm is also wood. The wooden propellors were covered in a metal gauze and the leading edge was brass.

So I think for weathering it could be either wood and brass that would show or aluminium depending on which propeller was in the plane.

So a question if anyone could help. I've been getting contradicting advice on the propeller weathering. Some say it's right as the propeller was metal, others that it was wood with a brass painted edge under the black paint. Anyone know which is correct? Thanks in advance.

22 minutes ago, Jack12477 said:

Question: How do you keep your paint stand so clean and so free of paint overspray?  

I was wondering the same thing Jack. I get paint on the walls!!

And Occre were as good as their word, a new deck has arrived and it's planked ready to be sanded and vanished. Much happier with this effort, still not perfect but better.

So here's my take on some weathering... I've tried to make it look like it's been in use, dirtied up a bit, some chipping to the prop, wear where I thought the ground crew and pilot would walk on the wings etc. This is new terrority for me but I like the look of it. Not sure how well it comes out on the photos but you get the idea.

Well, the build is done. Weathering to do later in the week. I'm thinking quite light weathering, some pin wash and a bit of chipping. Not too much.

An enjoyable few hours fitting the top and side decals, who'd have thought that this part of the build could be so rewarding! I suppose it really changes the whole look of the model. I used microset and microsol. Still need to cut the roundels to expose the guns but I'll let them completely dry overnight before attempting that.

The cockpit glass is painted but needs some tidying up now. I'm thinking some thinner on a cotton bud? Any suggestions very welcome.

Rob this is a brilliant build log for a newbie like me to follow, I'm learning a lot and your detailed process descriptions and photos are fantastic and very informative. I'll follow along if you don't mind

Does anyone use a colour for the first time and think I wish I used that more. Gunmetal grey, Vallejo, that I've painted the exhausts in is one of those for me. I think it looks great. Very realistic metallic finish.

Glossed, ready to be decaled tomorrow 🤞🏻

Some tidying up to do before glossing and decals, but couldn't resist putting her together

First ever go at invasion stripes.... definitely not perfect but I think they do look good anyway!

Rudder unfortunately is lost so I've dropped an email to Airfix asking if they can send me a spare.

Camouflage is now on, I'm pretty pleased with it. Now some more masking to add the yellow trims and the invasion stripes. For the more eagle eyed among you I seem to have lost the rudder. I think it must have got stuck to some of the masking tape so there's a fun hour to look forward to later searching through the rubbish.

Also there's a few areas that I've touched in by hand and they're not perfect by any stretch but nearly all of it will be covered by the stripes or the decals.

Fascinating! And very effective. Looks really good.

Let the priming begin...

I'm using the gun covers and the sides and the bottom of the engine as masking as I intend to leave those off in the end

28 minutes ago, brunnels said:

Occre seems to have fantastic customer service from what i have seen.  Have you checked if your kit came with enough extra timber to replank?  My Occre beagle came with quite a bit of extra wood, almost enough to plank the boat again. 

It does have a fair bit but to be sure I ordered some more, it was only about £10 so I thought better to have too much.

Great customer service though.

So a mixed couple of days.

I forgot to pencil line the decking along the edges before glueing them. So the deck just looked like solid wood. So I thought, I know, I'll draw them on. Didn't have a pencil as I'm away at the moment, so I used a pen. Not perfect but didn't look too bad. I then sprayed some satin varnish on and the pen went blue, was originally black, and ran and smudged. I let it dry, tried to sand it down but to no avail. Still looked awful. So I thought maybe if I paint it brown and have a brown deck. Looked awful. So then I thought I'll buy some more timber and just start again on the other side but first I'll try and make sure it will bend and still fit the false keel. And it snapped.

Disaster.

So I contacted Occre, explained that I'm an idiot and they are sending a me a new deck part, free including postage. Amazing! Even more amazing that they replied to my enquiry at 10pm. 

I've ordered some more timber for the deck to replace what I used.

So when it arrives I'll hopefully have learned from my mistakes and I can try again. 

Every day is a school day!

So finally I've begun. I feel like there will be a lot of sanding in this project!

But so far so good and I'm enjoying it already. 

3 hours ago, Old Collingwood said:

You  going to visit  Waterloo  while  you are over there?

 

OC.

I didn't even realise that was so close! I'll put it on my list. Generally it's all work when I'm over there but occasionally I stay for the weekend so next time that happens I'll go and visit it. Would be very interesting I'm sure. 

Masked and almost ready to start painting. I've put the engine cowling on but in the end I think I will leave the sides panels off. Good as a masking device though.

Off to Belgium for work for a week tomorrow so it'll be a bit of time before I can continue. 

I'm the meantime I'll fill my evenings abroad with the Occre Polaris build. First wooden ship build so that's exciting! 

Hi Everyone

I picked up this kit off eBay recently for about £30. Up to now I have never built a wooden model kit, although I have a build log for an Occre Polaris on here, I haven't started it yet. I commute between the UK and Belgium so this will be my UK project, the Polaris is already waiting to be started in Brussels.

I'm hoping that I can try, fail for sure and then learn with this one. The instructions are wordy and relatively brief so I imagine there will be a fair bit of head scratching coming my way. But there's schematics included as well which I'm hoping we'll guide the way.

Looking forward to having a go. Any and all advice would be very welcome.

Some engine weathering going in this morning and a bit of gun bay as well.