popeye the sailor

it's been a while friends.........models started,  and models put back in their boxes.........the draw just faded {but not forgotten}.  I'll get back to them.  I'm getting ready to get nutz with this one,  ans I thought I'd share it with you.  I bought two of these trailers at Wal Mart...the last place I thought I'd ever see models.........

the box shows a Peterbuilt 352 Pacemaker cabover,  but Wally had a GMC "General" {I'm sure there is a model name},  and this one is showcased on a Holiday trailer.  this kit is versitile......there are other kits with different subject matter.
       anyway.........the General will have to do.  looking over both truck and trailer,  I do see some points to correct or expand on,  but I'll keep it to what I know.   I'll try to give some insight to what I do at the shop........I'll try to keep it somewhere between a pity party and a rant    
  this is pretty close to the kit.  this thing that sticks out here is the landing legs.  most modern trailers have a platform style foot {feet 'cuz there's two},  but this particular trailer has the wheels.  now,  whether they turn or not leads to be see....I've never dealt with them.  the reason for this,  is in how they are retracted up to the body and away from the ground.  it's not readily seen here,  but the early design of landing leg folded up under the body.......there was no telescopics to them at all.
modern legs have a hand crank that retract the legs into themselves.  the next thing to note are the wheels and the spoked hubs.  these are what they call split rim, a rim with a ring that serves as the outer bead.  I dealt with them when I was young.......and my father was nearly killed with one.  there is a procedure to mount these tires,  and if not followed,  it can take your head off!  I could tell yuns a couple of stories,  but the admiral mentioned that it's time to run errands.............so,  I'll continue when I get back.

what can you glean from this picture?  I thought it interesting 

hello Rob......thought I'd pop in and browse......your log caught my attention.  I recall building an He 219 in the past....this is one plane I've never seen before.  even in war time pieces,  there are subjects that are rarely touched on or modeled {yea,  I'm drawn to them too  }.  I've rarely done short run kits.......I have one on the table still.  Special Hobby is another company from the Czech republic,  and they are not known for locator pins or tabs either.  I really like what your putting into this model.......going to be awesome when finished!  an offer of a book reference was put out there........and I happen to have a Luftwaffe book as well.  it fits the rool this plane performed...Luftwaffe KG 200.  in the back of the book,  it lists every plane that the KG 200 flew on thier missions.  most of them were B 2 variants...there are about 15 listed.  they wer already pre coded.......the 200 never changed them.  they were in service for a relatively sort amount of time,  given less than a year before they were reported crashed or shot down.  I'll browse the text to see if there is any info on them.
 
meanwhile,  your doing a superb job thus far,  and I'll be follow'in along  

it's been a while friends.........models started,  and models put back in their boxes.........the draw just faded {but not forgotten}.  I'll get back to them.  I'm getting ready to get nutz with this one,  ans I thought I'd share it with you.  I bought two of these trailers at Wal Mart...the last place I thought I'd ever see models.........

the box shows a Peterbuilt 352 Pacemaker cabover,  but Wally had a GMC "General" {I'm sure there is a model name},  and this one is showcased on a Holiday trailer.  this kit is versitile......there are other kits with different subject matter.
       anyway.........the General will have to do.  looking over both truck and trailer,  I do see some points to correct or expand on,  but I'll keep it to what I know.   I'll try to give some insight to what I do at the shop........I'll try to keep it somewhere between a pity party and a rant    
  this is pretty close to the kit.  this thing that sticks out here is the landing legs.  most modern trailers have a platform style foot {feet 'cuz there's two},  but this particular trailer has the wheels.  now,  whether they turn or not leads to be see....I've never dealt with them.  the reason for this,  is in how they are retracted up to the body and away from the ground.  it's not readily seen here,  but the early design of landing leg folded up under the body.......there was no telescopics to them at all.
modern legs have a hand crank that retract the legs into themselves.  the next thing to note are the wheels and the spoked hubs.  these are what they call split rim, a rim with a ring that serves as the outer bead.  I dealt with them when I was young.......and my father was nearly killed with one.  there is a procedure to mount these tires,  and if not followed,  it can take your head off!  I could tell yuns a couple of stories,  but the admiral mentioned that it's time to run errands.............so,  I'll continue when I get back.

what can you glean from this picture?  I thought it interesting 

oh oh !!! This is going to be epic when you start a Build Log.
 
Yves

hello Rob......thought I'd pop in and browse......your log caught my attention.  I recall building an He 219 in the past....this is one plane I've never seen before.  even in war time pieces,  there are subjects that are rarely touched on or modeled {yea,  I'm drawn to them too  }.  I've rarely done short run kits.......I have one on the table still.  Special Hobby is another company from the Czech republic,  and they are not known for locator pins or tabs either.  I really like what your putting into this model.......going to be awesome when finished!  an offer of a book reference was put out there........and I happen to have a Luftwaffe book as well.  it fits the rool this plane performed...Luftwaffe KG 200.  in the back of the book,  it lists every plane that the KG 200 flew on thier missions.  most of them were B 2 variants...there are about 15 listed.  they wer already pre coded.......the 200 never changed them.  they were in service for a relatively sort amount of time,  given less than a year before they were reported crashed or shot down.  I'll browse the text to see if there is any info on them.
 
meanwhile,  your doing a superb job thus far,  and I'll be follow'in along  

I think I got lucky on the camo all by accident notice the two tone upstairs a slightly soft edge now look at the bottom tape off never recognized that before that's how I did it.

Thank you for that,
I've still not seen an image of any allied aircraft with "Mop" painted invasion stripes... Two pics and a journalist's opinion showing the unfinished application of stripes to aircraft means it was sloppy work does not make proof ...
 
Just my opinion which is probably not worth much either....
 
Sorry, not trying to argue here.... the order to remove them also was not completely carried out on many aircraft as well, I touched on this in my P-51 B build log where many of the fighter units only removed them from the upper surfaces of the aircraft leaving them on the undersides making for some very unique applications of said stripes...
 
There is also the scale effect to consider as well, A slightly irregular line in real life will appear as arrow straight at a distance... (or in scale which translates visually as distance) No they weren't perfect that is true...
 
But they were not only very effective, in most cases, they were attractive as well....

https://theaviationist.com/2019/06/06/75-years-ago-today-invasion-stripes-became-the-markings-that-saved-allied-lives/

April 1943.... Typhoon Mk I with ID stripes...

The pattern is different, D-Day invasion stripes were 18" wide on single engine aircraft and 24" wide on twin engine aircraft and were composed of alternating white and black stripes three white stripes and two black stripes...
 
From the pic above you can clearly see that the standard RAF pattern was four 12" black stripes and three 24" white stripes...
 
The orders were issued in late may to change over and some aircraft didn't start until June 3rd so yea, there was some sloppy striping done as no masking was used... A simple chalk line and 4" brushes handled most of it....  But trying to spot the sloppiness on an aircraft say 15 yrds away was next to impossible... They weren't mopped like with a floor mop they did take a modicum of care in doing it...
 
I've yet in all my years looking to see a pic of invasion stripes that were anything but straight and basically even in width...
 
They weren't that bad....

I see and know there is truth in what is being mentioned but knowing the Brits with their precision about their camo in A/B scheme somewhere along the line those stripes would of gotten better by both the Army Air Corps and the British,willy nelly probably went out the window.The stencils are complete,glass dipped and prop built/painted.The actual L/G placement seems to be an area of concern for a few who ditched the kit that will not happen here!

It's even more pronounced with British aircraft... British aircraft carried id stripes on their wings long before D-Day, (from late '42 I believe) especially the low flying types... There are numerous examples in the photo archives as well... In fact the whole invasion stripes idea was an RAF one.... (with thousands of aircraft in the skies and an expected massive response from the Luftwaffe planned for, they ordered the stripes installed on every aircraft that contributed to the invasion)
 
Original British ID stripes were not even in width nor in length... the Air ministry ordered the RAF aircraft repainted with the same pattern used on US aircraft so there would be NO mistakes in the air...
 
And one must admit, with the stripes in place, one glance told you which side the aircraft was on... They were very effective...

You are correct, invasion recognition stripes would have been last minute additions in the field, applied with a broad brush.
If the Germans had known, they'd have applied them too, just to add confusion.
There are plenty of period photo's illustrating how crude they could be. I wouldn't be surprised if some were painted in the dark!
Preserved Warbird's have all their graphics stencilled or use vinyl applied these days.
I know the US stencilled a lot of their markings, but the majority of British ones were hand drawn/painted.
Perhaps a subtle difference to some, but today's practice isn't exactly authentic.

That is looking so sharp  -  the decs  sure  bring it together.
 
OC.

The main decals have been applied stencils remain for another day.I also painted the prop just need to finish the blades.It's been a good productive day.

I have heard the same Andy but when you put it to scale even a half **** job would look decent from a distance.I appreciate the kind comment the plane has about 4 coats of clear but I forgot the yellow leading edge.

Everyone who I’ve seen building a model with invasion stripes (myself included) works diligently to make the stripes to exact width and straightness, with perfect colour separation etc. When the fact of the matter is, when the ground crews actually applied the stripes, there was no such attention to detail. I’ve read reports of the stripes being applied to aircraft on the day before D-Day with a mop! (Some weren’t even fully dry the day of).
 
Your striping looks pretty great to me!
 
Andy

The stripes have been laid it seems I am progressing more and more to a splotchy pattern with my paint.The white was laid down uneven 2.8" using 18" stripes which was roughly 9/16" in width the last white stripe in the middle had to eyeballed to be even usually 1/32" was missing.I painted the black first with falt black splotchy again and then came back with a Nato black to fill in here and there but never completely.I had the minimum of clean-up in the end.

The paints on this one are all MM enamels(freehand) we move on to invasion stripes from here.

Great seam work Kevin - very nice base for the paint job.  👍

Thank you Egilman, sometime it's about “A man's got to do what a man's got to do.” . Where would be the fun in modelling, a completely time and effort wasting hobby, when the spent effort wouldn't be maximized with unnecessary tasks. There is no way to explain what we do to an outsider, it's only us nerds, modelling is important to, so let's keep this little island afloat with some self flagellation.
 
Cheers Rob

It depends on the stencil layout Craig. With the Corsair it was easier to mask around the stencils and for many, I used reusable Kabuki templates with a rectangular hole in it to mask around the stencil. 
With the Arado and multi colored stencils, the walkways with surrounding stencils and the overall stencil distribution, the masking has to be  done a bit more thorough. Masking has to be done relatively precise, as there is not much room around the cut stencils.
 
Cheers Rob

Yep, much like PE cockpits/interiors, on some of them you have to ask if all the work and stress you just went through executing them was worth it...
 
For most it isn't, but for the most exacting modelers, the results cannot be argued with...
 
Nice work brother....

I admire your work and patience. I bought one man army masks for my Border Models Lancaster. Now I’m wondering how complex those are going to be. 

This is getting out of hand. I'm running out of masking tape and patience. Because there are stencils everywhere, you have to mask around them, which actually means, covering the whole plane in Kabuki. And that's not all, after finishing masking around the stencils, some of them need to be covered, because different colors will be sprayed . It's really hard to make no mistakes and leave a spot uncovered for example the tiny number of each stencil. 

I needed two exhausting bench days to get to this point and I'm not ready yet. By this time I cut a zillion patches of Kabuki tape and my eyes are hurting from placement work.

Are these masks great, yes they are definitely, would I use them on a bird like the Arado again, NOOOO. I used 1ManArmy masks for my Corsair build and this was way easier done due to the placement of the stencils and the used colors.
 
Cheers Rob

The Arado 234 was a fascinating airframe in many aspects ahead of it's time, but obviously flawed in some aspects, as the development was rushed, material and fuel was sparse.
It was an extraordinary reconnaissance platform, but I think, it's value was a bit overrated in the video. One of it's advantages was, it could fly higher and faster than the Allied fighters and could therefore act in a theater of enemy air superiority.
 
Cheers Rob