BLACK VIKING

Norwegan Incident 
11 May 1940
Around 2330/10, a convoy of ships departed Skjelfiord for the UK. The convoy was made up of the damaged light
cruiser HMS Penelope (Capt. G.D. Yates, RN) that was being towed by the tug HMS Brigand, the damaged destroyer
HMS Isis (Cdr. J.C. Clouston, RN) that was being towed by the tug HMS Buccaneer, the transport Lochee (964 GRT,
built 1937) and the tanker British Valour (6952 GRT, built 1927).
On departure from the Skjelfiord the convoy was escorted by the destroyers HMS Campbell (L.Cdr. R.M. Aubrey,
RN), HMS. Witch (Lt. Cdr. J.R. Barnes, RN) and the A/S trawler HMS St. Loman (T/Lt. R.C. Warwick, RNR).

An hour ago, I almost binned the Corsair. I hate fails and I hate re-dos and after removing a lot of masking material, I almost reached that point, but told myself to lean back and take a deep breath.
What happened, I don't know exactly. I had residues on all the transparent parts, which were masked with the most possible care. No bleedings, but possibly grey misted residues from the lacquer colors and their thinners, which went through the masking material. 
I also masked the radiator openings around the cowlings with blue tack, that went goo and is very hard to remove. It took about an hour to get rid of half of it.
 

 

 
The good thing, I wear a respirator mask. I don't want to know, what these stuff would have made with my brain without it.
I tried to clean the canopy with a cotton swab and wooden toothpicks and it worked luckily. The greater problem were the other transparent parts, like windscreen, lower fuselage window, and armor glass with gunsight, which were glued in place. I carefully removed them and cleaned them.
Before all these troubles, I matte coated the plane with Tamiya's flat clear lacquer, but it was still too shiny for my taste, maybe semi matte, but not flat. Out with the Pledge after drying, added 30% of Tamiya X Flat clear (never more) and sprayed again.

Now the Corsair looks like this.
 

 

 

 
To relax a bit, I continued with the undercarriage, which received some washes, followed by iron pigments rubbed on, to get a painted metal feel and finally, I had to re do the pistons, which were chrome taped. The tape is not made to adhere to small diameter parts, as it loosened itself and I had to remove it. Instead, I used my trusty Uschi chrome pigments to let them shine a bit.
The tyres were airbrushed in two different near blacks, one for the flanks and one for the running surface and than pronounced with pigments., which is my usual practice. The wheels are from Eduard and much better than these rubber thingies supplied with the kit.
 

 

 

 
Cheers Rob
 

I was finally able to get the main deck glued in and the front portion of the Qtr deck, the toughest challenge modifying the Qtr deck was filling in the open space between the doors with 7 little carvings and I still have to build the ladders. Up front I'm doctoring up the supplied catheads and fabricating the bulkhead/fore castle rail using .60"x.60" styrene for the bottom and .30"x.60" for the top.
 
Michael D.
 

Beautiful work, Richard. I'm loving following this.
 
Steven

Completed port side Zygian seats:

Sorry for the late response as I've had one heck of a year as I lost my mum last year and we have moved back to Kent to be near No1 son .
I have attached some pictures for you to look at to show what I have been up to. 
Thanks again for the comments and likes .
Martyn 

this afternoon,  I got to sit down again with the model.........not much,  but enough      the tail skid is painted.........the machine guns are painted their base color.......and I got to work on the wing some more.  the top had been painted earlier with the steel gray.......still needs the darker gray on the underside.   I was standing over the fuselage...I took this picture..........

the plans show the struts for the wing..........I'm about to make the pairs.  for the wing I did the same camo design.  I was curious as to how it would look.  I think it will fit the bill alright   

I'm hoping to get more done before the holidays........ ☃️🎅

Amazing work.
 
OC.

Today, I muddied my Corsair up with Flory's dark grime wash, a clay based liquid, which I applied over the whole airframe, after adding a drop of soap for better distribution, with a flat brush and let dry for about half an hour. The stuff is dried by then and looks totally grimy and dead flat.
Then, I wiped the excess away with a dry piece of cotton cloth in the direction of the airflow and the very fine clay stays in all the panel lines and other crevices. The best part about this wash, you determine the grade of dirt or you can remove it completely wiped down with water, if something went wrong.
 

 

 
It's clearly more visible on the lighter underside, but also noticeable on the darker upper side. The good think, my pre shading is still full visible.
 

 
As a break, I made some detail painting on the landing gear, adding the brake lines and other tiny bits and pieces (not shown) and chromed the cylinders with AK's chrome tape for the first time. It worked ok, a bit more adhesion would have been great on these parts with small diameters, but it looks chrome to me, so thumbs up.
 

 
Cheers Rob

OK, I streamlined the pricing options and now have the box details for shipping.
 
Here are the prices:
 
VM/12           HMS INDEFATIGABLE  (February 2023 Release)                                                                                              £1350
VM/12/Box    HMS INDEFATIGABLE  Boxwood Planking (This replaces all pearwood and red alder planking (Decks)        £1800
VM12/D1       HMS INDEFATIGABLE  Laser engraved deck set (Very Limited supply - Red alder planking still included)     £120
VM12/CP01   HMS INDEFATIGABLE  PE copper plate set (Including rudder shape PE)_                                                        £150
VM/12/PB      HMS INDEFATIGABLE  Pear block and deadeye set (This set replaces the standard set)                                 £140
 
Box details:
Box weight – 14.5kg
 
Length – 990mm
Width – 370mm
Depth – 195mm
 
The box weight is well over double that of even Sphinx. The box dimensions are those for the shipping sleeve. I wanted to keep the length under 1 metre, as I know some postage rates go up a lot past this point.

ha...maybe you should start planning where, or in which famous museum this masterpiece will end up.....

The yellow is so fragile, and it already needs re-touching.  I will wait for that, though, until after the installation.  As I have throughout the model, I use the darker gold Citadel Armor as a base coat, and then I highlight with the bright gold.  It creates a nice, if subtle sense of depth:

 



Next, I’ll do all the gilt work for the starboard side.  I’m also ready to begin making the third tier of stern lights.
 
Thank you for stopping by.  More to follow..

Thanks for compliments and likes, very much appreciated.
I finished the paint touch up for now anyway in the bow area and rigged the gammoning using .45mm rope which equates to around 2-2.5" at scale and looks pretty good. Up next I need to fabricate the two pin rails that span across the beakhead rails and rig the loose lines at the spritsail mast.
 
Michael D.

Thank you Gentlemen, right now, the chipping looks a bit harsh too my eye, but that's on purpose, because washes, filters and further weathering will tune it down a bit. The benefit in using masks for the walkways, insignia and stencils is, you can chip through them with the hairspray beneath. I always liked chipping best, when simulating the real thing, like tear and abrasion, instead of painting something on. I will have to do so in some spots of the fuselage, only to match the wing chipping.
 
Cheers Rob

Nicely done. Looks like a lot of the jets I flew, back in the day. Well worn.

Very well done, light to moderate chipping...
 
Looks real...

Do you remember the hairspray? I covered the chipped primer with a coat of clear and applied hairspray onto it, before I airbrushed the wing color, walkways, insignia and stencils.
Now was the exiting moment to see, if it still works after so many layers of paint. I dampened the areas with water and a drop of soap and let it soak for half an hour. The paint was a bit more resistant, than the primer chipping, but it worked. Using different tools, like toothpicks, a stiff brushes and some tweezers, I got what I wanted.
Now the whole plane was covered with a clear coat as preparation for further weathering.
 

 

 
Cheers Rob

Perhaps not finished, but I like the ‘emptyness’ of that last one
 
Jan

It indeed evokes the feeling that the crews on these little ships crossing the oceans were all on their own ...

Nice update!
 
OK, I can now finally give hard details about release dates and costs.
 
All of the production for Indy is now fully complete, photo etched brass, all castings and laser cut parts. Production started at the start of this year, but I have had to produce a lot of our existing kits in between.
 
The time for each kit for laser cut parts is nine and a half hours. This is only for actual laser cutting time, and does not include removing and setting up each batch of material on the laser table (plus laser/extractor maintenance etc.), so the real time would be more like 11-12 hours dedicated to each kit for laser cutting. There are a total of 51 individual laser cut sheets, and with the (very limited) engraved deck option, 53 sheets and an hour added to that overall cutting time. This is all done on my large laser machine, and for the main construction parts, materials twice the size of Sphinx.
 
Pricing:
 
VM/12               HMS INDEFATIGABLE - £1350
VM/12/PB         HMS INDEFATIGABLE  Machined Pear block and deadeye set - £140
VM/12/Box        HMS INDEFATIGABLE  Boxwood Planking set -£450
VM12/D1          HMS INDEFATIGABLE  Laser engraved deck set -£120
VM12/CP01      HMS INDEFATIGABLE  PE copper plate set  -£150
 
I have stock for 50 kits. (Complete kits with all masting and rigging materials, as usual)
 
For the pearwood block and deadeye set, I have 30 sets in stock.
 
The boxwood planking option includes all hull planking strip, including deck planking, in boxwood. Right now, I have ordered enough for 5 kits, but 2 of the 5 have already been pre ordered. If people want this, I will order more. This is due in January
 
The laser engraved deck option is very limited, due to the sheer amount of scrap wood not suitable for the job. I was meant to have at lease 30 sets, but only have 8.
 
The PE copper option will be available by the time of the kit launch, but is now quite expensive, and did not include in the kit for this reason (copper tape is included, and is what Jim will use). I was not sure I could even get this until a week ago.
 
The kit will be available for pre order next week, with the actual release being mid-late February

The windows are in place

The interior is painted

The chassis and body are glued together

Added some extra details. Wipers, rear-view mirrors and some extras on the roof.
The model is ready for painting

A little side diversion.  From the Post-apocalyptic series by Master Box, Raider Reaper in 1:24 scale. A really simple figure kit to assemble, it’s more about painting figures. I used Vallejo paints. After assembly I sprayed the figure with Tamiya's rattle can Fine Light Grey primer, then after drying I airbrushed it with Vallejo black primer. After that cured overnight, I airbrushed it again with Vallejo white primer, except this time I held the figure so I was spraying straight down with the top of his head pointed straight at the airbrush, leaving a white over black misty finish. (Sorry, no pictures, I was following a YouTube video on the technique). 
 
Results follow:
 
 

Schooner

HM Ships Princess Royal and Tiger at Scapa Flow. V/W Destroyer with Observation Balloon and Drifter full of Libertymen off to sample the delights of Kirkwall 
w/c 16" X 11"