Stephen,

Thanks for that. I needed a good laugh. That's how I look and feel at the end of the day. These 2 jobs are tearing me up for the moment. I see the gas pump more than my wife. I'll be back soon to finish these Grig's.

-Mark

Been there done that. Just wanted you to know we appreciate your efforts here. Paying bills gets in the way. Glad you like my new looks. . .its me before High Speed connections.

Hello all,

I'm back. Sorry for the long interval of nothing. It's time to finish this project and move on to others. After a few unsatisfying attempts at painting the fuselage with acrylics, I decided to give the Spada Woodgrain decals a try. I've stripped the fuselage down with rubbing alcohol and Q-tips. Here it is :



I'm also considering doing a beaching diorama for it. I want to try some water effects.

Mark

Hey, he's back!

Hmmm... Interesting choice. I will be interested to see how this turns out Mark.

Cheers,

Hugh

Ditto! Mark where have you been? Teasing us with a half built sea plane. Don't tell me you were abducted by Martians!

Hello Hugh and Stephen,

All work and no play... I've finished teaching the semester at the college and am performing less at the moment. I'll get really busy again in October so it's back to modelling. I have been checking in on everyone's builds. Wotjec is doing some amazing stuff with the photo-etch.

Here's the Spada decal sheet



I decided to test it on a panel on the rear fuselage. I painted the the rear part enamel "Rust" color. It dried flat, of course.



Next I brushed on some Future...



Here's the decal on one panel. It darkened the color which is what I was after because the interior of the cockpit is darker than the Rust paint.




I like the effect so I'll use this for the rest of the fuselage. Has anyone out there used these decals before on a build?

Mark

I like it!

Here's a little more.......

Fuselage with cockpit masked and painted Testor's Rust....



Next I went over the panel lines with a 005 marker to darken them. That"ll help as I decal each panel........



More soon..

Mark

I Futured the fuselage and decaled a few more panels using Micro Sol......





These decals are VERY easy to use. More later...............

Mark

Hey, that looks really good.
A coat of gloss will finish that off nicely!

Cheers,

Hugh.

I really like it , what is the name of the manufacture of the decals and is there more choices for the wood grain ?

Terri,

I got my decals directly from www.misterkitusa.com along with some Misterkit paint. I called and talked to Mike directly last fall and received everything within a week. There are 7 different grains available in the Spada Decals range. Just click on the link on the left hand side of the page and you'll be able to see them.

Hope that helps.

Mark

Mark,

Looking very good indeed!

Dwayne

Hello all,


I'm still working on decalling the fuselage, it's progressing well. I'll post photos when I finish it.

Meanwhile, here's the white metal engine supplied with the kit.....



It's OK but not a lot of detail. I'm going to replace it with a 1/48 Vector Gnome 9 Monosoupape................





You can see the detail on the cylinders.......





This is one nice little engine. More soon...............

Mark

Here's the constructed engine.....................









The level of detail is awesome.

More soon....................

Mark

The Vector resin engines are some of the best.

Hello everyone,


One more update before the weekend.....



Here's the engine with the push rods mounted, ready for paint..........................



And a few shots of the fuselage in progress, I'll tone the lines down later..............





Have a great weekend everybody!!!!!!!!!

Mark

I have had my eye on these Vector Resin Engines for a while. They look to be well worth it.

Just remember when painting this (and I don't want anyone to think that I am trying to teach my Grandmother to suck eggs) that he Cylinders were turned from Forged Steel Blanks, the Crank Case was cast aluminium, and the face and back plates and the casing around the Cams and Cam Drive Gears were all turned from steel.

Hard to make hte distinction in this scale I know...

The Timber decals are looking good.

Cheers,

Hugh.

Thanks Hugh,

I didn't know that about the engine. I'll see how close I can get when I get to painting it.

Does anyone out there have any color pics of radial engines that have had a day or two of flight time before they got a good cleaning. I'm wondering how much to weather the engine. Any help is appreciated.

Thanks,
Mark

Have a look at some of these Mark.

There are various types of Gnomes and Le Rhones.

http://www.wwi-models.org/app/sbj/srch/Macn.php?action=uArchList&subjId=152

Cheers,

Hugh

Excellent....... thank you, Hugh.

It seems the colors are quite wide and varied. This'll be fun.

Mark

A little more progress...........

Here's the engine painted with SnJ aluminum.............





Now add a wash of Van Dyke Brown................



This really helps to pop out the detail. I'll be doing a few more washes and then some drybrushing to it later.

You might have noticed that I removed the push rods. After I painted the engine they looked too big to me so I'm going to replace them with stainless steel guitar string. Much thinner.

Here's a few pics of a 1/48 resin Fw190 engine I'm working on at the moment. The vertical supports on each cylinder are guitar strings.................





This is kind of the look I'm going for for the M-5 engine. Post any comments or questions.

Thanks for checking in.

Mark

Here's the engine painted up,washed several times and drybrushed, ready for guitar strings. Hope you like it.





More later,

Mark

Hello all,

Here's the engine with guitar string push rods. I'm really happy with how this turned out.





Send out some comments, more later.............

Mark