Hurry up, Jessie! How much time left?
It is funny to see all the familiar pieces in everyone's posts, but also neat to see the different treatments.
Cheers!
Sean H

Jess you'll catch me yet. I torqued the nozzle of my airbrush off last night after cleaning out some remarkable sludge. No movement on the vampire aside from, mercy of mercies, I could fit bb's into the nose through the opening under the cockpit.

It is indeed very interesting to see the different methodologies. I notice jess has her ip decal on already. Whereas it was virtually the last thing I did.

I sat down this evening to do a little building in the cockpit when suddenly

Vampire!


I'm not terribly thrilled with the fit; there are some serious gaps in the wing root undersides, and that's accounting for the very soft plastic which responds well to liquid glue. There's going to be a serious session with Mr. Surfacer in the near future. The plastic around the tailplane attachments was a trifle short-shot, which will mean a filling session needs to happen three, too. I did a little detailing in the cockpit with my silver Prismacolor pencil; giving it a little wear and tear to liven it up a bit.

Jessie, Richard, Sean, Mike, Micheal and everyone it's great to see how each one of you is approaching the assembly. It is comforting to know that I'm not the only one to forget to add weight to a model or have fit issues. This campaign is a great learning experience for me.

I tried to change my ways on my last couple planes, but I'm back to masking the canopy with standard office cellophane tape. Here's my vampire, ready for paint...

Cheers!
-Sean H.

Well, I was off on a search for how to make seat belts, when I found this Aeroclub Ejection seats T.11 Vampire
Haven't actually found any for sale yet. So'm I'm back to making my own seat belts. Any clues beyond folded tape? I'm guessing that folding 6mm tape in half produces a 3mm belt that's over 8" wide in scale. any better guidance is appreciated.

As you can see back on the posts from 7 to 14 January, Richard and I both used masking tape, cut to thin strips, and stuck on by its own adhesive for seatbelts-- not folded in half. I imagine that would be tricky to fold and as you said, not very thin in scale either.
My painting was a little sloppy (it looked better before I put the paint on. )
-Sean H.

So, I'm guessing about 1mm wide would look nearly right. Just shy of 3" in real life.

I tried for 1mm. I dabbed a little gap filling ca on the belts so they don't fall off.

Not much progress here. New nozzle for the neo is on its way. And I just treated myself to a new harder and steenbeck for my birthdaymas present.

The only way to buy Aeroclub products these days is directly from John himself. Head over to Britmodeller and look for the user John Aero. Send him a message through the Britmodeller PM system (if you're a member) or e-mail sales(at)aeroclub-models.com

The old girl has layers of black primer, spray can silver, and Future floor polish applied with a relatively large, soft brush. The finish is a little spotty-- I'm wondering if I didn't rub off enough of the sanding dust between coats. I'm very happy with the canopy results-- I finally took my time, cutting around the masks with an X-acto blade before removing them, and rubbing with the tip of a toothpick anywhere the paint was cheating in on the edges.

One note, see in the background the set of MicroScale #72-05 Japan WW II decals. Do the roundels (hinomaru?) look too brown? Was there a time that Japan used a more brown roundel, or did MicroScale get that wrong, or are these decals themselves just too old?
Cheers!
-Sean H

Those decals are just way off. They never mess with hinomaru. Japanese aircraft had notoriously poor paintwork. But the hinomarus never shared in the chipping. Always bright and crimson and solid.

Thanks much, Richard!
-Sean H

First in the gallery! That never happens, ha ha.
Anyway, here's how I got there...

Created 571s where there were EL and some black stripe before by windysean, on Flickr

JASDF T55_ft qtr by windysean, on Flickr

I apologize, new computer, and I can't get the photos copied from Flickr here to any usable size.
-Sean

I forgot to finish my earlier thought.
I used the brown MicroScale roundels, but painted the insides red with a brush afterward. The colors are close enough that the eye doesn't perceive any skips in the red paint, as long as I stayed inside the white border.
-Sean H

I've got the seat belts done, complete with horribly overscale fittings which just might show up through the coke-bottle transparencies.

Very interesting concept and builds going on here, well done everyone!

Not to be a pest (part of the job, I fear) but still no ribbon showing on the campaign page .

Michael

Sorry, not much help with graphics. But I've been going to school on the great work other folks are sharing. One of the better cockpits I've ever built.

OK so I think I've gotten to a healthy place in my relationship with alclad. I layed tamiya rattle can black as a base. Then steel wool polished it and rinsed the Steel lint off. Spraying at10 psi or so it's a nice product. Although I always have to do a full strip and clean of the airbrush after I use it.

Masking went quickly and I quickly learned I needed to lay white down ahead of th valejo orange or it just makes metallic orange when applied to alclad.

Should be something pretty here tomorrow.

Got the fuselage (with 9 gr of shot) all buttoned up and ready to move on.

9 grams! Even more than the 7 specified in the instructions.
I noticed that at this stage, I would regularly forget how nose-heavy it was when I'd pick mine up, almost dropping it every time.
Those seams do take some work, so when it's primed, we'll see where you stand so far. I'm not primarily an aircraft builder, although over my life I've built many dozens, but I'm really loving the shared experience of this campaign.
Cheers!
-Sean H.

The instructions did say 7, but I assumed that they included the pilots in the weight and balance calculations. I'm leaving them out. They weighed a gram total, so I pored out 8 g plus a bit just to be sure....

The top seams aren't being too challenging, it's the bottom seam, with little dangly bits in the way that's got me worried.

There is never enough time... Meant to post this last week.

Wo ho! That orange really grabs you around the throat!
That's some beautiful work, Richard! A very clean build, as they say.
-Sean

Time to get this build off the ground


I'll be building OOB but I may have a slow start, quite a lot going on in real life right now