Matt,
The Mosquito is really coming together now. Sure looks like you've conquered the "beast". Looking forward to seeing some paint on it.

Personally, I don't have the fortitude you have to have stayed the course on this build. I pick and choose my builds knowing what the kit is like. If it's too much for my frustration limits, I just don't buy/build it. As it is, I've boxed up way more builds then I care to admit too.
Joel

Nice canvas ready and waiting for the paint job. Congrats on pulling the monster together, looks really excellent,

Thanks guys!




I have only ever done that twice - one of them you can see in the background of the last photo, the MDC Tyohoon. My wings came chipped around the aileron and neither aileron fits at all, I have no idea how I'm going to fix it tbh, which is a shame because I spent a ton of time on the cockpit already.

The other one is the Classic Airframes Defiant - which I might just finish off soon.

Don't worry about the mess, it still looks way better than MY workbench!

Well, it's time....



for paint......a lot of paint.

I forgot how much I hate masking canopies, we've been spoiled by die cut masks.

It's interesting to note that Airfix is the first manufacturer to correctly depict the Mosquito's canopy. It's actually a tube frame cage with heated perspex bent overtop. The few portions of frame are where one sheet of perspex was joined with another. The Mosquito's canopy was built in one piece and installed as a cap onto the already completed airframe.

I'm really impressed with how Airfix modelled this.

Matt,
The masking looks really good. I'm impressed with how well the Mosquito looks with a coat of paint on it.
Joel

I wasn't planning on sharing any in progress photos of the painting process, but this is one coat of the light grey after pre-shading. This took an entire bottle of paint. I'll be toning the preshading down with more of the grey - lightened repeatedly for post shading.





This is a day-fighter scheme, so this colour is on top and bottom, green disruptive camouflage on topsides.

This is a very famous airframe, but there isn't a single photo of it. Interestingly Airfix shows it in the day fighter scheme even though all the photos of other aircraft of the same unit are painted in the night fighter scheme we're more familiar with - dark sea grey over light with green disruptive camo.

Here's the latter paint scheme




My build is the lighter grey only.

Matt,
Really looking good. Hard to believe that it took a entire bottle of paint, but it's certainly one large model aircraft.
Joel

Just a quick what's-what to keep this thread alive while I go on my honeymoon. I just finished my latest round of surgery, chemotherapy and radiation. I'm even back to working full time. So now that I'm "healthy" my wife and I finally get to run away for a well deserved break - we're going to St. Lucia! God knows my wonderful wife deserves it; working full time and looking after me when she comes home, she's never had a break. It's also our 1 year anniversary!



Anyway, some wing related things


Here's how the girl looked all filled and sanded



Now to mask off all of the openings. Masking these is always an exercise in ingenuity. I almost always use the kit parts themselves - particularly when the camouflage has to align.

The trick is to seal the openings up, while making the attachment temporary and leaving nothing behind to clean up when they're removed.

....introducing my good old friend blu-tac.







Now, take a small ball of the stuff and dab at the stuff that sticks out like above - it will pull it right off and you're good to go.

The entire nose is held on with blu-tac (except the part I had to modify to fit, glue and fill earlier). The camo will line up nicely, there will be no overspray (the nose cone has balls of blu-tac across the inside of the gunports).



Jump ahead to my previous update and beyond

- the grey is entirely finished.

The bomb bay doors are the 'closed' parts (which didn't fit anyway - several mms too short) which is why no paint was wasted on them - the 4 piece open doors are being used and were painted separately.





Hand for size




To be continued... The goal is to have this finished before Christmas. So I can finally open my two Airfix Typhoons!

Matt,

Fantastic work, as always. Congrats on getting away from the medicos for awhile and getting to spend time with your bride! Have fun!

Michael

Thanks michael, waiting to board right this second and it just started snowing so i can enjoy my vacation that much more!!

I told family and friends that i hope they get 10 feet of snow and -40 degree temps while I'm away lol

Matt,
So glad to hear that you have a clean bill of health. Sounds like you really went through hell to get there. Glad that you and your wife are getting away for that honeymoon. Ours was still the best trip we've ever had in 33 years.

The picture with your hand really sets the scale to just how big the Mosquito is. It's just HUGE !!

Looking forward to your next update after you get back.
Joel

Is this the update you were looking for?



This is my favorite part of the build - this and removing the masks.

One photo is all you get - Soon you'll see the finished model.

Update time!

Let's see if I can't make this a decent SBS on my method of doing soft-edged camouflage.

I have never been a fan of hard edged camo - I guess it reminds me too much of brush painted models, and none of mine ever looked good.

The Mosquito has both hard and soft edged camo - the demarcation line that runs along the side of the fuselage is hard - I simply used masking tape for this.

I start by marking the boundaries of the camo - I use pencil and keep it light and inside the edge that I'm actually going to paint (it's easier to cover if it's in the middle of a patch of green than it is if it's right on the edge.

(to keep my paint table relatively clean - and to make the model a little more portable as the paint dries, I paint on the cardboard from the bottom of a case of pop)



A reference check showed the Airfix instructions were more or less correct (although the Airfix diagrams contradict themselves when they switch from top to side view)



I preshade again - I had already preshaded the whole model, then I painted the entire airframe the light gray. This way I don't end up with any bare plastic where the grey meets green. This time I only preshade inside the green areas. You can see my pencil tracing.



The upper/lower demarcation line on the mosquito is harder than the upper surfaces, but it's not a hard line like on the fuse - I use rolled blu-tack to give a medium soft line. The fatter the roll, the softer the edge will be, so it's important to make the roll relatively consistent.



The green has been sprayed - but needs to be faded (post shaded) still. This 'nightfigter' scheme (puzzlingly applied to all day fighters) is actually a very stark contrast, but I want to tone it down, and break up the monotony of it.



Got a little complacent and sprayed green on the wrong side of the pencil line lol. Happens every time.



First lightened coat blotched on. I spray in circles when fading - it helps make the fading seem far more random.



I kept lightening the green until the final shade which was 50/50 Dark Green and Zinc Chromate Yellow mixed 30/70 with thinner.






It's important when free-handing a soft edge like this to follow basic principles. In this case spraying perpendicular to the surface is facilitated by standing the model up - otherwise I'd tilt the airbrush so far forward paint would spill out of the cup.

I have learned new techniques working in this mammoth scale. Tire dressing sponges are an amazing way of supporting the model - they're firm enough to support its weight, but soft enough not to scuff the paint. The papers are on top so I don't paint the sponges - I still have to use them on my car lol.

Specifically this photo shows the plane after I have gone back over the upper surfaces with the gray and tightened up the green overspray.



These have come in so handy with this build because it is incredibly annoying having its landing gear on, and I don't want to lay it upside down on its canopy while painting the bottom.



Now it's time to finalize the lines - the gray oversprayed a bit, so I tighten up the odd spots like this.

I place wax paper on top of the model, trace the markings and then transfer them to paper which I then cut. Because I don't want a hard line, I have to elevate the paper off of the surface.

The whole model could be sprayed this way to begin with. I've done it in 48th scale, but the size of this model begged for a freehand finish.





Sometimes it's just not possible to cut the right scallop into paper. Here I use rolls of blutack again. This is right before the final spray of green.



spray across the mask, increasing the angle each time to move the paint closer and closer to the edge you want. The higher the paper the softer the line. So for this photo I sprayed from the right, across the paper (with a post it on the back of the paper so I didn't spray behind it on the gray).



Same principle with blutack - spray across, not into the edge you want. Here you can see the masking tape for the horizontal line too. Again a post it was held so I didn't get and green behind (to the right in this photo) of the blutack.



Masking removed! You can see the edge of the green under the guns is harder than it is over the nose, but not hard like a masked edge.





The model was up-ended on it's nose again and gloss coated. Then my most hated part. Decals.

All done now though!







This kit provides nice decals printed by Cartograph. As you can see they sat down nicely with set/sol and then Mr. Mark Softer. It would have been disaster without the Mr. Mark Softer - Micro Sol just isn't strong enough, this is always my experience.


Don't forget the fading will lose some contrast under the gloss coat, so post fade until it almost looks silly. You wont get all of the contrast back with the flat coat.



Now just some weathering and flat and we're all done!!!

I've totally fallen in love with this girl now, she's beautiful.

She is absolutely beautiful Matt! You have that rare gift of breathing life into a piece of cold plastic. Once again, I bow to the master!!

Matt,
Your camo paint scheme really turned out quite well. I'm most impressed with your technique of Blue tac and paper templates. I've tried Blue Tac by itself, and have always had issues with the strings not sticking and falling off on vertical surfaces. Paper masks just never gave me a soft enough line. But your combination method just might be the answer I'm looking for.

In the old days I use to free hand it, and go back and forth over and over again cleaning up errors, hopefully your method will solve that issue for me.

Decals really look like they were painted on. I'm surprised that you have issues with Cartograf decals. Just Micro Set and Sol usually is all that I need unless there are compound curves that are too much for those decals solutions. I've just tried the new Tamiya's decal setting solutions, and they seem to be a little stronger. Solvaset is my last choice, but will do what others can't.

I've got nearly a half dozen of the tire dressing sponges, even one or two that hasn't been used as yet. Do you tape them down to support the model, or am I missing the point on how you use them?

Joel

Time of Completion - December 20th, 2014 1110h


Spent 11 1/2 hours on her today alone. I could see the end at the end of the tunnel and just couldn't stop.

Matt,
Congratulations on crossing the finish line. It's been quite an enjoyable journey for me to follow. Personally, when I finally cross the finish line of a long build, I do also have a sense of sadness, as it's the end of the line for that build. Fortunately, right around the corner is the next build waiting for it's official start.
Joel

Now imagine shipping it to a different country lol.

I'll post photos after Glenn sees them. Only seems right that he's the first to see them.

Congratulations on a beautiful job Matt, she's a beauty,
Cheers,
Julian

Matt,

Super congrats on that incredible Mossie! I can't wait for the flightline photos.

My sincere congratulations on the end of chemo, return to work, and most of all, taking your bride on your honeymoon!

Well folks;

Here you have it - the last update of this build. We've crossed the finish line and the only thing left to do is box her up and ship her out.


Here's the last day of assembly.

You will likely remember that I scrapped the plan to use the Master Barrels for the 20mm cannon as they wouldn't be visible.

Well, here's the installation of the 303 barrels.

5 part barrels for all 4 guns



I learned from previous experience that it's criticial that you paint the barrel before inserting it into the sleeve - otherwise you can't ensure paint coverage and you may have brass spots showing through the cooling slots on the sleeve.

I shoved them in blue tack for ease of painting.




I cannot tell you how beautiful these parts are - and for the price! What a bargain





plastic barrels cut off with my trusty JLC razor saw






The ammo chutes for the 303s are the worst damn idea I have ever seen. You have to insert them into the guns, glue the guns to the floor of the gunbay (the fit isn't firm enough to hold them, so you HAVE to glue them - it's impossible to get them to line up properly and sit level all at once) and then you have to attach the breeches they bolt to, which only fit to the bottom of the weapons and not to the floor of the gunbay. It is more tedious than I can explain, so here's the photos.

OH - and if you've tried to paint metal or rubber parts before, you'll know it just peels off when bent. So you have to fit all of these parts in together before painting them - than include the viewing holes on the ammo belts.


Note the ammo chute on the rubber fret still. You have to install the ejector chutes at the same time and mount them with the guns to the gunbay floor.



These parts press fit up against the guns - which are balanced tediously on a single peg.



Did I mention the ends of both of those parts are crucial for the alignment of the gunbay floor into the nose which we already discovered didn't fit well?



I think I did a fair job of getting the guns aligned in the end. Imagine trying to glue a marble onto a lead pellet resting on top of a baseball.
(you can see the notches in the ends of the mounts that fit onto pegs in the nose to align the floor)







With the painting all done - it's time to open the nose to install the guns. You may remember I hold panels on with sticky tack to mask these areas off. Works well and it's fast.





Globs of sticky tack masking off the gunports. Tape masking off the divots for the hinges because there's no overlapping plastic


Bend those suckers! (They don't want to, and the belts are too long to sit quietly. They fight the strongest of superglues and you have to hold all four ends down while you attach the top to the ammo bins which hold them in place - and THEN you get to paint them!)



And then hold your breath while you glue the nose on while wiggling the barrels through their ports. No one breathe!





The propellers I paint black and then lighten with Nato black - a nice scale black from Tamiya. Yellow tips already painted - why try any paint yellow over black?



Post-its are my next favourite masking material. Time to paint the hubs - dull aluminum for me



Contrasted with polished aluminum. (in case Glenn wants to leave the spinner off on the 'open' side.



The bomb bay walls needed a tighter fit than sticky tack would allow - so I used krystal kleer to glue them for painting, then they come right off and get glued back on after the cannons get mounted.



The instructions are more than a little ambiguous as to where the corrugated piping goes on the gun end. It took me ages of scouring to find a good photo. It's shown on page 50 of Squadron's Mosquito Walkaround.

Here it is folks - the Encore, the true gand finale.



To start it, in a bid to instill confidence in all of those new to our hobby, I present this - the evolution of my own personal model making.


From left to right is the 1/32nd scale Revell Mosquito - I built this when I was 8. Next is the 1/48th scale Tamiya Mosquito - I built this when it was released, so probably when I was about....18? ish? and last but not least, my most recent completion at the age of 30 - The jewel of someone else's collection, the Airfix 1/24th scale kit.

So don't look at the builds of others thinking 'I wish I could build like that'. Look at them for techniques you haven't tried and DO build like that!



You may notice that I decided the colour scheme shown in the instructions looked 'stupid' so I switched the grey and the green around. Or the box art had it backwards, or the model pictured on the side of the box etc, and I decided I liked this better.






Filler? Lol tube cement.







Tamiya, surprisingly, didn't provide parts for the ammo chutes. I'd still rather this than those stupid rubber parts provided in the airfix kit.





It’s a real death-or-glory show, boys’ – that was how Group Captain Percy Pickard ended the briefing for one of the RAF’s most daring and dangerous raids of WWII; ‘Operation Jericho’, the Amiens Gaol Raid of February 1944. Requested by the French Resistance to free, or to sacrifice, up to 700 prisoners held by the Gestapo at Amiens, 18 Mosquito FBVIs of 140 Wing were prepared at short notice to attack the prison at low-level and high speed, the objective being to break the walls.

Led by Pickard in Mosquito HX922, 140 Wing attacked with completesurprise causing utter chaos inside the prison. 258 prisoners escaped through the breached walls, with 102 killed. Warned of collateral damage, the Resistance said death from RAF bombs was preferable to Gestapo torture and execution. Only two Mosquitoes were lost, one of which was HX922. Pickard and his navigator, ‘Bill’ Broadley, failed to return and are buried at Amiens.




OOB Instruments! Wow these turn out well.



These shots to show the canopy before removing the masking - that magical step where and angel gets her wings





C'est Fini!



















The separate intenal frame for the canopy is a gorgeous part.





























Thanks to each and every one of you for following along.

A very special thanks to ChukW for his infinite wisdom and always being there for me to vent to, whenever I wasn't using him as a sounding board.

As I've said elsewhere, this is simply fantastic! I hope her new owner is as happy as I am to see this beautiful beastie come together at last. The details- belts, instrument panel, engine, guns, the subtle weathering- all add up to a true tour de force. I feel privileged to have had a bit of a ringside seat for this styrene boxing match- cheers, and happy new year, Matt!

Matt,
And thank you for sharing with us your build, it was quite an adventure and learning experience. One that I personally enjoyed. I can honestly say that I looked forward to each and everyone of your updates, felt your frustrations, and took pleasure in your accomplishments throughout the build.

You might be the only person I've ever known that has kept a model that he built 22 years ago at age 8.

Like many of us, I'm looking forward to your next build blog.

Joel