Joel, just came by your Mossie thread again. You have come pretty far with it already. Well done so far! That 0,303 in guns look awesome. Wish I had known them when I built my Mossie some years ago.
Here in Germany I often by stuff like that at Modellbau Schatton, but Mr. Schatton makes mainly AM parts for 1/48 and 1/35 german Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe, so not your playground. Recently I bought a 30 mm MK 101, made of brass, for my Revell/Hasegawa Henschel Hs 129. The kit part looks like crap compared to that.

Torsten

Torsten my friend,
Thanks for stopping by and checking out my progress. Believe me I'm amazed at the quality of the Masters .303s. For your next RAF build you can't go wrong with them.
Joel

Already another week has passed, and I'm still in crawl speed 101. When I look at just what I've accomplished towards my present goal of finishing both engine nacelles and installing them into each wing, It sure looks like once again I haven't gotten very far.

Both nacelles consist of just two main halves that mate fairly well. But as you can see, I did have a few issues with exact alignment judging by the amount of Bondo needed for a smooth joint line. Now I'm assuming that a lot of this is due to the application of Tamiya's Extra Thin softening and creating a valley like effect. While I love using Extra Thin, I'm going to be switching to a more gel consistancy general glue such as their Orange cap, or Testors Model Master regular gel in the black container with the needle applicator.



Dry fitting the nacelle to the wing showed a near perfect fit.



One needs to remember that this molding was originally done way back in 1996, so the detail standards were a lot less then what we've come to expect today. The wheel well doors are opened and closed via a cable system as seen in this restoration photograph.



The rear of the well has a rounded bulkhead extension and a small bracket that has two pulleys. The kit has neither. Just a flat rear bulkhead. So I created both the pulley assembly and supporting bracket from .020 sheet. Neither are exact replicas, but with my somewhat limited skills, it's the best I can do. And believe it or not they took me the better part of 4 hours of trial and error, and I mean a lot of both.



the four springs were made from thin wire coiled around a steel rod.



Right now the plan is to remove the stell pin, stretch the springs just enough for separation, then run a wire through each one to represent the cable. Attach one end at the top of the well under the cross brace as per the picture, and the other end through the pulley, and then to the gear door.

The front of the nacelle has a bulkhead that doesn't go from top to bottom, so one can easily see into the Merlin engine compartment, and it's absolutely void of any detail as the kit contains none.



Looking at pictures of the real deal, I did notice that there seems to be a rather large rubber radiator hose running across the oppening, then it gets rather dark but you can still see some engine detail, and I'm sure that with a pen flashlight the judges can see a whole lot more. So I cut out of .020 sheet a new bulkhead, and made a radiator hose out of insulated wire. Here's a dry fit of it.



Right now the plan is to have the hose just touch the back of the wheel well bay bulkhead so that the new view block bulkhead seat somewhat back but not too far back. Outside of actually buying and installing resin Merlins, this is the best solution I can come up with, and I'm not even considering that option.

Joel

Joel,
Great 'little' upgrades you've done there! They'll be worth it in your heart and mind even if the judges never look underneath. I find little self-made touches are better for the soul than the best aftermarket goodies.

Gaz

Great work Joel, loving the extra details you are putting in here since they will be very obvious in the open wheel bays.
A quick tip, for the coil springs you should go down to the local music store and pick up a cheap set of light gauge electric guitar strings. You will get years worth of stock of various thicknesses ready made!

Cheers, D

Gary,
Thanks. Sure wish I'd start to accomplish a little more.

I've been a IPMS judge many a times, and even a contest chairman. Believe me, turning over every model that can be turned over or using mirror to check out the bottom is mandatory, and one of the great equalizers. You'd be surprised at how many models have bottoms that don't equal the quality of the top side. That's a tough lesson to learn for sure.
Joel

Damian,
thanks for stopping by and appreciating my efforts. yep, and added details is a plus as long as they're done right.

As for the guitar strings, I'm going to do exactly that. I have a brand new huge guitar shop that just opened in one of our local shopping centers not 5 min from the house.

Joel

Nice. See if you can stretch the budget and pick up a nice Fender or Gibson while you're there !

Cheers, D

[quote] Already another week has passed, and I'm still in crawl speed 101. When I look at just what I've accomplished towards my present goal of finishing both engine nacelles and installing them into each wing, It sure looks like once again I haven't gotten very far.

[/quota

Hi Joel,

Looking from the outside, I would say you have a steady and firm building pace. Love the scratch work you've done inside the engine nacelles/wheel bays. The end result should be very realistic

Cheers
Pedro

Hi Joel

Lovely work so far. I reckon it's the best build you've shown us to date.

Going back a step... if the nose guns aren't fixed too solidly, I'd remove them and do some more polishing on the sanding marks. The MasterCasters sponge-sanders that I reviewed ages ago are perfect for jobs like this - I'm still using the sample items on every build ten years later.

All the best

Rowan

[quote]


Pedro,
Thanks so much for those most positive words. I'm glad that you appreciate the effort that it takes to do any scratch building.

Joel

Rowan,
Thank you my friend for you thinking that this is my best effort here. I'm trying to push myself to the next level with no short cuts, so a lot of this is cutting edge for me.

The pictures of the nose MGs was just to show where I was at. The MGs were removed for the next few work sessions, and the nose sections were puttied as needed, then sanded, sealed, and polished with Micro mesh pads to 12,000. I still need to scribe a lot of demarcation lines back. Unfortunately, scribing is one skill that I continue to struggle with, and never seem to get any better.

Joel

Time for another update. Finally, it looks like I've made some real progress.

After trying to figure out the best way to attach the springs to the bottom of the rear nacelle bulkhead, it quickly became apparent that I needed a to make a mounting bracket that extended out of the bottom of each spring, while the top 1/2 or so was empty to accept the "wire" from the well doors. The way I constructed the springs, trapped the steel rod in place, and trying to pull them out even with filing the tips, resulted in damage to the springs. So I just made 4 new ones out of Brass wire this time. The brass wire being a lot stiffer, made handling the springs so much easier. The U shape brackets are just steel wire that I bent to form the hook portion of the bracket.



Using CCA gell I glued them to the back of the bulkheads.



When the doors are installed at the end of the build, it's a easy job of running the cable from the door through the guides and gluing them into the springs. I'm planning on using stretched sprue so that I can shrink them with a little heat to put some tension on the wires.

Next I painted the front bulkhead I made flat black. When dry, I rubbed my finger on my farhead, then on the wire to give it a little shine and separation from the flat bulkhead, so you see the radiator pipe, but hopefully you'll eyes will skip over the void created by the bulkhead. At least you can't see through the enine nacelle any more.



A black enamel wash was applied, then sealed with Dullcoat. I'm still trying to decide if I should install the massive gear struts now, or wait until the end of the build. In any event, It was finally time to glue the engine nacelles to their respective wings. A quick dry fit showed that all the paint that covered the mounting surfaces had to be removed as the fit is that tight. After the nacelles were in position, I used Tamiya Extra thin to glue them to the wings.





The Wheel Wells do look a lot better when not viewed in a greater then 1:1 state.

I finally got around to gluing the Stabilizers to the fuselage. The fit was almost as good as the engine nacelles.





That one area of bondo under the cockpit hasn't been sanded and polished as yet.

And now you're up to date.

Joel

Joel,
Some really nice work there. I never considered forehead oil as a highlighte before. But I will now.

I like that the Tamiya nacelles fit snugly. Adding nacelles that fit poorly seems to be a staple of twin engined models. Chalk up another point for Tamiya.

...wish they'd make a 1/48 scale b-29.

Keep up the inspiring work!

Gaz

Gary,
Thanks for stopping by.

The skin oil trick has been around for as long as I can remember, but it's not exactly high tech, so it's fallen to back burner status for just us old guys.

As far as issues with Twin engine nacelles. Tell me about it. The fit on the Accurate Miniatures B-25B was horrendous. I still have nightmares about them.

Joel

JA
Nice progress and some terrific detail work. I really am impressed with the springs as it is a detail very few builders try to create and add.Bulkheads look real god and you are so right in that when viewing images of the parts larger then life, things just look out of sorts.
Looking forward to the final work and priming the Mossie
Keep 'em coming
Bro

Pete
Thanks for stopping by and having a look. At the rate I'm going, the Mossie build just might outlast me.
Joel

It's been just about two weeks since my last update. Work has progress slowly but surely, there just wasn't enough done to post an update with pictures until now. The last update's final picture was the basic Mossie fuselage minus wings, Rudder, Elevators.



The plan was to replace the kit's Rudder, and Elevators with Ultra Detail's resin units as they're slightly more detailed. What I found is that the rudder and elevators were all to short as though they were designed for the old Monogram kit. There just can't be any other explaination. I find it hard to believe that they would have errored on both surfaces.





As you can see in the two above pictures I glued on sheet plastic strips, and then blended them in. Then they were just glued to the fuselage with CCA gel glue.

Finally, the time had come to attach both wings to the fuselage! Even back in 1996 Tamiya engineers realized that the basically butt joint concept wouldn't be strong enough nor reliable enough with the handling needed to continue the build, or even support the weight of the finished model. So they added two spars to each wing and as you can see in the 1st photo there is a bracket that also goes into each wing as well. A plastic pin is inserted into a whole in the wing, which forces the wing into what they felt is proper alignment. There just isn't any adjustment what so ever. Unfortunately, the butt joint is snug in some areas, but not in others, thus requiring some putty work.







Since I didn't want to remove anymore surface detail, I applied a few coats of Vajello White Acrylic putty, waited 30 seconds, then removed and blended it in with a damp Q-tip. A few coats were needed to level out the putty to the wing surface. I'm sure that after a coat of primer, a little more blending will be needed.

As you've already saw in several pictures, I masked the cockpit Greenhouse with Eduard Masks. As usual, the fit is near perfect. In the enlarged pictures you can clearly see that through mostly my placement errors, I have a some trim work to do. And I do have a little putty/blending work as the front of the Greenhouse doesn't touch the fuselage. Nothing major, as you're looking at a picture greater then 1:1, but still work that needs to be done.



I've decided that both wings will have the 100 gal external Gas tanks, and rocket launches with rockets as they were standard equipment by mid-1944, and this build does represent an aircraft from late 1944. The kit tanks are ok, but lack details. I sanded off the crude molding on the front top of the gas cap and neck, and replaced it with two punched out .010 sheet circles of different dia. glued one on top of the other. Also at the back of the tanks are saftey mounting pins that I just made from pcs of brass wire inserted into drilled out holes. Honestly, I'm not to sure how I'm going to go about replicating those safety mounts.



The bottom of the tanks have two drain plugs (well I think that they're both drain plugs), so I also sanded off the crude blob moldings again, and replaced them with smaller sheet punch outs.



Dry fitting the tanks, you can see that there is an uneven gap across the front top of the tank and wing joint. I do have some pictures of these tanks, but I'm not certain that a gap like that is normal. Most likely I'll add just a little putty to shallow up the recess.



So finally the Mossie is really looking like a Mossie, and is getting ready for a coat of primer after some more clean up work, then some rescribing, which I'm really quite poor at. How much depends on how well I progress before I feel I've done all I can do without screwing it up.





And now you're all up to speed on where the Mossie build is.

Joel

I did notice in a few pictures that I managed to off center the rudder slightly, so I'll just pop it off, clean off the CCA glue, and do a better job of aligning it.

Joel

Joel,
Your mossie certainly is coming along well. I like the result from your punched pieces. I think I'll be trying to employ that in future builds.

I think I'd be shattered if my AM parts required further modifications. But your fixes are hardly noticable in the photos.

Really looking forward to this one, buddy!

Gaz

Joel- Wow ! Lots of progress and looking very good indeed - can't wait to see it in paint. Regarding the tedium of canopy masking - I have never used any commercial masks and they certainly look convenient - I nearly always use bare metal foil providing the canopy frame detail is strong enough to cut to . If you have tried both I would value your input into pros/cons of the commercial masks as compared to the foil method . One of the negatives I've found with foil beyond having to be able to cut out accurately is adhesive residue . It seems the longer the foil stays on the more residue is left behind. While this is easily removed with a q-tip ( cotton bud to our friends across the pond) moistened with mineral spirits the cotton sometimes leaves very fine scratches in the clear areas. Perhaps I need to look to another means of applying the mineral spirits or indeed try the commercial masks. Any thoughts ? Thanks - Richard

Gary,
Thanks for checking out my progress to date. for some reason this build is taking way longer then I originally thought it would. But at least this time I'm not rushing it, but rather putting in the time to get it right (or as right as I can) before moving on.

I'm trying to do more home made detailing whenever possible over just buying AM parts, which is in reality someone else's work. More times then not resin AM parts need quite a lot of work to fit correctly. Some have shrinking issues like all the parts I've used so far from Ultra Scale, hence my questioning if these parts were indeed fabricated for the Tamiya kit or the much older Monogram kit. Other times massive amount of grinding and sanding are needed, ie. Aires jet cockpits. 9 times out of 10 you can get the parts to fit, as resin isn't much different to deal with then plastic.

Joel

Richard,
Thanks for stopping by. I do appreciate it, and your taking the time to leave a post.

I use to mask everything with Tamiya tape, and struggled over hours and days to come close. Many cockpit glass frames aren't 90 degree corners, but have 45 degree angles which I consistently messed up. the Eduard masks are really very good, but do require the eyesight and hand eye coordination of a surgeon to get them perfect. My masking effort does have plenty of miss-aligned pieces, but in scale don't look nearly as bad, and I can go back and fix or cut as needed before I paint.

I've never tried Bare Metal Foil for a few reasons. 1st and foremost is that I always seem to tear it while cutting. And it's rather expensive to use as a masking material. With the new Metalizer paints I don't even have any these days.

I tend to leave the masking material for quite a long time. In the case of the Mossie, a good month or two. So far the Eduard masks have never left any residue that I've had to deal with.

I do use Q-Tips to clean and polish the canopies prior to masking, and really haven't had any issues with scratching. I would tend to think that the scratches are caused by dragging the residue over the plastic and not the Q-Tip.

Joel

Finally it's time for another update. This time it's all about the start of the painting and weathering process.

I've never been a big fan of pre-shading, as the end result usually looks to pre-planned, and symmetrical compared to the random fading, weathering, dirt & grime build up one finds on real aircraft. So I've been slowly coming over to the Black Basing concept. My past two builds used a modified basing technique of gray with black blotches, which I kind of liked, but wanted to see just how the black base with gray blotches would look. So with the Mossie build I've gone full bore with the Black Basing concept, and I have to say that so far I'm more then pleased with the results.

After a complete rub down using Isoprobyl Alcohol, I primed the Mossie with MIG AMMO Black Surface Primer thinned 1:1 with Tamiya X-20A using a flow rate of 18 psi, and trying to achieve a wet coat. The wet coat once dried was smooth but not completely consistant, as I tried to vary the coat somewhat which wasn't that hard as air brushing large surfaces often gives you a irregular consistancy.





I gave the primer a day to dry, then moved on to the 2nd phase of the Black Basing; the blotchy coat. There are two schools of thought on the blotchy coat. One is the use use of a gray primer, while the other school of thought is to use the base color. Since I'm going with a Camo scheme where the entire aircraft is wearing a base color coat of Medium Sea Gray, I just used Tamiyas XF-83 Medium Sea Gray #2 (RAF). I thinned the paint 1:2 paint to Tamiya Yellow cap Lacquer Thinner. For the faint of heart, be prepared as it's not a pretty sight. The Mossie looks more like a poor imitation of a German Mottle pattern.



I gave this a day or so to dry, and then applied the 1st of several highly thinned color of Tamiya XF-83 Medium Sea Gray #2. I thinned the paint out 1 part paint to 3 parts Tamiya Yellow Cap Lacquer thinner, and air brushed it on @ a flow rate of 16 lbs psi. The goal here is to just apply coat after coat till you think you've got the coverage you're looking for, then stop. Wait a while, then take a look and see if the dried color coat is at the consistancy you want. I had to go back a few times till I got what I thought looked about right.









Over all, I'm really quite happy with the results of the paint fading effect. It requires less of a concerted effort to try and fade the color coats after they've been applied. Further weathering will take place after decaling as is the usual procedure.

But there is one major issue with the black basing that I didn't think about before hand, and that caused me more then a little concern. You really can't see errors, screw ups, or seams needing additional work, at least not with my poor eyesight. I found two missed sanding marks on the Ailerons upper surfaces, and one on the bottom of one Aileron. These I repaired when then the color coat had dried by sanding with #600 emery cloth, then polishing out with a Micro Mesh 4,000 pad. I followed that up with several very light color coats, and for once it actually came out perfect. The other issue I found was that there was still some canopy putty work needed even after I had checked with gray primer applied by brush, and did the repairs. I very carefully repaired those areas using Vajello White Acrylic putty applied with a tooth pick, then wiped down with a damp Q-tip. Using a 5/0 brush, I very carefully painted the dried putty, and it looks Ok to me.

Next up is the Dark Green camo pattern later this week.

Joel

Joel - Looking really good - I'm anxious to see the next step in painting .
Richard