I generally try to post new material here around the end of the month. Not having posted since August, that seems to have broken down. Seems to. It’s this build of this particular kit. I don’t want to work on it anymore. I recognize that this is an emotional response, not intellectual, so I have pressed on, albeit intermittently. But…here we are!

The fuselage over the flight deck (or cockpit, you choose) has a prominent feature. The curved shape is created on the actual aircraft by using flat panels. In some photos the panels appear to be butt-joined (the edge of each panel abutting the next), in some photos they seem to be scaled (where one side of the panel overlaps the next, sitting on top of it), and none of them are definitive. I made my guess (several guesses, really) and decided I’d go with the scaled (overlapped) presentation. I laid down strips of .005″ (.127mm) and then faired them in with 3M Acrylic Putty:

While the putty is drying, I fitted the heat exchangers on top of the engine nacelles. Originally it looked like a small, resin, cat standing on a hot griddle. Way too high off the nacelles. Fiddle, file, sand, cut at they now sit correctly:

EDIT

While I was doing this update, it was at this point in it that I sat here confused (easy place to get to due to how often I go there). I thought I’d taken more photos of the work over the flight deck. I certainly know that a lot of time was spent on it. About an hour ago the mystery (and confusion) dissipated when I found the photos I thought that I’d taken misfiled in a folder that, of course, has nothing to do with modeling (there are minor aspects of my life that have nothing to do with modeling) (honest). It’s at this place in this post that I surreptitiously add them in a manner that I think few will notice my oversight. ::giggles::

With the putty dry, I went back to the fuselage over the flight deck. ::sighs:: Where to begin… A lot of work ensued. Almost all the putty was sanded away to see if I could (I couldn’t) refine the shapes and lines of this area. As so often happens, once I’ve decided on a method to accomplish whatever oddball thing I’m trying to do, often I have to invent a way to do it (and frequently that is not a hurried process, regardless of how it may look). While doing the work of that invention on the model, it is quite common for me to figure out a different (and hypothetically better) way of accomplishing the task. It’s also not uncommon for that epiphany to come too late to use on what  I got the idea from. This was one of those. While removing putty and trying to refine the shapes into something I want, I realized that what I should have done was not add the strips and putty at all. The panel lines should have been scribed and cut away to create the lapped effect. And then I noticed that the lines aren’t just on the clear part, they extend rearward to the pencil line on the main wing, which is how I came to the realization that adding the strips and putty was a total waste of time/effort (and I added the resin scoops to the left sides of the nacelles):

Putty was immediately added whenever I found a void that needed filling:

About this point I realized that I had too many different colors/shades reflecting light and I had lost the surface (visually…if I’m that bad off, I stay in bed). I used Tamiya XF-20 Medium Gray as it most closely matched the plastic’s color so that reflectance would be uniform:

I’ve seen a number of field-expedient grab handles added to aid refueling. The filler port is on top of the wing on the left side. Access was achieved by opening the portside entry and crawling up onto the wing. Then the fueler had to scoot towards the filler port while dragging the fuel hose. (I’m not sure that “ergonomics” was even a word 80 someodd years ago, doesn’t look like “convenience” figure prominently, either.) I picked a photo to replicate and used some 22awg wire and added one setup that appealed to my eye:

Ain’t nuthin quite like applying primer to show you what still needs work. Plenty:

It seems I got too frisky with cutting in the lap lines and took too much off (though, for a change, it was before I’d carved through it) so I used stretched sprue to fill what had been mistakenly removed.

As an aside, if you need preshaped sprue to stretch, shaping the sprue before stretching it will keep the shaped you’ve established (this was shaped triangularly to better stuff the gaps I created):

Jeweler’s files. The self-locking tweezers that are attached to stands. If you don’t have any, get two. They are so useful in getting pissy parts aligned, and keep them aligned, while glue sets. I use my pair on every build at some point and it’s time to use them again to keep the stretched sprue in place while the glue sets up:

I’ll generally wait 2-3 minutes after applying the glue before I press the sprue into what I’m filling with it:

Still more work to do straightening out the lines. I spent over a week working on that section and ended up needing a break from that particular task. Since the added sprue needs to sit overnight before it could be worked, I attended to THE most fragile parts off all the fragile parts.

The mass balancers on the elevators. They’re so small that I left them attached to the sprue runners while I cleaned them up. I knew that I was going to make them removable using 22awg wire as pins. I didn’t need magnification to see that the bases are too small. 22awg was the smallest wire I was willing to use (anything smaller would be too flexible), so instead of even trying to get the notch I’d have to cut for the wires centered on the bases, I excised a slot slightly less than halfway through the base to recess the wire into. No…not accurate. Yes…practical:

And to think that I won’t work on anything smaller than 1/48 scale because “it’s too small” is getting really funny.

With those ready to paint, it’s back in on my head. My eyecrometer seems to be in need of recalibration. Since eyeballing it wasn’t working, maybe tool use will. The tape is so that the next line is freaking straight:

Next up will be mounting the engines.

While doing initial (hopefully final) fitting of cowls and engines, I realized that the engines are intended to mount to the cowlings! (No mention of that made in the directions. I guess if Czech Models figured if the builder has managed to get this far, they’ve realized that for most of whatever this kit needs, the builder will have to figure it out for themselves.) Okay…I’ll glue them to the cowlings:

I’m glad I had the foresight to remember that however the cowling mounted, where the engines mount would be important. But, seeing as the engines are resin and mounting to plastic, superglue won’t allow me enough time to align them correctly. To get around that limitation, I superglued 0.010″(.254mm) clear styrene to the backs of the engines. This will allow me the to join styrene to styrene and fiddle them into alignment (I used clear plastic so that the added disks would be easier to center over the engines):

Now for the task I’ve been dreading this entire time. It’s time to attach the landing gear.

The kit offers three pieces for each landing gear; the main strut, the upper control arms, and the lower control arms. Three pieces, two hands, and minimal space to work in. I cut down on the parts count by aligning the lower control arms on each strut, then drilled through them and put a wire in there to act as a hinge. Had I not done that, I’ve NO idea how I’d have gotten these things on at all. Even with the parts reduction, the four-letter word I want to use to describe that process isn’t “easy”. Move this into position, attempt to move something else into position and the first piece moves out of position. I’ve seen this kit online where others have built it. They could get the landing gear on, so that means that I can get the fornicating landing gear on. I finally got the strut and lower control arm glued in:

After repeating this lovely task on one side, I did it again on the other side.

If I thought getting this strut/arm assembly in place was a delight (it wasn’t), then there’s the upper control arm to wiggle into position and trying to align it while making the aircraft sit level was a pleasure that defies description (or sense). I persevered (the process of which was akin to getting a colonoscopy without anesthesia):

Did I get the bird to sit level? Nope:

It’s not time to fix it yet. I’ll pay the toll on that bridge when I get to it.

My next task was to start throwing paint at this. Of course I started with the light colors and worked darker, but where I started was figuring out how to mask this using cotton balls for the landing gear, front and rear. For the cockpits, I took foam wedges (nail care section of the drugstore/apothecary) and cut them oversized so that they would hold themselves in position (usually):

That worked:

As this will have a three-color paint job, and the nacelles are definitely part of that paint job, I decided that adding the engines now would make all the color demarcations line up later. Before I added the engines, I traced the back of the cowl on paper, traced two circles (one for each engine), and after determining the center of the circles, cut from the center to the edge. This would give me paper cones that would fit in the cowling openings and mask the engines from the incipient painting (and if you look closely behind the engine that’s on the right in the photo, you can see the trimmed foam in the cockpit’s window behind it). With that done, I glued the engine/cowling assemblies in place (shortly after these photos were taken, I painted the undersides of the cowlings white as well):

Figuring that I was on a bagel (which is very similar to being on a roll, just a firmer seat), I got the paints ready. The XF-18 Medium Blue was the correct color, not the XF-8 Flat Blue you see below:

Yeah…wrong color. But…before I had to repaint the sides, I found that Thumbnut McFumbles, here, did not monitor the position of one of those thumbs and did this (hint…check the area that’s not blue…lightly sanded thumb mark on wet acrylic):

Though not precisely pleased, there was something else that fell short of pleasing. When I cut the access open to fix the pilot’s seat, I had to replace the part cut out once I’d fixed the seat. At this point of the build, I was reminded that if I’m not careful (giggle), when the cement finally out-gasses, there can be a visible shrinkage caused by A LOT of glue being used. I used A LOT of glue because there was A LOT of plastic used to fill the edges. This resulted in a clearly evident depression around the patch’s edge once the disco-blue was on. Since I was going to have to repaint the sides (once the correct color arrived), okay…so I’ll fill it in again, only this time I’ll use the UV-setting resin:

Just on a whim, I decided that the heat exchangers could use painting:

Pity…that paint job didn’t last very long as you’ll see later. Too bad. I liked it.

Seeing as I clearly can’t keep track of where my fingers go, I needed a method that would enable me to handle the model as it was being painted. Since I was starting with the bottom, next I would do the sides, and then finally the color on top of the aircraft. And since I want to finish this in a semi-gloss finish, I would also need a painting order for that as well. I let that rattle around inside my wig for now and set about getting that wrong blue covered.

When the paint arrived, XF-18 Medium Blue, I started the repainting with the floats. I’m sure you can figure out which was the before and which is the after:

Much better:

Next up, XF-17 Sea Blue for the upper surfaces:

The overspray of the wings and tail-planes white are how they were painted in WWII.

It was at this point I could take off my polarized sunglasses and resume work.

I like using pencils for some things. At the top of that list is Prismacolor’s PC949 Argent. It’s silver and in small-area applications, it looks enough like aluminum for me. As I’ve discovered, if the surface is slightly rough, the pencil not only goes down easier, amazing things can be done with subtle wear patterns. With the build now under paint, I sharpened my PC949 and went at it. Gently. The Navy doesn’t let its kit get shabby:

With the paint on, the next thing that goes on are decals, so I hit the spots where the minimal decals go with Tamiya’s X-22 Clear Gloss:

Yes, that looks like a lot of paint. However, this paint does self-level:

I had painted the white undersides (Tamiya XF-2 Flat White) a few days before the color and had shot it with clear gloss (Tamiya X-22 Clear Gloss) to prepare it for a wash which meant it was ready for the wash. I figured since the wash was going down over white, I could get away with a more nuanced wash. Pratt and Whitneys leaked oil. The skin panels were not oil tight. Oil leaked on the ground and once the bird was in the air, the oil that had leaked onto the skin streaked back in the airflow. That’s what I was after. I didn’t think an enamel wash would give me the subtlety I thought would work so I broke out the oils:

The last time I did a wash using oil paints (on the engines), I’d used Turpenoid as the base (roommate hates the smell of enamels and turpentine). It took a week to dry. For this wash, I tried using Gamsol as the thinner instead. It was dry the next day.

Yep…looks like engine oil:

Yep…it looks a lot like oil:

At this point, these are all the parts I have yet to add:

A couple of days later with full knowledge that the clear gloss had set sufficiently for decals, well then…let’s do the decals. And then there were these:

Well, well. Old decals. I decided to see if I could get them off the backing with few enough shards for me to piece them back together on the surfaces (because I’m that kind of nuts). Results were…well…predictable.

This one went on in “only” two-ish pieces and was acceptable:

The one for the upper wing, however, was a cockup:

I broke out Walther’s Solvaset in the hope (another four-letter word) all the shards would play nice with each other. They didn’t. I used more Solvaset to see if perhaps multiple applications would smooth things out. In some spots it worked. However, there was a cost. NO amount of further Solvaset got rid of the wrinkles:

The second photo above was the best Solvaset could manage. Not acceptable. I only know of one way to remove blown decals. Sand them off, reapply paint, and start over:

Yes, even through the new paint, the faint outline of the decal’s remnants shows up. Since the new decal would sit right there, I didn’t bother sanding it out.

Solvaset worked well (though not perfect, it’s close enough) on the left nose decal:

At this point I discovered that I’d salvaged the only two decals from that sheet that could be salvaged; all the rest were garbage. Oh great. This is a limited run kit so the odds of me finding suitable decals weren’t good. Okay, so it’s star ‘n’ bars…I probably have dozens of them on hand. When I went through the decal stash, I discovered that yes…I had lots of star ‘n’ bars. I just don’t have any even approximately properly sized. The big surprise was finding another sheet of the exact same decals for the exact same model. How I managed that, I’ve no idea. But with stars in my eyes, sweat on my forehead, my shaky hands cut out a decal from that sheet to test and it was FINE.

Whew…

Here’s the nose decal from the second sheet, and this time I wondered if Solvaset was too hot for these decals. So, who doesn’t have Micro Sol? I used that instead and though the old decals WERE OLD and shattered, perhaps part of my problem with the upper wing decal was the Solvaset. Micro Sol did the job (in-process in the lower photo):

While I’m fiddle-farting around with sodding decals, I neglected to notice that I’d knocked both heat exchangers off the bench and then stepped on one. I never heard the crunch. I did notice that neither exchanger was on the bench. Found one intact. Whew. Found one sitting in a small pile of resin dust (avec chunks):

::facepalm::

Okay, so I get to reattach the tail and make new arms. I didn’t have the exact diameter styrene rod, but I had styrene rod that was maybe 0.005″ (.127mm) less in diameter and that was close enough. Plastic has a memory so if I wanted a 90-degree bend, I’d have to over-bend them and let them sit overnight to attain their new memory:

At this point, a regular occurrence occurred. I dropped something and realized that the floor between my feet was CRUDDY. Okay, pick up the dropped tool and sweep the floor. Once the detritus was in the dust pan, there was one of the two arms sitting right there. Okay…let’s attach that NOW so I did using UV-setting resin:

That’s good news! I only have to make one arm using the UV-setting resin again:

It’s at this point that I got to see what happens when I get interrupted in the middle of something. I’ll forget the second half of something. I had one propeller all painted and ready. The other? Well, I got the hub painted and washed… Yeah. Let’s fix that before somebody notices:

I’m going to be facepalming so much that my forehead will be calloused and the tendons in my hand will be inflamed.

With the paint curing on the prop, I checked the repaired exchanger for fit. Just right:

With that all fixed, I got back to applying decals:

With all that applied, it sits overnight.

Increasingly, flat finishes on WWII aircraft are looking wrong to my eye. This time, I decided I’d do a semi-gloss (Tamiya X-35 Semi Gloss Clear) instead. This is where painting order becomes important. I have three basic areas to paint (not counting all the smaller details that haven’t been added yet, such as the floats in the photo below), top, bottom, and sides. I held the build by the sides and shot the top with semi-gloss. Once that set overnight, I did the bottom the same way. Doing it in this order meant that I’d have the wings to hold and manipulate the model during painting. The last thing to paint was the sides because now I can hold it by the wings:

The next drill is going to be figuring out how to get this to sit level. It’s about 1/32″ (a little more than 1.5mm) off from side to side. This will be fun to fix. But to get that measurement, I had to have this build standing on its feet. While I had the wheels on, I decided to stick the props on as well to get a notion as to how it will display:

Not badly, methinks. Hopefully next month sees me to the end of this.