DocRob

Thank you shark and all the other supportive guys and gals? I can see the finish line of that build now. When I finish, i finish all out, which means while finishing I'm breaking a lot of parts. In this case I lost one of the flaps (repaired on the pictures) and the tailwheel. That will be added later, when the varnish is dry, together with the aerials, pilot tube and nav lights. After chipping a little with crayons, pencils and some Tamiya Aluminium I added lots of different pigments to the different surfaces. The lower side was treated with bright blue and some brown and near white pigments to enhance colour richness, than some brown tones where added to simulate dirt from the wheels. The upper parts where treated with chalk white and some brown tones to achieve the icy effect, which I really like. Different browns and black where added for the exhaust fumes. The pictures do not show the final coat with my trusted 75% Future and 25% Tamiya Flat Base varnish, which has a little blending effect in the way of toning down a little. Next step might be the Finished Work section. Cheers Rob

Hi Gregory, that's a nice looking Fiat you built there. The paintjob was a daunting one I guess, but the result justifies the effort. How did you manage to get all that dots evenly distributed? Cheers Rob

Finally the lower flaps got installed, the finish line is in vicinity. Nothing went wrong on Frightday the 13th. Painted the aerials and the ladder and pilot tube, but these will be mounted after the chipping, dirt, grime and exhaust fumes. Cheers Rob

Wow, what an epic build. That much filth in as much detail seemed to me impossible before I saw your 'Betty'. This truck seems to sream 'no more abuse in these harsh Siberian conditions'. I raise my hat, being a witness of such very fine scratch building abilities and congratulations that you fought your way through that build. Cheers Rob

Hi Rick, this is only an Iphone comment, more details after the 35mm shots . Nice and clean build with a lot of greatly executed details like the turnbuckles and nav lights. Cheers Rob

Hi Gus, indeed, after all the troubles we got a little closer, the 152 and me. In the end she will look totally different than planned, but she will look ok at leas, and a lot of lessons learned with that kit too, the most important of all, you have to finish no matter how . Subtle differences in the shade of washes are easily explainable with the potential bigger amount of shadow on the lower sides. Sometimes we modellers are a little bit crazy, one of these days there will be light guided paneling or something like that. I have some imaginations about a bleached, sun beaten and dusty A-7 in my mind, please bring it on. Cheers Rob

Hola Senhores, I found some time to do a little detail work. I added the delicate upper PE-flaps into their wing sector. They add a lot of detail compared with the kit parts. If you go through the trouble building this ZM TA-152 you should be fit enough to do the extra bending and glueing. It's not an easy task, but (nearly) nothing is easy with this kit. Keep in mind that installing the flaps is best done late in the build, but be sure to have them test fitted a lot, because there is a lot of inner wing material to be removed for a good fit, not a good idea to do this after painting. It's best done while you fit the different wing parts. I have done it after assemblying the wings and there were a lot of different tools needed and a lot of force involved (and some swearing) to do it properly. I also added the wheelbay covers and brake lines (yes they are included in the kit and nicely detailed) to the metal wheelstruts. This subassembly is one of the gems of that kit, well detailed, well engineered, well fitting and sturdy, so don't plan to build yours in flying mode, you will miss that . The extra brass barrels are not painted, they are blackened in some toxic fluid, specially for that purpose. I use that for blackening Friul's and other brass stuff and it works great. You can get that blueish liquid cheap in stores for Tiffany lamps by the litre and the results looks so metal, because it is. If you soak the metal parts in the poison it's importand to shake a little, because airbubbles are your enemy here. The oleos where sprayed in Alclad chrome and where looking the thing, but got a little dull while masked. Maybe I will polish them a little with some Uschi chrome pigments Cheers Rob

Yeah, I'm stunned to. Great review of a historical not so important plane, which on the other hand technically and engineering wise was some years ahead of the pack and some years were a lot in these times. A masterpiece in reality and it seems like the kit will do it justice. I will definetely get me one, or maybe two and leave the wings off in one build. Cheers Rob

Somebody is on fire here, that is an awful lot of stunning work, chapeau. Your "how to" for the antennas is great and even includes some magic, like drilling a 1.2mm hole in a 1.2mm tube, i like that. And what it shows is the will to do things right, even if there are many difficulties to solve. Your cockpit is marvellous and well researched like the hot seat mechanism. You put a lot of effort into this one and you took the same route to document that and this is a treasure for us, because your build shows a lot of answers to the often asked questions arise Thanks for that Cheers Rob

Thanx guys, the pale wash, actually it was made for representing salt stains on ships, was the most interesting one I tried on the TA. The darker ones were barely noticable on the upper camo. After applying I made up the story with the freezing conditions the bird was used in. Story follows used effect, so to speak , but in the end I convinced myself of that and at least this was symptomatic of that build of many changes and altered decisions. I'm not so convinced in using different tones of washes, even after doing so. You always have the problem of "bordering" and washes tend to flow very easily. On the sides of the fuselage, where the dark dots are, it's easy to understand the problem and why should in reality a gap between panels look different on the upper side, than on the lower side, it's a mixture of shadow and external influences (dirt, corrosion, paint abraision)? You see, thinking one way and doing the opposite became my second nature during that build Cheers Rob

Hi Folks, I found some benchtime to start the weathering. i did some experiments with different washes for the upper side and decided to use a very light grey tone. On the pictures it looks harsher than it looks in real light. The near white tone resulted also because the real TA's would have been in action in harsh winter conditions in the beginning of 1945 near Berlin, so a little icey appearance should fit. For the lower side i used a grey-blue wash and a black one for some subassemblies like the wheelstruts. Chipping is next and will be sparse, because there was not much time to chip for these birds, but some dust, splashes and spills will be added. Cheers Rob

Hi Gus, that's what I call progressing. The paintjob looks great and I really like the result of using masks for the insignia. Cheers Rob

That's some serious brass bending,hopefully you don't decide to close the bomb bay doors Cheers Rob

I figured out who is manufacturing your mechanic. It's an interesting company from France which is specialiced in 3D-printing. They carry a lot of useful figures in different scales. Quite pricy, but I will check them out, specially because the carry 1/24 figures. The name of the company is reedoak.com. Cheers Rob

Go Rich go, can't wait to see that beast finished. Good that you solved your supply problems. I could tell you stories about getting supplies on my little island which would give you bad dreams . Cheers Rob