DocRob

Thank you Sasha, it's a feelgood kit and I can't wait to get to the painting stage. Cheers Rob

Your Mustang is coming together very nice, the paintjob is ultra-smooth on the detail shots. I use Pledge for clear parts often and it enhances the clarity by far. I try to minimize the masking period as short as possible and had bad results with liquid masks, which I don't use on canopy parts anymore. Wasn't there a seam on the canopy anyway? If, there is, there is no way around removing it and polish the whole thing. Cheers Rob

What a sleek looking plane Kevin and you painted it perfectly with the mottled green and masked borders. The decals bring everything to live. Cheers Rob

Looking very good Sasha, smooth as silk. Can't wait to see your monochrome scheme painted on. Cheers Rob

Hope you feel better soon Carl. Bad thing with the gap. Where is the contact point between the cowling and the engine?, struts?, fuselage? Maybe you can do something on the inside of the cowl, to close the gap. Cheers Rob

Nice progress and I wish you steady hands and magnified eyesight for the seat belts. Cheers Rob

I never knew about a discussion about CA causing problems with lead alloys causing problems, Hubert. I will dig a little deeper here as I'm interested in the why's, albeit not being a Chemist. I used the combination of Ca and lead wire on different occasions, wiring radial engines and it never failed. In the case of the Corsair, I even skipped the step of pre drilling, to get a larger bonding area. All the wires are glued directly onto the plastic/resin. In the assembly process, I bent several of the glued wires, accidentally or by shaping them and non came loose. I will check later, if the wiring on my P-47, I wired some years ago is still intact. As I'm only building models for building and painting sakes, in the end, I don't really care about long term durability. I lose interest into a finished project and don't display my finished builds, with maybe the exception of the Duchess of Kingston, when ready. Cheers Rob

Thanks Gary, I was opting for copper not yellow. There are some historical pictures from the production line of the P&W showing copper braided wiring. Thank you Irishman, I like the look of the Anyz thread on your engine, but like Gary said, I've never seen evidence of yellow wiring used at the time. Cheers Rob

I prefer the Benedictine, very useful for classic cocktails. I always have a bottle in my bar, right between Chartreuse and different Absinth's. You'll like the HGW belts. They are fiddly to assemble, but with good tweezers and a magnifier all can be done. Do yourself a favor and leave the PE on the fret for fiddling the belts through, makes life much easier. Cheers Rob

The engine got assembled, got some touch ups and was installed into the fuselage mounts. The assembly with all the cowling rings and myriads of exhaust tubes need careful alignment to get it right. Following the manual is advised here. This is what remains visible (looks better in real life, but the picture needed to be badly exposed) Luckily the only loosely fitted side cowlings sat in their places with only minimal gaps Cheers Rob

Thank you Harv, good to have you on the trip. I hope, I will be able to stay continuously with the build. Cheers Rob

Looking extremely good Gary. I will not rivet a plane, but will borrow your sanding technique on the corsair. This will help to blend in the colors and the sprayed stencils and markings, I hope. Cheers Rob

Having already built a Nautilus, I was considering a 48 scale rescue dio with a Walrus, but changed my mind. There are not so many builds to be found with the Fore Model 1/72 Schnellboot S-38. If that small scale vessel is accepted, I'm in and I add some fine resin figures for the crew. Cheers Rob

I have some pics, which show braided ignition wires in a coppery color, but more so with black or grey lines. The Anyz spark plugs, I used, have an angled connector for the wire. You can carefully push the braided thread onto these, good looking, but not scale wise. Like you said, working with lead wire is much easier, it cuts with only the slightest push of a knife, glues well with CA and keeps it's desired form, if not touched during the process. The 0,3 mm variant fits best to my eye for this 32 scale ignition. Cheers Rob

Thank you for showing the instructions error. I'm more or less sure, I will build the P-51 without bombs, but if my chosen plane had the racks, I have to find out. I will keep your advice in mind. I never tried to brush paint with Ak's Extreme Metals. I assumed, their coverage would not be sufficient. I like Tamiya's LP colors for the task, flows and covers well and 'silver' has a nice steely look. Cheers Rob

Your oil rendering really pops on the NMF, I like it a lot. I tend to weather my planes from very light to heavy use and incorporated various techniques to do so. I never used oils on NMF, but having recently bought a Tamiya Mustang, there is the mule. Thanks for your how to descriptions, which are very helpful. Like you, I switched from Alclad, because of their fragility, but my go to metals are AK's Extreme Metals, which are great to spray, look truly metallic and are robust. Cheers Rob

Very nice progress, the 262 is coming together nicely. Not sure about the 'onions'. On my momentarily halted Arado 234 build I will paint them off black, faded with different hues. Cheers Rob

Excellent paintjob Gary, finish line in sight. Cheers Rob

Thank you Kevin, I'm happy that I switched to the lead wire instead of Anyz braided thread. It would have looked right in 24 scale. My late decision made the approach a bit bumpy and the result is not perfect, but I feel better now. Cheers Rob Thanks Gary, I did what I thought I have to do for a decent front presentation of the engine. For now there will be only a few more engine shots, with the big P&W mounted to the fuselage, an area where I struggled with my first Corsair build, using the Brassin engine. I hope this time alignment will be easier, as the engine is only held in place by the various exhausts and after that the cowlings have to fit. Cheers Rob

Thanks Gary, but there will be even more engine pics. Today, I finalized the wiring. I used 0,3 mm lead wire from PlusModel for the job. The braided Anyz thread just didn't look right. There were four different length of cables, from which I cut nine each. I started to wire the front plugs and the backside of the front cylinders and last the wires for the second row. I used CA glue to attach the wire. By the time, I decided to use lead wire instead of the Anyz stuff, I already glued the ignition harness to the engine. That made the assembly a bit more difficult and led to the decision to not paint the lead wires. I've seen so many pictures with different colored cables, brown, grey, black,..., so I think I can get away with it. Some touch ups here and there and the engine can be called done. On the Eduard.com page you can find PDF manuals for all their products, in this case, I used the manual for the F4U-1A engine set. It proved to be very helpful. Cheers Rob

You are looking at every little mistake as a builder and painter naturally, but I have to say, I really like what I see. All the extra effort will show. If you build something it's like under a magnifying glass, only you use. Take a step back and feel proud about your achievements, Gary. Cheers Rob

Great looking finish. There is nothing to say against a white treatment of the surfaces. There is great contrast to the darker camo shades and it has a blending effect. I've done it on ZM's TA-152, which operated mainly under wintery conditions around Berlin in the winter of 44/45. I found it convincing to replicate the cold conditions. Cheers Rob

Thank you Phil, how can a Tamiya Corsair being SOD-ded? Ah, the rear window issue. If I remember right, my Birdcage had overpainted back windows, which may make things easier. Cheers Rob

I continued with engine painting and assembly. All metallic tones are from AK's Extreme Metallic range, matte aluminum for the cylinders, polished aluminum for the ignition ring, stainless steel for the propeller shaft. The only exception is Alclads Exhaust manifold, which was used exactly for these parts. It's my go to base for prop plane exhausts. The black fairings were sprayed with Tamiya's semi-gloss lacquer black and then rubbed with steel pigments from Uschi van der Rosten by hand. The same treatment received the gear casing, which was sprayed gray and then got some pigments rubbed in, which enhances the casting appearance. Details like nuts and bolts were picked up by brush, using different LP metallic colors. The first pic shows the usefulness of panel liner, left side with, right side without. And this is where I am now. I'm still undecided, whether I use the braided line, which on top of the size issues darkens through sucking the CA up. Maybe I switch to lead wire. Cheers Rob

This is a beautiful engine, you built there, Irishman. The braided line looks fantastic. On my build it seems to be a little over scaled and I still am not decided if I use it. The spark plugs are beautiful, but also more 1/24 than 1/32, I think. For your build they should have been perfect. The ones with angled connectors are very delicate. I needed 12 for my wanted 9 . Cheers Rob