DocRob

Looks like a well balanced tool for the tiny holes, sometimes needed while modelling. Wouldn't have minded the addition of a 0,2 mm drill, because yesterday I needed one and had only a 0,3 mm. I will definetely get me one, because the use of an electric micro drill under 0,5 mm is risky business.

Welcome jjetmec to this place of spruecutters and high detaillers. Your Zero looks absolutely magnificent and tells a story of wear and tear. I like how you applied the different effects on the surface. That bird tells a story. The only (very little) critizism, if I'm allowed to, are the decals for the roundels. You applied the wear, but they still look like decals, A mask and an airbrush would have allowed further blending in. Cheers Rob

Straswudje tovaritch (should be something like hello comrade), If you are tired of rivet counting, if you have forgotten which RLM-colors are needed for the tunesian scheme of your Würger, if your eyes are burning, because you are researching in books and the internet until the winter is over, if you are tired of multi piece single track links for your armour, if PE-bending gives you the spooks, if you get an alergic reaction because of cement fumes you might encounter your personal MODELLING BURNOUT And mostly there is one reason why this is happening. About all these huge, big, medium and small sized subjects we are forgetting to have FUN After letting the Future on my actual TA-152 build dry for decaling (nearly all the above mentioned subjects except the track thing), I dicovered a little box in my stash which I purchased a while ago out of pure curiosity. Could that be where the fun is in, dunno, let's open the lid. Arghs no lid, it's opening on the sides Revell style, bad thing, bad start. On the other hand, the box looks great, even stylish. It's the Meng offering WWT-004, a KV-2 Soviet Heavy Tank in the scale, hey wait a moment, no scale mentioned, bad thing again, where should I put that here in LSM? And this was where my fun part started to ignite. I tried to imagine what I could do with that little fellow and be warned, if everything works out, I will put the KV in a 1/35 Dio (shocking) and this will make it LS for the M. I will not tell you now where this little heavyweigt will show up, except you can convince me to tell. I tried to make a thorough review, but while I was counting parts (no idea how many, maybe 60) and looking for flash and other polyethylene lowlifes, I had the green minimonster already built. So forget about the sprue shots. The manual is beautifully layouted and is parted in eight steps and leaves nothing unsaid. There is even a colour chart and a sprue layout enclosed. Decals (no kidding) are in perfect register and tonal balance and you even go multimedia with this one, because there are looped rubber tracks (no glueing required) and polycaps. Leave your cement closed for the other parts as well because you will not need it here, everything snaps in place and I loved that, because it is so easy to paint an weather with all the details removeable. After about an hour I had this little Russian cube with gun and tracks finished and had a big smile in my face and actually had FUN. Everything fitted perfectly and I never thought about checking references, but it might be only a short span of time, when the usual suspect like ABER, EDUARD or VOYAGER will spoil everything with a heavy dose of PE and Resin. Verdict: The good: - snap fit - good fit - nice engineering (you can de-assemble everything and have all the fun again without sprue cutting, not to mention easy weathering) - coolness factor - takes only one hour of your pecious time The bad: - there are no Friuls out there to substitute the rubber tracks - two part barrel and no Aluminum substitute - takes only one hour of your pecious time The ugly: - I haven't got another one of the series - I'm still thinking about 4BO green and a faded whitewash So is this little thing something for you? For me it's an Absolut recommendation for fun sake P.S. No Vodka was harmed through that review, i swear, honestly Cheers Rob

De nada Rick. I checked my manual and yes, it's a completely different gunsight than on your B. I will do some research, if it is the one you mentioned. Thanks for the input. Cheers Rob

I like that windscreen and I understand why this was frightening to you. I have to check the manual of my P-40 N. That might be a difference maker for me to deciede if that will be my next build. Macroed like this and isolated in front of a plain white background under surgical lights everything tends to look like a big fail. but after assembling normally everything blends in. Prop and hub look also good, but for my taste, I would have reduced the metallic shine at the tip of the blades a little, like you did fading the black on the backside. Finishing line ahead Cheers Rob

He he he, sometime you eat the bar and sometimes the bar eats you , but be sure Gus, I know the feeling. I can't tell, why these damned little airbrushes are so hard to use. I mastered so many technical devices in my live, but these "blow some air through a nozzle and add some color things" are mastering me. Cheers Rob

@coolbox: thank you for your kind words, Darren. I was reworking the RLM 76 (light blue) as a last step, to cover some of the overspray and to adjust mottles which looked a little to heavy. I think a subtle weathering and maybe filtering will do the job. I always perceive that decaling will do a little trick as well, because you get clear geometrical shapes as a contrast to the camo. @rkranias: thanks Rick, mottling as mikester put it seems to be an art in itself and I'm still a Padwan. If my UHU wouldn't be a ZM-Kit, that would have been my next project, but I need something more comfy, maybe the Eduard P-40 N or something I started a long time ago like my Resin-GB project, ... Cheers Rob

Thank you Gus, it would be an easy task without airbrush worries and thoughts about grainy pigment , but thats the way the cookie crumbles. I have to change my mindset about airbrushing. When I was younger I worked with dyes and inks on paper and there were nearly no technical problems to solve while airbrushing. Airbrushing kits seems to be completely different pair of shoes, as I now use 80% of my airbrush time maintaining, cleaning, adjusting and testing and maybe 20% is working on the kit. P.S. I haven't added closeup pictures so it's not that easy to pick up the overspray, but I keep myself saying that the late war Luftwaffe airbrushes weren't too well maintained either . Cheers Rob

Thanks again mikester, it seems like the motteling of german planes is the zen garden of modelling . Cheers Rob

Thanks mikester, I experimented a lot with my three airbrushes and five different sets of needles and I have to admit, as longer and harder I tried, the results got worse. I spent the whole day yesterday changing washers, needles, nozzles, varying air pressure and thinning different colors with different thinners, but no positive results. I have painted the upper surfaces with AK colours which behaved well and I had to use them for the motteling. Today I told myself you have to start painting the bird or you will loose yourself in endless testing. This time I used the H&S Infinity with a 0,2 mm nozzle. The first thing I did was removing the too harsh border between the top colours and the sides by motteling the top colors on. The second step was the bone shivering one motteling freehand, first the green and then the brown dots. I got a lot of overspray so in the end I decieded to reduce that a little by motteling some light blue between the darker dots. Beside my terribly cramped hands (I wish my Rotring airbrushes would have worked properly, because it's much less finger twisting to work with a single action) I have to ask myself, are you satisfied. It's my first German camo so I think the result could be worse. With less equipment issues it would have been easy to achieve something better, but I have to solve these issues for future builds. I hope everything will be blended in a little with weathering and decaling. Finally a soso result on a soso build , so everything is in line, sometimes it's more about learning than about results. Cheers Rob

Hi Darren, thanks for your offer, but I think, we have to dive a little deeper into that subject. You are speaking about the PTFE seal on the backside of the nozzle, am I right? Tighten the cap, like you did is what the H&S manual is recommending if the paint in the pot is bubbeling. I think that is not the only reason for bubbles, bubbles generally appear if the airflow is blocked somewhere. It means, that the paint is not flowing anymore, because there is nearly no spray in front of the brush, only a little irregular sputtering. The way for the air is blocked and therefore the air tends do use the easiest escape route through the colour cup. In my opinion and experience the supplied 0,15 mm nozzle is not easy to use with pigmented colours like acrylics, it's too fine. Thinning reduces the tendency of clogging a little, but not totally, because the pigments are still the same size. The pigments are blown along the needle and because of the airflow, some of them dry immediately on the needle and irritating the airstream. As a result you wil have an irregualar spray on the model. After a while, more and more pigments adhere on the needle and nozzle tip and block it more or less completely and here they are, bubbles. Because i think my PTFE-washer seals well, I tryied to hone the needle with a 6000 wetstone and oil, because I think the best way of getting less clogging is by having the evenest possible surface on the critical spots. Another critical component is air pressure. The assumption has to be that as low as possible for the planned result is sufficient, because higher pressures cause faster drying of the paint in unwanted places and again, clogging. I use mainly acrylic colours, because I think it's a little healthier than laquers, but I experienced different results with different colours (not brands). Colours which tend to be problematical in the way of opacity like white, yellow and red, seem to have a rougher grain of pigments than others as a rule of thumb. For these colours I use a 0,4 mm nozzle, because I think they are barely to handle with a 0,15 mm nozzle. Alclad Aluminum on the other hand never clogs in my airbrush, it seems to be very fine pigmented and flows perfectly. When I was young, about the time I purchased the Rotrings, I worked on paper using mostly inks and dyes (80's chromium effects, ) for airbrushing and never had problems with clogging. Annother path I will further try is the usage of a flow retarder, because in theory something which dries slower should clog less. But the only time I used Vallejo retarder I had nearly no effects and skipped more testing. I hope I could make my thoughts understandable, as it is not so easy to describe complex ideas and theories in english language. I haven't searched for a decent airbrush-thread in LSM and I think it might be a good idea to start one, because after all that cutting and glueing, it's the paintjob which is the first visible access to a finished kit. Thanks again, I will do some experiments and comment them. I have some hope for the Rotring, because the length of the contact surface between colour and air is minimised (another aspect, where the H&S airbrushes are not properly designed for acrylics) and the tip of the needle is rounded and extruding and easy to clean with the fingertip. If nothing helps at all, I will get back to your offer of a new washer, but I think that is not my source of problems. I will change the Infinity to a 0,4 mm needle and judge the results, because normally I use a H&S Evolution for the rougher works with a 0,4 mm nozzle. Cheers Rob

Hola Muchachos, starting with my first german camo, I used AK Colors for RLM 81 and 82 and with the idea of getting a soft cornered fuselage camo, I used black masking putty. I always have problems with soft bordered paintjobs and these continued here. The masking putty was used, because it dosen't adhere very strong and I didn't want to peel my primer off the bird. One of it's drawbacks is, that it if flowing with the gravity, that means the needed upper corner gets sharp after some minutes, but hey, that will be corrected while mottling. The wings were not masked and were airbruhed freehand. The whole camo is painted in tiny translucent dots in different layers. The plane shouldn't look new, but also not overused. First layer of RLM 82 light green Adding the first layer of RLM 81 brown violet The result after removing the masks I'm a little afraid of the following mottling. I used the H&S Infinity (the upper one) with a 0.2 nozzle for the upper camo and it tends to clog a lot, even with the colours thinned, the pigments build up in seconds at the needle. One of my old treasures is my set of two Rotring (lower one, you guessed it) airbrushes. They are perfect for working with inks and other non pigmented colours. Clogging was an issue with these while using acrylics, but heavily dilluted it might work. I will give it a try because removing clogged paint is done by useing the fingertip on the tip of the needle and last but not least, because it is a single action airbrush (one and a half to be correct) with the possibility to preadjust the amount of colour very finely. Cheers Rob

Thanks Jeroen, I hope I've seen the worst know and can now concentrate on painting and finishing. After letting the Black Acrylic Primer from Vallejo dry for two days, i testet the adhesion with masking tape and parts of primer came off. Never trust a primer which dosen't smell funny . The whole plane was cleaned in advance with alcohol and a piece of cloth, a precaution I normally skip on pure plastic planes, but used this time because of the sometimes brutal handling (my normally dry fingers got sweaty) while building. It didn't help, so i changed some more planned steps for the TA-152. I will paint as much freehanded as posssible and will only use Panzer-Putty and paper as masks. The Insignia and fuselage ring will be decaled, instead of masked with adhering masks . Finally I sprayed the sides and underside with AK's RLM 75 and used a technique I call Inverse Preshading. Having used the black primer gives the possibility to work with thin translucent layers of RLM 75. I emphazised the panels a little and used less paint on the connection seams between different fuselage parts. This creates a little depth in the monochrome areas. This is done with dilluted paint and low pressure. After doing so, I gently sprayed some RLM 75 over the whole area, to blend everything in. I'm happy with the result and will soon start with the upper camo. Cheers Rob

Wow, what a beast you created there. I think your final task will be to design an enormous cloud of fume from the exhausts. This one looks like it has seen a lot of hard use over some decades in Siberian conditions. Sorry to hear about your problems concerning the windows. Every modelling projekt seems to have a backbreaker episode, but with your epic build it would be a shame not to continue. Sometimes it is good to lean back, have a beer or a whiskey and some no bench time to clear the head and then back to work with a fresh CTRL-ALT-DEL . For an unknown reason I am able to open your Thread today, did you reduce the picture size? My net isn't accelerated by now, but will be in the future. I hope the best, because I like to see how you finish this Russian Bear. Cheers Rob

Thanx Jeroen, never tried Future for PE. I think it is only possible to glue flat surfaces with that, not the tiny contact points, some PE parts have. In one of my future builds I will try soldering techniques, because half the kit is PE and I distrust CA-glue to give enough bond for complex constructions like half a SD.KFZ 251. Cheers Rob

Bend but don't break . Nice, I love these PE-orgies and fear them at the same moment. Are you soldering or why appear the colours changed? Cheers Rob

It's not a Batwing, it's not a SR-71 Blackbird, you will discover the silhouette of my loved and hated TA-152 covered in black primer. I use that Vallejo stuff for the first time and hope it will adhere well. The detail which can be seen after application looks really good. The reason I changed from my trusty Tamiya rattle can primer is, that I will try to apply the "Black Basing/Marbling technique" from rkranias aka Rick mentioned here: https://forum.largescalemodeller.com/topic/5000-trumpeter-p40b/?page= I will use the black primer as a preshading while working with RLM 65 in a marbling/translucent way to add a little depth to the underside of the plane. Cheers Rob

That's the way to come back from a bad back. Nice M10 with lots of eye catching detail. Can't wait to see the setting with figures painted. Cheers Rob @GusMac It seems to be about bats and balls. My back got better after finishing my 25 year lasting baseball "career". Surfing, swimming and moumtainbiking is definitely better for the back.

Thanx for enlightening me mikester, I wasn't aware of that, meaning I didn't do my research to well . Cheers Rob

Thanx mikester, great job with that "Grünherz" (green heart) and the photos. I like that scheme with subtle contrasts which differs from the standard a lot. What is the idea behind the faded tips of the propeller? Cheers Rob

Nice mikester, I like that matte finish, you produced here, nice looking Würger in an unusual camo. I would have liked another view from above. The effect of the yellow stripe, disrupted by the opened canopy adds a nice touch. Cheers Rob

Hi All, almost there, the last days with little benchtime were filled with final preparations for the paintjob. All cowlings are glued shut and the canopy is closed and secured. I used a Voyager circle-cutter-template for the first time to get some protection for the front cowling and it worked out well. The PE-flaps were primed and sprayed Alclad Aluminium, but will be added after the paintjob of the plane, because I don't want to mask the fiddely flaps with adhesive tape. The wheelstruts are painted and are waiting for weathering and final assembly with wheels and brake lines. If the sharp-eyed of you wonder, why there are four struts, it is because I purchased extra cast metal ones. My initial plan was to let the engine cowlings be removeable, but that was skipped due to the delicate multipart construction and corresponding alignment problems. With the cowlings glued in position I tried to find a method of masking the exhausts, but couldn't find a comfortable way. In the end I decieded to spray them over with the camo and repaint them after finishing the plane. This way the masking is much easier. If you have another manageable idea, you are welcome to share it with me. Cheers Rob

Hi Gus, I built that F4 Corsair and it was a pure pleasure, I can highly recommend that kit. The only issues arose by using aftermarket stuff from Brassin which looked great, but caused some trouble. The Spit you are building was also on my wish list but I could resist, but have no idea for how long. My excuse for not getting one is that I'm uncertain, if I should take the iconic IX or the XVI with the bubble top. I fiddled a set of HGW-belts together without knowing about your tip and it worked, but I can imagine that leaving the parts connected will make it a lot easier. We also have huge storms on my island, but without snow. but other than you, my benchtime is shortend by that, because there are power failures and lots of things to repair in the house and garden. The rest of the day is filled with trips to different shores and watching (and photographing) enormous waves, I definitely don't want to surf. But it is a spectacle I don't want to miss. The TA-152 got little attention but is more or less prepared for painting. Poco a poco (little by little) like my spanish fellows used to say. Cheers Rob

Interesting version, this hunchback Ameisenbär. I can understand your troubles with closing up all cowlings and not ruin the shape vs. open up and show everything. Sometimes I'm thinking of building two identical kits at the same time in different ways of presentation. Cheers Rob

Now that is what you had hidden from us . Well done. These Tamiya kits are really great, you can fully concentrate on painting and weathering. While labouring with my TA-152, I tend do daydream of these shake and bake kits. Thanx for sharing the HGW-buckle tipp, sounds real helpful with the fiddely construction of the belts. Cheers Rob