DocRob

I wonder too, Gary. In my mind, I always ponder about weathering, but will keep it at a minimum, like the oil wash for the machine. After a race these cars would look dusty and dirty, I guess, but as I'm relatively new to car modeling, this one will be in before race shape. Cheers Rob

Thank you Carl, the idea was born in a mid siesta hight of creativity and luckily it worked. Tape was no option and I considered brush painting, but it would have been difficult to keep the metallic shine through the blue, equally. Cheers Rob

After the primer, in my case Alclad white microfiller, which sprayed fantastic and gave a fine satin surface, I applied the firs body color, in this case yellow. The Tamiya LP-8 was thinned with almost two thirds of leveling thinner and sprayed on in fine layers. For yellow is not the easiest color to spray, it went well and with a relatively fine glossy surface. For the first time, I sprayed some pure leveling thinner over the drying yellow color, which indeed levlled a bit more. I have not a lot of experience, painting car bodies, but I think with a liitle polish and some elbow grease, all will look good as a base for the decals. Cheers Rob

That is in the mail Peter, but I couldn't wait to paint some body parts. Cheers Rob

Thank you Peter, nothing better to have trusty colors at hand. There are some of the LP colors, which are not up to the others, I found. I had a blue tone, forget which, which covered badly and the gloss white has a perfect finish, but coverage is a bit sparse. Flat Aluminum looks too flat for my liking, no real aluminum is that dull. Today I primed the body parts and after looking for some white primer yesterday, a type, I never used before, a bottle of Alclad white primer showed up and got the nod after some test shooting. First impression is, it covers well and produces a perfect silky surface. After thoroughly drying, I will test the durability with some tape, but I'm positively surprised about the result. Cheers Rob

I thought the same like Hubert, instantly, but looking more close to your pictures, it seems all is invisible after closing the fuselage. The only possible area to leave a view could be the side door. Cheers Rob

You may think, I was lazy, as I've posted no updates, but no. The nature of the build dictate, that there is a lot of painting and planning ahead involved with this build along with time consuming cleanup. The kit shows it's age, but all is manageable. I sprayed different metal and black shades to the monocoque and front suspension but nothing is assembled now, the pictures are only a mock up. I decided to use Polished Aluminum from the Extreme Metal range, but it permanently clogged my airbrush, even after in thorough between cleaning. Strange, last week, it sprayed without problems. I opted for Chrome then, which looks bright and shiny and enough like polished aluminum. As a primer, I used Tamiya's gloss black LP color, which is fantastic for the purpose. The designated AK black primer proved horrible in earlier test and never thoroughly dried, with keeping it's tackiness, even after weeks. All other colors were from Tamiya's LP range, namely Sparkling Silver, Metallic Grey, Silver and Semi matte black. All these colors spray exceptionally well, thinned with Leveling Thinner and are very durable. Cheers Rob

Thank you Mark, definitely a different approach than armor or planes, as you always have to work on the inside and outside at the same time. With a plane, you close the hull and on you go, but here it's subassembly after subassembly, always checking the fit and what will be hidden and what shows,... There is definitely more planning involved. Cheers Rob

Glad you spare me the worst, Kevin . I know almost nothing about the innards of race cars, but like always, when I don't have the slightest idea and I'm to lazy to check references, I do what feels right to me. Totally freedom that way. I will substitute the clear tubes later, as I really don't like the look. Cheers Rob

Tamiya's gloss black LP color is perfect for this and other purposes. I love to work with it and the semi gloss black variant. Cheers Rob

I like the result, mostly Gary. There are parts, where the wear seems a bit over pronounced. I had very good results, stippling color carefully with a brush onto those parts. Keeps the look of wear, but takes away the overly harsh contrasts. Cheers Rob

Fantastic detail is showing in your cockpit, Phil. Always a great moment, to close the fuselage. The Mossie kit seems to be a real gem. Cheers Rob

Very nice build and paintjob, you made me thinking once more, about buying the big Spitfire myself. Cheers Rob

All right Peter, a late call for competition to fire the engine, I have to admit, I never took part in a modeling competition and I guess, it must be an interesting experience. I share my builds only with you here on LSM and over on MSW and I'm my most feared competitor myself. I wish you luck, not only with the competition model, which I hope you will share with us, but also for your and your wives health. Cheers Rob

The RIO looks pretty comfortable in his seat, could be a jacuzzi as well . These figures are absolutely gorgeous and will add a lot of life the the big cat. Cheers Rob

Very nice, denders, I really like the paintwork, with the right amount of sheen to the GSB. Cheers Rob

Muchas gracias amigos, I like the looks of that engine too, but the clear fuel lines are oversized to my eye. I will substitute them with thinner clear brown tube from Hiro, but need to snip off the plastic lugs first and add some tiny wire rods to accept the smaller tube. I hope next week a parcel with some car goodies will finally show up, with some resin connectors and braided lines and other stuff, to get the Renault done. Cheers Rob

Nice Gary, what are the lighter spots on the wing Balkenkreuze, it dosen't seem to be a reflection? Cheers Rob

What a nice present for your brother, he'll love it. Nice and clean build and paintjob, well done. Cheers Rob

Two weeks ago, we had our share of the Canadian fires here on the Canary islands. The jet stream was working perfectly and we had a burning smell in the air and lots of dark particles on the ground. Since then, there was a large fire on my neighbor island, but the situation is going for the better slowly. Cheers Rob

Today, the postwoman cared to stop in front of our house and cared to leave some long awaited deliveries. I own the Revell HMS Snowberry Flower Class Corvette kit since some time and tried to lay my hand onto a Pontos detail set. After two month, it finally arrived and since my sanity is halfway rebuild, after the delicate USS Arizona build, this will be a new adventure in brass-land. Do you need extra resin wheels for your Copper State Minerva car, you have to decide for yourself. For me it was easy, since adding the wheels to the Pontos set, made the shipping free, which about equals the price of the wheels, but they are gorgeous. Comparison with the kit supplied wheels, which are not bad for styrene molding. Cheers Rob

There was a lot of work involved for it replicating only a 1,5 liter engine. The turbo chargers which will push the engine to about 500 PS are not even included. Cables and wires are not finally attached, as I may add some resin connectors later, if my parcel ever arrives. I added a thin black oil color/white spirit wash, to enhance the details a bit. Before, I tried Tamiya and AK panel liner, but didn't like, how difficult they were to remove and found the oil color mix much mor controllable and noted for the future, to mix my own washes preferably. Fit of the parts was not brilliant, but in most cases sufficient. I had to cut some connector lugs for the belts and few other smaller parts, but no major complaints. Cheers Rob

Cool, Carl, I didn't know about the existence of this kit, but browsed through the manual on Scalemates. Looks like an equally demanding build, like the Fly kit, but it's a single seater without antlers and the canopy can be build open without cutting the clear parts, which will help a bit. Can't wait to see you wip-ing this. Cheers Rob

Continuing with the engine, all parts were sprayed with Tamiya LP matte aluminum per manual. After masking, I applied Tamiya X-3 Royal blue, which I left a bit translucent, to have a nice anodized appearance. Next, I picked of the ribs and branding with a soft lead pencil. The AK weathering pencil silver was not found suitable after testing. After some detail painting, I assembled the engine so far and decided to give it a coat of Tamiya LP semi matte clear, as the matte aluminum was too matte for my liking. I plan to use a very thin oil wash next, where the clear coat will be a good base for. Another test of patience were the numerous belts, which were sprayed in matte aluminum entirely and then the belts were painted with Tamiya LP Nato black. Various parts, which will be added to the engine block soon, were painted with AK's Extreme Metals dark aluminum, polished aluminum and duraluminum. Cheers Rob

We had a heat wave here, combined with a heavy storm and a humidity under 15%, definitely no weather for airbrushing, but as my cave is relatively cool, I managed to prepare a zillion parts for the engine and suspension, which is a really time consuming task with this dinosaur. Lots of flash and burr, every part had to be inspected closely. I filled all the gaps and ejection marks on the wing with Perfect Putty, as best as I could, which is hopefully sufficient. I really suck at filling. The engine parts, of which there are many, got a coat of Tamiya LP flat aluminum as a base color. The next step, I pondered in my small brain. The cylinder covers as well as some other parts of the engine block, where in a blue paint, originally. I tried to mask the demarcation line with tape, but was unable to get a perfect masking with the difficult shape of the part. Tamiy coul have parted the cylinder covers for easier painting. During my siesta, I had an idea. I once bought a big bottle of semi viscous masking fluid from Moiotow for a special paintjob, which never worked out. Here it came to rescue. I spilled an amount of masking fluid onto some plastic and moved the part in the fluid, et voila, it worked. Siestas are no wasted time it seems. Cheers Rob