DocRob

Nice progress Peter, and yes, the cowling to fuselage fit seems to be a complicated area. It's a bit pronounced now with the primer and filler, but I wonder if this will smooth out in the end. This to me is a defining point of the airframe and therefore crucial. I hope, you can master that area. I like the extra detail, where have you got fuel line fairings. You can show these in a maintenance dio. A hundred times better and more usable, than ZM's single pistons . Cheers Rob

It's a good thing to reach a feelgood point in a demanding build, helps amping up the motivation. In a way, I like what you said about builders vs. assemblers. I'm both, sometimes I feel a deep satisfaction with grinding through sub-par plastic, finding solutions, and sometimes it's about assembling fast and easy, because the goal of the build is to achieve something new or special painting- or weathering wise. The big thing starts to look Helldiver poco a poco, but I'm with you, detesting bomb racks and the build of these explosive things with it's boring redundance. Fit of the glass looks great with the resin parts, what had HPH in mind, designing the IP ones, when having the others already made, mayor f***-up, I'd say. One more question if I'm allowed, is the 'we' in your log something to do with me, myself and I? Cheers Rob

It is Peter, and a kind of work you shouldn't rush to not commit stupid mistakes. I sprayed the insignia on, not without issues. As said in the last post, I applied the outline masks first and then covered all the surrounding areas properly. I did this without first to put some transparent adhesive foil onto the masks, like the manual suggests. An idea, I should have followed, as the masks on the fuselage sides stretched a bit, which was not noticeable to my blind eye. After spraying, I had two bad spots, which need to be corrected, because of this. I tried to place the stars by hand and found it nearly impossible, so I took out my transparent Tesa film (Scotch tape) and applied strips over the masks to fill into the outline mask. Now placement was a lot easier, means not only RTFM, but also follow it . Scotch tape on inner masks. Applied onto the plane into the outside masks. After removing the unnecessary ones. The background color was AK's Real Color Insignia White and for the blue, I used Vallejo's Model Air Insignia Blue, which I luckily found in my stash. The blue seems to be very fragile, so I will save the markings with a clear coat, before I mask of the corrections and some stencils, which go onto the insignia. ... and for Peter Cheers Rob

Fantastic result Mike, I love the finish. I will save your log again, as I have the Dolphin on backorder along with my last desired WNW kit, the Albatros B.II. Thank you for document your great work to us followers. Cheers Rob

Today, I managed to airbrush all the stencils on the underside and started with the stars and bars. 1ManArmy supplies these as masks in their set. They recommend to apply them with the help of transparent low tack frisk foil, to make placement easier. I didn't have this type of foil at hand, so I placed the outside masks by hand and hope the star and bar masks fit, after the white color has dried. I used Insignia white, which is a bit off white and sprayed it a tiny bit translucent, to not look too uniform. Cheers Rob

Thank you Gentlemen, these masks are very good indeed and the results are awesome, but the process needs definitely more time than decaling. I wouldn't have liked doing the same on my Kai Phantom build . I mixed masking techniques, Gary. The harder to reach stencils were completely masked, the others were surrounded by the templates. So far no fails, except one stencil, which should have been gone over the stars and bars . Cheers Rob

Thank you @Jbert27, @Peterpools Peter and @BlrwestSiR Carl, The walking areas got sprayed along with the black stencils on the top side of the wings and the fuselage. I used Tamiya NATO black acrylic mixed with Mr. Leveling thinner and carefully applied the very thin mix with low pressure and in thin layers onto the masks. The manual suggest not to use pure black, which I never considered and spray the layers until you can't see the yellow of the masks anymore. That was exactly what I did and I was fearless enough, to make the first try directly on the tail wing. I have to say, I'm really amazed, how the results look. The masking is tedious and consumes lots of Kabuki tape, but the stencils look like tattooed into the surface color. I still cannot believe, how fine they are cut. That's the Corsair with the walkways and stencils, which are hard to spot in this view. This is the area from the previous post after spraying, even heavier macroed. Some more on the tail I didn't want to mask all of the stencils completely and cut some templates from 40mm wide Tesa Professional (much cheaper than Tamiya Kabuki tape and nearly as good) onto my cutting template with differently sized cutoffs. I de tacked the template, because I didn't want them to lift the masks when removing them. I'm very pleased with the outcome and the results make the tedious masking work nearly forgotten. Hasta la vista silvering . Cheers Rob

My Corsair got the mad stenciling disease . I applied the fitted strips of tape for the wing walk areas and then added all the black stencil masks, which are not covered in these areas. The OneManArmy masks are very sharply cut into Kabuki tape and the manual shows very well, where to place them. There are differences to the decal placing suggested by Tamiya, but I decided to ignore these. I gave some thought, about how to spray the stencils, without having to mask the entire plane. I will try to use a template cut into 40mm wide de tacked Kabuki tape for masking off every single stencil, one after the other, lets see, how this works. I used a rubber brush, to push down the masks around the letters properly and will use NATO black for the stenciling. Cheers Rob

You are your worst critique, Gary. I like the figures and I envy your skills, but have to say, they are well earned, the way you train and progress with nearly every build, adding figures. I think they came out beautiful to the non macroed natural eye. Cheers Rob Is it pink now? Cheers Rob

Test fitting is part of the game Peter. The more dubious a producer, the more test fitting is required, but what I see on your pics looks like a P-40 and that's what counts. GWH could have done better, but in your description, I still hear no frustration. Seems to be a challenging kit, but this is sometimes what you need. Everybody can do Tamiya . Cheers Rob

Thank you Kevin, this is looking good, like the Tamiya Royal blue. The downside, it takes at least two weeks, to get stuff to my island, by which time, I plan to have the Corsair finished. At least, I will try to mix something adequate. Cheers Rob

Thank you Gentlemen, concerning the approach, I was thinking about chipping next, but I think I will skip it for now and continue with spraying on the stencils and stars and bars. I searched my zillions of color jars and found none fitting for the dark blue of the insignia. I may have to mix my own. BTW, which color do you use for the blue around the stars? Cheers Rob

You are mastering the delicate beast, Peter. I would have imagined, that the kit would be of higher quality, but you're doing great and like Gary said, crisp and clean paintjob. Cheers Rob

I reworked all the camo colors, until I liked the effect and color rendition, starting with the intermediate blue, then white and then sea blue. I enhanced some panel contrasts, using some drops of white in the mix. Plane 883 has a distinctive streak on the front side area of the fuselage, which I slightly painted on. I also modulated the sea blue, to let it look a bit sun bleached on the top areas. This is all preliminary and will be enhanced in the weathering stage. The first walkway markings where masked and airbrushed, using Nato black. The propeller was also sprayed with Nato black, after receiving a dose of hairspray over an aluminum base coat, which will allow some chipping, later. Cheers Rob

The Taifun is coming together nicely, love the paintjob, but the star of the show to me is the Citroen, sweet. Cheers Rob

Thank you Kevin and Gary, I consider the upper sea blue done, but have to rework the insignia white as planned and maybe a bit of touch up on the intermediate blue. I was indeed a bit astonished about the relatively glossy finish of the sea blue and found it very difficult to photograph. A matte coat will improve this, but until then, there's a lot left to be done, walkway markings, chipping and the stars and bars at last, maybe the stencils as well. Cheers Rob

Thank you Carl and Peter. The Real Colors are indeed great to work with. They supported my translucent layering approach with their properties. They spray so thin, that until now, I haven't lost riveting detail, even in the multi coated wing root areas. Cheers Rob

Wow Phil, nice work with the help of a magnifier. Bummer, that the interior detail will be lost in the shadows. Cheers Rob

Sure, a zillion pictures up to a half build vessel on January first and on some of the pics, I forgot to remove the December issue of a newspaper or the Advent decoration . Never got so closed to approved frauding . Cheers Rob

Funky Thang Cheers Rob

Nice idea about the scuffing, Gary. I like the first picture a lot with black scuffing on the side of the fuselage and lighter scuffing through the soot. Your non Hartmann, enters the plane from the left side obviously. The white scuffing in the wing areas, I find a bit too much . Cheers Rob

The third color is applied. Again, no issues with AK's Sea Blue. It sprays perfectly and I was able to build up the color out of many translucent layers until it had the desired effect. Interestingly the sea blue dried relatively glossy, compared with the other two colors, but that's no issue for me, as I will flat coat my work in the end. The sea blue rendered sometimes very bluish, sometimes very brownish on my pictures, so I chose one, which looks halfway correct to my eye. While building the Corsair, I considered leaving the outer wings and tail wings unmounted until after the painting stage. It would have made painting a lot easier and I would recommend it to everyone building a tri color Corsair. Cheers Rob

First colors are on, at least preliminary. First I sprayed Insignia White heavily thinned in very translucent layers until i got something like a 3/4 coverage. I decided to airbrush the camo free handed, therefore, I wanted the borders between colors not entirely finished, as the color may be too dense there to let the pre shading shine through equally. After masking off the inner wing sections it was time for Intermediate Blue, which I sprayed a tin little bit closer to the desired density, specially, where it borders the white. I don't want to perform too many corrections in this area later. The AK Real Colors spray exceptionably well, with good coverage and a nice flow in the airbrush, when thinned with Mr. Leveling Thinner. The white was sputtering tiny drops on some occasions and I don't understand why. The mixing ratio was the same like with the blue. Of course, I started and stopped spraying off the model, but I have two or three tiny dots, which will be addressed later. Interestingly, the Intermedite Blue looks greyer in the jar, than sprayed, where it has the right blueish tint to my eye. Here you can clearly see the effect of the multi colored pre shading, especially on the wing ends. Cheers Rob

I'm expectant too and it will not be easy to have the pre shading showing through equally with a tri tone camo free handed or with Panzer putty for soft transitions, which need some overspray in the meeting areas. This technique, I used on monochrome or hard edged paintjobs, where it is easier to perform. Cheers Rob

Thank you amigos, I hope, the camera will lead to better pictures . Cheers Rob