Bill_S

This is coming along very nicely! I'm impressed with Tamiya's design of the wings; no painting prior to assembly.

My condolences, Ernie. May he live long in your memories.

Twelve hours, and the silly putty left no oily residue!

That's my primary concern with using the stuff. I've put a blob on a clean white paper towel; I'll leave it sit for a day or two and report the results!

Approaching the finish line...

It was a busy day for the postman. I got the Nick in a trade with a local club member. It cost me a WNW Albatros. I looked for a Quinta Studios set for the Ki-45. but none exists. The Yahu panel is for the Z-M Ho229. Slowly but surely, I'm switching from Model Master enamel to Mr. Color lacquer. I want something with a wide range of colors that I can spray and brush. I hope the metallic paints compare favorably to the Model Master Metallizers that I've been using forever.

I just found this thread. Peter - outstanding! Sometimes the ones that fight you the hardest are the ones we hold dearest.

Silly putty!

WOW is right! Even though it took three years, it was worth the effort. Well done!

If this was done at the bench, it would be astounding. Even more so given that it's in a hotel room! I leave in a couple of weeks for a month in Florida; I don't think I'll have room to take a compressor. 🤔

Live and learn, I guess!

An issue. The engine/cowl assembly sits too far forward, leaving a large gap between the fuselage and the cowl flaps. The engine can't go any farther forward into the cowl, and the engine supports are fully seated into the firewall. I drilled out the mounting holes and put in brass pins. I cut off the ends of the engine supports and finished with this: Canopy glass with blue over black.

At this point, I'm inclined to agree. I've got silly putty on order.

Got my $99 Spit Mk XVIe yesterday. Check your spam folder Scott!

Well, my experiment with the pipe cleaners had mixed results. On short, straight spans, it worked exactly as I planned. Note: I'm spraying Mr. Color lacquers, I'm not sure if water based paints will soak the pipe cleaner or not. On the longer, curved runs I was not so successful. I attribute this to the pipe cleaner pulling away from the surface of the plastic. As with anything, it's the small details... This is not a good way to tape the pipe cleaner down: you can clearly see the pipe cleaner lifting away from the fuselage. This, while not perfect, works much better. The last two images are from my Birdcage Corsair; I'll be feathering edges on the fuselage of this one, too. A second application on the Kingfisher: I might give it another go with the white. In the meantime, I got the rudder repainted. I'm happy with the result. I'm letting this cure for a day or two before I shoot the navy blue. Next up: mounting the engine, installing and painting the cowl.

Pipe cleaners. There are two varieties. Good. And bad. I'm using pipe cleaners to try and get a feathered edge to the paint on the fuselage. The white pipe cleaner is good. The blue one will leave a sawtooth pattern. Bad. I cut and bend the pipe cleaner, then put it between masking tape and the model. When spraying paint, I spray up past the pipe cleaner, never down at it. I'm currently waiting for black to dry on the windscreen framing. More pictures tomorrow.

Impressive work thus far, Rob. This is precisely why I don't build ships!

It's in with some of my other 2022 acquisitions, Smitty!

Scott, I use them to avoid a sharp demarcation between paint colors. They bend easily and hold their shape. I tape them to the fuselage and spray from a short distance. I'll have pictures up on my Kingfisher build soon.

Nice grab, Scott! I'm not familiar with that TBM conversion - what's inside the box? I got these.

You guys are correct. Those bright stripes will draw the eye right to the tail. Mr. Color thinner is a fantastic paint remover - it took all of five minutes.

I must confess that I was one who initially cursed this kit, Ernie. In hindsight, it's not that bad if you have a magnifying lamp to view some of the pictures in the instruction booklet. You will soon see a Kingfisher that is NOT a Nats winner! Painting the stripes on the rudder... And the finished product. I'm not happy with how this turned out; I used calipers to measure the stripes on the decal. In hindsight, I should have simply measured the height of the rudder and divided by 13 to get uniform spacing. I'm kicking myself for that stupid mistake. There's nothing like a coat of paint to show seam defects. I had to re-fill and sand the belly of the beast.

I saw it on Facebook. Sad news.

Nice job, Kevin! I loved building those 1/28 WWI birds as a kid. As I recall, that Dr.1 has a date of 1957 molded in somewhere. Almost as old as me...