CANicoll

Just about finished! Got the aileron counterweights attached, finally, as well as the canopy and the canopy restraint cable which is really hard to see in the photo below. Applied the chalk to the bottom of the aircraft as well as some black chalk where the vents are underneath. And a teaser beauty shot before getting a proper set up tomorrow. Oh! I see I forgot to weather the wheels and tires! A little too clean for this aircraft.

Normally I'd shy away from a glossy finish but with my recent experience with the X-22 I'm all in. I've tried waxing and buffing models in the past and that just did not turn out very pleasing. I'm going to look up a few of the online build threads and see how the builds went and especially the finishes. Might have to do one of the Revell kits to get a feel for the finish.

I actually have two of the Revell kits : A shrink-wrapped Dale Earnhardt Goodwrench Chevy Monte Carlo which shows at 1:24 scale (and is only worth about $25) and a '69 Shelby GT-500 2 in 1 kit which is 1:25 scale. I might have to get that '72 Petty Charger kit...

Thanks Peter!!

The wide range of subjects in our hobby is a blessing and a curse. Keeps thinks fresh and learning new things, also I'll never get to build everything I WANT to build so I have to live watching others doing great builds.

Thanks guys!!! VERY much appreciate your comments. I like the look, actually. Now I have to get to work on the underside and mess that up...I mean, dirty the underside up...

Ditto, same with tail wheels. I fold a small piece of thick paper around it to give it more support. Paint looks terrific! I've found on the really large painting jobs that I'm now in the habit of using the larger cup (esp on my Grex) and doing a LOT of swirling as I paint to keep everything mixed on the metallic paints. Model Master Metalizer is terrible for separating quickly. Great for small jobs, not so much for larger areas. Not intuitively going with the larger cup, I know. However, much harder to swirl paint in the smaller cups. Or I use whatever cup and just paint small areas at a time. Just asking, did you paint behind the intake splitters before you attached them? Or how are you painting those areas? You have me wanting to start on my ZM 1/48 F-4C....

Working on the antenna wire - sorry for the out of focus pics. And continuing work with the chalk. The yellow chalk definitely mutes the camo colors and does more blending. This is not a clean aircraft, for sure. The chalk looks heavy, but looking at some desert 109 pictures, the planes look like they were pretty dirty.

Nice build, thanks Kevin! I also have a matte coat on the 109 - chalk does not apply well to a gloss coat.

I might have to check them out esp if they have colors I don't have.... Thanks for the suggestion!!

Thanks Rob, I will check it out. Love Petty's 70 Charger. That is a beautiful car. Nascar.com is selling the 72 Charger for $39USD just for today. Its $50USD on the Salvino site. I didn't see the '70 year but the '72 is pretty close. Nice schemes.

Thanks Mike and Peter, Tamiya really does come up with EVERYTHING, don't they? Interesting about the dullcote: Doc suggests in his instructions to spray a dullcote over the chalk if the article is going to be handled to keep the chalk from rubbing off. I haven't used chalk in a while but I don't usually handle my planes too much. I still have the rest of the plane to work the chalk magic on.

Carl, Especially for armor and these desert builds I think the chalk adds something to the build. If you need some line, let me know. I have a lot!

My early days of modeling were definitely covered in chalk dust! Then I put it away for ages, but it does have its usefulness. I didn't photographic it yet, but used some for the exhaust staining. Along those same lines I have Doc O'Briens's Weathering Powders in a rainbow of colors... Thanks for the link, I will definitely look it up.

Absolutely. I haven't yet, but that is one way to keep the finish in place.

Really? The chrome parts are metal?!? No wonder they are 56Euro! I do like the older NASCAR schemes, especially Richard Petty's STP cars.

I'm very impressed with the ResKit stuff. The detail they can achieve with 3D Printing is amazing - as you can see!

Kept working on the antenna wires by drilling a very small hole for the down wire, then using some white glue to fill the hole, and eventually also as insulators. The ends can be hard to deal with so I usually gently tape down the other end that I'm not working with to keep the line stable. Once everything is completely dry I'll stretch it vertically and use some CA to attach it to the horizontal line. While waiting for the antenna glue to dry started playing with the exhaust staining (black chalk) and then also rubbed some sand-colored chalk onto the wings to see if that might also help blend in the camo. Let me know what you think. Had this stuff for at least 20 years. It's from "Builders for Scale"... Used the mustard yellow chalk on the right-side wing. The left wing in the photo has not been touched. The chalk definitely adds to the matte/flat effect, but I think it is working to blend in the darker camo colors which is the desired effect. Applied with a rounded thick brush, any place where it was applied too heavily, I simply wiped it off with my finger. I figured if it was REALLY bad I would take a damp paper towel or cloth and wipe it all off. Thoughts?

And I have them sitting in their own little tray until I get ready to attach them (literally it will be the LAST thing I do!). 🙂

Not yet! Check out today's update. Playing with some chalk. Still have to get that antenna wire set and then position the canopy open with its own retaining wire. Thanks for the info! No worries on the detour. I'm taking notes, too.

Hey Kevin, Honestly, I think I picked it up at Scale Model World in Telford, England, which I attended for about three years. If you need a few inches of the stuff, let me know. 👍

Wow, Peter, these engines look awesome, and I hope they are not completely covered up. Your dry brushing technique is incredible and really brings out all of that detail. You may not have a lot of bench time but you certainly make the most of what time you get! I needed to some of that drybrushing inside the cockpit of my 109.

Thanks Martin!

Finally got the main antenna line attached, but in the meantime broke off both elevators (independently) as well as the antenna mast. Sigh. Following some online resources trying to come close to how the antenna wire was attached to the aircraft. Using some of the PE pieces for that. Will trim the line and add the resisters and add the down wire once all of this is firmly cured. I'm not a fan of EZ-Line for antenna wire as it is actually flat and not round. I prefer to use the Uschi line for the antenna wires as it is round and comes in some incredibly thin diameters - down to .001. I'm using their .005 line and the down wire will be .005 as well. Photographs seem to show both wires are the same size. Eduard provided the PE for the tail antenna connection. This bit I took from another part. will move the wire down to the PE part and trim the excess line tomorrow once I'm sure the mast is on and stable. Sad that the rear canopy piece is raised up a bit. However it is FIRMLY attached so I don't want to risk breaking by detaching it and re-attaching..

I tend to tape those edges when I can, running the tape diagonal for the longest area to be held together. But that is a huge wing.