Merad

Was sick most of last week and didn't touch the workbench at all, but good progress last Sunday and this afternoon. I have a nice backlog of parts ready for paint. I'm still debating what paint to use for the interior metallic areas. Normally I just use Tamiya XF-16 Flat Aluminum for things like landing gear legs, but I think I may try Vallejo Metal Color for this. The exterior bare metal parts of Salem Rep will be Alclad, but it seems like way too much work for landing gear bays. Didn't feel like painting today but I do have a good bit of the parts off the sprue and cleaned up. Drilled out some carb air intakes for Shangri La (Salem has the solid panels). And drilled out the exhausts. The resin exhausts are disappointing IMO. I really can't tell a noticeable difference between them and the kit exhausts, even the depth of the holes is basically the same. I know it's a tiny part and probably hard to mold hollow tubes, but this is an $8-10 aftermarket item... (kit part on L, OOB resin middle, drilled on R) The Brassin wheels are lovely OTOH. I thought the hub caps (R12) would be a nightmare to clean up, but the flash on them is actually raised on the inner side. It can be easily cut off with a sharp #11 blade then gently scrape the edges clean with the tip of the blade. Biggest fit annoyance so far is the horizontal stabs. They use sprue gates molded to the inner surface instead of the edge of the part. Tried to be careful cutting them off but all 4 horizontal stabs have these noticeable holes in the leading edge. The design of the parts is a head scratcher, they're made so that you get this seam line where the halves join (2nd pic, the line along the right edge of the stab) where cleanup is guaranteed to destroy rivet detail. If the stab couldn't be molded as a single piece I think it would've been much better off with a more typical upper and lower half split. Lastly I found some missing parts in the kit. You're supposed to use parts F20 and F21 for the wing racks and you can see in the instructions that they're wing racks with sway braces. Neither one of my sprue F's include these parts, but there are racks without braces (F18 and F19), but they're clearly called out in the instructions as unused parts. Anyway - something to check if you have this kit. I emailed Eduard about it yesterday.

Great work! Looking forward to seeing how the locomotive goes together. I have it in my stash, I got a craving for a steam engine a while back and it was the only kit I could find.

Cool project! Following.

Starting out with Shangri La, have the all the interior parts together and ready for paint. She will get the 3d printed seat and Eduard 3d cockpit while Salme Rep gets the Quinta set. There are some very tiny detail parts and the carpet monster ate two that I replaced with bits of stretched sprue. I'm going to go ahead and build out Salem Rep to the same point before painting as I want to keep the builds in sync. Fit has been great, detail is wonderful. Only criticism of the kit so far is the instructions. I've had to download and look at the instructions for the normal P-51B kit and for the Eduard Space 3d decals because they put together custom instructions for the Royal Class boxing that are incomplete in some areas. Detail on the 3d printed seat is incredible, we will see if I'm up to painting it. 🙂 Unfortunately the second 3d seat they provide is kind of wasted because it's only used with 2 of the 15+ marking options.

A slightly older Tamiya kit (1998) but a fun little build. Out of the box except for Red Fox cockpit decals, some engine wiring, and drilled out exhausts. Also basically a clean build except for some washes and minor dry brushing. Yes, the folded wings are tilted forward at the wrong angle and I'm not quite sure how it happened. By the time I realized it was off the glue was already set up. Oops.

This is the Royal Class boxing that came out last year, so we have resin wheels and exhausts for both birds, and a 3d printed seat with belts + 3d cockpit decals for one. I've added a Quinta cockpit set for the second aircraft, but otherwise this is an out of the box build. Interesting to compare the Eduard and Quinta 3d cockpits. I've used Quinta before, but this is the first time using Eduard's version. Subjects for the build will be Kidd Hofer's "Salem Representative" and Dom Gentile's "Shangri La".

Progress on the beast - it's been getting some work off and on in the background. Upper and lower hull are joined together and almost complete. Will be starting in on the turret soon.

Very nice, did you use the Eagle Editions decals? I just got them in today and was eyeing Frenesi as a possible future build.

Here's the RFI:

This was part of a reddit group build for the 85th anniversary of the start of WW2 in Western Europe. This was my first build using a 3d cockpit (Quinta Studio), first time using MRP paints, and first time painting markings with 1ManArmy masks. Very happy with how all of the above turned out, and with the Kotare kit. Only one fit issue in the whole build, which I'm pretty sure was my fault. I do feel like the chipping and weathering are the weakest parts of this build, that is where I need the most practice. But overall a fun build and I'm pleased with the result. Brief WIP thread Google Photos album of the whole build

All done! One quick teaser pic for now, I'm going to let everything dry overnight and hopefully get it in the photo booth tomorrow.

There are two reasons I haven't tried hairspray chipping yet. I'm pretty committed to using MRP paints - colors already ordered for my next 6-8 builds - plus they're excellent. From what I've read chipping only works with acrylics? Also, I really like the effect that black basing gives and not sure how well it would mix with chipping. Although now that I do some research I see that Doog has an article on the subject. I have been eyeing a 1/48 A6M5 Zero to build in the near future, so it would be a good candidate to try some heavy chipping.

I agree, I wanted the wing root under the cockpit to be almost bare metal so that was intended to be heavy, but I don't think the pattern looks very natural and the chipping on other areas is really too heavy. I need a lot more practice with sponge chipping and I still haven't found a type of sponge that I really like and feel like gives good control of the effect.

That is amazing, looking at the first few pics it it took me a minute to realize it was the finished model instead of a reference photo.

Yep! I have to give all the credit to Doog's Models, I learned the technique from his excellent videos.

Did some chipping and couldn't resist getting her on her own feet with some of the details installed. Getting close!

I ended up using the kit decals for the fasteners as it didn't feel worth the effort of all the masking to paint them. The fasteners for the outer gun's access panel on the upper wing were part of the roundel decal so I couldn't use them, so I improvised and hand painted them with a single bristle held with tweezers. Sealed the decals with a coat of Aqua Gloss, then did an oil wash - dark brown on top, light brown on the bottom. Mixed feelings about the wash on the bottom, it's not terrible but I think I probably should've stuck with dark brown all over. Covered the wash with a MRP matt varnish, I think I did too heavy a coat because the paint looks a bit faded (especially noticeable on the black) but I think it actually works to my advantage because I want to depict a plane that's been run hard during those frantic months early in the war. On now to some oil weathering and final assembly. Minor disaster on the PE flaps, they were on a stick with some blu tac for the matt coat. I though they were just barely attached but when I pulled one off to do the other side it totally pulled apart. I was able to straighten it up pretty well, hopefully won't be noticeable. These things have been a pain, if I do PE flaps again I think I will try soldering them.

Weekend update - finished painting and clear coating all the road wheels. On to work on detailing the hull. This is the glacis plate. The headlights were just empty boxes so I filled them in with putty to try to give the impression of a reflector inside. The shape is a little weird though, I think I will work on it some more once the putty has cured. Also made some bulbs with drops of UV resin. On the real thing you can't really see the interior of the headlight anyway (reference) but it's a fun little detail to add. While the putty was curing I moved on to the rear deck, which is about 75% complete now.

I took a break from Spitfire painting to work on some road wheels. If you build this kit, I think you'd be better off painting them before assembly. I couldn't think of a good way to mask the rubber tires, especially the inner edge, so I've been brush painting them with a few predictable slips. Not too worried about it since they should be easy to hide with weathering, but if you paint before assembly the rubber pieces are totally separate parts. I've noticed in some reference pics (example) that the pins that hold the tow hooks are usually attached to the hull with a chain. I've been looking for some fine jeweler's chain to replicate it, I'm leaning towards the one in the middle. Also I found this youtube channel that posts lots of tank porn with many vids that are great references of dirty Leo's in the field: https://www.youtube.com/@tankchris/videos

I got the main stencils done. There are a few dozen fastener markings that still need to be added, and taking these pics I noticed overspray on the wing roots, so that needs some touch up...

This build has been in progress since March, but stalled for a while. It's my first large scale build since returning to the hobby and I went all in on the aftermarket. Cockpit is Quinta Studios, with a few pieces of Eduard PE, and HGW belts. Added Eduard PE flaps. I've read that RAF pilots were trained to retract flaps as soon as they left the runway so you wouldn't normally see them extended on the ground. We'll just pretend they're getting maintenance or something like that. The build was smooth overall except for the wing to fuselage fit. I think this was my fault, but not sure what I screwed up. The fillets were just a bit too narrow to seat in place on the fuselage and I had to do a good bit of sanding and scraping on the right side to make them fit. After priming I realized that the right fillet had collapsed a bit - I guess I took too much material in working on the fit. I didn't take pics of the damage, but the fillet was sitting a good 2-3 mm lower than the side of the fuselage. I used green stuff putty to fill in most the sunken area and Tamiya putty to fill in the top layer. It took about 4 rounds of sanding and priming to get the edges even and the shape reasonably correct. Finally yesterday and today I have been painting. All MRP paints - I marbled the top camo with RAF light earth and light green, then finished with dark earth & dark green. The camo was done freehand with the airbrush. I'm not unhappy with the result, but if I had it to do over I think I'd mask it. The bottom was marbled with white, and then the white side got some additional marbling with earth yellow before a top coat of white, and the black side got additional marbling with haze grey before a top coat of "black night". Going to put a gloss coat on tomorrow so the paint has some protection, then this weekend I will be trying out those 1ManArmy stencils.

On the topic of track painting, does anyone know what color the metal parts of the track would be from the factory? The instructions say to paint them "rust", which definitely feels wrong. This pic is the the best I've found where they aren't completely covered in dirt/mud. I'm think that looks like NATO Green with a healthy amount of dust ground into it.

Possibly! The track parts came on 4 large sprues, about 75 cm x 50 cm. I have a large 30" (76 cm) Paasche spray booth, so they would've just barely fit. The assembled tracks are about 1 m long but at least you can fold them up to work in sections. This Leo is so big it's going to present more than one painting challenge. Edit: The tracks aren't actually on the tank yet, in the first pic from my post I held the final link together with blu tack just to put them on and see how they look. All of the wheels are also dry fit so I can take them off for painting.

Tracks are complete. I used an 80 grit sanding stick to scuff up the pads and took some random chunks out of them with a hobby blade. I think looks overdone in the photo but it's more subtle in person and hopefully will be even more so after paint. Rear panel of the body is together and on the chassis. Probably can't tell at a glance but 30+ parts went into detailing it. Working on the top of the body now, which gives us the chance to see just how big this big boy is going to be (Extra Thin for scale). Last but not least the track support rollers got painted and clear coated with a touch of black wash. I think I'm go ahead and start painting the tracks and road wheels since there is going to be so much painting to put on this thing.

I have a couple other 1/16 in my stash but this is the first I've actually built! It's a fun change of pace from from working with "tiny" 1/32 or 1/35 parts 🤣