1/48 Eduard Avia B-534 Series IV

[StreetFightingMan]

Hi Everyone,

 

I'm starting a build of Eduard's nice little Avia B-534. I picked this up at the IPMS National Convention last year, and it's a very nice kit. Unfortunately mine came with some molding errors, and the wings and fuselage halves had some very nasty marks on them. I spent a lot of time sanding to get rid of the marks without damaging the delicate surface detail, and so far I think I've managed to get rid of most of it. If I come across more marks, I'll have to address them.

 

So far I've cleaned up some of the cockpit, assembled some of the fiddly bits, and worked on assembling and aligning the fragile parts for the underside. Because a lot of the interior is visible after the fuselage halves are closed, I'm putting a lot of effort into getting everything just right. I hope to begin priming soon, and will be using Model Master Metalizer for the first time to get the effect of painted aluminum that was applied to the real thing. I've done a lot of test fitting, and I can see there will be a few spots that are difficult to get just right. So far it's been a fun build to plan out, and I hope to have some more substantial updates soon. Thanks for looking!

 

 

[TeWika]

Hey Mike,

 

This looks interesting. I will follow you build!

 

Cheers

 

Ted

[Paulster]

Talk about blind spot at 12 o'clock high. Look forward to this one.

[StreetFightingMan]

Well, progress has been slow on the cockpit. As I said, I'm trying more than usual to get it aligned correctly because it's going to be very visible with the large cockpit windows. I also decided to try Model Master Metalizers (non-buffing) for the first time, adding another nervous bit to this build. So far, I love this paint line! I picked non-buffing because I'm trying to simulate metallic paint, not shiny polished aluminum. I think that it looks as good as I expected for my first-time use, and I already know what I'll do differently next time. I painted over a black primer layer of Mr. Surfacer 1500. Since I got two jars of it when it first became available from SprueBrothers, I've been addicted to the stuff. It lays down so cleanly (assuming properly prepped plastic) and doesn't eliminate minute surface detail.

 

 

I got ahead of myself with the metallic paint and, after I had put down the coat of aluminum, tried mixing a drop of the much darker gun metal to go back and add some accents along the framework of the cockpit. I'll have to investigate that further someday, but I could tell right away that it was going to look too severe and fake, so I quickly stopped and recovered those spots with the original aluminum. It looks a little monotone to me, but I'm mostly happy with it.

 

 

 

After the airbrushing, I started detail painting and getting the sides of the cockpit together. I took these pics with my phone, so I didn't get any good close-up shots, but if it looks decent when I'm done weathering painting and weathering it this week, I plan on taking a few pics of the cockpit with my DSLR before closing up the fuselage halves. I have the belts and quite a few details to get done before then, so it will be a little while before my next update. Until then, this is a (poor quality) pic of my progress at the moment. Thanks as always for looking!

 

[TeWika]

Mickey it looks good man!

This is a very cool subject!!