Thanks Zac - I must admit, I'm tempted to do an Airfix with the original RAF engine as an RFC machine, but I have plenty of others in line.
Excellent progress on both Ian. Your minor niggles about accuracy will not bother most viewers I am sure.
I was relieved to read that you had misread the plans concerning the bomb aperture on the 9: I WILL feel better when in future I make similar mistakes!
Stephen.
It all adds to the fun, doesn't it! Doesn't it?
Thanks to Tim, Nigel, and Warren for your feedback! Warren, it's only practice. You'd laugh your socks off if you saw pics of my builds when I came back to the hobby around 2011!
Unfortunately I couldn't make it to Telford this year, but that has meant more progress this last week, even though not as much as I'd hoped as I had to go to Dubai for 3 days.
If you are there, I hope you're all having a great time!
As mentioned previously I had to correct the access cutouts by the rudder post and add the tail skid apertures. For the 9 this wasn't a problem, I just filed out the end of the tail with a round jeweler's file then added a tiny piece of plastic stock to close it off. The 4 however needed new plastic. If you remember, I had to thin the tail as it was too deep. This meant the top part of the D section cutout was missing. Simple enough to fix, I just cut the rest off and glued on a piece of sprue. Once dry it was sanded down to the correct shape and then filed as per the 9.
Here's the 9:
Cut out filed and stock strip added
and sanded down
and the 4:
New plastic added and sanding to shape.
sanded, filed out, strip added, and finished.
The D shaped cutouts for the tail skid were drilled then filed out with a half round jeweler's file. I also re-drilled the holes on the 4 as they didn't match up from side to side.
Primer was then applied! Well, not really primer as such, I don't use it. But a coat of Tamiya flat white as a tell-tale coat to see where extra work was needed.
As expected, remedial work was required, but not as much as I had imagined. The 4 nose was the main area - upper and lower seams, as well as the left side where it was grafted on to the fuselage.
Other than that, some minor seam work on both and a final tidy up before......
I used my usual Mister Kit PC10 but for some reason it didn't spray well. Not too bad though so I left it overnight to harden before adding a second coat today which sprayed just fine! I'm running short of PC10 so I'll need to source another supplier as Mister Kit is now defunct.
For the 4 I used Vallejo paints as usual. I ordered a couple especially for this build, Ivory and Khaki. For some reason both are very thick. I've not used Model Colour before, only Model Air, and I've had no problem with those. Anyway, after I worked out how to thin it, it worked fine but I almost messed up big time! I had thinned the ivory but it would still only spray with the needle all the way open. I always mix my pant in the airbrush cup and what had happened was that I was still spraying improperly thinned paint. Up to the point when the properly thinned paint got to the tip, and I still had the needle pulled back - flooding the thing with paint! I muttered something along the lines of "oh bother" and quickly wiped it off with a paper towel. A quick LIGHT respray to remove wipe marks and when checked this morning it was fine!
Phew!
Today I gave the 9 a second coat and masked and sprayed the Khaki on the 4.
A few small touch ups needed on the edges of some of the areas which were cut out (9 radiator, the observers' decking, etc) but nothing major so happy with that!
Time for a beer then.
Thanks for looking in!
Ian
