Hansa-Brandenburg W.12 Early (WNW 1/32) ON HOLD

[GB]

Thanks guys.

Onto some paint. Plenty of masking required here! Front end gets a very light coat of XF83 which shows up any imperfections. I then use 1000 grit paper soaked in water to sand required areas smooth, respray and resand as required.....





Gary

[GB]

As careful as I was, some rivet detail was lost during sanding. Easy fix using Archer resin decals...



Not easy to see, granted, but the line running over the top of the fuselage behind the observers station has been replaced with the Archer decals...



Gary

[jeroen_R90S]

Tidy work! Nice idea on the sponge/foam material, too to stuff the openings. So far I've used masking tape and liquid masks, this looks easier though.
I have loads of that stuff around as my wife works in a laboratory.

Engine looks great, too!

[GB]

Thanks jeroen_R90S. Yep, sponge is much easier in some circumstances than masking with tape!

Small update. The scheme I'm doing has a grey square behind the national marking on the fuselage and despite being shown on the colour plate and being plainly visible in period photos, no mention is made in the instructions??? So I simply masked off a square and applied a slightly darker shade of grey. I've also applied the hex camo decal to the rear horizontal surface. I simply applied Tamiya Gloss White from a rattle can as the basecoat.....



Not the easiest to apply and it did required some decal solution to help the decal curve and adhere to the outer edges.

I can see that the hex decals on the wings are going to be fun 

Gary

[GB]

More decals....





There is a small gap where the top fuselage and rear horizontal surface decals don't quite meet. When the vertical surface is cemented in place, it will require a little filler at that point and I'll use the piece of spare section WNW provide to try to make a seemless join between the two parts.

Gary

[GB]

Decals are sealed in with a couple of coats of acrylic floor polish and fuselage is now ready for some weathering...







Gary

[GB]

Elevators and rudder get some paint along with their respective decals and dry fitted....





Gary

[GB]

Dreading this part, but thankfully, I seem to have pulled it off....





I used cold water (as per WNW tips page) and allowed the backing paper to fall away leaving the decal floating on the top of the water. The wing was then put in and lifted up onto the decal from underneath. I found this allowed me to more easily move the decal into position before it started to adhere to the wing preventing any movement. Unconventional, but worked for me 

And the undersides...



Not easy to see, but the white squares are painted with a slight off white leaving a brighter white bordering the black crosses....

Gary

[RAGIII]

That was a LOT of updating! Your painting is gorgeous and the decaling superb in all respects. You certainly mastered the wings and fuselage lozenge!
RAGIII

[GB]

Thanks RAGIII.

Upper wings. What fun! Not sure WNW could make it any more complicated with joins all over the show which need to be filled and sanded. I used CA gel to fill the gaps as it tends to be a bit more resistant to crackling....



Masking tape covered the ribs while sanding to help prevent accidental damage to them.



Underneath, joins run right through the ribs making it very difficult to hide them though, to be fair, they will be very hard to see on the finished kit.

An overall coat of CDL was followed by the lozenge decals (3 parts here)...



I'll leave them to dry overnight before the next stage which involves some masking and painting before the crosses can be added. Need to get some low tack masking tape too....

Gary

[Juan]

Great work on this beauty Gary, she is coming along quite nicely.

[Manni]

Great work, Gary.
The Hansa looks very clean and crisp. Top build and paintjob.
Bye,
Manni

[RAGIII]

Terrific! Your lozenge application looks flawless.
RAGIII

[Monty]

Ooh, this is stunning work on the decals Gary! Very neat and flawless to my eye... And turning into a great colour scheme! There are lots of great tips here... I will borrow shamelessly when I get round to mine... Regards, Marc

[GB]

Thank you all. Appreciate the comments.

Good and bad news for this update...

Markings are applied to upper wing and will be left to dry before I can add some paint around the edges as per coplour profile. I've also added some shading to the lower wings using the usual Tamiya Smoke X19....



Now some bad news. I noticed today that the decal on the upper fuselage is lifting. I tried some decal solution on it and a hairdruer and it seemed to fix the issue - for a bout 5 minutes before it started to lift again....



Bugger. Not the end of the world, but a real nuisance  I expect that the surface wasn't prepped properly or had some contaminant which is preventing the decal from adhering properly.

So, I have a couple of options. Remove the offending piece and use another from the W.29 kit I have in the stash (which I'm not planning on using hex camo for). Or, remove ALL the hex camo from the kit and use some faded camo I have from Aviattica.

Any suggestions as to how best to remove decals?

Gary