August 2017 – Dutch Scale Models

Deskaling

I said in my last blog it might take some time for the decaling job and I wasn’t wrong. Although I am very happy with the results so far.

Decaljob

To just get it over with, the worst result:

wp-image-1449614894 — I don’t know what happened exactly, but I guess something was still wrong with my layers of gloss. Applying Revell Decal Softener might have actually made things worse since the under layer wasn’t good enough.

I might be wrong there. I will have to look into it before I will do my next decaling job. If anyone of my readers can tell me if I am right or wrong in my assessment that would be awesome as always.

Some more small things that could have been better:

wp-image-1914791957 — ‘Nur hier betret–‘. This decal got folded when applying it and I wasn’t able to repair it unfortunately. This is a typical place for some weathering I guess, so it should be all right.

wp-image-966640438 — I had to cut the red decals in two pieces because I was not able to fold them around the wings, horizontal stabilizers and rudder. Unfortunately they fell of a number of times today, so I might have to just paint these small areas.

wp-image-339285175 — The decal itself is fine, but I wonder if the number on the side really looked like this on the real plane, because it looks like it was cut out from an NFL jersey. ATCDave, any thoughts on this perhaps?

Overall I do feel pretty good about this process. As I mentioned in the last blog I figured it was probably some bad childhood memory that made me look up to this job, but really is a mistake to compare yourself to your twenty year younger self isn’t it.. especially being a kid you can be excused for not thinking things through. 32 year old me does a much better job.

Of course it could be the decals just got better, or maybe I just leave them in the water a lot shorter. But I know that one big thing is that small cotton swabs I got at a hobby shop really are a big friend with this job. I was able to salvage many rolled up decals without any problem by just making a cotton swab slightly damp and picking the decal up. I was then able to just roll it off the swab and onto the model.

I know that as a kid I just used my clunky fingers, often resulting in the torn up decals I have had nightmares about.

Some more pictures of my progress so far:

wp-image-777316112 — All the parts not fixed onto the main body at this point are done.

Something I found interesting myself: I had never really thought about what would happen with the drop tanks and sort of figured they would just be lost after use.

wp-image-186338612 — The text on the drop tank instructs the finder to immediately report the location of the drop tank to police or a an airfield when finding this fuel container for a reward of 10 Reichsmark. I think that would about 14 euro’s? Sounds like quite a lot of money!

wp-image-507552403 — The underside as shown in the instruction manual is done..

wp-image-71328868 — As is the top. That leaves the sides to finish the job.

Although I initially mentioned I would do the underside first, it seems to not really work like that once you get down to it. Obviously you don’t want to cut in the middle of the paper too much to avoid damaging any decals, so mostly I just work towards a decal I actually want to place. I also try to avoid touching anything I just placed on the models.. unfortunately I already have had some decals on my hand that I had already placed but didn’t let dry.

I will probably be able to wrap this up pretty soon, and then it is on to doing my first experiment with chipping!

IPMS Nederland

I received my membership card and login details for the IPMS site! I think there will be a regional meeting on September 18th and it would be great if I could take the FW-190 with me!

So far I found a nice tip in one of the magazines I got with the membership: using wood glue to temporarily fix things into place. I will definitely have to try that because tack isn’t always a good solution.

I also saw a nice example of a A6M3 on the forum, which is great because I hope to start my A6M5 project in a couple of weeks. It turns out one of the inspiration sources was a book I bought myself a week ago:

51khw2bd7pxl-_sl500_ac_ss350_ — Aircraft Scale Modeling F.A.Q. by Daniel Zamaride

Excellent book for beginners and probably a nice reference work for more advanced builders as well. This will be a good starting point for all the things I still want to try!

Anyway, I am excited to have joined IPMS and I hope I can enjoy the benefits.

It might not be a big deal for a lot of people, but the last couple of years I have suffered from social anxiety more than I have realized. I guess it sort of crept up on me over the years. I was just intimidated by going to the things I had to go to like social meetings at work, but also weddings and birthdays of friends. You can imagine that if you suffer from that with the things you have to do you’re not even thinking about doing the things you will actually want to do! Not too long ago it would have been out of the question to even visit a hobby shop, and now I have actually joined a club and look forward to visiting my first meeting!

New desk!

I decided on my new desk and it should come in tomorrow!

9200000064892016 — This should be about 140×140 cm, compared to the 75×100 cm I have right now. It also has those drawers so I can hopefully have a clean desk most of the time!

Now I just need something to place all my stuff in, so I am not done with spending money. OK, by now I am ready to accept that you never really are in this hobby.

I will probably focus on getting things in the right place tomorrow!

Groetjes,

Dan

Decal and Hide

Of course it doesn’t really matter since I’m not writing for the New York Times, but I’m still considering different options on how to update this blog. Do I want to keep my posts about a single subject and do a weekly ‘summary’ of all the small things that I think about during the week? Or do I want to just keep it more of a journal and use a single blog to write about anything related to modelling? Or both?

At the moment I am really leaning towards just writing about all the subjects that have my current attention and thus keeping the more journal kind of form. Since I have started using categories along with my latest layout change it will still be easy for readers to sort on any subject that has their interest.. people that have an interest for WW2 might not be interested in the Boeing 747-8F build, and vice versa.

I might not have tons of readers, but I still aim to achieve some level of quality in the presentation and organization of this blog. Even if it’s mainly for my own pleasure at this point! But as always I am always open for feedback.

Anyway, this is a modelling blog, not a blog writing-blog, so to some actual modelling related topics!

To-do list

I’ve made lists for the FW-190 build before but this I am have centralized them in a seperate page that I update all the time. This list makes my life a lot easier in the final stages of the process because there is a lot of stuff that can’t be done from the instruction booklet.

And for that matter, some things that should be in the instructions are not. So the first order of business was something that has bothered me more than once during the last couple of weeks, but I kept forgetting about it.

I looked into it this afternoon and it turns out that the manual actually says this part is not used for this model.. It does instruct you very early on to cut out the hole where it’s supposed to fit but now I am wrapping things up the thought kept creeping up in my mind that I would be left with a nice hole in the wing.

Thankfully I didn’t throw anything out.

wp-image-1918722171 — I just hope I didn’t cut the hole out too wide but we’ll pass that bridge when we get to it.

wp-image-1163530270 — Some more pre-work on the propeller assembly and drop tank. I applied a layer of gloss coat.

It is time..

After much postponing (probably from my childhood nightmares of ripping up decals) it is finally time to start do this thing..

wp-image-1187214835 — I started off with 2 big ones yesterday evening to get the feel for it and think about my plan of action for this operation.

I will work from front to back, doing the underside first. And I don’t think I will going through this very quickly because I haven’t felt fully ‘energized’ for a few days now and I don’t want to ruin this.

wp-image-636867770 — I do like that result though!

Yesterday I already misplaced the decal sheet into a puddle of water.. and that is the sort of stuff I have bad childhood memories about. You could say my style of working is just not suited for this kind of thing as I love to keep all my mess around me and accidents are bound to happen.

But when I accidentally pushed off a paint bottle I realized there might be another problem I need to address first. I might have to do that workplace upgrade sooner than I thought because the old table is less than ideal.

Groetjes,

Dan

Weekly random thoughts

Last week I had the idea to do a weekly blog on Friday night about random modelling related subjects that I wanted to write about. Although a week later it seems it won’t be a Friday night thing necessarily I’d still like to do a ‘weekend’ update as long as there is something to write about.

For the last three weeks I have been watching Friday Night Live ‘At The Bench’ By International Scale Modeller. I’m not sure if I will watch every week, but I quite like the idea of spending my Friday night in that environment, listening to modelers and hearing about new kits and related stuff with a beer in my hand. The only problem is I am not a known person in that community, and obviously sometimes that means you will be ignored.

I hope to have found a dutch community though, even if it doesn’t have hangouts and a live Friday night show!

IPMS Nederland

If all goes well I will be a member of IPMS Nederland soon. IPMS is an abbreviation for ‘Internation Plastic Modellers Society’, and that name makes me suspicious I will have to go through some sort of sacrificial ceremony to become a member. Perhaps I will have to throw my first model into the fire and cut my hands open while performing a secret dance. I have a feeling it will probably still be worth it:

My main supplier Hobbycar in Tilburg has a very nice deal that entails getting a 10% discount on every purchase when showing your IPMS card. With the recent purchase of the compressor I’ve come to the point where I could have joined immediately and saved 40 euro’s, but since I haven’t been active in the hobby for that long it would have been a risk. By now, I am fairly certain I will stick to this hobby for the coming time so a membership will be worth it, especially since I am already planning my next purchases (which I will have to keep quiet about until somewhere in October hopefully! Ooooh secrets!)
Free entrance to IPMS NL events. While I am usually not a huge fan of this sort of thing, I am actually quite keen on seeing what others are up to and I might end up going to some of these!
A magazine, published 5 times a year.
Access to the forum to contact other IPMS NL members.

Looking forward to becoming a member!

The flag I will have to pledge allegiance to when I become a member.

Site work

I have done yet another overhaul of the site layout. The reason is I have become a premium member of WordPress. Is it an economical decision? No, absolutely not. And realistically it will never be. But writing about modelling is a huge part of the hobby for me and I want things to look good!

A big change not directly related to this upgrade is that I have sorted my blogs according to category, so it’s easier to see all related posts for a project I am working on.

I notice I get a lot of traffic from people who most likely typed in ‘Revell’ and the kit number into Google. Probably looking for a review the poor people find my site. I don’t like disappointing people so next time I will tag my posts like that I’ll make sure I will actually have something useful to say about the kit itself rather than my experience with it. With that, and the addition of the categories, I hope they will stick around for the other posts about the build they apparently take interest in.

In the future I’d like to do proper kit reviews of my new purchases, just showing what is inside the kit and not so much giving my opinion on it. If people are interested in the things I come a cross they can follow the build blogs. I might do these reviews on video. The premium deal has some possibilities for that, but I might also go for YouTube which could provide more viewers.

To be clear: right now I have a handful of followers. I love their support and feedback and I hope to keep them subscribed, but of course I started this blog purely for myself to keep track of where I am heading with my modelling, and the things I am learning about modelling. That said I want all my visitors to have a good time and I provide quality when it comes to my output. That means even though this site might be my little place, I wouldn’t want to to do anything that hurts the experience of visitors. In fact, the more visitors the more information likely will come to me, and my ultimate goal is to learn more all the time!

Upgrading the workplace

This is just a dream at the moment, but looking around a bit I have seen some nice workbenches on the internet! Nice and spacey compared to what I have right now..

wp-image-1867237282 — This becomes cluttered so quickly.. I really need something bigger.

Sure I can clean a couple of more shelves, but it seems this hobby is here to stay and that means I would just love to get a big desk and a nice big construction to place my paint an materials in.. Really have to look into something nice, but it seems the really nice workplaces are DIY!

21055042_10155302769218001_4113943671798402674_o — This is the homemade workplace by Simon Jones, which I saw on the ISM facebook page today. Looks exciting!

And what I also still need is a nice showcase to place my models in! I probably will have to go for that purchase first, since the FW-190 is progressing nicely.

The FW-190 A8/R11

I didn’t do a lot of work since my last update of this kit, but I did paint those antennas today that are specific to the R11:

wp-image-1358302645 — The R number was the designation for the conversion packages available for this plane and the R11 package was the night fighter conversion. The antenna’s on this conversion will be fitted to the wing and I am very excited to see how this will look on the end result! And yes, that’s the propeller cone on the left, which is in the same color and thus rode along with this airbrush session.

In my last update I gave this model a gloss clear coat. The next step will be to apply the decals! Really looks like I am getting in the final stages of this build!

Inspiration in the skies above Gilze

As I think I’ve mentioned before, I live about a 10 minutes walk away from the Gilze-Rijen Airbase. While the bulk of the activity of this airbase comes from helicopters of Defensie Helikopter Commando, the Koninklijke Luchtmacht Historische Vluchten is also based there. This morning they were flying around with an awesome beast:

The PH-OUQ is a Mk IX. The Koninklijke Luchtmacht actually operated the MK IX for a while, but it was the clipped wing version. Should I want to mimic that: 03927 also has the clipped version of the IX.

I plan to do some other kits before picking up the Spitfire MK IXc (Revell 03927) again. but seeing this bird make it’s rounds above the village this morning gave me half the mind to do this build in this livery.

Plenty of time to think about that though.. the problem might be this livery might be a little too simple, especially since I plan to pick this up after the A6M5 which also doesn’t have a very exciting livery. I will probably end up doing to camo that is displayed on the box..

That’s it for this week, thanks for reading!

Groetjes,

Dan

Too much detail for me

I’ll say again: I don’t like this part of the build. I have to keep telling myself I’m doing it for the experience, but obviously that wasn’t the goal when I started the build. After making a couple of mistakes (starting with the primer-fail) I tried to accept the idea that this is basically just my second attempt as an adult and I can’t realistically expect to get things right when I haven’t done them before.

But of course I still have the expectations of an adult, even though it sometimes feels like my skills are just a tiny bit better than where I left them 20 years ago when putting down my last model as a kid. I just don’t accept the mess I made back then because that is not what adults are supposed to do.

Anyway, that’s not what I wanted to make a blog about.

Yesterday I tried finishing the black area above the wings. I took my smallest brush and filled up the black area, then I touched up on the red decal with some paint and where I went over the line I used a tiny bit of the light blue mixture to correct it.

Finishing the sides

wp-image-1939672744 — Once again I am pretty happy with the left side.

I actually had less work in this side, and the outcome looks pretty good. The other side though..

wp-image-1794903710 — This is the first step of the job and unfortunately I ripped off the decal. There is also some black paint on the decal but the idea still was to use red paint here as well..

wp-image-894215247 — I painted the red part that got ripped off, but the amount of work I had to do on this side turned out to just be too much for me.

I couldn’t help but think of that woman in Spain who tried to restore a fresco, which turned out to be a little out of her league..

_62447895_frescopic — Ah well, at least my attempt at a FW-190 A8/R11 isn’t an almost century old fresco.

Applying gloss clear coat

Feeling I did the best I could on the paint job it was time to apply a layer of gloss clear coat, or multiple layers as it turned out.

wp-image-823434308 — Fast forwarding to the end result.. I will have to see how it looks tomorrow, but it became apparent pretty early on that one layer would not cut it.

This was the first time I used the new compressor to apply Humbrol Gloss Clear, and I learned that I actually really do need to thin the stuff down. Even though I tested on one of my wrecked parts earlier and based on that I decided I wouldn’t want to thin it, I found out the hard way that it was just not working. I lowered the PSI a notch on the compressor and thinned the stuff down a bit to stop my airbrush from puking uncontrollable streams of varnish.

I am less happy with another lesson I learned about applying a gloss clear coat..

wp-image-1101347224 — It turns out you can see very clearly where you applied some more paint with a paint brush over the parts you missed with the airbrush..

I really hope this will look better when it has dried a bit, but to be honest I am willing to accept this as another lesson and hope I can look back at it in a couple of models time.

wp-image-201100583 — The final thing I did today was assemble the wheels, some tiny parts of the landing gear and I applied a coat to the landing gear parts as well.

All in all I am not unhappy. I am already looking forward to my next model but I want to get maximum bang for my buck with this kit when it comes to learning.

Groetjes,

Dan

Paint it black

Last night I went ahead ahead and applied a layer of paint on the side after using pizza carton to mask off the distinctive shape above the wing.

wp-image-1902004115 — Right is a bit more sloppy looking.

Overall I was pretty happy with this result, although obviously there is some more painting to do.

I was still unsure how to move on though. As long as the decal is not on, I will keep guessing and adjusting the paint and I might get it all wrong and still need to do the red line with paint.

I decided to go for it and apply the red stripe decals.

wp-image-1413047440 — Again, left looks ok.

wp-image-325492149 — But right is a bit harder to get right. First it’s time to let this dry and I’ll see how to finish this tomorrow.

I have to admit, I do not find this part of the build enjoyable. Sure, it’s great to see it coming together like it always is, but I found out tonight how much more enjoyable it is to just do the nice and simple small subcomponents.

Since I had to let the decals dry anyway I decided to finish off some small parts I had set aside for the (then) exciting and new primer phase!

After my last purchases I finally was able to use the lovely combination of:

Toothpicks
Tack
Styrofoam
My airbrush Booth
My new compressor

wp-image-1803900808 — Looks lean and mean doesn’t it!

Just a real simple coat of seidenmatt but it just so much better than struggling with pizza cartons!

I would almost forget it, but since I have the new compressor I have had absolutely no problems. I did change the needle as well, but that was more of a precaution. The compressor is hands down the best money I have spent do far.

Groetjes,

Dan

Pizza saves the day again

Just a quick update. I thought about a solutions today and tonight I tried it. I got a piece of pizza carton and cut it in the right shape.

Unlike the masking tape this gives me the possibility to adjust and then taping it to the right area.

wp-image-1527110253 — It looks pretty close and on both sides.

The only thing is I need to be nice and straight on the airbrush because the masking properties of the carton aren’t too great.. then again, if it does actually leak through I won’t mind too much about doing another layer of the light blue. The mottling is not perfect and I wouldn’t mind another go at it should it be necessary.

Mask on

It appears I am stuck! Tonight I sent a mail to IPMS Germany to see if they can help me since I saw one of their members made a brilliant version of this kit.

A few weeks ago I saw a blog from JB in which he displayed the effort he had to put into masking.

He is working a pretty sweet F-35 kit, but the masking job looks quite tedious with much jigsaw masking required. So just brainstorming in the comments section I offered the thought of getting some tracing paper and getting the pattern on there, and then transferring the pattern to your masking tape so you could apply it on a bigger part of the model, and do small adjustments with more or less tape. He is going to try that and I am curious if and how it has worked for him.

Obviously I was quite happy to hear he liked the idea, and obviously I didn’t forget about it either. As I pointed out in my last blog there is some challenge in the dark area above the wings. This morning I went to the local discount shop to get some tracing paper.. which they amazingly did not have. So I got myself some oldskool geometry tools!

wp-image-420791384 — It looks OK..now to get it on the masking tape.

wp-image-1948762601 — Up until this point I thought the nice little lines in the Humbrol cutting-mat were just there to make the thing look nice and model-y. It does actually have a purpose!

wp-image-482558446 — Here is the problem of course.. whether you use tracing paper or oldskool geometry, it just isn’t very applicable to my situation. I have no way of knowing exactly where to mask off.

I cut out the decals and did the best I could to see if it looked correct, and it did. But I can also see the two sides are not symmetrical, and it would have surprised me if they were. I just don’t think it’s possible without a proper masking set.

wp-image-691351285 — It looks like everything is set, as best as I can get it.

Hopefully I can get some help from Germany, or I might go for it and paint the red lines myself. It won’t be symmetrical though and that will haunt me forever (or atleast until I wreck my next kit).

Groetjes,

Dan

Friday night reflection

If I don’t forget about it next week, I’d like to use the Friday night for some reflection time about my modelling and the things surrounding it.

Primary build, the FW-190 A8/R11 (Revell 03926)

First things first. As I start to get towards the final stages of this build and I enter unknown terrain, the old fear of failure is creeping in again. I have had already had a bad experience with trying something new, but I actually feel that failure has taken the pressure off for a little while. I guess I for a few days felt it couldn’t get any worse.

I am reasonably happy with the job I did on the camouflage, even though the mottling isn’t perfect. Today I did a thin over-spray with light blue of the mottling.

wp-image-63265549 — My plan is to do a final layer of staubgrau tomorrow and accept the mottling as it is.

I also resprayed the underside and the engine cowlings where I took the staubgrau a bit too low initially.

I think it’s time to get back to my little list I made a few blogs back:

Retouch some parts of the mottling.
Mask off and spray the dark area behind the engine and above wings.

fwside — Unfortunately Revell doesn’t say what color this is. The same goes for the fuel rack area. A few steps back the manual says they should be in light blue as well, but I am not too sure. Both parts will need some more looking around on the internet.

Recover the cockpit where the primer got through.
Mask off the canopy I will use and spray staubgrau.
Clear coat.
Decals.
Clear coat again to seal in the decals.
Weathering?
Re-place the cannons in the landing gear bay.
Antenna’s, landing gear and other easily breakable stuff.
Re-place the broken off fuel rack back on the underside.
Re-place the broken off cannon on port side and paint it again.

On one hand I know this is just my second build and it takes practice to get to a higher level, but I hope to make the best of this thing of course!

Secondary build, the Boeing 747-8 in Cargolux livery (Revell 04949)

I am not very far with this build. I did the first main gear bays last week, and had some trouble getting the gears on straight. Because I had the feeling this had something to do with my less than thorough approach to this build I temporarily put it on hold until the Focke-Wulf is done and I will make this my primary build when I’ve reached that point. It might be better for me to just focus on one build at a time, but if I really get bored I still have this to pick up.

Looking forward to building this beauty.

I will probably give all my attention to this build when the FW is done, but I’d still like to preview the kit I am already planning on building next.

Preview, the Mitsubishi A6M5 ‘Zero’ (Revell 04755)

A few weeks ago my dad gifted me a couple of kits, and the idea of building the ‘Zero’ has grown in my mind.

wp-image-2140831002 — Funnily enough, when we placed all the boxes on the table this one initially found its way to the ‘nah’ pile.

The reason for that..

wp-image-30030646 — This is the entire construction phase of the build! 8 steps! It’s a level 3 model

At first I thought: this is too simple, this won’t give me the challenge I need. But while I was compiling the rest of the booty this thing stuck to the back of my mind.

wp-image-1564555119 — Even though the build might be simple, there is still plenty of challenge in getting the final finish to the quality level I desire. I can be happy if I could even achieve the quality level displayed on the box!

So in the end I decided to take this home with me. It wasn’t complete, but my brother has made the exact same kit and he had the missing part laying around from his own build of the kit:

wp-image-1325986354 — He did an O.K. job with painting the middle part of the canopy, but I will at least look into cleaning it and doing my own attempt at airbrushing it.

wp-image-1875782977 — I already purchased all the paint I need, although I still need to find Revell aqua 383.

There is more shopping to be done though:

wp-image-23818994 — The decals are pretty battered up by Father Time!

I will need to get some new decals, and I hope I can find an upgrade set somewhere while I am at it. Maybe I can also see if there is some other stuff to make this build more interesting? I’ve seen some of those custom seat buckles around, or maybe I can even make them myself? It would be a step up from what I am doing normally but scared as I am, I still like to always improve myself!

wp-image-1562749576 — The instrument panel with give me a nice opportunity to try some cockpit detailing.

That’s the little summary for this week! Maybe I’ll do something like this again next week but until that time I will surely continue updates on the FW-190.

Groetjes, and have a good weekend!

Daniël

Finally back on track

A few days of problems with the airbrush and wrongly thinking I had found the source of the problems has really taken the wind out of my sails. I noticed that this morning as I was finally ready to start some actual work again.

New compressor

In my last blog I attempted to repair my first compressor and failed. So within a month after purchasing the Fengda BD-831 set which includes a BD-135 airbrush and an AS-200 mini-compressor I had to get something else.

I first visited a couple of hardware stores to see if there would be a cheaper alternative to a ‘specialized’ airbrush compressor. The two stores I checked only had more expensive options, so I drove on to Hobbycar again.

I left with a Fengda AS-186. I had already decided it would definitely be something with an air tank because turning the mini-compressor on and off all the time and it still being overheated within half an hour really got me in trouble once I started the camouflage stage of the FW-190 build I am doing. The AS-186 has a 3 liter tank and when it turns on again it doesn’t make much more sound than my airbrush booth.

wp-image-1841286666 — Unfortunately I didn’t think about an airbrush holder and the 1/8 2x airbrush hose I needed. But after a second visit to Hobbycar I had another nice addition to my workplace!

This morning I went back to Hobbycar for a third time in two days. I joked to the store owner he should consider getting me my own key by now. When I tried the compressor last night with a bit of water in my airbrush, I noticed the spray didn’t go straight. After all the trouble I had last days it would make sense that either the needle or the nozzle would be damaged so I bought both, and after replacing the needle it seemed better.

After having two longer airbrush sessions today I can say I am really falling in love with this compressor! The only downside from having the thing next to me on the table is that it shakes quite a bit when it has turned on again, and of course a 3 liter tank is empty quite quickly so there’s a Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On. Still, that is really a minor nuisance and at times I didn’t even notice until well after it had turned on again. Probably just needs some getting used to.

I am now also able to adjust the pressure output, which has already come in handy today! Probably essential in getting an acceptable result on the challenging camo I am working on right now.

Back to the FW-190 camouflage

Since I started my re-integration to get back to a 40 hour work week I notice I have had a lot less energy left for model building, which is fine and of course was to be expected. But since I noticed the quality on my B747-8F work wasn’t what I wanted it to be I decided to at this stage wait with doing two builds at the same time like I planned. I’m sure when my energy-levels are back to normal I can pick it up again, but at that time I will hopefully also be back to work completely so I will have less time available for modelling anyway.

As I said in the introduction, I had to get my bearings a bit when starting this project up again.

Today I was able to really get some work done on the camouflage of the FW-190 and I am very curious what you guys think, especially on the mottled camouflage on the sides.

wp-image-7953534 — I didn’t do a lot on the underside, but I painted the sides and front of the wings and although I am happy with the stripes it has left on the front as was supposed to happen, I will have to redo some of the rest of the wing area since I didn’t mask anything off.

wp-image-651861158 — I am quite proud of the wing camouflage! I free handed it and I think it turned out pretty good! I didn’t mask off here so no tight lining here between the different colors.

wp-image-1219963289 — Don’t mind about the broken off gun, that happened a while ago directly after the primer stage. The camo on the engine cowlings also needs more work.. it is shaped wrong and is probably too low. I am not sure about the mottling effect.

I did this side first, and after some reading I did most of the other side with a thinner mixture and a lower pressure output on my compressor.

wp-image-278387132 — I think I like this side a little better.. the lower pressure and thinner mixture gave me a little more control which is required for those tiny details.

But even on this side I think I will either have to do a thin layer of the light blue because the effect is too strong, or maybe I will even have to do a complete layer of light blue and start all over again?

I even tried the camouflage on a Spitfire part I had laying around last week, but I am not sure how I like the mottling effect right now and I am hoping you guys can give me some feedback on how it looks.

As always, I am very grateful for all constructive criticism and feedback!

Groetjes,

Dan

Compressor failure

Unfortunately I had another bad session with my airbrush this weekend, but before I was able to do more testing I let the airbrush compressor overheat and the ‘safety mechanism’ on the Fengda AS-200 means you are basically done until you let the thing cool off, and then open it again as I wrote in an earlier blog.

Safety Mechanism

Imagine if you and your mate Fengda (he is adopted) are sitting in a bar. He picked you up with his car, and the plan is to have a couple of beers before he will drive you back home. But hey, look who came through the door! A couple of old friends who used to live in the same town you and your mate still live in! You have much catching up to do and you buy the guys a round of beer, and before you know it is 3 am in the morning and both you and Fengda are incredibly drunk.

You do have to get home at some point, but it would be irresponsible to have Fengda drive you in the state he is in. He just keeps going though. He says he is an even better driver when he has had a couple of beers. You start arguing and you tell him he should give you his car keys.

Suddenly Fengda storms out of the pub, sprints to his car and slashes all four of his tyres.

After you both walk home and sleep it off, you meet up with Fengda again. You take the bus to get a couple of new tyres. You just can’t figure out why Fengda didn’t just give the keys to you or the barkeeper instead of his dramatic little show, but you are too tired to start about it, and so if Fengda who still smells of booze and puke.

The Red Button

I know by now that there are three things you might notice when the Fengda AS-200 compressor is overheating:

The engine noise will occasionally fluctuate even though you are not using the airbrush.
The engine will shut down.
The compressor can not be restarted. The red button simply does not click and nothing happens when you try.

Before I opened the thing up or even had the overheating situation, I had read the safety instructions and saw that there was a safety mechanism in place to prevent overheating. It gave me a safe and cozy feeling. After my first overheat I let the thing cool down like the instructions said, even though I already noticed the red button did not respond and I found it hard to believe it somehow would again after letting the thing cool off. After an hour or two the red button still made no sound and the compressor still didn’t start, so I decided to open the thing up even though some of my greatest technical achievements are changing a light bulb and resetting a fuse switch.

Fengda AS-200 inside — Doesn’t look too complex, even for me.

The above picture is not what I found though. What I found was that what was on the underside of the red button (the black tube where the red and yellow wires end up on the left side of the picture) had come loose, and the spring that was between that part and the red button which made the button do anything had also popped out and lay somewhere next to the engine.

As said I am not very technical when it comes to these things, but I was able to deduct what should go where and quickly had it working again.

The yellow wire

This week I had another overheat, and after letting the engine cool down I opened the compressor up again to do this same trick. Unfortunately this time I was not able to get the button back to working condition since the yellow wire which is soldered on to the button contraption had come loose in the struggle to get it back together. The difficult thing I found was keeping the contraption together while at the same time making sure the wires don’t get stuck between the sides of the compressor and don’t rest directly on the engine so they could possibly get damaged once the thing gets heated.

wp-image-534156050 — Time to do some soldering of my own I guess!

Soldering on

I bought myself a soldering set and spend a few hours trying to get this to work. Unfortunately even though I have watched a few videos on soldering, this job turned out to be too much for me.

wp-image-463469757 — The closest I got to restoring the contraption to the way it was.

This result wasn’t acceptable even for my standards, and the thing fell apart when I even started thinking about putting it back together. I wanted to add more tin, but the heat had already melted the plastic through heat conduction and things went from bad to worse from there.

It’s a shame really, because I actually got a bit further than I had expected. What was probably a bit too much for me was that this was more than just soldering a wire together with a piece of metal. There was a third part that had to be joined, and in the end I was unable to correctly join these together. I used too much tin and there was too much heat in all parts so even the plastic melted.

Of course the repair job is purely my lack of expertise and experience with this. Good experience though!

So, was this a safety mechanism?

I am wondering if this really is the way Fengda has designed it. The instruction manual advises to use the thing for not longer than half an hour, an advice I have to say I frequently do not follow although I also have to say that if this is a mechanism that works as intended it at least does what it should: it keeps me from further using a device that is already overheating.

But the manual also talks about the device being equipped with a thermal switch. It tells me to let the thing cool down for at least 30 minutes, but does not say whether or not the DIY button fix is required. It could be something is just not working as it should.

Cheap

Whether or not the Fengda way is to passive aggressively slash the tyres rather than give you the keys I just don’t know, but I do know this compressor is about 25 euro’s in the Netherlands. That is probably about as cheap as you can get a compressor.

In the end it was my own mistake to not return this thing to the store when it didn’t work after letting it cool down. I find it hard to believe you have to send the compressor back to the factory every time it has overheated. If that is the overheating protection, than I am glad I tried to fix it myself. In the end though I will have to literally pay the price, by buying a new compressor.

Hopefully I can do that tomorrow so I can finally get back to some actual modelling!

Groetjes,

Dan