This week I finished the Zero cockpit. Not sure about all the choices I made, but overall I am fairly happy.
I am happy with the cockpit, and I think I did an all right job cleaning it up. At this stage of the Japanese war effort I doubt the A6M5 made it past a couple of months, so I figured it wouldn’t make sense to do a very heavily weathered cockpit. I wanted to make the pilot look less clean, but this is probably not the right way. He looks like a pig really.. Since Sinterklaas will be giving me a present soon that will have a couple of figures included I will have to look into how to create a good looking result!
Since this kit is fairly simple I skipped a few steps ahead in the instructions. Yesterday I applied primer to the parts I will require for the next two steps.
In other news..
When I bought my airbrush booth this summer I somehow developed this crazy idea that the filters were relatively expensive. The last time I worked with primer I noticed the booth was doing a really poor job at getting rid of the nasty air, and I finally decided to replace the paint-filled original filter.. I then found out these things aren’t as expensive as I somehow assumed they were, so I hopefully have enough of them to last me a year.
I also did a final revisit of the FW-190 A8. Last month I visited a IPMS meeting and one of the gentlemen had some nice pointers for me. Besides that I wanted to fix some obvious mistakes. In the end I decided to leave some of the bad parts.. the Zero will hopefully be beautiful, and it will replace the FW-190 which has earned a spot in the living room.
In the end I didn’t bother getting rid of the scratches in the canopy since they are quite subtle anyway. I did reattach the antenna which had come loose somehow during or just after my vacation.. I also noticed the plane was very lightly leaning to one side because the wheels were a bit loose. I cracked them off and reattached them, which nearly went wrong.
As for the details I wanted to change: the pitot tube on the starboard wing had a bronze rather than a aluminium look, and my version of the A8/R11 had a mechanism that ensured the wire from the canopy to the tail was always tensed.
Quite happy with the result, but I am done fiddling with this thing now.
Actually the amount of updates is really fine for me. Obviously there is a lot less time for me to work on the hobby, but I enjoy a few minutes almost everyday and, just like all grown ups, I try to use my free days to get a couple of hours in at a time. I wish I had more energy to spend in the evening but it is what it is, and I’m sure it will get better the coming months.
Anyway, lots of stuff to talk about this week! Let’s get started.
Cargolux B747-8F
First off, the main build. Last Sunday I visited my parents, and just like my dad used to do when we visited my grandparents, I took a model with me to do some work!
Not bad for a couple of hours.
I assembled the anti-shock bodies and the rear wings, and I did sanding on the wings.
I planned on glueing the wings together but there a clear part that needs to be glued in there. For that reason I prefer to do a first couple of layers of light gray on the wings before glueing them together.
I hadn’t realized the wings actually will be light gray just like the fuselage.. this kit just won’t get any more exciting! To be able to see what I am doing I decided to do a thin layer of gray primer on the wings as well.
I started with a first layer of light gray, but spraying this color is really a pain. Tip dry is horrendous and it is very difficult to get on with it. But I managed to do a first layer on a wing side, and a first layer on the rear wings:
The final step I did on this today was attach the cockpit and the wheel bay on the starboard side. Earlier this week I did another layer of light gray on the fuselage sides, but I am fairly sure I will have to touch up on the color in the future. With that in mind, I have masked off the windows I have glued in yesterday.
At this point I already know I will not want to continue with this build until I have properly sorted the damage on the tail.
Unfortunately, the trouble started on a layer of primer that was already damaged. I should have sanded it off and perhaps do another layer. The first layer of white was sloppy and runny as well, and in the end I was left with an uneven finish. I did use my nice UMP sanders and got a nice and smooth result, but I think I have to deeper and really remove those damaged areas.
Of course all this sanding has removed some of the detailing, and even though I got a couple of good scribing tools from UMP a few weeks ago I will need to get some good tape to assist me in rescribing the panel lines.
New light
As I said last week, I ordered a LED light that could really simulate daylight. After using it a few days, I am at least confident I am getting the best lighting possible.. Obviously it will never be as good as standing in the garden on a bright day, but winter is coming and this light is as good as it will get.. the amount of light is adjustable, and you can set warm yellow light so if you’re not working on a dull light gray model you don’t have to feel like you’re working in a garage.
Regional IPMS Meeting (NL South-West)
On Tuesday night there was a IPMS meeting planned for the South-West region in the Netherlands. At first I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go. Just a bunch of guys talking about models, is that really what I wanted to do with my evening? But then I started to doubt if I wasn’t just dealing with the good old social anxiety again, and at the last minute I decided to go just because I was afraid to sink in a hole I have been in for the last years.. and I am very happy I decided to go!
In the end I was just happy talking to a couple of very nice people who are very experienced in modeling. One of the gentleman there had a couple of nice WW2 models with him, and after having a chat with him I was really wondering: what am I doing making a civilian airplane?? There is just so much to say about all the different WW2 subjects, whether it is a tank, a plane, a V2 rocket, a half-track etc. All the different variations alone, but also the things we don’t know for sure about the subject and are left to the imagination, for instance the color of German half-tracks as they were used in the field. That stuff is up for debate, whereas the Cargolux 747 is a beauty, but completely covered in the same dull light gray and no one doubts what it looks like.
I had a chat with two gentleman there about their collection, and how they decide what to build next. I explained them that I tried to not create a ‘stash’, and that I was building the Cargolux Revell offering but not really enjoying it. Watching the nice military models on display, I expressed my love for the subject.. and while driving home later I asked myself: why am I limiting myself like this? Sure, I want to do a good job on the Cargolux, but WW2 is the subject that really interests me everyday. I play WW2 games, I read WW2 books and I love building WW2 models.
The gentleman who brought his WW2 1/48 models encouraged me to bring my FW-190 A8 to the next meeting after I showed him the pictures if the end result! He had a couple of very nice pointers for me as well, so before I take it with me there is some more stuff to adjust:
This is an easy one.. coming home from vacation I found one of the antennas on the ground. Have to glue that back in place.Not sure if it is visible, but the canopy has some scratches. Since I finished this model I got the UMP sanders with the buffer. I should be able to fix these scratches now and I will try.On to the more interesting details: apparently the end of the pitot tube is coper and not aluminium! That will be an easy fix.Another interesting detail I learned: this version if the FW-190 A8 (with this particular canopy) had a controller to tighten the antenna cable when the canopy is open. Another little adjustment to make then!
Luchtvaarthobbyshop
Today I will be visiting the Luchtvaarthobbyshop with my mate TheYottaTube. My wishlist:
The Zero decals
PE set for the Zero
AK Interactive 757, Black Primer and Microfiller
A good Zero research book.
Starting the Zero..
As you will have guessed, the IPMS meeting has convinced me that I should start doing work on the Zero along with the work on the B747. Time to get the required stuff and hopefully I will be able to start with it next week!
I am currently ‘between builds’ and I’ve put up the result of the FW-190 on the ISM Facebook page where it got a whooping 108 likes so far! The feedback is amazing, with someone even saying he had building for 50 years and this was the result he was aiming for! I am very proud to hear that!
I might be cheating a little bit though, because if you haven’t followed this blog and haven’t seen some of the broken off bits, torn decals and the elephant tracks on the wings you could be fooled into thinking this thing is exactly how I wanted it to be. Besides that the ISM group is very friendly and will not be the place where they tell you things suck. I love them for that, and the Friday night Live show has become an instant favorite moment of the week for me. But for some rougher feedback I have joined The Scale Modelers Critique Facebook Group as well on and I might post some more photos there. I have some critique of my own though, and that is what this post is for.
Before moving on to the next project I want to review the last build and see what I can improve the next time. I also want to highlight some things I haven’t tried this time but are still on my list of techniques I want to try.
Things to improve
Most of these are related to basic building discipline.
Wear gloves! After applying primer, paint or varnish it’s a great idea to start wearing latex gloves when handling the model as Darren of The Scale Model Hangar also remarked. I actually started wearing gloves when applying primer, so all that is needed is some more discipline to actually put them on. Otherwise this might happen:
The red decal came off complete and I have painted that part now. The fingerprint visible here is already covered with some more dirt color. Also visible is another broken off part, which I have hopefully fixed now.
A bit fingerprint on the side and a lot of paint disappeared..
Don’t place fragile parts on the model until you absolutely have to. During this build I made the mistake of gluing on the fuel tank rack before it was actually required, and in a combination with #3 coming up, it led to a very avoidable disaster.
Avoid placing the model directly on a surface. Especially scraping the body will lead to breaks, like the antenna attachment on the tail of this kit. I have had to reattach that multiple times which was frustrating. When the model was almost complete I rediscovered some pieces of styrofoam that had been used as packing material for the compressor I recently bought. They were perfect to keep the model in the air and relieve some of the stress I put on it during the final parts and I hope I can rely on them for a while.
Be careful once parts are sticking out of the model.. Sometimes it’s unavoidable to attach parts on the body, like the wing cannons on this kit. Sometime around the primer phase one of them broke off though. I didn’t even notice when I did it, but it was just a sloppy lack of attention in the end. I even broke off one of the distinctive antenna’s just before taking the final photos.. You just have to be on your feet all the time when handling a model with this much things sticking out!
Be delicate with the weathering. I tried it once now, and it has been invaluable experience. In my view, trying a thing for the first time makes you vulnerable to overdoing it. But with the experience I gained, I can look at other builders and understand better what they did, and why they did it.
Either place the canopy and windscreen and mask them properly, or let them off and mask off the cockpit. The windscreen was damaged because so primer got on it, probably because the masking tape let loose and I failed to correctly replace it. The inside of the cockpit also got primer on it because the temporarily placed canopy didn’t seal off properly. At this time I am tempted to think that not placing the clear parts until rather than masking them off is the cleanest way for me.
Test fitting, really do it! Some gluing mess was avoidable with hindsight. I just was a bit impatient I think, and both with the wheel bay as the engine there is a snowball effect: if the first part doesn’t fit right, the firth part is way out of wack. I was able to fix both of these issues, but it could have been avoided.
As I wrote in a previous blog, I had glued the construction that will hold the engine in place without worrying too much about the beams that are right behind it..
Don’t try new things when you can’t take your time.. especially the primer application is a good example of that.
This is a big thing I have learned: applying brush paint to ‘fill up’ the parts that weren’t airbrushed for whatever reason really leaves a totally different result.
Well, what can I say about the decals.. I think this will always be something that can go wrong. An attention point for me though, is to be more careful with handling the model and removing the weathering once they are on, to avoid tearing them up.
The things that did work
I am happy with most of the weathering, especially on the drop tank and wheel covers.
Getting rid of seams went a lot better this time, by sanding it away and by giving the parts more time to dry.
I was able to get rid of a gap after applying the wings on the fuselage, using Revell Plasto which led to wrecking of the Spitfire I started out with.
I am downright proud of free handing the camouflage, and the mottling effect. I know it’s not perfect when I compare it to the pictures on the box, but I have ideas on how to do better the next time. The gloss coat also looks nice and shiny!
The engine really was great to build, even though I ended up covering it up! A good tip I got for the next time though: paint it black and dry brush the metal parts to create more depth.
Things I want to try next time
No list for this because I’ll just see what comes up mostly.. I haven’t tried pre-shading on this build, and that’s a big thing I still want to try in the future. Also I want to do more with dry brushing.
Now to finish my first translation job for IPMS and then it’s time to continue work on the Boeing 747-8F!
I have to be honest: the closer I got to the finish line, the more I started thinking about the next build. The kit itself has been excellent, but with all the things I have learned during this project I have some less than perfect results. In itself I am fine with that: I made it through even though I knew the result would not be perfect, which is a huge thing for me. I accepted that this was a learning project and kept my head down.
That said, the final days I kind of rushed it. I want to try and apply the things I’ve learned on a new project! But rushing is an especially bad combination when working on a model full of fragile parts, some of which have been broken off earlier.
Before starting on the next project I will however first be making a blog about the things I like and don’t like about my version of this, and the lessons I have learned so far!
Without further ado, the pictures of the end result!
Oh, and don’t mind the makeshift ‘studio’ I improvised for the photos..
A really short one, as I want to try and keep posting in a regular interval and there is always activity in my modeling life!
I was able to knock out many of the small jobs still left on the to-do list now that all the repair jobs are out of the way. The FW-190 is standing on its own feet! Or wheels would probably be more accurate.
The styrofoam is still here for the work I still have to do. Hopefully I can relieve some of the force I will still be putting on the model.
Once it is finished I want to make some good quality photos, so no more photos for now with the telephone!
Translation
I am really happy to be doing some translation work for IPMS NL. I was going through the ‘MIP’, the club magazine, I noticed they were looking for a translator from Dutch to English. I was immediately interested. I think I have the necessary skills for it, and it involves a subject I really love.
Yesterday I had this weird idea that finishing the model would be possible today. Unfortunately, as it goes, I ran into some problems.
First the good news: I did a thin over-spray of the primer damage in the cockpit. Since I will be using the open canopy I am not too worried about the slightly different look and the areas that are not painted.And I was able to remove the splatter of primer with a bit of sanding and some gloss clear. I have order some more sanders and buffers, from UMP this time. If required I can do some more sanding once I get those in since my finest sanding sponge isn’t that fine..The left outer cannon has been glued on once again, and the little clear part that isn’t mentioned in the instruction booklet is glued into place.And today I airbrushed and hand painted all the tiny parts that still needed to get RLM 76 color.
So far so good I guess.. although it was becoming clear that I wouldn’t be finishing the build today, so I am aiming sometime this week depending on how much time I will have.
The fuel tank rack turned out to be problematic. I glued in on way too early and I am not sure why. But the result is not only that it broke off, but because the weight of the body has leaned on it too much it has become impossible to glue on the fuel tank in the ‘conventional’ way.
I first tried to reconstruct the fuel rack, with all the broken off parts. This was the result. Unfortunately it soon became clear it would be impossible to glue the fuel tank on because everything was just too much out of shape.Plan B: I glued these pieces on the fuel tank rack, hoping I would be able to get it roughly on the rest of the construction.Now I will have to wait to see how this dries up. Hopefully it will be tight enough because I really don’t want to leave the tank off the model.
So instead of a longer day where I would be able to finish the entire model it looks like it will be another string of short sessions to finish it off.
I am really starting to look forward to continuing the B747-8F and finally putting this thing on display.
Hopefully I can finish this build in the next days! I am even considering taking it with me to the first IPMS meeting I plan to visit. That would be great!
Final repairs.
Before final assembly it is first time to fix the mistakes I made and repair the parts I broke off so far during this build.
The weathering has left some damage, but it’s not too hard to fix.
I’m probably not doing myself a favor by zooming in this much, but I restored this myself and the end result is pretty good. I cut the decal in three pieces because the ‘bar’ used to be twice as wide.A bit fingerprint on the side and a lot of paint disappeared..
Some more sponge chipping then..
And better executed this time I think!
Also applied a dirt wash on the wheels since I was applying some on the wings anyway.The red decal came off complete and I have painted that part now. The fingerprint visible here is already covered with some more dirt color. Also visible is another broken off part, which I have hopefully fixed now. I will have to attach wire to it, so it will need to be able to take some weight!Some more small things I did: 1. Repaired and re-placed the wing cannons. 2. Placed the center cannons. 3. Fixed the cannon cover in place. 4. Placed the first part of the propeller, don’t know what it’s called though!
I don’t know why I haven’t used those nice pieces of styrofoam before! They work brilliantly to keep the body ‘in the air’ and hopefully I can cut down on the number of broken off parts on future models..
More good intentions: avoid direct contact with the table, avoid moving the model and if I really have to move it, use gloves. Hopefully for the coming models I won’t have to do this much repairing.
Starting final assembly
With the weathering and repairing complete it’s time to put things together, and remove the final masking ‘devices’.
I really love seeing the propeller on! It gives me the feeling I am getting near to the end of this build. Some minor weathering done on this too.
It’s finally time to remove the temporary canopy I had placed when I did my first attempt at applying primer. When I was working with the primer I already noticed the canopy had moved letting through some primer, but as far as I could tell the damage wasn’t too bad. Obviously removing the canopy and the final pieces of tape from the windshield still had the potential to be a mood wrecker.
The damage on the rear of the cockpit fortunately was no surprise and I don’t think it will be too difficult to fix it.That windscreen though.. That is either primer or RLM 76. I will have to look into how to get this off, and if not possible get myself a new part from Revell.
I am grateful as always to any reader with ideas and/or constructive criticism.
My desk got delivered yesterday.. and today. Somehow they managed to ‘lose’ a part of it, and magically they found in time to send it a day later. Whatever, I have my desk now.
I spend the entire day putting it together and for the second night in a row I’ll be in bed early because I’m knackered, but at least I have a proper workplace now.
I’m sure I’ll change things around a bit in the coming days but already it’s a huge change to have so much room to do work!
The dirt wash
Tonight I decided to go for it and start work on my first overall dirt wash.
I am happy with the look..Unfortunately it appears I did too much work on the sides. Some small decals are pretty damaged there and some are letting loose, probably from the thinner.
Since I started off with using cotton pads I left a lot of little white lints so I changed to another piece of cloth. I also wiped off the wash too soon the first time, so I had to do it again. In the end there was too much cleaning up I guess.. another learning experience. Hopefully it won’t be too noticeable on the end result or maybe I can even fix something with some left over decals. Some of them seemed to be double or slightly different from the ones I needed for this livery but maybe I can cut them a bit.
Pretty happy with the underside! No torn decals here and it looks good for a start.
Next up will be some more details on the underside. IPMS Nederland has an incredible database of walk around pictures of the FW-190, both F and A types. I now have a pretty good idea of where I want to add more detail, like behind the exhaust on the underside.
Tomorrow I will to check the damage I’ve done. Hopefully nothing too bad.
Unfortunately the desk wasn’t delivered yesterday, but I should get it delivered Monday. I was kind of looking forward to upgrading to a proper workplace yesterday but it is what it is.
The decaling job is fully done! I finished it yesterday and it was actually just an hour more work probably.
I did an attempt at fixing the silvering on the transparent cross on the wing. The result as I showed it in a previous blog:
I used post its to mask it off (good tip, Dave) and did a very thing layer at low pressure of Revell 77.
I got scared a bit, because the color looks like Revell 47 (the other color of the camo). I used my new IPMS membership to ask about it on the forum and after half an hour I got an answer on what was up: The color difference was down to not having put a gloss coat layer on the re-spray like the rest of the wing.
Of course there would have been a better way to mask this off, to avoid this color pattern where the center of the cross has had a double layer of gloss coat. But at least it doesn’t stand out as much as it did.
I tried to do some more work on it but when I tried to move the post its the decal tor up. So I decided to leave it as is and hope it would be fixed when I did another layer of gloss coat over the entire plane.
Chipping
Yesterday and this morning I tried to get some more inspiration on the chipping process. I haven’t done this before, so I didn’t want to go all out on this but just apply the technique on a small area.
I’m not sure about the result, but hopefully this side will turn out OK once I have done a dirt wash.. it might be a bit too much.The other side is even ‘worse’. The smearing on the air outlets is accidental.. I used a sponge technique but I wasn’t expecting any paint to stick on the side of my ripped off piece of ‘sponge’.
Seeing this on the photo I am wondering why I didn’t get some more black over it..
I also experimented with a slightly lighter gray on the inside of the wings..
For the next build I am definitely not free handing this like I have done this time. I think I simply lack the experience to do it that way. So next time I will either work straight from a photo or just copy a more experienced builder! I did enough research, but it really is something else to apply the stuff you learned.
Repairing before another layer of gloss clear.
Some last minute repairs I had already planned before sealing everything in:
The rack for the fuel tank appears to be black on other models I have seen, and since it makes more sense to me I decided to change it.The idea was for this to be a decal that you would flip over so it could cover both sides of this area. It is a little too small though, so maybe Revell really wants you to sand down the entire wing until the decal fits! A more viable choice was to just paint the rest of the little ‘flap’ for lack of a better word.
Time to let this dry for a few hours.
Unfortunately the decal on the right wing still looks messy. Definitely one for the ‘after-action-report’ I plan to do for this build. Just as the chipping effort.
The next step is to apply a dirt wash. I first want to give this some time to really dry up. A cause for concern is that I am not sure about the Levado Color Wash I have for this job.. I have experimented with it in the past, but I am not sure if I want to get this over my entire plane.
I have read a story of someone who used the stuff and couldn’t get it off. However he let it dry for more than 24 hours which is definitely not what you want to do.. but it did remind me of the experience I had with this stuff on the little Spitfire part.
However I did use Revell thinner to get it off after a few minutes, and that appears to be a bad idea.. not sure if water will give a better result, but it looks like I’ll have to do some more experimenting with it before getting it on the FW-190.
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:
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:
‘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.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.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:
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.
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!The underside as shown in the instruction manual is done..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:
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!
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!
Dutch Scale Models 