airbrush – Dutch Scale Models

Winter is coming

And winter is the best time for building! I’ve been thinking about it for a few days and today was a nice rainy day for it!

Since my last blog, I’ve been on vacation and started a new job which took some time and especially energy. Because of that, it’s been a while since I used liquid mask on the canopy..

I’ve applied this more than a month ago, and I am not sure if that will have an effect on the clear parts.. thankfully while looking for my rotating painting stand I came across a box full of left-overs from my first attempt at this kit, and so I have some spare clear parts should that be required! The bad news would be the masking set would have been a waste, so obviously I hope the original part will be fine when I remove the masking tape.

Since it has been a few weeks when I last used it, I decided to first give my airbrush some love and once again turn some things around on my desk.

At the end of the day (literally) I can say I haven’t even used it today, but hopefully I’ll have energy the coming days.

I have to admit masking off the underside was a bit challenging.. I’ve been messing around with masking tape the last weeks, but wasn’t happy with the result and ripped it all off. I finally settled with using the gear bay door to mask the bay off, which is sort of its job anyway..

Time will tell how good a job this has done. Presumably not a perfect job, but I’ll look at the damage when the time comes.

For primer, I decided to take the quick and dirty option and use Tamiya Surface Primer straight from the can.. I’ll be completely honest here: I just can’t be bothered right now to de-can it.

I actually have some bad experience with applying it straight from the can, but I hope that experience will keep me from making the same mistakes.

I applied it in two light layers, seperatly on the above and underside.

A bit of a weird result after applying the first layer: a lot of dust particals seemed to have appeared from nowhere and have been only applied on the right wing. I used a dishcloth and some UMP airbrush cleaner to clean up before applying the last layer. The UMP airbrush cleaner is not too aggresive, and it did a nice job.

I applied the last layer about an hour ago, and the can is now empty.. which is the end of applying primer straight from the can. I have enough alternatives from UMP: black, gloss black and white. Probably more than I can go through the next years!

Next steps

This build is progressing nicely although very slowly obviously. The next steps presumably are:

-Sand the body and get the imperfections out.
-Airbrush the body in the livery I want. I’ve decided on the standard No. 416 Royal Canadian Air Force which is included in the kit.
-Prime and paint all the remaining parts.
-Decide if I want to fit bombs.

Plenty of work still to be done!

See you,
Dan

Things are warming up!

Even though I made an effort to isolate my new workplace, it can still become (at least) a degree colder than the comfortable living room, which kept my away for the last few weeks.

However spring is upon us, and I find myself back at the workplace daily!

A goal I set for myself in the last blog was to finish the I-16 cockpit. And I have! High time to write about it.

New Airbrush

But first.. I already considered purchasing a new airbrush at the time I was writing my last blog, and once the thought of buying new stuff sets it never seems to take long before I actually do!

This time I didn’t drive straight to my main hobbyshop to splash the cash. I like Hobbycar and I have most of my stuff from that place, but although I started my search there, I really took my time to see what is what in the world of airbrushes and get the best deal out there. Especially now I have lost my 10% IPMS discount, there might be better alternatives around.

My current airbrush is a Fengda BD-135. It did a good job, and it gave me a good idea of what works and doesn’t work. Unfortunately, it broke fairly quickly: although it still functioned, the black cap at the end had come off, probably because the screw-thread had come off. Nothing more but a minor nuisance, but I do like the cap to be on so I don’t accidentally poke my eye out. A bigger problem was the persistent clogging I have experienced with this airbrush, basically from day one. I have gained a lot of experience especially with thinning my paint, and it has gotten better, but still a lot of the trouble was down to using a 0,2mm nozzle and needle for all my airbrush jobs.

With this experience in mind I had an idea of what I wanted in a new airbrush

Perhaps pay a bit more if the results will be better.
Something easier to clean.
A bigger paint container, preferably one I can close off while using the airbrush.
The possibility to use larger nozzles.

I realize that a higher price doesn’t always represent a better result, but my first Fengda already cracked after a few months of (fairly extensive) use. I started my search for the names I have seen in many discussions about airbrush.. but even though I have my own experience of my 20 euro airbrush failing so quickly, I still couldn’t find a lot of good arguments to go straight for the high-end airbrushes.

As I’m sure you recognize if you have been involved in any online modeling community, the argument to use a particular brand of airbrush is usually something like ‘I use Brand X is so it is great, I don’t use Brand Y is so it is shit, hurdur’.

For me this just isn’t a good enough reason to spend more money. Although I hope another low-end airbrush will not break again so soon, I ended up looking at the Fengda alternatives.

Taking into account my other wishes, I ended up with the FE-130:

This particular set has a three nozzles and needles included: 0,2; 0,3 and 0,5!

So far I have used only the 0,3 nozzle, and I have to say that for the things I am doing this has probably been the size I have been waiting for. I like to airbrush basically every part because I just like the end result a lot better. I imagine myself using the 0,2 size for finer detail and 0,5 for larger areas or primer jobs.

Although I first aimed to spend somewhere around 100 euros on something not-Fengda, I ended up with this 35 euro Fengda set.. Ofcourse I can only hope the quality will be better than the BD-135, but for 35 euro I can’t complain even if it only survives one year.

I-16 Cockpit

In the last blog I considered ripping apart one of the first assembled and painted sub-components.

I ended up doing that, and to be honest I don’t see a difference with what it was before, and I still don’t really like the end result. The good thing about the cockpit on this model though: you can really spend time on the details if you want to, but even if you look down into it once it is finished you won’t see a lot.

The black parts on the chair are my own interpretation, and it looks a bit shabby. Next time I’ll make sure to not limit myself in terms of reference material. The back of the seat is based on how things look in IL-2, but later on in the cockpit build I actually started using anything I could find.

The bottom plate of the cockpit should be light gray according to the instruction booklet, but most reference show a green metal color. I changed this later on.

I quite like the instrument panel on this kit! It actually has a back plate which you need to paint black, then place a decal on top of it, and after that you place a clear part on top of that. The instruction booklet actually seems to indicate this clear parts needs to be painted black as well, that doesn’t make a lot of sense and obviously I didn’t. I did paint the sides of the clear panelfront.

The end result of the instrument panel.

Before closing off the cockpit I had seen so much reference photo’s with the green steel parts that I did a last-minute change of the bottom plate as well as the control. After applying a clear gloss coat I did some weathering, including a bit of a dirt wash.
The almost-end result, but this is before applying the wash.

Like I said the end result doesn’t show much of the cockpit anyway, especially if you decide to close the ‘canopy’ (it is basically two doors) you won’t be seeing much of the interior.

The result so far. The cockpit is finished, and now it is on for the engine!

I like this kit a lot so far. Things fit together perfectly overall, and on the parts where it doesn’t I don’t mind too much: a WW2 aircraft to me doesn’t have to fit a 100% perfect, as long as it doesn’t have enormous gaps between.

One of the things I am less enthusiastic about is probably the instruction booklet. I especially feel the range of colours has been simplified to not force a builder to spend a lot of money on paint. However, there are a lot of reference pictures available and I actually enjoyed the search to find a plausible set of colours. After a few months of building I have collected a respectable amount of paint too, so I can deviate from the booklet and go for what I think makes more sense.

Next up on this kit: the engine!

Groetjes,
Dan

Indistinct shades of gray

Time for a little update on my scale modeling life. ‘Tis the season to get a cold, and so I did last week. I was able to get some work done on my current build, but it is just one of the setbacks I am having with it currently.

The Cargolux Boeing 747-8F

So starting off with my progress on the build, as I announced last week I applied a very thin layer of primer.

As you can see it is not very evenly applied, but the point is to be able to be able to see where the light gray is applied over it.

To cleanly apply both the primer and the light gray I created a little contraption of the styrofoam I by now even can’t remember I got from. Some toothpicks with a little tack stuck on them held the body halves reasonably well in shape during work.

I love it when two pieces of styrofoam come together.

A first layer applied to the front of one of the halves.

I thinned the paint down to an almost watery consistency, and applied multiple layers. In fact, I am still far from done with this job.

When applying the first layer of gray I noticed I made a scratch on the primer layer before it was dry. I sanded it down and cleaned it, but I might have been a bit optimistic on the covering properties of my very thinned down mixture.

I had to go back and this time do the sanding a little more rigorously. The picture shows the current state, still waiting for another layer.

If I feel well enough for it I might work ahead on some of the bigger parts, to get the feeling I am finally getting somewhere. I still haven’t gotten the wind in my sails yet since coming back from vacation.

The plan for the halves itself, is to do a good enough layer but accept that it will not be perfect yet. Perfection will have to come once the two halves are attached and small adjustments should be enough so I don’t have to try and mask off those tiny windows..

I am currently waiting on a new purchase though, that will hopefully make my life a little easier..

LED there be light

I haven’t looked it up, but I am instantly sure that in the LED/light scene that joke might be massively overused. Anyway, I am still tweaking the work space since setting up my new desk a few weeks ago.

I’ll be trying this setup for the coming weeks.

Hopefully this will give me more room to move around.

Something that has really come forward during this build though: I need some real ‘white light’ to be be able to see in greater detail what exactly I am doing.

This is the current state of both halves. I want to do one more layer.. Currently waiting on a new purchase that will hopefully make my life a little easier.

I really need a neutral ‘cold’ color, especially when working with all these light shades of gray. Hopefully this will help me to get the 100% even finish I will need to do a convincing commercial jet.

Here is the object that will hopefully show me the light:

9200000051890636 — This light is adjustable to between 3000K and 6000K and is dim-able, so hopefully will be suitable for all my requirements.

Something I learned about light sources the last couple of days: you need a high K (Kelvin) number to get to an actually daylight kind of color.. unfortunately I bought another ‘2700K’ light bulb, which is essentially just your yellow standard living room light. It isn’t suitable to see the consistency of a white color paint job.

Luchtvaarthobbyshop

The night before flying to Madeira for my vacation, my friend TheYottaTube informed me that the Luchtvaarthobbyshop was just a five minute walk from the hotel I stayed at near the airport. Of course, I took the opportunity to check it out.

I’d love to have a nice series of photos and make a proper report of it, but this was such an ad hoc thing I didn’t even think about it. Instead, I’ll just say that:

Since pronouncing Luchtvaarthobbyshop might get funny in english, they cleverly use a good translation of ‘AviationMegastore’, and I have to say that name is spot on.
If you ever visit Amsterdam it might be a nice stop, at about a ten or fifteen minute drive from the airport.
They have a huge selection or books you can use for your research, a nice selection of new models and something particularly interesting for me at this point: they have a large supply of decals and PE parts for various scales. I have already checked their webshop and I know where I will be getting my decals from to replace the eaten-away decals for the A6M5 build!
Should it be your poison, they also have a huge area with diecast-models, and an area for flightsimulator stuff. There is also an area with scale modeling magazines, and a small area with your coffee mugs and your wall decor.. something I will be interested in to decorate the man cave at some point!

Decals for the A6M5 build

As I mention above, I think I have found a good replacement for the original decals in the Revell kit.

I really haven’t looked into what sort of livery is ‘attached’ to this decal. Looking forward to the research phase already!

The ‘nice’ thing about this model is that it is a super simple kit from 1993. As I wrote earlier it’s an 8 step build, and I think my dad got it for 15 guilders (the Euro wasn’t even around). I want to do a good job at it as I want to do on all my kits, but its is not a very detailed kit.. so what I am still doubting at this point is if I really want to spend a lot of money on custom stuff. The decals I definitly need, but I will not be getting every custom part available for this thing. Presumably the decals alone are worth more than the original price of the kit!

I am interested in getting some PE parts for it though! Even though it might be like slapping jewelry on a turd, it will still be a very nice learning experience!

That’s all for this week! Hopefully the new light will help me finish the job on the fuselage halves, and after that I want to get on with this build.

Groetjes,

Daan.

Weather report

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:

wp-image-1669619875 — 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.

wp-image-2055943271 — 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.

wp-image-215054685 — 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.

wp-image-1843575995 — 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..

wp-image-493837568 — 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:

wp-image-1005118232 — 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.

wp-image-899487186 — 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.

wp-image-718762951 — 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.

Update:

wp-image-918222488 — I am pretty happy with this!

Groetjes,

Dan,

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

More stuff.. again!

In the words of an obscure late-20th century poet B.J. Spears: ‘Oops, I did it again!’ That is obviously a joke and obviously she didn’t write that herself. Anyway!

wp-image-1682172995 — Tada! The BD-512 spray booth. I wanted to get one anyway and yesterday I visited hobbycar again and well.. here we are!

I really can’t stand strong smells and let’s be honest, this hobby has a few.. I especially hope it will help with the primer!

wp-image-1870691138 — The reason I went to the hobbyshop again was actually to get one of these.. and well, once something is in my head I want it so after a demo I decided to just go for it.

I know I buy a lot of stuff, but I spend a lot of time on this hobby and I like to be prepared. I see these things as an investment since I just started this hobby. I’m sure I won’t keep spending the amount of money I spent on all this in the last two months!

Back to the FW-190. I started work on the camo these last two days.

wp-image-1280022967 — First I expanded the light blue color that I did on the underside earlier this week so now the tail and side are covered as well.

I did a larger area than required to avoid having to revisit this color.. I hate it when I at some point discover I forgot a small area, especially if mixing colors is involved like with the light blue. Of course today I did discover just that, but the area I missed is small enough to do with a brush.

I keep learning more about my airbrush. In my last blog I joyfully reported I had thinned my mixture so much for the light blue that I had a good result. Well it appears that wasn’t the entire story.. To finish the light blue on the sides of the fuselage I went straight for this thin mixture and it still didn’t work! Then finally after another frustrating half hour I guess I accidentally didn’t screw the air cap back on completely and the thing started working like a charm!

I don’t know if this means I screwed something up when I put the airbrush back together a while back, but today I did more work on the camo and it worked reliably. I don’t think I haven’t been able to use my airbrush reliably for two days in a row so far! Well, today was fine just like yesterday!

Since I didn’t know yet how good using the airbrush would go today I didn’t want to go all out again and planned on doing the rear wings first and see how far I would get with just a bit of very thinly mixed ‘staubgrau’, more englishly known as dust gray.

wp-image-1723371271 — Do your masking jobs look like this? There has to be a better way!

wp-image-241532963 — And of course there is, because I bought some flexible masking type a few weeks ago! Requires a lot less angled yellow masking tape.

wp-image-1603250831 — I don’t know if it’s visible on this picture but the result of the airbrush isn’t very precise.

I suspect this is either because I screwed loose the air cap or because I still used a very thin mixture of dust gray because of my earlier experience.

wp-image-1974409365 — I used up the rest of the staubgrau until the flow staubed, ha.

I free-handed the camouflage so far and I will probably will need a few tries to get it just right, but I am still confident it will give me a better result than masking it off.

wp-image-1469474683 — Since airbrushing went so well I did the two bottom engine cowlings as well.

The yellow mixture was way, way too thin! Even though I already knew it didn’t need to be as thin as I have used in the last couple of weeks I went for an even thinner ratio.. don’t know why I did that because it was already somewhat thinned with water because I had just cleaned my mixing cup. Ah well, I did a couple of layers and the result looks fine!

Pretty happy with how this thing is turning out!

Groetjes,

Dan

The fun is back!

I can’t say everything went smoothly today, but having had some time to put things in perspective about some of the mistake I made so far on this kit and I did get that satisfying feeling back with today’s work.

I will hopefully look back at the FW-190 kit in a while and be happy about the things that have I have learned since then.

Like not gluing on fragile parts too soon! Here I placed the fuel tank rack back on because it also goes in the same color.

IMG_20170810_112544 — It would make sense to do the underside first. I have to mix light blue matt with some white matt and I don’t think I will be able to do everything in one take because the compressor might overheat.

After mixing those colors I first sprayed a line on the Spit-Wreck to see what the exact output was.

IMG_20170810_115852 — Unfortunately I ran into trouble soon after I started airbrushing. This is a far as I got when I decided to do an ’emergency’ check and cleaning on respectively the compressor and the airbrush.

IMG_20170727_151854 — I first opened up the compressor because the engine seems to be getting slower right after starting it up and I might have placed things back in the wrong way after I last opened it.

I first opened this thing a few weeks ago after a my first long airbrushing session. I had read in the manual there was a ‘safety mechanism’ that would let the compressor automatically shut down when it got too hot. I had this weird idea that there would be some complex system behind that, so I kept going for more than 45 minutes when the engine sound starting fluctuating and the thing switched off. Ah, I thought. There is the safety mechanism. Unfortunately after letting the thing cool down for half an hour it wouldn’t turn on again.. When pushing the nice red button on top I heard no click like I should and so I opened it up.

IMG_20170727_152023 — The part I have my finger on had separated from the part just above it.

I screwed the part back on and the button clicked and functioned again. And that’s the entire safety mechanism. Well, it works I guess. But of course it also means I have to take better care in managing the time of my sessions and make sure thing doesn’t overheat. Which is fine, but after opening it again to take these pictures I first made a mistake getting the wires back in the right place in the right place so they got stuck between the covers. I noticed that soon enough and corrected it by moving the PCB in the right place. I got a nice shock in the process as I didn’t unplug, doh!

That was last week, and this afternoon when I noticed things weren’t working I first wanted to check the compressor to see if I placed the engine back correctly. I am no expert, but I had the feeling the engine had a harder time getting the air through because of the slowness, maybe because I had somehow twisted the tubes in the compressor.

Anyway, the engine sounds better again like it should but the problem still wasn’t solved. I already occasionally open the airbrush to clean the needle and I clean the nozzle from the outside. I clean the thing with water after every use and every now and then with paint remover. This afternoon I did the same but for the first time I also removed the nozzle. So I now took the entire thing apart and cleaned everything, literately squeaky clean.

And still it didn’t work!

Since I was ready to throw the mixture away now, before I did I threw in another couple of drops of thinner.. and then it finally worked! It was a bit splashy, but after the first few seconds of spraying it was under control.

IMG_20170810_170043 — Pretty happy with having done the entire underside!

IMG_20170810_184534 — The result isn’t as thick everywhere, but that’s fine. This isn’t a 50’s Cadillac.

The compressor was pretty hot by now and I didn’t like the light so that was all today for airbrushing. Anyway, my mixture keeps being too thick and I really have to not be so careful with thinning it.

IMG_20170810_193616 — I decided to move my table again to hopefully get some better light in the daytime.

IMG_20170810_202825 — I spent an hour on the B747-8F again.

Having this as a second project is a nice contrast from the FW-190. These two tiny gear bays together took me almost 2 hours! Unfortunately things seem to fit a lot less neatly than the 1/32 stuff I did so far, so I really have to take care with dry fitting. And that in itself is also very difficult, because you sometimes have to keep 5 parts up at the same time!

Groetjes,
Dan

Leap of faith!

After sleeping on it and some reassuring words on my last post I decided to continue with this kit!

Not only is this just my second kit, but when I rebooted this hobby I already made the conscious decision to not go straight for the high-end and more expensive brands. I already accounted for failure by buying the cheaper Revell kits rather than a Tamiya kit for 3 or 4 times the price. The only thing is: the Spitfire just feels a lot cheaper, where as the FW-190 just seems to offer a lot more for just a couple of euro’s more. That makes it even more of a bargain though, so I just need to go for it and have faith in myself and if I should fail take good note of what went wrong and learn from it.

Since there is more work coming up that needs some time to properly dry up I want to at least have a very broad idea of what to do when:

Airbrush the inside of the engine covers and temporarily place them on.
Check the entire body for seams and holes that shouldn’t be there and try to get any scratches out.
Place fuel rack on body.
Fill up the landing gear bay with something to mask it (cotton pads?) and temporarily place the gear doors I am not using, for masking.
Mask the cockpit of with the canopy I am not using and mask off the windscreen.
Investigate what materials to use for temporary placement of masking parts and how to apply the primer all around the aircraft?
Investigate how to properly use primer?
Apply primer layer!
Apply primer on propeller, cap and fuel tank separately?
Antenna’s, landing gear and other easily breakable stuff to place on in the end, place them in the Box-Of Future-Parts.
Airbrushing the livery?
Clear coat?
Decals?

I wrote this list this morning and as much as energy allowed I started some work.

: First I painted the last of the insides of the engine panels. I have to say I have a lot less trouble with the airbrush now I use a thinner mixture, I just have to apply a second layer after half an hour.. I neglected to do that here and the paint is still slightly too thin.

I will fire up the airbrush for one final round of olive since I haven’t decided yet which panels I want opened up.. so I want them all to look good! Besides I also found I missed one part that still needs olive color..

IMG_20170803_172738 — I see the windshield framework is also in ‘F’ (gray) just like the rest of the canopy parts. So I glued it on and ambitiously aim to properly mask it. If I fail, I will have to get a replacement from Revell I guess! Since the gun area is a glue-y mess I will likely cover that up by the way.

IMG_20170803_185135 — The fuel tank and its mount are also assembled. I will likely assemble the mount.. there is a problem though..

IMG_20170803_182710 — I’m afraid I misinterpreted the instruction manual when it comes to the holes that had to be drilled in the lower wing half. That means I will have to figure out from the outside where the holes are supposed to be, and drill them.

I decided I wanted to try some primer at this point before messing up the FW-190.

IMG_20170803_185640 — Time to get out the Spit-Wreck and clean up an area.

IMG_20170803_190120 — And then I realized I had the perfect thing to try it on! I made a scratch and sanding marks to see how they would look after primer and cleaned the part with soap.. I don’t have alcohol or anything like that. Maybe I should get some?

IMG_20170803_191429 — The first layer.. or actually the second layer as my first was a pool of primer and I wiped it straight off to start again.

I think my first attempt was sprayed from way too close. The layer in the picture above is better, although not smoothly applied everywhere.

IMG_20170803_194520 — After applying a second layer..

IMG_20170803_200723 — And for the third layer I wised up and moved the operation to the shed.. looks like I’ll keep a room open in my man-cave tonight!

And the result after three layers:

IMG_20170803_203149 — I like this! The scratch I made is clearly visible but of course I didn’t do anything to fix it between the layers. There is some imperfection near the end, I think because I removed the first splashed on layer that I sprayed on from way too close.

Very educational day in modelling world for me..

They are not kidding when they say you need a well ventilated room.. what they actually mean to see is: get that stuff out of any room you plan on using for things like living.
Don’t spray too near to the part.
Don’t spray too long in the same place.
Be fluent.

What I still have to research:

What to do when I find imperfections after the first layer? If I fix the imperfections I will scrape off the first layer and if I apply a second layer on top of that you will probably see a ‘crater’ on the body where the first layer used to be?
How to be able to turn around the whole model. I see constructions with sticks to turn the thing around, but a 1/32 FW-190 model is probably too big and heavy to do that.
How to temporarily fit panels, canopy and landing gear doors for the priming and air brushing?

My plan is to ready up the rest of the body tomorrow in terms of sanding and filling, and maybe also use the part I used primer on today to try a bit of the FW-190 livery on! It’s drying in the shed tonight while spreading a strong chemical smell.

My first airbrush

For my first kit I used mainly paint brushes and small roller for the bigger parts. The thought of buying my own airbrush had ofcourse crossed my mind. I guess I was scared though! Airbrushing as a kid was something my dad had to do for me and my brother and he ofcourse didn’t want to do this 3 times a week. Having to wait and plan your airbrush jobs made it a bigger deal I guess!

IMG_20170625_093136 — The finished cockpit for my first Spitfire Mk. IXc kit.

After the wingtip disaster on my first kit I order the FW190 A8/N11 I am currently working on. I went to Hobbycar the next day to pick it up and since there was another customer in the shop I went around to look at some of the airbrushes. When the storeowner had showed me the kit and all the stuff I had ordered along with it I asked him if he could tell me what a good starter kit would be.

He showed me a couple of sets, both with compressor and with airbrush propellant. I had absolutely no idea what was what, but when he showed me a 55,- euro kit which basically had everything I needed with a compressor I decided to just go for it.

Ofcourse my first experiences weren’t too great. There were a lot of splatters as the mixture was way too thin.. besides that I had already used the small roller to apply the aluminium paint on the body. The parts that didn’t look good after that I removed with Paint Remover, but since the roller and the paint brush left quite a different thickness things didn’t look good. This model already felt more and more like a write off but I atleast wanted to try the camo on the top of the hood.

IMG_20170713_132523 — Where to start.. sloppy masking, inconsistent coverage and probably the big thing I want to differently for my next camo is to ambitiously try to do it without masking the other camo parts!

I live near the militairy base of Gilze-Rijen, and ofcourse I can often see the helicopters and trucks up close. The camo on the trucks for instance isn’t neatly lined out like I did in this model and seems to be applied from freehand as well. Ofcourse when painting models there is a camo you are trying to recreate but still it doesn’t make sense to use masking tape.. I guess that’s something you can have a discussion about.

With the FW190 I have been able to build up some confidence with my airbrushing techniques. A bit of reading up and watching a couple of YT channels showed me the error of my ways.. too thin a mixture but applied too thickly leaving a nice layer of splattered water. So my mixture is a bit thicker, and I apply in a couple of layers. I like some of the results I got so far..

I am still having some problems with the longer airbrushing sessions, but that’s for another blog.